the alley Newspaper | News & Views of Phillips Since 1976

SECULAR/SACRED

Written by editor on 10 January 2013

By Harvey Winje

Here”'s the church, and here”'s the steeple

Open the door and see all the people

Try this old nursery rhyme with your hands the way it is illustrated here and then fold your hands again with your fingers outside and open the doors again to see all of the people gone from the church.

Churches, like synagogues, mosques, and all gathering places of worship are just places. People go in and out of the places of worship taking their faith and their practices with them thereby combining the secular and the sacred.

That is what was dramatically portrayed by “La Natividad” in December”'s seven performances in Phillips Community and one night at St. Mary”'s Basilica in downtown Mpls.

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Migration-Themed Nativity Play Reaches New Audiences, but Loses ”˜Joseph”' to Deportation

Written by editor on 10 January 2013

By Linda Hartke

Reprinted through the Courtesy of and Permission by Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service.

It”'s great to use this article to lift up the voices of creative people who “Stand for Welcome.” I”'d like to introduce an interview by Luke Telander, LIRS Program Associate for Outreach, with Pastor Patrick Cabello Hansel of St. Paul”'s Lutheran Church of Minneapolis. The interview captures an amazing creative retelling of the Nativity, and the heartbreaking way in which modern life has intruded on the ancient story.

The Nativity story has been retold in a myriad of ways. It has been adapted to the stage and the screen. It has been painted by everyone from Leonardo Da Vinci to Paul Gaugin. It has been translated into Spanish and Mandarin, Tagalog and French. In the Phillips Community of Minneapolis, however, the age-old story was told in a Completely unique way, and with particular poignancy, given today”'s immigration climate.

La Natividad was a collaboration between the In the Heart of the Beast Puppet and Mask Theatre and St. Paul”'s Lutheran Church of Mpls. The event is an interactive bilingual theater experience that tells the Nativity story through the eyes of an immigrant family in America.

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At the Bridge

Written by editor on 10 January 2013

By Patrick Cabello Hansel

Herod has grown to a yeti”'s size,
with hands to match, and a voice
made hoarse by vainglory.

His henchmen do not speak,
but bang their poles on the ground as if digging for oil,
stealing horses, writing summons for the dead.

This is no place for a woman with child,
no place for her husband to beg,
no place to wait.

There is always no room at the inn.
There are always innocents to hunt.

But on this night, few neighbors venture out,
armed only with names: brother, madre, cousin,
tio, their hands holding each relation
like an egg, a newborn, a seed.

Open up the river, old king.
We walk with stars,
we walk with angels,
we walk with our wounds,
our own sweet voices.