Spirit in Action
Bryan Sirchio - Songs for Justice Walkers
[music] Let us sing there's song for the healing of the world That we may hear as one With every voice of every song We will move this world along And my lives will feel the echo of our healing [music] Welcome to Spirit in Action, my name is Mark helps me Each week I'll be bringing you stories of people living lives of fruitful service Of peace, community, compassion, creative action, and progressive efforts I'll be tracing the spiritual roots that support and nourish them in their service Hoping to inspire and encourage you to sink deep roots and produce sacred food in your own life Let us sing your dead song for the dreaming of the world That we may dream as one With every voice of every song We will move this world along We're joined today for Spirit in Action by singer-songwriter Brian Sergio In addition to making all kinds of music that closely ties religious devotion To the need to actually walk a path of peace, justice, and care for creation Brian has a special devotion to the people of Haiti I was very fortunate to catch Brian Sergio at his home Just shortly before his departure to Haiti Brian, thanks so much for joining me for Spirit in Action Thanks so much for having me on the show I'm especially gratified that you agreed to talk to me today Since I think tomorrow you're taking on for Haiti, aren't you? Yep, yes, probably about the 40th to 50th somewhere in there, time that I've been there And what takes you to Haiti? What is it that you make 40+ trips? Most people, if they got there once or twice, that would be a major accomplishment It started about 16 years ago, I just went on a trip with an organization I was just feeling the need to kind of get outside of this culture And to go to the so-called third world I would say so-called third world, because Haitian friends of mine asked me to stop using those terms In fact, one friend said that they'd prefer it if we used the terms The plundered world and the plundering world, because I think it's more historically accurate So in any case, I was feeling the need to get out of this culture And to be among the poorest of the poor Just really for my own spiritual well-being I realized it's a luxury to do that, but I found great benefit from getting outside of the US And kind of looking back on our culture and my own life Through the eyes of a different culture and preferably one of the poorest cultures So Haiti fit the bill, and I went there on a trip One thing led to another, I developed a number of relationships With grassroots organizations there And that began this long-standing relationship with various communities And people who have become some of my best friends In fact, the reason I'm going in a few days is to be the best man in a friend's wedding next week Well, that's cool. Who's the friend? And can we wish him a happy wedding or something right here over the year? I'm sure he would love it. I'll tell him you did that Yeah, he's a friend. Actually, a guy, a Haitian man, he's about 30 years old He and I together gave birth to an organization that sponsors street kids Mostly orphans from Port-au-Prince who didn't have any place to live or to go to school or to eat every day Always looking for an organization that I could refer them to that would help them out Couldn't find one. And so this friend of mine, we did that together And that's been going for about eight years now It's called Spare, which stands for sponsorship program, aiding relationships and education Anyway, he runs this program and he and I become very, very good friends And so when he decided to get married, he asked if I would come and stand with him So it'll be a real joyous occasion All I know of you, Brian, is that you're a musician and you are going to help there in Haiti Are you helping specifically by doing music or are you doing other things there? I do a lot of other things. I always bring my guitar and I wind up doing music in one way or another You know, I've done some concerts there, but primarily what I do was two things One is that I have relationships with a number of different grassroots organizations That I help fund and have done some community organizing and some training And help them develop capacity to do their work These organizations are all run by Haitians, which is one of my principles And I just give them some encouragement and as I said, some funding If and when I am able to raise it, but working with those organizations Most of them deal either with feeding the hungry and/or education So I like to have a short-term immediate focus of the work You know, because there's so much malnutrition and right now out and out of starvation But then also something that deals with a longer-term vision for Haiti's future So education, creating jobs, doing things like that The other thing that I do is take groups of people to Haiti And I really consider that probably the most powerful and far-reaching thing I can do Is kind of be a bridge between that world and ours And take groups of people to have an experience of working with And just being touched by the reality of some of the poorest people on the planet And to give the spirit a chance to bother us into our next steps of deeper Just and compassionate response to that reality In fact, I'm taking a group in February of 2009 So if anybody's interested in coming, they can check out my website And there's Brian in Haiti tab and I'll tell you about the trip And your website is? They have to know that Just my name is www.BrianWithAY, Brian Sertio, S-I-R-C-H-I-O.com And for anyone who's curious, there's a link from my site NorthernSpiritRadio.org You'll have a link to Brian Sertio's website And, you know, you can find out and maybe Haiti is where you're called to be in February And one of the advantages is, I think, that their temperatures are warmer than what we have here in Wisconsin during February Yeah, well, that was pretty slick on my part Wasn't I always start to feel the call to some tropical place around January of February in Wisconsin? Nah, just kidding, but it is a great time to get out of the cold for a couple of weeks And what led you to this? Why did you care in the first place deciding to go to Haiti? And I'm pretty assured that it's a religious spiritual leading But what was it that got you going? Yeah, it all comes back ultimately to my identity as a Christian Someone who's trying to follow Jesus I actually grew up in a very conservative Republican household in New Jersey Not a particularly religious home at all, but at about age 17 Summer after my junior year in high school I had a conversion, much to my own surprise I was just kind of working at a camp and wasn't a religious camp or anything Camp on the Pocono Mountains in Pennsylvania There was a young woman who was a lifeguard And she was the first person I ever met who took her faith very seriously But lived it out in a way that was very attractive And just down to earth and not to the other Christians With all due respect came across as rather obnoxious or opportunistic to me And she didn't she was very much for real Through a friendship with her she intrigued me enough And what I saw in her caused me to want to check out the Bible And Jesus a bit for myself I had a conversion experience through that summer Started reading the Bible and it wasn't very long before I realized that the teachings of Jesus Were in many ways antithetical to a lot of what I had grown up being taught Life was about then what it meant to be a man and what it meant to be a success And among other things his teachings on money And on relationships with the poor Really touched me early on you know in my in those teen years So that began a journey which just really completely changed the whole trajectory of my life I eventually wound up going to seminary thinking that I would probably go into ministry of some kind Although I wasn't sure exactly what form that would take But then it was during seminary that my eyes were really open to Theologies of liberation the biblical call to justice as well as charity Which we might talk about a little bit more in a little while And I really began to see just that God had this thing for the poor And so I began to search out for ways in which to have more personal connection to people who are on the bottom of society Or who felt through the cracks going to Haiti or to other again so-called third world places It was just one of many many different ways that I was trying to follow Christ in sense and to uh to connect with people on the bottom Well speaking of following Christ. I know one of your songs is follow me And it speaks about that theme and the preponderance of what Jesus actually asks us to do in the bible You want to see how that song came about? Sure actually this song was based On an essay that I read by a retired Presbyterian minister named earnest Campbell who actually happened to be a preaching professor of mine at seminary also Ernest wrote this essay where he distinguished between following Jesus and believing in Christ in this little book called beyond guilt and powerlessness And that essay just really nailed me. I read it actually in preparation for a trip to Bosnia In the mid 90s to go stand and be with some people who are in the midst of the warfare there And so the second verse of the song is almost lifted verbatim from from this little essay of earnest But he just basically said, you know, you can believe all the right stuff about Jesus What we refer referred to as believing in Christ, but they're trying to say, you know that i'm following Jesus or trying to with the spirit's help That's a lifestyle statement. It gets into everything and it will totally change the agenda of your life So it was just thinking about those things and then at the very same time I met an Australian evangelist named john smith who did a word study of the greek verb For follow in the gospels and counted 87 times when Jesus said follow me And he loved to make the point of his preaching that jesus said you must be born again only once And it's alluded to maybe a second time, but he always made the comparison you know 87 versus one Maybe we've gotten the essence of what it means to be a christian skew in certain circles So that intrigued me and that's what led to the song Well, let's listen to the song the song is follow me and it's by my guest for today's spirit in action brian sertia I've got this creature from australia He read the bible searching for its dominant means and he counted 87 times when jesus said follow me You know that got me thinking Maybe that's the part of mind what christian means is that follow jesus is deeper than i believe Because it don't take much To mentally agree with a set of beliefs written down in some creed that don't get it wrong We need to know what we believe but lately i've been wondering And i'm following jesus We're just believing in christ Because i can believe and not change a thing And following will change my whole life He never said come acknowledge by existence or believe in me. I'm the second person of the trinity 87 times he said can follow me If i'm a follower of jesus Why have i such a good life insurance risk Why when i do my giving do i still keep so much my so much hunger exists If i follow jesus Why do i have so many friends above the affluent till few above the poor If i follow jesus Why do i miss old and guns make me feel more secure and it don't take much To mentally accept to a statement of faith and we can confirm and forget But following will change our life start if we get it in We're in more i've been wondering Am i following jesus Just believing in christ I can believe and not change a thing Following Because me my life He never said come acknowledge by existence or believe in me I'm the second person of the trinity 87 times he said can follow me Yes, we need to know what we believe To follow the jesus who's real Low god save us from the christ we create in our image You know what i mean when jesus who's just left to wing or right wing as we One who baptizes our cherries to the other geez one who always seems to favor our side against some enemy I don't mean to sound self-righteous God knows i've got more questions than answers to proclaim But it's been over 20 years now since jesus called my name So forgive me if i'm mistaken There's something wrong with a lot of churches in america these days and i think the spirits tried to tell us But there's a question that the churches need to raise I'm following jesus We're just believing in christ We believe and not change a thing The following will change our whole life And we never said we can't acknowledge my existence, but believe it me. I'm your first class ticket to eternity 87 times he said Some further me Some further me Some further me Some further me Some further me Some further me come from the me Some further me Some further me come from the me Some further me Some further me come from the me Some further me That was following me by brian sirchel, but brian do you have a specific religious affiliation? Did you actually finish seminary? Yeah, I graduated from seminary. I went to a prince then and uh Finished got an empty of there and then I served two small churches in northern, Wisconsin in the united church of christ Some in ordained united church of christ minister and I was in northern, wisconsin over a little town called elko and another one by kimster And I was there for about four years and then left that in 1987 and that's when I started my free lance musical ministry Which I call crosswind music ministries and been doing that ever since You know your work that you're doing with haki it sounds like you should have had some training as a social worker Did you have some kind of background that made you especially good at organizing doing financing? Getting these programs started You know, I wish I did I I just learned a lot of things the hard way What I did have combined with just the natural gifts and abilities and knowledge of their communities that my Haitian friends had Was enough to help build some organizations But I learned a lot of things the hard way made plenty of mistakes, you know Made a lot of the classic errors that that missionaries make and i'm happy to say that I Over the years have developed a whole different way of understanding How to do cross-cultural mission work with respect? Honoring the dignity of people that i'm working with and it's been a great learning experience for me I was a p-square volunteer in west africa in togo And so I had probably some experiences comparable to what you had and one of the things that was a tremendous adjustment for me is What to do about beggars in the street? I've had a number of different experiences that tug me in different directions So how did you deal with that? That always comes up on every trip that I take and even when I go by myself It's something that I have to deal with all the time and I I don't have an easy answer in general though I mean what people have taught me I guess people that I know and trust and live in hady who have worked with people there and Haitians themselves who say that Responding to beggars more times than not is not a helpful solution That in many ways it keeps people in the street thinking that that's where their hope is and As I say in the song we're about to hear they just kind of perpetuate their dependency in that way And so I is a basic policy I encourage people not to give to beggars and to say no in those situations and instead to try to find Organizations we can work with that we can say to someone on the street look go to such and such an address Ask for so-and-so they have an organization that can help you in an ongoing sense And maybe help you get down to some of the root causes with why you're in the street to begin with that being said don't mark I ultimately always just listen to the spirit and You know, I think of Jesus's teachings where he said give to those who beg from you I think of the golden rule that says you know treat people the way you'd like to be treated if if I were hungry If my children hadn't eaten for days if I had to listen to my kids cry themselves to sleep And I saw someone who obviously had more than enough would I go up and beg and would I hope that they might just Give me something so I could go home that day and feed my family heck. Yeah So What I finally have accepted is that there's just never going to be a clean solution to that for me So my basic principle is I don't encourage people to give to beggars And yet if and when the spirit just breaks my heart open And says look feed this guy or whatever Then yeah, I break my own principles for the sake of love pretty regularly I think the song that you're referring to is called I see you. Should we play that and which CD is that on? That's on one called the songs for justice walkers The song is I see you On the last night of a trip I took to Haiti I was driving down this crowded city street I can't still see the diesel fus lingering in the headlights I can still see that little girl's bare feet She was wearing a tattered yellow dress She was four or five years old I would guess Another orphan streaking working hard to just survive To be honest, I was hoping to drive right by But the traffic was gridlocked to a standstill When she noticed my white skin she came real quick She leaned up against my window and then with one little hand She pointed back and forth from her belly to lips At first she seemed a little bit too practiced And pulling strings of guilt and sympathy Then I'm not sure why but I looked right into her eyes And as I did these words washed over me I see you I see you Hey little girl, I won't pretend that you're not there I see you I see you Little girl Christ, I see you People tell me please don't give these street kids money It just perpetuates their crude dependency And to be honest, I didn't like the thought of pulling out my wallet You never know who else is working these crowded streets Compassion sure was feeling complicated Well the trees are called these kids Christ in the skies But there was nothing that seemed a writing To try to do for her that night Except to try to tell her with my eyes I see you I see you Hey little ones, I won't pretend that you're not there I see you I see you Hungry child Christ, I see you You That was I see you by Brian Sergio Excellent song Brian, and I've certainly been through the same emotions the feelings You know part of the advice there that I think I just want to offer my support to Is where you found clearness there To not pretend she wasn't there And that's really hard to do. I mean, I think that We should recognize that if we have to pretend something's not true that is true that it's staring us in the face Then there's something in us that isn't right that hasn't settled that isn't listening to spirit At least that's how I interpret what you said there. Of course. I want your opinion on it Hmm. That's beautifully said I agree and you know a lot of times people make your songs like that to say, you know, I don't know if I could handle this I don't know if I could handle going to hate you and break my heart etc And one of the things I say that dovetail nicely with what you just said Is that I don't think that I mean if we're alive in the spirit and trying to live life on that level I don't think we ever need to be afraid to deal with reality To deal simply with what is and I find that god and spirit always enables me To have the buoyancy of heart and soul to be able to deal Joyfully actually, I mean it sounds kind of paradoxical, but I think there's a certain joy In dealing with life on its own terms even the painful stuff So yeah, I just completely agree with you that the willingness to Stare at life as it really is especially the brokenness and the heartache of so many people as well as the joy and the beauty is just a really really important thing You mentioned brian that your 17 year old experience part of the words that you said Included that you had some kind of maybe I say disdain Dislike for a kind of a self-righteous smug I'm putting words in your mouth here. You can tell me what they are But you looked at a number of people who called themselves christians and you weren't very envious of being like them But this young woman you met somehow struck you as different Was activism was engagement part of that difference? I'm trying to figure out why she was different And you know why it's just not all the christians who take jesus as their personal origin savior What's so nice about the witness or the being of the people that I think you gravitate towards Interesting question mark this particular young woman. Her name is allison allison la mat and it was uh many many years ago I've been trying to find her ever since and after that summer. I lost track of her I've never been able to track her down even with computer help and stuff But no, you know what was different. It's just it's very simple. She was so full of love And I mean it was way past just being nice There was something very very different about her and you know, I was at this camp in the summer time with a bunch of other teenagers And I just went there to have a good time And like any group of human beings, uh, let alone teenagers There were all kinds of clicks and there were people that were mean to people and so it wasn't any kind of activism In a social justice sense or anything. It was more interpersonal activism Where she just refused to be cruel and to play along with the games that people so often play And on the positive side it was just and we talked about I see you She was the kind of person that always noticed who was left out Somebody who was hurt or somebody who was often alone And she in a very quiet down-to-earth way Without preaching without even mentioning god. She was just always reaching out. So in that sense, I mean To me, that's what activism ultimately is. It's it's it's love. You know, it's love in action as mother Teresa put it Um, that's what service is. That's how she defines service She was just always reaching out in love and She didn't realize that I was watching but you know, I had known other Christians and yeah They were by and large either self-righteous or just downright obnoxious or people that had An agenda all the time to sort of close the deal with somebody to get somebody to believe something Whereas allyson's focus was simply to love people as they were to make them feel included to make them feel accepted And you know, there was a part of me without even realizing it that was just hungry for that And very attracted to the way she interacted with people And so I you know, I finally went up to her and just said hey, you're a really beautiful person I've never seen anybody who's Is consistently kind as you And she just kind of smiled and said, you know, thanks But what I think you're really noticing is god's spirit in me and at first I thought, okay, here comes the sermon That's all she said and then I'm thinking, you know, why can't these Christians just take a compliment, you know? But she was just so real. I think is what it came down to she didn't use buzzwords She didn't come at me with some, you know, agenda again to try to convert me She just loved me and everybody else too. So that's Getting back to, you know, working in Haiti or wherever or any kind of activism or any kind of evangelism for that matter I think the most effective evangelism or sharing of spirit with people It's just living in such a way that someone else might be compelled to ask for an explanation And then that's what she did that didn't you know, I'm very grateful and she was the one that god Used to open my eyes for the possibility that there might be something really gritty and real In this whole religion thing that I had not been open to that I hadn't seen And all I really needed was to see something real and loving in one person's life to begin a process of exploration myself We have a phrase that was commonly used amongst Quakers We say let your life speak And that's how we attempt to do it. So we don't tend to proselytize evangelize a lot of people don't even have any idea who's a Quaker And then we get criticism that you know, we've got this really good thing going. Why aren't we sharing it? So people say why don't you preach what you practice? So damned if you do damned if you don't, I guess Yeah, mind me of the of the st. Francis, you know, preach the gospel at all times when necessary use words Absolutely. One of the problems that I've had personally, I mean, I was raised Catholic. I've been Quaker for the last 30 years but One of the problems that I had with a number of people referred to themselves as christian Was that They said their beliefs, but then they would do things and be warlike or maybe they destroy the environment or Whatever they would just do that completely heatless as if Their fact that they were saved gave them carte blanche to destroy the world around us And that was a dis inclination for me to be involved with religion that in fact that made me less eager to be Part of their ranks. Did you have some of that experience leading up to the 17 or maybe That's all the thing of the past since you've been involved with the ucc Well, I'm interestingly enough for me. I didn't notice that kind of thing Prior to my conversion experience when I was 17 But what happened was you know, I had this this transformation this this summer That's where it began and I came back from that summer from my senior year in high school and figured well What do I do now? You know Allison's gone and and I maybe I should go to church or something that began a process of me Kind of dipping my foot in the water of a lot of different denominations And initially it was a very evangelical or more fundamentalist group that I got involved with And along with that and I have mixed feelings about all that in retrospect Because on the positive side, there's some really loving extremely sincere people They taught me how to how to love the bible have deep respect for scripture, etc And just really loved me into this fellowship on the negative side though There was a whole subculture and political worldview That it took me a few years to realize I didn't feel was really deeply in sync with the biblical corpus itself And so what happened for me it was when I sometimes referred to as churchy entity That I began to have some real problems with and again some of the smugness and the self-righteousness And then getting back to what you were saying a whole lot of attitudes politically I mean that this whole notion that you almost had to be republican for example Now, you know, I'm not put down of republicanism, but that you almost if you were a christian, you had to be a republican You know, I I began to question those things and you mentioned the environment There was just a rather cavalier attitude toward the earth toward creation toward the environment in general Environmental concerns were looked down upon as a liberal Brainwashing or something all I can say was early on I wasn't adept enough in scriptural interpretation Or just who I was becoming spiritually myself to take that stuff on But I just always knew it felt like a shoe it didn't fit that something didn't pass the smell test somehow to me And so now, you know years later having worked with all this stuff a lot I realized that I think that the church and much of the church has Especially the more evangelical forms and again, I'm not trying to put any group down there There are lots of waking up all over the place to these issues now But earlier on in my journey, I think there was a very tragic misunderstanding Of the genesis accounts for example and the implications for environmental stewardship You know that famous verse about to subdue the earth where god in essence gave humankind dominion over the earth That became historically a license to exploit the earth for profit And I think that's a tragic misunderstanding Of humankind's role in the order of things biblically that were really meant to be Gardeners and uh tillers of the soil keepers of the soil and to respect the earth as a precious gift And to understand that we are simply a part of the earth and not it's uh Lord as such So i've spent a lot of time reworking with that and trying to educate myself Bottom line is there's a few things that speak to many people's hearts spiritually more deeply than the beauty of the earth If we believe that the earth is a gift from a loving creator It seems to me that treating it with care and with dignity And with with reverence really is the only thing that makes any sense So, um, that probably would be a good way to set up the song green world that I'd love for you to play I agree. It is a good way and so let's play it the song is green world and it's from songs for justice walkers by brian sertiel Sometimes the earth and it's beauty It's me so hard that it almost hurts God you are some kind of artist And i'm a big fan of your handy work When I see pastel sunset, it's like god is signing god's name Another magnificent one of a kind where more than this whole world could pay God made this dream world green Air and water clean We come from the earth and to earth we will return Let's go back to genesis to when we learn Humans are here in the garden to serve Service is the purpose of god given power We are more the earth than earth is ours We are more the earth than earth is ours [Music] When god gave dominion to humans You know what don't think the god ever had in mind A license to take the earth prisoner And a locker in chains made of dollar signs The earth in its fullness is Yahweh's Stamp that verse in our property rights Because that means that the land is not ours to exploit It's just placed in our care for a while God made this dream world green Air and water clean We come from the earth and to earth we will return Let's go back to genesis to when we learn Humans are here in the garden to serve And service is the purpose of god given power We are more the earth than earth is ours We are more the earth than earth is ours Well there's a demon named corporate pollution And it's minions reach deep in the government And some folks just mimic Russia Limbaugh Saying there's no crisis in the environment But god knows we're wounding this planet One styrofoam cup, one toxic waste dump One acid raindrop, one oil tank spill One SUV war, one trip to the star at a time And maybe it's time we disciples of Christ Worked harder to live, green her lives And god made this dream world green Air and water clean We come from the earth and to earth we will return Let's go back to genesis to when we learn Humans are here in the garden to serve Service is the purpose of god given power And we are more the earth than earth is ours Yes we are more the earth than earth is ours We are more the earth than earth is ours We are more the earth than earth is ours That was Green World, Brian Sergio who's with us here today for spirit and action Put that one together with all your trips to Haiti I'm figuring Brian that what you really wish that you could do is provide jobs for them all So that they would have their self-worth, they'd have future income Not just whatever Brad you could put in their hands Is there a movement in that direction? I mean we export a lot of jobs over to Indonesia or Thailand or every which way Do they just not go to Haiti? Well historically a lot of jobs have gone to Haiti But unfortunately I mean they're controversial at best I mean Haiti has been one of the primary places where the whole reality of sweatshop labor has unfolded Rawlings used to make all their baseballs in Haiti years ago I'm always very careful when it comes to talking about sweatshop labor and that kind of issue Because the last thing I want to do is to point the finger at a company and have them cut and run Because as unjust as the wages that they pay in countries like Haiti and so many other places Are people are so desperate that they will work for next to nothing And I don't want to be the one to take a job away from them even if it's an exploitative job So I'm always careful about this But I do believe that the creation of jobs and work is absolutely essential To me, that's the most dignified way to get out of poverty Or to help people climb out of poverty or as president eristeed former president eristeed in Haiti used to say To simply move from misery to poverty they need work And I think just human beings for us to have a sense of dignity and purpose And to feel like we're using the gifts that have been given to us I mean work is just a really important thing And I'm very very mindful of people in our culture now in these economic times who are Experiencing joblessness at rates that we haven't seen in a long long time But getting back to the sweatshop labor thing I've also been pretty active in challenging that and I feel like there need to be international standards That corporations international corporations are held to With independent monitoring groups that can go into factories and check out the situations Because the reality in sweatshops in Haiti and all over the world Is a pretty heinous violation of human rights Yeah, that probably would lead well into a one of my sweatshop labor songs I've got a few different ones that I have written over the years trying to address this reality And I think you know one of the most important things we can do and it's really happening more and more I mean 10 years ago, this would have been new to a lot of people Now just about everybody knows the reality of our clothes For example textiles being made overseas and why but it's because there aren't labor laws there There aren't environmental laws and any number of child labor laws all those kinds of things And so it's it's all about finding desperate people and exploiting them You know that being said i'm not against international labor I mean, I'd certainly like to see companies do business in the united states and to uh work with labor organizations here and create great jobs for people here But I have no problem with companies doing offshore assembly, etc As long as they do it according to some decent standards in terms of human rights and pay people what I would consider to be a living wage And all i'm really asking about there is they're focusing on is that if somebody works full time I think they ought to be able to eat and pay their bills and and live at just some modest very modest level And in places like Haiti, you know countries have historically gone there and paid people so next to nothing So that even if they are working full time, they can't feed their families to me. That's just another form of slavery Yeah, pretty serious So brian you've written as you mentioned a couple songs related to swatch shop issues And one of them was dear mr. Eisner, which was about the ceo, I guess of Disney, I guess he's no longer with them the thing that blew my mind in that one was just the per hourly rate what's the number compared to what they pay in a sweatshop? Isn't it in the hundreds of thousands of dollars per Hour for him and a couple dollars per day for the people in the sweatshop something like that Right, of course michael eisner and ceo companies like disney don't get paid by the hour But where I got these figures was from the national labor committee years ago And when I was working in Haiti and developed some friendships with people that were working in some of these sweatshops One that made pocahontas pajamas for disney through subcontract labor, of course But it was all about disney's network and and they were making 11 cents an hour at this sweatshop And so then I found out through the national labor committee that at that time if you Got all of michael eisner's options, etc And his annual income and boiled it down to an hourly wage it came to $97,000 an hour So that juxtaposition of $97,000 at the top and 11 cents an hour at the bottom By any standards but certainly by my biblical worldview, you know was a gross injustice to me So the song really was a response to that but as you said, it's getting a little bit dated now Since he's no longer the ceo of uh of disney So maybe we should play your other song the one called I just like to know You say in the title that you'd just like to know But I had the sense that once you knew you'd also be taking action too, wouldn't you? I would actually this song. I just like to know what's written to be part of the national labor committees campaign called the right to know And they were trying to get legislation passed. It wasn't successful Unfortunately, but trying to get legislation passed that would require Companies who use subcontract labor in developing countries To disclose the names of the factories where they are and to open their doors to human rights monitoring groups So this song was really a part of that and I got used a little bit for bumper music on radio interviews and things like that I think it's time to listen to it. The song is I just like to know Ryan Sergio singing it to us I don't mind you try to maximize your profits I'm not trying to take a dime from your pocket I don't want to see Anyone lose a job I know intention The stage more kind. I just like to know where my money goes I just like to know if there's a sweat stain hidden in the clothes I buy Tell me why If you got nothing to hide You don't disclose the names of the factories that you use Open up their doors To an independent human rights group And there's a reason why you won't I just like to go The Walmart is the Nike guess And JCPenney I can't name them all There's just too many And I know these markets are competitive by nature Well, I am not saying it shouldn't use third world labor. I just like to go where my money goes I just like to know that there's a sweat stain hidden in the clothes I buy Tell me why If you got nothing to hide You don't disclose the names of the factories that you use Open up their doors To an independent human rights group And there's a reason why you won't I just like to know I just like to go, yeah Tell me, please Let's with these offshore factories With barbed wire fences and guns at the gate Tell us, please We need to know exactly How our clothes are made Of what kind of wage Those workers get paid Let's bring it all to the light of day I don't find you trying to maximize your profits And I'm not trying to take a dime from your pocket I don't want to see anyone lose a job But I have no intention to stay before God I just like to know where my money goes I just like to know If there's a sweat stain hidden in the clothes I buy Tell me why If you got nothing to hide You don't disclose the names of the factories that you use Open up their doors To an independent human rights group And there's a reason why you won't I just like to go I just like to go, yeah I just like this is a small world after both Can't do business in the shadows It's a small world after both Can't do business in the shadows What you do in the world? I work hard in the future As I send the shag on the desk That's why I just like to know Brian Sergio, who's my guest here today For spirit and action This is of course a northern spirit radio production And so you can find a link to Brian's site Which is Brian Sergio.com You can go directly to that If you know how to spell both his first and his last name But otherwise it might be easier to go to northernspiritradio.org And there you'll find a link to Brian's And the other guests I've had on You can listen to this program Over and over again via my site And Brian, I know we've got just a little bit more time You're very involved in a whole range Of what people normally think of as social justice-like issues And you said that early on this wasn't a focus But somehow you got connected With people who are strong for Christ And strong on these issues How did that come about? You know having not grown up in a church-going family or anything I almost had an advantage Or sometimes it seems that way In that I didn't have a certain kind of Christianity That I had to somehow recover from In order to discover another kind So I came to the Bible with a fresh set of eyes I hadn't heard the stories growing up I wasn't very familiar with it So early on, really just reading scripture from me Reading the stories of Jesus and the teachings of Jesus Right away began to suggest to me That much of what I had been taught I had to either unlearn or rethink And certainly Jesus's teachings I mean I think of the teachings of Lazarus and the rich man In Luke 16 Where there's this rich man who feasts every day And that there's a poor man with open sores at his gate You know long to feed himself And scraps itself from the rich man's table It was just that juxtaposition of wealth And poverty there Those kinds of things really hit me hard And I thought, man, I've never heard any of this But it began to raise all kinds of questions from me And so I just started asking a whole lot of questions about Well, since the Bible and Jesus' teachings in particular So often talked about people who were poor And God's love for them Then how did they get that way? I mean, why are people poor? And what can we do about it? So the love of Christ or God, the Spirit in me Just kept on pushing me in a direction It simply made sense For me to start asking questions Socioeconomic questions about why people were on the bottom Why groups of people were on the bottom And how I could somehow be a part of a loving response to that But then that led me once I got to seminary I'm seminary, the best part of seminary education for me Was the other students And there was one student in particular An African-American man from Pittsburgh Who really kind of, he was about eight years older than I And he saw that my heart was really open That I was asking a lot of these questions And he had grown up a very poor person From an inner city in Pittsburgh And had a tough life as a black man in our culture And he just kind of took me under his wing So, you know, let me show you some of the teachings of the prophets And what these things feel like from my perspective And what I hear here And went back to the Exodus And talked about God That here's the cries of the poor How being liberated from slavery Was how it was one of the foundational experiences Of the Hebrew people So, there were people like him Who really opened my eyes And I just got a great education And I've just been hungry for more insights You know, asking the question Not just what can we do To feed a hungry person, for example But asking those questions, you know, how do they get hungry in the first place In other words, the difference between charity Which churches tend to be pretty good at And justice, though, which gets more controversial And more difficult Which is about asking what are the root causes Of someone's destitution How have they been exploited or oppressed And what can be done about that? I know it's about time for you to go, Brian We should finish off with one more song Why don't you reach into your, I think, 10 CDs worth of music And pick out one to conclude this spirit and action program with Okay, I think maybe the song "Dream God's Dream" Which is on my artist's hand CD And also on the J-Walking compilation I've done a lot of work, I don't know if you've ever heard the Church of the Savior in Washington, DC Well, the organization that I originally went to Haiti with And was actually on part-time staff for a while Was an outgrowth of the Church of the Savior And so I've been privileged to get to know those folks Pretty well at Gordon Cosby, the founding pastor Rather of Church of the Savior as a good friend of mine Gordon said something one time that impacted me deeply He said, you know, none of us, especially no one individual Can somehow fix the problems of the world As much as we wish we could But he said, we need to let go of this fixing thing And instead, just realize that what God calls us to Is to faithful and loving response To the brokenness and the realities of the world And he said, what all of us can do Is figure out what little piece of God's dream for the world Is ours to carry And then to do that with as much passion and vitality And joy and sense of adventure as we possibly can And so, you know, that really hit me But we can all do that You know, figure out what little piece of God's dream Of Shalom, of justice and peace for the world What's ours to carry? It's probably a good intro to this last song And also, I wrote this song initially Years ago as the theme song for a retreat Based on the life and the witness of Martin Luther King, Jr And just reflecting on how the dream that Dr. King had Was actually God's dream Dream God's dream Holy Spirit help us dream Of a world where there is justice And where everyone is free To build and grow and love And to simply have enough The world will change When we dream God's dream I'm dreaming of a world Where the cover of one's skin Will be less than what's within that person's heart A world where water is clean And where air is safe to breathe And every child born Has enough to eat Dream God's dream Holy Spirit help us dream Of a world where there is justice And where everyone is free To build and grow and love And to simply have enough The world will change When we dream God's dream I'm dreaming of a call God is offering to me How to use my energy in my best gifts To do the work of Christ To say God please use my life To spread your healing blood And to live your truth Dream God's dream Holy Spirit help us dream Of a world where there is justice And where everyone is free To build and grow and love And to simply have enough The world will change When we dream God's dream I'm dreaming of the way That I want my life to go I've got hopes and I've got goals I'd like to meet And I'm gonna reach out for the stars But I won't forget the scars Of Christ who died to show That the dream's for all Dream God's dream Holy Spirit help us dream Of a world where there is justice And where blood is free To build and grow and love And to simply have enough The world will change When we dream God's dream [Music] That was Dream God's dream And it's the last song that we have time for today From my guest for today's spirit in action His name is Brian Sergio And you're taking off what? Just a day or two for Haiti? That's right, I'll be there for a week And again in February again If anybody's out there who's interested in going to Haiti with me in February Check out the website Well, I have a great time there And to take our purse with you And hopefully some listeners will be joining you in February As you head off to Haiti To witness, to be changed, and to help change happen So thanks again for your music and for your time here today Thank you Mark, it was really a pleasure for me to be with you That was singer-songwriter Brian Sergio Today's Spirit in Action guest The theme music for this program is Turning of the World Performed by Sarah Thompson This Spirit in Action program is an effort of Northern Spirit Radio You can listen to our programs and find links and information about us And our guests on our website NorthernSpiritRadio.org Thank you for listening I am your host Mark Helpsmeet And I welcome your comments and stories of those leading lives of spiritual fruit May you find deep roots to support you and grow steadily toward the light This is Spirit in Action With every voice, with every song We will move this world along With every voice, with every song We will move this world along And our lives will feel the echo of our healing