The Commission: The God Who Calls Us to Be a Voice during a Pandemic, Wildfires, and Racial Violence

By Jeanne C. DeFazio, Julia C. Davis and Martha Reyes

"Jeanne DeFazio is a renaissance woman interested in everything. She and her multicultural team have gathered together many thoughtful voices recounting their own true-life experiences in this thoughtful, well-written, and very wise reflection. Comparing the destructive spread of the coronavirus, the devastating conflagration of the California fires, and the destructive racism that smolders beneath culture and too often these days breaks into flames, this hard-hitting yet uplifting book, as brief as it is, makes an important human statement everyone should take the time to read and consider carefully."
--William David Spencer, Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary

"The COVID-19 pandemic forced many to wrestle with their experiences in isolation. The Commission gives a lens into others' perspectives, and, along the way, reminds us that God is continually teaching and forming us for the glory that is to come."
--Jeffrey Hadachek, PhD student at the University of California, Davis

"In The Commission, Jeanne DeFazio gives voice to a wide range of individuals who reflect on the impact the pandemic has had on them, how they found strength in God, and how they have reached out to others. If a continual barrage of news articles and images can lead to compassion fatigue, hearing people's individual stories is the antidote. Commission is a call for empathy and a call to action. May we all shine light in the darkness."
--J. Creamer, faculty, University of the Nations

• Language: English
• Publisher: Wipf and Stock
• Release date: Feb 25, 2021
• ISBN: 9781725289475

Book preview

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The Commission

The God Who Calls Us to Be a Voice during a Pandemic, Wildfires, and Racial Violence

Edited by Jeanne C. DeFazio

Foreword by Julia C. Davis

Afterword by
Martha Reyes

The Commission

The God Who Calls Us to Be a Voice during a Pandemic, Wildfires, and Racial Violence

Copyright © 2021 Jeanne C. DeFazio. All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in critical publications or reviews, no part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without prior written permission from the publisher. Write: Permissions, Wipf and Stock Publishers, 199 W. 8th Ave., Suite 3, Eugene, OR 97401.

Wipf & Stock

An Imprint of Wipf and Stock Publishers

199 W. 8th Ave., Suite 3

Eugene, OR 97401

www.wipfandstock.com

paperback isbn: 978-1-7252-8951-2

hardcover isbn: 978-1-7252-8950-5

ebook isbn: 978-1-7252-8947-5

01/27/21

Table of Contents

Title Page

Acknowledgements

Foreword

Speak Up For Those Who Cannot Speak Up For Themselves

Section One: Those Who Have Contracted the Corona Virus and Those Who Lost Loved Ones to the Pandemic Reached Out to Help Others

Section Two: Those Who Are Experiencing Hardship Are Expressing it to Identify With Those Who Are Suffering in the Same Way

Section Three: Those Who Have Bonded With Brothers and Sisters in the Community Reflecting on Shared Experiences

Section Four: Words of Encouragement from Ministers to Comfort and Reassure Us

Afterword

About the Authors

Bibliography

This book is dedicated to my beloved cousin Raquel Fernandez who contracted the coronavirus in a nursing home in 2020 and died.

Jeanne DeFazio

By The Same Authors

Julia C. Davis

Empowering English Language Learners, contributing author.

Keeping the Dream Alive: A Reflection on the Art of Harriet Lorence Nesbitt contributing author.

Specialist Fourth Class John Joseph DeFazio: Advocating For Disabled American Veterans, contributing author.

An Artistic Tribute to Harriet Tubman, author.

Jeanne C. DeFazio

Creative Ways to Build Christian Community (ed. with John P. Lathrop)

How to Have an Attitude of Gratitude on the Night Shift (with Teresa Flowers)

Redeeming the Screens (ed. with William David Spencer)

Berkeley Street Theatre: How Improvisation and Street Theater Emerged as Christian Outreach to the Culture of the Time (editor)

Empowering English Language Learners (ed. with William David Spencer)

Keeping the Dream Alive: A Reflection on the Art of Harriet Lorence Nesbitt (author and editor)

Specialist Fourth Class John Joseph DeFazio: Advocating For Disabled American Veterans, (editor)

Christian Egalitarian Leadership (contributing author).

An Artistic Tribute to Harriet Tubman, editor.

Martha Reyes

Keeping the Dream Alive: A Reflection on the Art of Harriet Lorence Nesbitt (contributing author)

Specialist Fourth Class John Joseph DeFazio: Advocating For Disabled American Veterans, contributing author.

Redeeming the Screens (contributing author)

Jesús y la Mujer Herida (Jesus and the Wounded Woman) (author)

Jesucristo, Tu Psicólogo Personal (Jesus Is Your Own Personal Psy-chologist) (author)

Por Que No Soy Feliz (Why Am I Not Happy?) (author)

Quiero Hijos Sanos (I Want Wholesome Children) (author)

Acknowledgements

Editing this book has been my privilege and honor. I want to thank Bruce I. McDaniel for reading the manuscript and making helpful suggestions. Thanks to Caleb Loring III for supporting this work. My sister Michelle DeFazio for working with the homeless sheltered in the San Diego Convention Center during the pandemic. My niece Ella Ryan for her great faith and resilience facing the challenges of the coronavirus lockdown. I am indebted to Peter Lynch for his kindness. Most of all I thank Jesus for giving me the strength to carry on.

Jeanne DeFazio

Foreword

Julia C. Davis

As a veteran teacher, it is my experience that we learn best from one another. This is termed ‘peer learning’ in the academic world:

Peer learning should be mutually beneficial and involve the sharing of knowledge, ideas and experience between the participants. It can be described as a way of moving beyond independent to interdependent or mutual learning.¹

I am contributing to this dialogue as an African American because I see the potential in it to bridge the racial divide. I have experienced both overt and covert racial prejudice in my lifetime. My scriptural and Constitutional convictions enable me to persevere and overcome. I believe that God hath made of one blood all nations of men to dwell on all the face of the earth (Acts 17:26). I swear allegiance to the Constitutional precept .. that all men are created equal and endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.²

In over thirty years teaching racially diverse inner city students, I applied these scriptural and constitutional principles developing strategies that empowered students to mobilize and succeed in predominantly white institutions of higher education. So many of these students have acquired professional status and make a difference in their own lives and within their communities. Structural racism prevents too many African Americans from reaching their God given potential:

Structural Racism in the U.S. is the normalization and legitimization of an array of dynamics – historical, cultural, institutional and interpersonal – that routinely advantage whites while producing cumulative and chronic adverse outcomes for people of color. ³

I’ve seen a lot of that and I know a lot of that to be true. It’s not something you’re meant to talk about in public, but it’s something I’m talking about in public because that is very true.⁴ Jay Rockefeller

In the midst of the pandemic and shortly after the onset of the racial violence following the death of George Floyd,⁵ my husband and I traveled from Massachusetts to California. We got a call from a California hospital regarding my husband’s only and elder sister. She needed our help. Covid 19, violent protests, heightened dissatisfaction to the status quo were backdrops to travel to bring her from the West Coast to the East Coast. With determined resolve, my husband and I become intrepid travelers and overcomers on our return with his sister who needed twenty four hour care. I never anticipated riveting Fourth of July