Making Dreams Real
Eliacín Rosario-Cruz, 33
Program and Community Catalyst (rabble-rouser),
Mustard Seed Associates, Seattle, Washington
www.msainfo.org • www.eliacin.com
As you think about your participation in the body of Christ, what’s your biggest passion? We Christians in the North follow our cultural script too faithfully. At the most, some Christians talk about resisting the system, resisting the empire, but resisting takes us only so far and quickly turns us into mere reactionaries. As a Latin American, I find hope and inspiration in the autonomous social movements in the global South—the MST (Landless Workers’ Movement) in Brazil, the Zapatista women in Chiapas, the indigenous movements in Bolivia. The people in these movements are not only dreaming new dreams; they are making those dreams into a new reality. Christians need to create contexts in which we live out the way of Jesus—physical places and relationships in which the story given to us by a market-driven, individualistic, racist, sexist system is challenged and subverted. My wife, Ricci, and I are blessed to be part of conversations with other young and old Christian radicals who are rewriting the story, conspiring, and living incarnationally. At Mustard Seed Associates, we feel driven to collaborate with others in the decolonization of our imagination.
How has your family background enriched your vocational journey? I was raised in a working barrio in the small town of Juana Diaz, Puerto Rico. My father was a factory worker and my mother stayed at home to take care of the family. To me, they were the true new monastics, with rhythms of prayer, work (lots of it), and community.
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