This letter from the Commission on Christian Muslim Relations can be used as a bulletin insert this coming weekend, Sept 4-5, 2010. Please email me if you would like it as a word document.

Next Friday, Muslims in America will be celebrating one of the major feast days of their religious year, the feast of Eid al fitr, “The Breaking of the Fast” as the holy month of Ramadan concludes. This year, that Muslim festival coincides with this country’s annual commemoration of the tragedy of September 11, 2001. Muslims in America have been the focus of much attention in recent weeks, as the controversy over the building of an Islamic Community Center several blocks from Ground Zero rages on in the media. Much of the rhetoric about Muslims and Islam that has been vented during this controversy is hurtful and erroneous and serves only to alienate and ostracize God-fearing, peace loving citizens. As we prepare for the somber commemoration of the lives that were lost on September 11, 2001, our Christian faith calls us to embrace our Muslim brothers and sisters during these difficult times and not to participate in the hateful bigotry of those who condemn an entire religious tradition because of the excesses of a minority within it. Jesus calls us to be peacemakers and to love our neighbors as ourselves. In the coming week, let us pray for our Muslim neighbors as they conclude their holy month of fasting and wish them blessings as they celebrate Eid al Fitr. Let us join with them in prayer on September 11, remembering before God all who lost their lives in the tragedy at Ground Zero.

Commission on Christian Muslim Relations
Catholic Muslim Alliance

Almost six years ago, a class assignment took me to the Islamic Center one night during Ramadan, a visit that helped changed my way of seeing Islam. This piece from Bound in a River of Light is even more pertinent, today. Remember to pray for our Muslim cousins as they observe the month of Ramadan!

Mid-Ramadan Visit to the Islamic Center

November 1, 2004

On Monday nights this fall, I’ve been taking a course in Islam at the Divinity School. Besides fulfilling a “Multicultural Society” requirement, I took the course because I didn’t want to… because I felt a resistance to learning about Islam… and that made me realize that I had some prejudices to overcome. On the first Monday in November, instead of our regular class we met at the Islamic Center on Westfall Road, to join the community there for supper and worship, plus a little time for class.

I pulled into the parking lot at the Islamic Center, feeling distracted… worried about one of my kids, feeling guilty for leaving my co-workers with a mess to deal with in the lab… wondering what the evening would be like, determined that I would not put on a head scarf, but having shined my shoes as a sign of respect… a little anxious about finding my class among all the people going in.

First thing we do on entering is remove our shoes. Everybody – I think, “that’s nice” – every time I go to Mass, my heart tells me to take my shoes off – it’s an oddity in my own community – here I will fit in. I put my newly polished shoes in a cubbyhole, and head into the washroom with other women from my class, where we will be instructed in the proper performance of ablutions by a teenager and a little girl, both beautifully swathed in headscarves.

I’m annoyed. Careful adherence to ritual is not my forte, but I pay close attention as the girls demonstrate what we are to do. My annoyance mounts with each new step: three times wash the hands to the wrists, right first, then left. Three times rinse the mouth, three times the nose, three times the face, three times the head, three times inside the ears, three times the face again, three times the arms to the elbows, right first, then left. Three times between the fingers, three times the feet. I watch in exasperation, then sit down to do it.

Well, doing it isn’t so bad. The little girl stands by me, reminding me if I forget a step. It’s not an annoyance for her, it’s just what you do, and she’s learning it and now teaching it, as a member of the ummah, the community. Rising, I feel different… like I’ve left the parking lot behind, and am now in a new place, along with everyone else who has prepared in the same way. My heart melts a little.

Going up the stairs to the room where we will have supper, we pass dozens of pairs of small shoes, left there by the children before they went to pray and learn. Supper is fun – Indian food, because it’s the turn of the Pakistani women to cook – on a different night the meal would have been more Middle Eastern, someone explains, and less spicy. The men are on the other side of the room, separated by a screen. Leslie and I sit with two women, one from Egypt, the other I think from Lebanon. Everyone is hospitable, and the meal is good. I like Indian food. All the women are in scarves, many very beautiful. Even the littlest girls are wearing them. I wonder what the men are experiencing on the other side of the screen… probably conversations similar to ours… “Where are you from?” “What is this I’m eating?” We rise from the table, full of a good meal, feeling more comfortable.
Our class gathers for a short class meeting. First we go into the large prayer room. This is where the men pray… the women pray upstairs, in the balcony, and once again I’m annoyed. But I notice the beautiful calligraphy on the walls, wondering what it says. I notice the white strings stretched across the floor, so people will know where to stand. Someone is praying or studying, sitting against the wall. Dr. Shafiq shows us how to pray: how to put your face to the floor, so that both your forehead and your nose touch the ground, how you kneel and stand and prostrate yourself in a rhythm, over and over throughout the prayers, alongside everyone else, standing shoulder to shoulder. I think how easy it must be to get lost in the prayer, to get lost in the rhythm and familiarity of it, like one does in the prayers of the Mass… it takes you to a deeper place, you don’t have to think about it, you move automatically into being closer to God, from the familiarity of the ritual. Although the form is different, I know this experience, somewhat… my heart melts a little more.

Returning to the classroom where we are to meet, I look around. Childish renditions of Arabic script hang on the walls, along with a chart of the alphabet. I begin to be able to pick out the word, Allah. It’s what we would call a Sunday-school classroom, the place where children are taught their religion. Suddenly I realize how familiar it is… strange and familiar at the same time, like visiting your cousin’s house. Different customs, but the same grandparents, some of the same pictures on the wall… different, but still family. My classmates are arguing… this has been going on all semester. “You mean to say you don’t believe a person has to believe in Jesus Christ as their personal savior to be a Christian?!” one person asks another across the table, her voice sharp with disbelief. The tension between the evangelicals and the liberal Protestants that has been building all semester starts coming to the fore, here in the Islamic Center. Hmm—- you know, sometimes it’s easier to be tolerant of your cousin, than of your sister— because you expect your cousin to be a little different, don’t get so mad about the differences.

We’re going to head back up for prayers. I find that now I want to wear a head scarf… among the women, it’s not a symbol of subservience, but, for me anyway, of solidarity. I don a scarf with help from a classmate, and head up the stairs. No one comments, but the faces of the Muslim women say that they appreciate it. Now I’m really trying to be together with them, and I think they appreciate the effort. Someone shows me a more comfortable place to sit, to watch the prayers.

Women are lined up across the balcony, two or three rows of women, standing shoulder to shoulder. Someone walks along, straightening the line. It is this physical proximity, someone explains, that makes it more comfortable to have the women and men worship separately. That makes sense. My heart melts a little more.

Little girls are lined up with the women, really little – six or seven years old, swathed in scarves – the littlest ones play at the back. Watching the prayers, I am moved by the lines of people, praying with their bodies – the little kids, who don’t have to do it, but want to be part of things, standing so still and patient, praying with the grown-ups. I enter a place of prayer, myself, asking God for understanding between us, Muslims and Christians.

We have so much to learn from each other. I leave the Islamic Center with a strong sense of the intimacy of the place, the comfort and at-home-ness of the people who come there to worship. I am no longer offended by the head scarves. I am touched by the desire of the children to be a part of the community. I am touched by the sense of intimacy with God. There is more than one way to worship, and this is a life-giving way, too.

We wrote three papers for this class, and learned some Arabic vocabulary for an exam. It was useful and good, but what I am really carrying away from this class is the memory of our evening at the Islamic Center on Westfall Road, of the warmth and intimacy and community, the comfortable closeness with God, that I saw there.

Assalamu Alaikum… peace to all.

From Chava Redonnet, Bound in a River of Light: More Essays for the Spiritus Community, copyright 2007, iUniverse

… if worship isn’t leading to the fire, if adoration isn’t leading to love, if the liturgy isn’t leading to a clearer perception of reality, if God isn’t leading to life, of what use is religion except to create more division, more fanaticism, more antagonism? It is not from lack of religion in the ordinary sense of the word that the world is suffering, it is from lack of love, lack of awareness.

Anthony DeMello, Awareness (Grand Rapids, Michigan, Zondervan 1990) p. 175

It’s a warm summer Friday and I’m back at the House of Mercy. It’s kind of a scary place, for me, or at least, the neighborhood is. Funny, I’m perfectly comfortable at St Joe’s, but the South Wedge area is becoming increasingly gentrified, and truth be told, years ago I was scared going to St Joe’s, too. Some of it’s that I’m just not used to the House of Mercy, yet, and so it seems crowded and chaotic, full of people I don’t know, routines I have yet to learn. But I’m glad to be here, glad to have a chance to say Mass with Sister Grace and the folks at the House of Mercy here on Hudson Avenue, right in the heart of the pain of Rochester, New York.

Not quite as many folks as last time – the weather’s a tad cooler so perhaps people aren’t coming in out of the heat. A woman sits on the couch looking sad and overwhelmed. She’s wearing a hospital gown. Other women line the room, and a couple of men. There’s a man in a wheelchair, missing a leg. I recognize a couple people from the last time I was here. The women let me know what it means to them, to see a woman celebrating Mass.

I’m a little uncomfortable about the readings, wondering if anyone will mind that I’m preaching from the Protestant Gospel reading for the coming Sunday instead of the Catholic reading. All week long at the nursing home I’ve been preaching on the Bent Over Woman, and that’s what I’ve got to offer, today. Hopefully it will be okay.

One thing I’ve already learned about celebrating Mass at the House of Mercy is that I can expect to do a lot of waiting. It takes a while but finally we’re set: the songs are chosen, the candles lit. I’m vested, and we’re ready to go. A colorful napkin covers the chalice of wine, keeping a swarm of fruit flies from settling there for a drink.

We have to sing a capella, today. There’s a gospel choir but they’re not here this afternoon… we do just fine, with Grace leading the singing. “Somebody prayed for me, had me on their mind. Somebody prayed for me…” We sing all the verses.

Seems no matter how chaotic and disorganized things are before a Mass begins, the group will settle and center when given the chance. “Drop your shoulders, let go of any worries you came in with. Feel the love of God, who is so glad you are here.” And into the silence I begin: “Dear Lord, we forget sometimes that we are your beloved sons and daughters. Lord, have mercy.” We’re all so hungry for holiness, hungry for the presence of God. In the stillness of the people, the heartfelt response, our need for God is palpable, our openness a joy.

The readings, and then I preach about the Bent Over Woman, and how Jesus broke the rules to heal her on the Sabbath. There’s someone here who knows more than I do about breaking the rules, and sure enough, when I open up the homily and invite the group to talk, Sister Grace jumps in and preaches her heart out. “People are bent over from poverty!” she says, knowing this group so much better than I do. Another woman joins in. She doesn’t want to talk about the Gospel, she wants to talk about her friend who was killed on the street last week. She needs to cry, to cry out her pain, to cry “Stop!” Stop the violence, stop the killing. For middle class people like me it’s something we read about in the newspaper; for her, it’s her friend getting killed right down the street.

A little girl is present, here with her mom and grandma. She’s growing up in this neighborhood. What’s that like? What’s it like to grow up knowing you could be shot at any moment? To grow up surrounded by drugs and prostitution and gangs? Everybody joins in the homily. They knew Ruby, the woman who was killed. They’re still raw from her funeral, two days before. Others want to talk about the Gospel, about standing up straight and feeling the glory of God on your face. The homily goes on and on.

So do the prayers. We have a lot to say, a lot to pray for. Praying from the heart. The woman in the hospital gown asks for prayer. She was discharged with no place to go, no clothes to wear, and came here. How on earth does someone get discharged from the hospital without any clothes? So we pray.

Then I’m ready to start the offertory, but it turns out I’ve forgotten the song! So we backtrack a bit, sing the song, then offer up our bread and wine, the cup still covered with a napkin. The flies are still very interested in that wine. We sing all the Mass parts. We’re having a good time. The kiss of peace goes on a long while, too, as everyone has to hug everyone. And communion: Grace and I bring the bread and the wine all around the room, to the man in the wheelchair, to the woman on the couch, to the man sitting silent at the back of the room. Everybody’s welcome.

We sit in deep silence after communion. I’m at peace. A long way from scary, surrounded by friends, here to hold the door open for God for a bit, let the Holy Spirit come roaring in. That’s my job. I love being a priest.

We close with another song: “Oh, How I Love Jesus!” – and this one goes on and on, too. It’s past seven pm but we’re singing all the verses. Grace looks at me and grins. Wonderful, it is.

Mercy, Grace, Hospitality. Welcome. Communion. Right in the middle of the pain.

this is perhaps an odd post with which to begin the new year, as it’s not directly about peacemaking—- although it is also quite profoundly about peacemaking. Let it stand as a reminder to those of us – like me – who are immersed in what we believe is important work – a reminder of the holiness of all life and of the need to stand still, slow down, be in awe. Welcome to a new year of Presbyterian Peacemaker blogging!

Sarah’s Holy Shower

We gathered yesterday to celebrate a new life, not yet born: Sarah and Kevin’s baby, Aniela. Baby showers can descend into silliness and overwhelming materialism, but not this one. This baby shower was holy.

Actually there is always something holy about baby showers because they are, after all, always celebrations of new life. It’s almost like we can’t deal with the awe and wonder of what is happening and so bury our awareness under embarrassing games and more things than are necessary. But some things are necessary, and that’s part of what is wonderful about these events: the community gathering to help supply a new family with what it needs. And such love goes into the selection of gifts sometimes that I think it could be called the sacrament of gift-giving. The quilt made by Sarah’s aunt; the friends who joined together, each contributing what they could to buy a rug with fishes on it; the energy put into finding earth-friendly approaches to diapering needs.

Part of the holiness came from our location. We were in the Nielsen room at Spiritus Christi, a room dedicated to the memory of Maureen Nielsen who loved Haiti, much as Sarah and Kevin do, and who died there in 2001. A large mural covers one wall, depicting Maureen with some little girls at the orphanage where she worked. Photos of her line the walls. Sarah and Kevin left Haiti just after the earthquake last January, because Sarah was pregnant and Kevin had malaria. He’s still not healed from that. But they had been living there, not just visiting; living there, building composting toilets, working to heal the people and the land. Now they are taking a break from that and focusing on a different life-giving work, the work of giving life to Aniela. Holy work.

Part of what made the gathering sacred was the mindfulness of preparation on the part of Emily, who hosted the shower with her Mom, Terri. We began with a circle, and went around saying our names and how we were connected with Sarah. It was at that point that I realized we were experiencing something different. When I am in holy space my heart says, “Take your shoes off.” We were at about the second speaker when my heart started prodding me – this is a sacred moment. Off with your shoes. Most of the people there knew Sarah through her work to heal the world – through her work building toilets in Haiti, using her engineering skills to bring life – or serving at the Catholic Worker – or demonstrating for peace. It was a remarkable group of women, many of whom didn’t know each other, but tied together not only by affection for Sarah, but by a common dream of a world where all of us have what we need.

When we had completed the circle, Emily told us we would have “free time” – time to eat, to decorate some clothes for the baby, to pamper Sarah. Our Sarah, more beautiful than ever as she nears her time of giving birth, sat in a chair. In ones and twos, we took turns caring for her. Mary Ann put lotion on her feet while I washed her hands. Amy drew on her skin with henna. Manushka braided her hair. And Sarah gave each person a stone with a blessing painted on it. Mine said, “Abundance.”

Just as we sat down to watch Sarah open her gifts, there was a shout outside the window. It was Kevin! He and Sarah’s Dad had come to join the party. That was the missing piece! Oh, hooray, that Kevin was there. He and Sarah opened gift after gift: boxes full of compostable diapers, little baby things, a red wagon for taking Aniela along to anti-war protests, a stroller, a bag with books from me, a basket with outlet-covers and other safety gadgets from Mimi, the quilt made by Sarah’s aunt. So much thought and care and love.

When it was over we gathered in a circle around Sarah and Kevin to give them a blessing. I prayed, and the baby started to move! I bet she could feel the energy. We gave them our blessing, our hope for abundant life. Sarah and Kevin and Aniela, be light! You already are.

What a blessing it is, to gather in love to welcome new life. What a blessing, to have such friends. What a blessing, to share our lives, to be community, to walk with each other. What a blessing to be able to say, “Welcome Aniela!” And thank you, Sarah and Kevin, for letting us share in your joy!

It’s a sweltering hot night in July and we’re holding our community meeting in the backyard. Upstairs the doors to the fire escapes are open wide, allowing a breeze to float down the halls, when there is one. Ceiling fans turn but don’t make a lot of difference. So we’re out in the back yard around the picnic table with a pitcher of ice water and relative comfort.
This summer the community is a mixture of new faces and old. People have been finding us on the internet, and for the past couple of years we’ve had an ever evolving community. Well, we’ve always had an ever-evolving community, but now it evolves faster and with more people. We have summer interns, and a couple of new longer term people, plus our folks like Tom and Mirabai who are here for the long run, at least for now. And around the table tonight are Tim and George and Don and Harry, and me, here for decades. I think it’s easier to stay for decades if you don’t live in the house.
So how do you build meaningful community with an ever-changing cast of characters? How do you hunker down for the long term together when some of us are only here for a bit? Well, I guess you do it by staying in the moment. It’s a bit hard for introverts like me, who need time to get to know people. A constant challenge to come out of one’s shell. But you know——we’re here bringing the love of God to each other. And the love of God – that love meets us where we are. It doesn’t ask how long we’re staying. It doesn’t even ask if we’re a good worker. It just loves us right where we are. So that love – that welcome – that patience – that forbearance – that needs to be ours to share right here, right now, in this moment, with this person.
Sometimes the greater challenge is loving the person who sticks around a while. Easier to be patient with someone when you don’t know what it is about them that drives you crazy. And there’s always something!! But right along with the drive-you-crazy stuff, right along the inevitable potholes in each other’s psyches—- we are such wonderful people. Jaw-droppingly wonderful, with such good hearts. It’s worth sticking around, worth enduring the crazy stuff. Looking around the table, I’m grateful. New faces and old. We are each other’s gift.
Up on the second floor, Adriel works on re-upholstering a chair. He has it right by the fire-escape door, to catch the light. He’s a professional, doing a wonderful job. This is the Catholic Worker: you just never know what kind of wonderful each person holds. I am grateful for all of us.

July 8, 2010

I asked my friend Caroline Kristofferson, a young woman who is a member of the Catholic Worker community here in Rochester, currently working in India for the summer, for permission to share the letter below with you.

Hey Everybody!
So it is now time for my second update. Joe, Alex, Nora and I have now been in India for a little over three weeks. We have fully recovered from the jetlag and the culture now has a sense of familiarity rather than being strange and shocking. A few fun facts I’ve discovered in these few weeks…there is so much pollution here that when you blow your nose it comes out black! The bus will pick you up anywhere along the route…not just designated stops…but it might not stop completely for you. It is fun running and jumping onto a bus while it is still moving. The bus also has designated sides for women and men. This is followed, but not strictly. Men are free to show friendly affection here. Guy friends will walk down the street holding hands or with their arms around each other. However married couples and women friends never show affection. It is very different from the states.
More importantly, we have been working with the Sisters of Charity since my last email. We decided to work for a house called Daya Dan in our mornings and Kalighat in the afternoons. Daya Dan is a home for physically and mentally handicapped children. I will be honest and say I wasn’t thrilled about the idea of working with kids because it has never really been my thing, but it only took a day or two to fall in love with these little ones. Some of the children are only a little slow in learning, but some are so severely handicapped that they can do nothing on their own…not even move. It took awhile to stop being afraid of messing up and hurting them, but you quickly learn how strong they are. Our duties ranged from laundry and making beds to helping kids with physiotherapy and feeding them. Lunch time was always an adventure. You would cross your fingers hoping to get one of the children that is willing to open their mouths for the food and also not spit it right back at you! Even the really challenging ones were so sweet that you didn’t mind too much. It was very hard to say goodbye to Daya Dan. On our last day the older girls sang us a goodbye/thankyou song. What a wonderful parting gift!
Kalighat is the home for the destitute and dying. It is the first house that Mother Theresa opened. The house is divided in two sides for men and women. This work for me was not quite as intense as I was expecting. I saw some shocking cases…women so thin they looked like living skeletons, missing limbs, one woman was missing skin from about 70% of her legs. This was hard to witness, but most of the women, although not healthy of course, acted pretty normal. Our duties there consisted of distributing medicine. (This made the nursing students in the group laugh at how lax this was done. I guess in the states you need to triple check and get a superior to check before you give a patient medicine). The sisters are not that worried i guess! Then we would pass out food. Sometimes a woman would need help eating if she could not sit up, was too weak, etc…We would wipe off beds, change bed pans, do dishes. The biggest challenge at Kalighat was the fact that I didn’t speak a word of Bengali and only one or two women knew any English. With the kids this did not matter so much. You communicated in other ways, but it was incredibly frustrating to not be able to communicate at all. It left me feeling a bit useless at times.
My time working with the sisters was great. I met so many interesting people from across the globe that had come to volunteer. I met people from Canada, USA, Mexico, Peru, Ireland, England, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Hong Kong, and India. We made some new friends and heard some great stories. I think working at St. Joe’s helped with this work. The work itself was very different, but I certainly did not go in with an attitude that I would change the world or anything.  I am very, very thankful for this time in Calcutta.
Tomorrow we are off to Darjeeling which is up in the mountains. This means…no more 100+ degreee weather for awhile! I guess most days here is is a little over a hundred but feels like 115 or higher. I am looking forward to not needing to take four showers a day haha. The fresh air and new experiences will be great. There are several Buddhist temples and beautiful hikes we hope to see and do.
I almost forgot! We went to a Jaine temple to learn more about them. They are a nonviolent religion that are strict, strict vegetarians. The holy men don’t want to own anything and so just walk around naked. They were wonderful and friendly people. However they really really wanted us to promise to be vegetarians for just one day a week. They were so insistent and hopeful that before I knew it I was promising them every Friday for a year!! It was pretty funny, but it is actually a really great idea. I have been good for the last three Fridays
Well that is a bit of what we have been experiencing so far. Such a great trip and we still have over a month to go!
Miss you all,
Caroline

Once again we gather at the riverside, as we have done for so many years, now. “A Memorial in Time of War,” this event is planned year after year by my friends, Tom Moore and Karen Keenan. An interfaith service, there are readings, and usually some music. Always, this ceremony: we gather in a long line, and each read the name of someone who has died in the war, maybe two names, and their ages. Many are children. There are American names, Iraqi names, Afghani names. Women, children, men. Soldiers, civilians, babies. Parents. Human beings. We read their names, and we walk across the Sister Cities Bridge, and drop flowers in the river. Beth Myers said this year, “It was so hard to throw away that perfect rose. Thrown away, just like that life.”

Year after year I have crossed that bridge and cast my flower into the river, with a prayer for the person whose name I read, and for all that loved them. This year, though, it was different. I flung that rose into the river, angry. Angry at the waste. Angry that we are still here, mourning. Angry at a Memorial Day that glorifies war, that mourns for soldiers and forgets about civilians. Angry that we have not yet found a better way.

Back at the service, I seat myself in front of the altar, and lose myself in prayer. How do I respond? What is my response to the pain of the world?

I think of friends who have thrown themselves passionately at the problem. Tom, who once got on an airplane to fly to Iraq to tell the people there that not all Americans wanted to kill them, carrying nothing but his violin and a copy of Thich Nhat Hanh’s Living Peace. He lost his job over that. Maureen, who gave her life out of her love for the people of Haiti. Kevin, suffering from malaria, contracted from his love for the Hatian people. Me, getting alone on an airplane to El Salvador, knowing only that I must go, to build community and to be in relationship.

Ah. Relationship. The face of my friend Ruth de Orantes floats before my closed eyes. Relationship. Maybe there’s another way, rather than these grand throw-your-life-away gestures. Maybe it’s in time, and community, and commitment. Maybe it’s in the day-to-day joy and aggravation of loving, forgiving, keeping on going. Ruth and other Salvadoran friends, Bernhard and Eglantina, came to Rochester for my ordination last month. In four trips to El Salvador we have discovered our common hope and vision. Forged a bond. It takes time, and conversations. It takes effort.

Above my computer there is a framed photograph of a moment of blessing. Some of the people I love most in the world, gathered to bless me at a moment I wanted to remember. Within a month, two of them would have caused me great pain, in one way or another. All of them, at one time or another – or over and over and over again – have disappointed, hurt, betrayed, failed to love – and I expect I’ve done the same to them. We are not perfect people. We forgive, and love, and fail, and forgive again.

I have discovered in myself a rock-bottom commitment, and it is not a commitment to an abstraction, to an ideal or an idea, but to people that I love. In that forgiveness and commitment and love lie the hope of the world. Love that keeps on loving, forgiving seventy times seven. I look at that little picture and know the love and forgiveness have flown all around the circle, many times, and will again.

What does this have to do with peace, and with Memorial Day? I think it’s that, change begins in my own heart, and in my relationships, and like the spokes of a wheel, flows out, person by person. Imagine all of us, each the hub of a wheel of relationships, interconnecting, each the hub of our own wheel and the spokes on someone else’s, many, many someone else’s. Peace begins with me learning to love the person standing next to me – the infuriating, annoying, disappointing, wonderful beloved person standing next to me.

It’s actually the most important thing.

Love to all on a rather sultry Memorial Day

Chava

May 31, 2010

Creo la pescina es la cosa mas maravilloso en El Salvador

It is 4:30 am and I am walking through Santa Ana with Fabio and Yani, on our way to the municiple swimming pool. At this hour the streets are quiet, but people are starting to be up and about. I comment on the noise the buses make during the day, and ask Fabio if he grew up listening to that noise. They rush by the house with a roar, only feet away from the windows, starting about five and ending some time late in the evening. It took a couple of days for me to get used to it. Fabio says, no – he grew up in this house, but until twelve years ago the streets were cobblestone and the cars and buses couldn’t go so fast. I long a bit for those days! – but do have to acknowledge that pavement is much easier to walk on than cobblestones.

So we’re on our way to the pool. The air is cool, the streets are dark. A woman puts out a pot, starts a fire. She is making a traditional drink to sell. A few women start setting up shop in front of their houses. Pretty soon we’re almost to the pool.

Next to the pool is the city jail. Many mornings people will be sleeping in the street, waiting to visit loved ones, but there must not be visiting hours today because there are no sleeping bundles of humanity waiting there today.

I’m a little nervous about the pool, but up for a new adventure. It’s a spring, enclosed by a cement pool. There is a natural river bottom – once the sun comes up the stones and algae will be visible. Now it’s just black water. I’ve been warned that it will be cold. Cold, however, turns out to be a relative term, and I find the water cool enough to be refreshing, but not the Lake Ontario cold I was bracing myself for. Yani gives me a kickboard, and I’m grateful to have something to hold onto while I get my bearings. Besides being in a new situation, I have to do it without my glasses!

There’s a deep end, and the drop off is marked with a low stone wall,reaching up to a couple feet below the water. I will stub my toes on it many times before I figure out what it’s for and learn to watch out for it. Yani and Fabio come here most mornings, so they’re swimming away, saying hello to friends. There is a cameraderie among the early morning swimmers, and Yani tells me the others are surprised to see someone from the States, here.

If you stand still in the shallow end, the fish come and nibble on your legs and toes. “Las pescas cominan mis pies!” I say. “The fish eat my feet!”

We swim, and in a while the sun comes up – oh, so beautiful to turn around in the water and see the sun rising behind you. The birds start singing overhead. A mango tree leans over the pool, and mangoes fall in the water, to be taken home by anyone who wants them. It’s the most wonderful experience I’ve had in El Salvador.

When we’re done swimming, another wonder awaits: the waterfall. You sit under it and the water pounds your back, your feet, your legs. Body temperature cooled down from the swimming, the waterfall feels warm. Women are friendly: today’s neighbor in the waterfall turns out to be a masseuse, and gives me a massage! Next time, someone will offer me some shampoo. Washing your hair in a waterfall is a wonderful experience!

Besides the waterfall, there are pipes leading out of the pool. Men shower there: the unwritten rule is, the men use the pipes and the women use the waterfall. We have the way better part of the deal! The poor come to wash there. The next time we are at the pool we will see the women who have been sleeping in the street in front of the jail, washing in the waterfall. There is also a place for washing clothes, with rows and rows of cement sinks, and tubs filled by the run-off from the pool. If you don’t have water in your house, or don’t have a house, you can come there and wash your clothes for free. Some men are standing in their underwear, washing their clothes.

Below the pool the water runs off into an edenic glade, green and glistening in the early morning sun. Looking closer, it’s also unfortunately polluted, with garbage on the slopes down to the small river. At the pool, though, the water is clean, and fresh – no need for chlorine in running water!

Afterwards we take the bus home. The day will be hot, but for now we are refreshed. Es la cosa mas maravillosa en El Salvador! It’s the most wonderful thing in El Salvador!

Each time I travel to El Salvador, I bring home a little ceramic memento of the trip. They are all similar: a piece of fruit, which when lifted reveals little clay figures. The clay mango lifts to reveal a woman making pastilitos, the cacao hides a nativity scene, and the little apple has a woman selling flowers. You can also buy them showing different professions; a doctor, a nurse, a police officer, a teacher. Most have people making traditional crafts or foods. What they have in common is that the people are working.

On earlier trips I was so overwhelmed by the poverty that I didn’t notice a whole lot else. El Salvador has a painful history, a lot of martyrs, and an average national income of five dollars a day. This time, however, what I noticed was the work that people were doing. Everyone seems to be working.
The homes of the very poor are made out of found materials: sticks, pieces of cloth and plastic, or corrugated sheet metal on the sturdier ones. It’s impossible to keep them clean; invited to sit, the host will first brush off the fine layer of dirt covering the plastic chair (unless, of course, all there is to sit on is a stump). Clean is impossible, but neat is another matter. I am struck by the orderliness as well as the ingenuity with which homes are made out of almost nothing.

We visited a family that had recently lost their home. Fourteen people were living in two dwellings that were essentially tents: stick frames, covered with old sheets and drapes. Not much more substantial than the little houses we might have made out of cardboard boxes and blankets as kids.
The family was working, all through the visit. They had a pile of corn to shuck, and taught me how to do it. At home we would throw the husks away, or maybe put them in the compost; here, they are a valuable commodity, needed in the making of tamales. I learned to pile them carefully on my knee. Two girls sat on stumps, shucking the corn. Their brother would take the newly shucked cobs and add them to a pile. Other children, including a little boy no more than two years old, stood or sat quite still, watching them. When there was enough shucked corn, their mother took over, efficiently stripping the corn kernels with a large knife, filling a pot which would later be cooked to make a drink that the family would sell at the side of the road later in the day. They do this every day.

There is a myth that the poor are lazy, and that’s why they are poor.
Hogwash.

Everywhere in El Salvador, I see people working. A man pushes a wheelbarrow with carefully cut sticks. Women are washing clothes, hanging them on wires strung across their tiny yards. People sell things from their houses, or from the side of the road: pupusas, pastilitos, traditional drinks. Men ride around on bicycles from five in the morning until late at night, honking their horns to announce they have bread to sell. Pickup trucks go by, crowded with twenty or more people standing in the back on their way to work. Buses, too, roaring by the house only feet away; also beginning at four-thirty or five a.m. (After a few days, I hardly noticed). People making things, selling things, cleaning things. It seems never to stop. The day begins before dawn: walking one morning at four thirty I was surprised to find the city already waking up, people setting their pots to boil in front of the houses, preparing to cook whatever they would soon be selling.

I do not understand the complexities of poverty, the budgets of countries, the reasons why people are so poor. I do know that there seem to be two El Salvadors: there is the one that resembles North America culture, that shops at the mall, that buys gas at $3.50 a gallon. Even that El Salvador is poor: I rode in the car of a doctor —a doctor, mind – think of the economic status of a doctor in the States. The lower windshield was a spiderweb of cracks, left from a day five years earlier when the hood of the car had sprung back and smashed it. That car would not have passed inspection in the States. In El Salvador, it’s a physician’s car. But owning any car at all is far beyond the means of the majority of the people, for whom a gallon of gas would take a day’s wages. (That five dollars a day national average, remember, factors in all the people who can shop in the mall, and the rich people, of whom there are not many. All those incomes together pull the national average up to five dollars a day. Five dollars!!—What it costs to gift-wrap a book on amazon.com).

Even the well off, it should be noted, live with the infrastructure. The plumbing, for example: the pipes in El Salvador cannot handle toilet paper. Every toilet has a wastebasket beside it, to hold the used paper. That’s assuming, of course, that there is a toilet, and not a cement circle over a pit, as you commonly find out in the country. The toilets on airplanes are more spacious and comfortable than some of the baños I have used in El Salvador, in the houses of the very poor, or even sometimes in public places like the cathedral.

In the States I am one of the working poor. I keep to a tight budget to make ends meet, and do without things that some people consider necessities. In El Salvador, there are people who bury their possessions in a hole in the ground when they go out, because there is no way to lock the door, because there is no door. People who cook over open flames on stoves made of piles of dirt, with supplies they have lugged uphill in heavy sacks, because there is no road. Compared to them, I am neither working, nor poor. My life is actually pretty easy.

One day, however, I had an experience that gave me a clue about how things are for the very poor of the world. One night, I should say.
For six months prior to my trip I went without health insurance. Knowing that I could expect a problem with edema in El Salvador, I wanted a diuretic to take while there. An uninsured trip to the doctor, however, costs about a hundred and twenty dollars, plus the uninsured cost of the medicine. So, I found an over-the-counter diuretic and brought it with me. Sure enough, I needed it.

“Take one pill every three to four hours,” the instructions said. They also noted that each pill has as much caffeine as two cups of coffee. The prescription diuretics don’t have caffeine. I took one at six-thirty in the morning on Sunday, intending to take a second at nine-thirty before we went to church. Thank God I forgot!

That one pill kept me awake most of the next twenty-four hours. This after arriving in El Salvador on only two hours of sleep, and zombie-ing along in daytime temperatures in the nineties. Lying awake very early on Monday morning I realized the situation I was in: if I’d had health insurance I would not have been in this predicament. It was a small thing, but it gave me a taste of the cycle of events that can keep one stuck, the domino effect that makes dealing with life in poverty like trying to dig yourself out of a hole, with the dirt falling back on your head, getting in your eyes, making it even harder to shovel. How do you get out? It’s like walking uphill on ice: precarious, and hard to make any progress.

In El Salvador today there is a new political party in power. I asked one woman, the leader of a community that is very poor, five hundred families in shacks made of sticks and pieces of metal, if things were different. The new regime, for them, is a lot like the Obama administration, for us: things are not moving fast enough to please the progressive left, but there are some signs of hope. “Now, “ she said, “when we knock on the door, they open the door.” The new people acknowledge the poor: that’s progress. There is a new law that every child shall have school supplies and a uniform, the lack of which keep children from attending school. Such a law will help in navigating that icy slope: metaphorical cleats so they can at least get a grip.

What’s remarkable is that they keep on walking.

It is Thursday, March 25, the week before Holy Week, and I am getting ready to leave the country.

Just for six days… when I come back it will almost be Easter.

It’s in some ways an inopportune time to be going. I just started a new job, and my ordination is just a month away. It’s time to start doing the spring yard work, too.

So in the middle of everything else that’s going on in my life right now, why am I going to El Salvador? Seems like a good moment to stop and reflect on that.

Looking at my email and at facebook, reading the newspaper, there’s a lot of turmoil and a lot of voices, and anger about many things. Tea baggers and health care, Glen Beck and social justice, farmers and farmworkers, along with ten people across six states trying to organize a major life event via emails and phone calls. In the middle of all the flying emails and facebook posts, the angry shouts in Washington, the bloggers encouraging people to throw bricks, I think of Jesus. Jesus, who lived in a tumultuous time, riding on a donkey into Jerusalem.

Dom Helder Camara said that he once envisioned himself in that Triumphal Procession into Jerusalem, with the people waving palms and shouting “Hosanna!” He envisioned himself as part of that procession: he was the donkey.

On the other side of Jerusalem on that day, long ago, there was another triumphal procession. Pontius Pilate, the Roman governor, was entering Jerusalem accompanied by soldiers, a show of military strength.

When God enters the world, God comes without protection. God comes in on a donkey, looking perhaps a bit silly, certainly weak. Just as at Christmas, when God came in the form of a baby – not only a helpless infant, but one born to poor parents in an occupied, backwater country – here at the other end of the story God comes in unprotected, the opposite of the military might processing in on the other side of the city. The crowds shouting “Hosanna!” would within days be shouting, “Crucify him!”

We who would be God-bearers; we who like Dom Helder Camara would be that donkey, carrying Jesus, bringing love to a hungry, lonely, tumultuous world; we would well remember that stillness, littleness, even irrelevance, can be holy things.

In my new job I am called to preach to people slumped in wheelchairs, people who cannot remember their names, who may or may not understand what I am saying. It is a strange experience. These folks have all lived long, loved, produced, done all sorts of things. Now they sit, waiting, wandering. Some pick things up, collecting papers they find; some carry on conversations unrelated to the present moment. Some get angry at offers of help. They are vulnerable people, weak, unlikely God-bearers… as unlikely as the people in the agency down the street to the south, whose lives are lived on the margins, in group homes and sheltered workshops… or the people at the shelter a few blocks to the north, scrounging for life among other people’s refuse, struggling to stay clean, to find a place to rest.

I am called to walk among them, loving them, knowing who they are. Remembering their names. Hearing their stories. I do not always do it well. I need my time alone, and am drained by interactions. I don’t know what to say. But I too am a God-bearer, a bringer of love and life, sure of one thing: that the person in front of me is God’s delight, as am I, that God is in each of us, and in the space between us, the holy space where we reach across the barrier of self and find the spark of connection, of grace, We who are Christians believe in a God whose very nature is relationship, celebrate a sacrament that is called communion. Together, one in many, connected.

And that sacrament – it’s also about being unprotected. “Take and eat: this is my body.” Our faith is about absurd things: giving, being vulnerable to each other. This is why I am Christian: because it make’s love’s sense. Love’s sense isn’t the sense of the world, of power and might and control and force. Love’s sense says, the only way we’re going to connect is if we put down our defenses. I put down mine, and you put down yours.

So off I go to El Salvador, again. To connect, to be in community, to nurture the relationships that began with some questions: “Maybe your community could send some one here for a few months… maybe you.” “Did you know I was studying to be a doctor?” “Many North American people are afraid to come to our country. They think they will die, here.” I go to be people together: vulnerable people who screw up and fail, who say the wrong thing, try too hard, fail to communicate – but keep on going, keep on loving, keep on walking, in community, together.

Together we are God-bearers, bringing the joy and light and love and hope and grace of the One who made us, the One who loves us, the One who is with us always, to each other and out to that lonely, angry, pain-filled world that needs that love so much.

Be at peace! All is well.