Day 4 & 5: Gender, Peacebuilding, Education, Hunger, & Being the Body

Wow, that's a lot to talk about in two days! By the end of tonight's program, I think many people here felt exhausted: physically--long days, jet lag, heat; but also emotionally. It's hard to spend your entire waking hours confronting the most painful of human conditions. Of course, some human beings actually live that reality.

Days like today illustrate the compassion God shows us in the commandment to honor the sabbath. We began the day by attending Eucharist at a local parish. It may have been a good idea to have taken the afternoon off as a sabbath, but we pressed on with the conference and important stories were shared. The highlight of my day, however, was clearly the parish visit. I visited St. James' Katlehong (since I'm from a St. James'!). Unfortunately we arrived an hour into the service so we missed some of it, but we were still together for a couple of hours (typical services last 2.5-3 hours). The building was packed (overflowing really) and full of singing, dancing, praying. The assisting bishop, Bishop Joseph Tsubella, who retired last summer, presided. We were swept in amidst a beautiful hymn, the whole congregation singing energetically. I felt completely enveloped by their welcome. We were seated right up front and the area around the altar was filled with children. I'm not sure I can even begin to describe the service except to say it was loving, welcoming, charged with energy. I was moved by how the entire congregation processes forward to place money in the offering baskets, and then comes forward again for the Eucharist. The Church was so filled with music and people moving all around that the service felt less like something I was participating in and more like an organism in which I was a cell, floating around, bumping right up against my neighbors, all of us covered in God's cytoplasm. We heard the bishop pray over the gifts and consecrate them to be the body and blood of Christ. We shared in becoming that One Body. Afterwards, this parish gathered us as their guests to make sure we were fed and watered, even amidst the poverty of the neighborhood.

Later that afternoon, we would hear Sheila Sisulu from the UN's World Food Programme exegete the feeding of the 5000 not just as a story of a miracle of creating enough, but a miracle of creating a community who shares their resources so that there is enough for all. I was humbled at how the people of St. James' Katlehong were able to share so generously, and prayed that I could have the same clear understanding of God's abundance in my life, and the same passion for God's call for the radical welcome of strangers.

So much has happened in the last two days, I find it hard to decided what I should write about in the 15 minutes I have left. But two encounters having to do with peacemaking stand out to me. The first was hearing Michael Lapsley speak yesterday. I have read much of his work online, so it was a privilege to get to meet him in person. He lost his hands, an eye, and much of his hearing in a letterbomb attack in 1990 and since then has endeavored to share his experience of God's transformative healing. After the attack, he realized he could either be defined by a small moment of history and be a victim or survivor or he could allow God to redeem his bombing and he could share in Christ's identity as victor, having brought life from death. He now works to use his experience as a tool for others to find healing and reconciliation in their own lives and communities. He talked about the need for us to make safe spaces for people to seek to redeem their pain, and for us all to ask what has grown inside of us as a consequence of being part of a violent, revenge-seeking culture. We are all capable of being victim, perpetrator, or both, he warned. What we allow to grow inside of us will determine which path we take ourselves and our communities down. Michael Lapsley was able to let God grow forgiveness and healing in his life, even as he lives every day with hooks where his hands used to be. The mission of the Church is to restore all people to God in Christ. Are we really able to say we mean all people? Michael Lapsley's witness is a sign to us of what God is able to do in our lives when we put our whole trust in His promise.

The second moment that I keep returning to is much more simple. My new Scottish friend Donald shared with me a example from the Desert Fathers:

A young monk asks his mentor "why is there so much conflict among people?" The wise old monk tells him,"Imagine we are standing here and there is a brick laying on the ground in front of us, between us. You say 'that's my brick' and I say 'No, that's my brick.' We have then found ourselves in conflict." The young monk then asks what the solution is. The old monk says "Let's try it. Lay a brick between us." The young monk places the brick and says "This is my brick." The old monk looks at the brick, and then at the young monk, and then says "well, you better take your brick and get on with it."

It's a simple example, with a simple truth, the same truth that Lapsley expresses out of his experience of Christ's power to transform. Our reality as Christians is the incarnation, crucifixion, and resurrection. We can either live into the 'unrealities' of this world--that we can find our comfort in material goods, in revenge, in power, in control, in being 'right'--when our Christian reality is that even in the face of utter injustice, we stand as witnesses to the God of mercy and redemption. We stand as a people who say 'I will not accept that revenge is my reality. My reality is redemption. My reality is not death, it is life. My reality is never-ending, it is hope.'

Thanks be to God whose power and might is that of mercy and healing.