I am sweating so much, maybe they will not see that the water on my face is tears. But then I remember that my forehead pinches unmistakably when I cry - even more so when I try to hold it in - and I am on the verge of ugly sobs. That said, I am sweating madly, and these people have never seen me before, much less seen me cry...so perhaps it is my secret. I doubt it.
That was last evening; I was in the large Baptist church across the street from my compound. I walk by it every day 4 times at least, to, fro, to, fro. In an earlier post, I wrote about a group of children playing a game in their fenced-in yard - an adult in the middle of their circle with all the markings of a youth pastor (big energy! big smiles! be encouragement!). The children's laughter, neighbors watching.
Several evenings, I have heard singing from this church. The other churches I walk by, the singing is accompanied by (actually drowned out by) insane electronic sound systems. But in this church across from me, I hear only voices. And last night, I decided to see if I could go in and listen.
Walking into a compound is walking into someone else's property, which is carefully safeguarded. Though the gate to the church compound was wide open, I still walked in hesitantly. I removed my Red Sox cap. I kept looking for someone to greet me / wonder what the hell I was doing on their property. It was dusky; actually, it was dark, making me more unsure.
I had to walk to the front of the church to get to an open door, at least 30 yards into the compound. I stood in the doorway, and saw that a group of about 15 people were sitting in pews, and two people were leading the singing. It was choir practice. Three short rows of pews were just to my left, parallel to the church's side wall. Then, there were rows and rows of pews facing the front of the church. A woman came to me in the doorway and asked if I wanted to listen. She invited me to sit in one of the side pews next to her.
It was gospel music, and then I was crying. Though this can't be quite right, it reminded me of home. It is almost never that I'm in a church in the US listening to acapella gospel music. But unquestionably, what rose in me was both a comfort of and longing for home. Home of the spirit? Home created by these amazing voices? I wiped my face and my eyes. I looked down at my feet. I closed my eyes and rocked with the music.
The bass voices through tenors were in the first row of pews facing the front of the church; the altos through sopranos were in the pews perpendicular. This meant the singers were in an L-shape relative to each other, watching each other's faces and creating harmonies. A gentleman was standing and leading the lower voices; a woman faced our pews and led the higher voices. They gestured and sang; they stopped mid-line, adjusted, and started again. Everyone was wiping sweat from their foreheads and faces. Other than the woman who invited me in, no one paid me any mind.
Jennebah introduced herself to me and asked if I would like to join them for Sunday services: "we start at 10:30." She asked my name, asked to confirm my last name, and then asked me to write it down. This happens all the time; I pretty much give my name to anyone who asks. I don't know; it doesn't seem like it can hurt. (TBH, I also give my phone number and now I am getting WhatsApp texts from several people who address me as "Mummy" and "Auntie." Why not?)
Jennebah was going back and forth with another woman sitting in front of us, though the singing never stopped. Then, she handed me a sealed envelope and explained it was an invitation to a set of upcoming services, including a dinner, to celebrate their 30th anniversary. When I got home and opened the envelope (perfectly sealed, a clean and new white letter-sized envelope - if you had asked me if envelopes like this exist in this country, I would have been doubtful), I found it to be a formal invitation, complete with my full name written at the top, my title ("Participant") and signatures of people in the church.
I had already been in the same spiritually full, tearful state earlier in the day, so this singing spilled over my already overflowing cup. On my after-lunch walk around my office, I cued up Kate Bowler's Everything Happens podcast, and listened to her conversation with Father Gregory Boyle, founder of Homeboy Industries. I was walking through dusty roads, listening to roosters crowing, exchanging high-fives with 6-7-8 year olds, and seeing women and men who I know are eking it out every day. I know they fill their bellies and their children's bellies with water when there isn't enough money for food. I know most of them cannot read. I know that anyone older than 45 fled from or somehow otherwise survived more than a decade of brutality.
While my eyes are filled with these images, what I hear is Father Boyle saying to Kate: "The goal of going to the margins and allowing the folks at the margins to make you different is joy. Joy that everyone is inhabiting in an exquisitely mutual way." And I know that it is true. I know that is a reason - the reason - I go "to the margins." It is the joy that is present and can sustain us. Open us, feed us. Carry us. Join us.
After the singing, I went home (drenched - in tears, sweat, and by that time it was raining. Because of course it was.) I dialed up a YouTube video of Father Greg and Pema Chodron talking together. I mean that is Mecca, those two in conversation! And Pema and Greg share a joke that they both love a particular line - but aren't sure which of them said it first. They attribute the same line, each to the other: "The measure of our compassion lies not in our willingness to be in service to those on the margins, but only in our willingness to be in kinship with them." Greg kept saying in the podcast: it's not about you. It's not about you. Pema says: don't get attached to your own story; let it go.
Sometimes I translate that for myself like this: Sarah: make yourself a bit part in your own story. I love the notion of not being the center of my own story; I feel the move from center to periphery (to observer, to acceptor) almost physically.
I've been thinking alot about why I am here. The reasons are these:
- I made a decision almost 20 years ago that the whole world is our family. Paul Farmer taught me this, as conveyed by Tracy Kidder in Mountains Beyond Mountains, the wonderful book he wrote about Farmer and Partners in Health. I read the book precisely 18 years and 3 months ago, which I know because in a photograph, the book is splayed on my bedside table in Bozeman Deaconess Hospital, where I'm holding my glorious newborn daughter, Sophie. She is 1 day old, and from how the book is splayed, I am about half-way through it.
- We must be proximate to one another. I learned this from Bryan Stevenson, through his talks, his book, and the worldview-shaping memorial and museum he established in Montgomery. I first heard Stevenson in 2014; I was newly divorced, single-momming my 7-year old, feeling disconnected from purposeful work. I got to the conference by claiming I needed to be there, when really I just wanted to go. (This is mega out of character for me. I have a character affliction of telling the truth.) My wonderful mom and step-dad traveled to Boston to be with Soph so I could manage it. I was sitting in the back of a Marriott ballroom at an airport hotel in San Francisco. It was dim; the food was lame. Bryan Stevenson, whom I had not yet heard of, was on stage. "You have to be proximate to the need," he said. More than once. I was working at Harvard at the time, and this call was a lightning bolt for me. While I would never trade my 5 years at Harvard.....It is not. Proximate. To the need. I realized I was on Neptune - if I was even in the solar system. I needed, wanted to get proximate. I set myself off on proximity experiments - everything from getting a new job to working a weekly soup kitchen to becoming friends with the operator of an old-time, pull the metal grate closed elevator in the Leather District in Boston where I worked. I believe Stevenson says we have to be proximate to the need to be effective in our work (his being justice). My proximity experiments teach me that we need to be proximate for our humanity.
- A learning from Pastor Jeff at First Church of Somerville to "walk the Jesus ways." I can believe in God or Jesus. Or not. But I can walk the Jesus ways regardless. I joined the Jesus-ways with the space I am finding in Buddhism. The four limitless qualities of Buddhism are loving kindness, compassion, joy and equanimity. I think walking these Buddhist ways in the footsteps of Jesus, or walking the ways of Jesus with the limitless qualities guiding us is...wonderful.
And finally: why not? It's not that a Liberian adventure is good/better/best. It is simply that it is me. And this adventure is a manifestation of my values and interests. The shape, location, color, density, propensity, length, solo-ness, togetherness of your adventures will be different than mine because you are you and I am me. It's the embrace and acceptance of these adventures that grows ourselves and, as Father Boyle might say, creates these mind-blowing opportunities to inhabit joy.
Amen. Namaste.
xo