The Bishop of Rwanda

Bishop John Rucyahana spoke to our Bible study class this morning and then preached at morning worship.

Bishop John is bishop of the Shyira diocese of the Anglican church in Rwanda. He was instrumental in the spread of the Anglican Mission in the Americas beginning with his agreement to oversee one of the first AMiA churches in Little Rock, a decision that, as he puts it, "stirred up some dust."

I highly recommend his book, The Bishop of Rwanda: Finding Forgiveness Amidst a Pile of Bones. In it he tells the painful story of the Rwandan genocide in 1994 when over 1.1 million people were brutally murdered. He explains how external forces propagandized the Tutsi and Hutu ethnic groups into tribal differences that led to the massacre, and what steps are being taken to heal and restore Rwanda, which the bishop reports is the now the safest country in Africa.

One of Bishop Rucyahana's responsibilities is the Sonrise Orphans Ministry. There are between 400,000 and 600,000 orphans in Rwanda, many as result of the genocide. Two-thirds of the 900 or so students at Sonrise are orphans. The school provides them a home, hope for the future, and healing.

Someone asked the bishop a profound question during Q&A in Bible study: Is there any resentment towards Americans who come to Rwanda with material blessings but with seemingly (because of the recent crises in the Episcopal/Anglican communions) spiritual poverty? The bishop responded that given Rwanda's history of rejection in the world community, visits and touches mean more than even money to many Rwandans. I admit that I was only marginally aware of the genocide when it was happening, as I think most of the world can testify. That realization makes it all the more painful to contemplate recent developments in Darfur, and Burma, and now potentially in Kenya.

Bishop Rucyahana was gracious in signing my copy of his book. His signature makes this powerful volume all the more special to me.

Evan, Working Man

My perusal of Saturday morning's newspaper was interrupted by the telephone answering machine broadcasting BF's plea for temporary help.

BF is an acquaintance of mine: mid-fifties, never married, and, in the year I've known him, down on his luck, due to a few poor choices. But for the grace of God...

BF runs a "business" from the back of his pickup truck, waterproofing foundations for
houses under construction. He gets jobs word-of-mouth, and last weekend he had a doozy: two solid concrete foundations, side-by-side, a pretty tight deadline, and a helper that couldn't make it.

(Construction Aside: Apparently, solid concrete foundations are more deadline intensive than concrete block foundations because the excavator can backfill them immediately, whereas concrete block foundations cannot be backfilled until the walls and roofs are in place or else the walls will collapse. The waterproofer can take his time with them. I've now told you more than I know about the "construction bidness". )

BF wondered if Evan would be interested in pushing a paint roller for a couple of hours, and I wondered the same thing as I walked to his room to ask him, my houseshoes clicking across the hardwood in rhythm with the clacking X-box controller in Evan's hands.

But he was interested. I got him to call BF for details and directions to the job site, and I dropped him off a few minutes later with instructions for BF to keep an eye on him.

I must say I had mixed feelings as I drove away. Evan had already made me proud by taking down perfect driving directions to the site. This was no small feat, given that I've instructed him on how to take out the trash twice a week for the past 187 weeks. But it struck me halfway home that this wasn't some piddly little chore around the house. This was A Job. A.Real.World.Job. An if-an-OSHA-inspector-appears-then-someone-could-go-to-jail job. As I tried to pray for Evan, I was both excited and frightened for him. Excited, because of the "rite of passage" freedom that is tasted once someone starts earning his own way, a freedom I hope Evan becomes addicted to. Frightened, because I've been in The.Real.World. long enough to know what a shock it can be to someone as privileged as Evan. He goes to the pantry when he's hungry and he gets something to eat. He flips a switch and a light comes on. Every time. He turns a faucet and water comes out. Every time. I'm not sure he knows that two-thirds of the world lives on less money than the cost of the electricity to power his X-box and TV. That they work hard and still can't get ahead. Like BF, who not only operates from his truck, but sometimes also sleeps there.

It also frightened me because Evan was venturing out from under my world view. Is he ready for that? Have I prepared him enough to handle the things the world will throw at him? Have I let my obsessions that he flip a light switch off once in a while and that he put empty food wrappers in the trash can instead of on the kitchen counter and that he wash the woefully overpriced blue jeans he bought with his Christmas money at [trendy with the hip kids boutique] at least once every twelve times he wears them get in the way of preparing him for reality? It didn't help much when I got home and told Joan where Evan was and she asked me what I had sent him for lunch.

Lunch?

So I busied myself about the house, washing the windows and puttering in the garage, expecting Evan to give it a couple of hours and call me to come get him. By four-thirty, I began to wonder about him, so I drove over to the site. There he was, rolling away. I could tell they'd made great progress that day. BF thanked him for his hard work and paid him. Then BF began to make statements like "I don't hold grudges," and "I've already forgotten about it," and "it takes time to learn these things."

On the way home, I asked Evan about BF's parting discussion:
B: What was that about?
E: BF is a little grumpy.
B: Grumpy? What was he grumpy about?
E: He said I was too slow.
B (feigning surprise): Slow? Really? What else?
E: And that I wasted waterproofing stuff.
B (masking shock): Really? What does BF do when he gets grumpy?
E: He yells.
B: He yelled at you?
E: Yeah.
B: How did that make you feel?
E: I was like, whatever. I tried not to get mad.
B: But you kept going?
E: Yeah.

For the rest of the evening, Evan said things like, "I'm not trying to talk about BF, but..." as he expounded on another life lesson learned on the job site. The most substantial? At lunch Sunday:

E: I don't mean to talk bad about BF...
B: ...but...
E: ...but he doesn't think much of Mexicans.
B (recalling his own subjections to BF's Latino-disparaging comments): What gave you that idea?
E: He was always fussing about how they poured the foundation. Not very nice.
B: What did you think when he said things like that?
E: Made me angry.
B: Did it shock you that someone would talk like that?
E: Yeah.

Let me tell you, I felt validated as a parent. Joan and I grew up among some of the most bigoted people imaginable, and rather than dismissing them with a flippant "well, that's just the times they came from," we've worked hard to eradicate those thoughts, feelings, and words from our home. It hasn't been easy, but nothing worthwhile ever is.

I was so proud of Evan that after lunch I drove him to [trendy with the hip kids boutique] and let him blow most of his pay. I didn't even give him the requisite lecture about the value of money and how it is a lot easier to spend when someone else earns it and, my personal favorite, wait until you have a full-time job and have to work every day.

I just let him enjoy the fruit of his labor, and I enjoyed mine.

See the Art in Me

Lora and I found ourselves alone this afternoon. She crawled up into my chair to share sunflower seeds and impede my reading.

With Joan and Evan gone, the house was unusually quiet. It apparently bothered Lora, so she climbed up on the computer table to retrieve a CD. She picked the self-titled Jars of Clay album and popped it into the player.

We listened to the first four songs at varying volumes (she kept turning it up, I kept turning it down, an expected conflict between a four-year-old and a forty-year-old). When the fifth song started, Lora turned it up and got out of the chair.

And she began to dance.

Not head-shaking, bebopping, gotta-pee-right-now dancing. She became a ballerina. She twirled. She skipped. She jumped. She flew.

She never once hesitated. She never gave a thought to her next move as she followed her muse throughout the kitchen, around the island, and back to the reading corner. She was free. Flowing. Focused. I was floored.

The name of the song was "Art in Me."

Images on the sidewalk speak of dream's descent
Washed away by storms to graves of cynical lament
Dirty canvases to call my own
Protest limericks carved by the old pay phone

In your picture book I'm trying hard to see
Turning endless pages of this tragedy
Sculpting every move you compose a symphony
You plead to everyone, "See the art in Me"

Broken stained-glass windows, the fragments ramble on
Tales of broken souls, an eternity's been won
As critics scorn the thoughts and works of mortal man
My eyes are drawn to you in awe once again

In your picture book I'm trying hard to see
Turning endless pages of this tragedy
Sculpting every move you compose a symphony
You plead to everyone, "See the art in Me"

Thank you, Father, for letting me see the art in You, through Lora's dance.

Lord, teach me...

Last night: a funeral home visit. A young couple whose baby died in his sleep.

To a young mother, and a young father, and grieving grandparents: I'll pray for you.

Today: a chance meeting in the bookstore. An old friend whose adult child has moved back home in the throes of an addiction. A crumbling marriage. Three young children.

To a distraught father, searching for answers, and relief: I'll pray for you.

I love words. Words are my life. Yet, as hard as I try, try as I might, my words are not adequate.

Father, forgive my feebleness.

Holy Spirit, interpret my groanings.

Lord, teach me to pray.

Please forgive me, Willie Brown

I saw him across a sea of strangers in the crowded room, and I knew immediately that his name was Willie Brown.

Our assignment had been simple enough. Wrap glue-soaked yarn around an empty olive jar to make a vase, add a few "flowers" (egg-carton blooms, pipe-cleaner stems, and construction-paper leaves), draw a card, and address it to a resident of a nearby nursing home whose name we'd randomly drawn from a hat. I unfolded the slip of paper and read the name: Willie Brown.

One spring morning we walked several blocks down tree-lined residential streets to the four-lane highway that "bypassed" downtown. We crossed the highway and climbed the hill, behind the Ford tractor dealership and a local cafe' that served the best hamburger steak in town, to the nursing home.

The nursing home cafeteria was filled with old people and nurses, strangers all. We second-graders took our places against the wall to await instructions on how to distribute our bouquets. I nervously scanned the room and my eyes fell upon the man destined to be my partner.

He was old and black and sat in a wheelchair. He had lost both legs above the knee; his stumps weren't even long enough to hang over the edge of the seat. He was the most alien creature in the room and I was convinced that he was Willie Brown.

I became aware that the program had begun. Someone called out a name. An old person raised a hand. A second-grader peeled off the wall, delivered the gift, and then scurried back across the floor.

Agnes Andrews. Raised hand. Delivered gift.

Milton Baker. Raised hand. Delivered gift.

Willie Brown. Raised hand. The black man. In the wheelchair. With no legs. Of course. I had known it all along.

The wall would not let go of me. The room grew into a cavern. The floor became a desert and each step I took drained more energy from my parched body. There was silence, save for the snickers of my classmates, safe against the wall, staring at my safari to the stranger with no legs.

I finally made it across the room and I shoved the vase and card into the old man's hands. I ran back to the safety of the wall without ever making eye contact with him.

I was so afraid. I didn't know what to say. I couldn't relate to him on even the basest level. I was frustrated. Guilty. Ashamed. Inadequate.

I thought of Willie Brown today. I relived the same feelings as I dealt with a contemporary Willie Brown yesterday. Fear. Shame. Frustration. Inadequacy.

Willie Brown, wherever you are, I hope that someone crossed your path and made your life a little brighter before you moved on. I'm sorry I blew my chance.

Pity is, I don't seem to have learned from the experience.