The God of Rough Places
(Second Sunday of Lent, the Transfiguration of Jesus)
March 6, 2004
Yesterday, nine of us went to Gonnaives, the epicenter of the revolution that just ousted former President Aristide. Our trip was without incident, except for the fact that, on arrival, those of us who sat in the back of the truck were absolutely covered with dust from the road. We were so dirty, that when we got to the Cathedral we begged for a shower…even if it had to be with holy water. Our need must have been evident, because we were almost pushed to water and buckets. It all happened so fast that Alfonso wound up getting a bath only because he happened to be standing next to me!
When five of us tried to make this same trip a month ago, it was a different story. The Sisters from Gonnaives had called me, because a 10 year old boy was shot in the stomach, and his intestines were hanging out. He could be saved if we could get him to Port-au-Prince. We did out best to get to him, and we managed to get through three (of twenty) burning barricades. But after the third, we found ourselves out of the truck, arms in the air, guns to our heads. Although friends would probably never accuse me of being pious, I have always found the rosary to be extraordinarily helpful in such moments. We were released after a few Hail Mary’s, and after explaining our mission. It was clear that we would never make it, and had to retreat to Port-au-Prince. But the gunmen had softened, and one of them even offered us his cell phone, in case we wanted to call the Sisters and tell them that we were “held up”!
I can’t say we were fearless. But neither were we paralyzed by fear. Our strength came from trying to do the right thing. The gospel is very clear about what the right thing is. It’s never hard to figure out. The gospel is just as clear about the price we may have to pay for doing the right thing… and this usually gives birth to a lot of second thoughts.
As we headed back home, we were pretty sad for the boy and our inability to reach him, and I kept questioning why the doors didn’t open up for us to reach him. I have grown used to having lots of doors open through prayer. Late that night, when we were finally able to get through to the Sisters by phone, we learned that when we didn’t show up, the Sisters ran their own barricades in the direction of Cape Haitian, looking blindly for help. They happened to find a visiting American surgeon, who operated and saved the boy’s life. Suddenly it was clear to me that God didn’t open the doors for us because they did not need to be opened. God did not need us in Gonnaives, thank you for trying, and found a rough way of turning us around before our zeal was converted into stubbornness and pride, leading us deeper into that bad night. Yesterday we had a nice reward in Gonnaives- we saw that little boy, healing, bright eyed and doing very well.
I see the Internet news keeps referring to Haiti as sliding into anarchy. We drove four hours yesterday, from Port-au- Prince to Gonnaives, without ever seeing a policeman or a soldier…… or even a problem. To the contrary, everyone was trying to get on with a normal life. People were working in the rice paddies, pulling supplies to market, cutting sugar cane. Anarchy is far too exaggerated a word when referring to what is happening in Haiti. Yes there are SERIOUS problems. Certain areas are politically hot and dangerous, demonstrations draw attack, certain areas are notorious for looting and shooting, but these are localized and predictable. That is not anarchy. We have seen many times, over the past seventeen years, a “headless Haiti”. But daily life goes on because the vast majority of people know their jobs and do them, even though for multitudes this results in an earning of less than a dollar a day.
The ride home from Gonnaives, at sunset, was spectacular. The large orange sun was setting into the turquoise ocean to our right. At the same moment, the full bluish moon was rising on our left. Our journey kept us positioned exactly between these two great lights of our heavens. They are God’s gifts: one to govern darkness and the other to govern the day. I thought, “creation is showing us the meaning of this present moment in Haiti’s history. We are caught between light and shadows, but we have the great lights to guide us.” The lives of individuals and of nations keep tracing out this journey. We wander from darkness to light to darkness again, and sometimes we are in between. The important thing about darkness is to try to see in it, and the great lights have correlates in our mind’s eye The moon, unlike the sun, changes its shape and the intensity of its light a little bit every day, on its continuous journey from fullness to emptiness to fullness again. Its light is never constant, as is the light of the sun. The same is true in our hearts. In the face of darkness (ignorance), the intensity and shape of light (understanding) is changing all the time. Light reveals itself in different ways, in the darkness.
Those who believe in God go through life trying to see how God is present in any moment, and what God’s presence is saying. We look for light, and its message. This is harder to do in times of darkness. When things are especially rough, light can seem altogether absent. It is never absent, but it takes an eye trained in God’s school (prayer) to recognize its shape and intensity.
As Ash Wednesday approached last week, I wrote about being called to bless the bodies of a number of poor people who were savagely killed after giving their life-savings to get a place on a boat heading for Miami. It was a poor, rickety boat that, for them, meant hope and deliverance. They were deceived, betrayed and murdered, and their rotting bodies were washed up on the shore of a fetid slum. It was a very dark moment. My only thought, as I stood aghast, was how to bring some dignity to this nightmare. Focusing the attention of all present on a prayer for the dead, and for a better future, was all I could do. I carefully blessed each one with holy water. And then, as I was leaving, I was approached by a fierce looking stranger whose manner put me on my guard, and then to my great surprise, he thanked me for coming to pray and said how important it is that goodness not perish. Suddenly, in that darkness, there was an amazing light, just like in the Transfiguration of Jesus. “Lord, it is good for us to be here.” Yes, it was absolutely good to be there, and to see this man’s faith and hope shine brightly.
Let me get the worse things over with. I also mentioned in that reflection that I was told that when I came back, I would see the pigs eating those bodies. I did go back to Wharf Jeremy, as I always do on Wednesdays. But I had no intention of going to the shoreline where the bodies were. I had already offered, several times, to bury them- but it is interference with the State to do so. However, even without intending to go near the shoreline, fate had another plan. There, on the very road to the wharf, I had to stop the truck because of a bunch of pigs blocking our way. As I approached, I was horrified at what I saw, with my own eyes. We jumped out of the truck and chased the pigs away with stones. This was a different body- and there were many of them scattered in the area -bodies of people who had been killed while looting the nearby port. We tried once again to bring dignity to what can only be described as a scene right out of hell. Alfonso, Sister Lorraine, Malherbe and I rolled what was left of the body into a white body bag, chased the pigs off again, and once more offered prayers for the dead, and for a better future. I have heard Haiti referred to as a failed state. In the face of things like this, that is the understatement of the year.
To complicate the darkness even more, I soon learned that the man whose remains we tried to honor, was one of the three men who betrayed and killed the people in the boat. I could feel welling up within me the urge to rejoice in such a bad ending for him. But this is also NOT God’s way, nor is it the way of light. I could only shake my head, so rattled by the strength of the culture of death, at the ferociousness of evil and how it devours those who enter into it. I remember in Dante’s Inferno, every punishment fit the sin precisely, and they were pretty frightening images. This mans ending and his sin were well matched, but this is so not because of the nature of God, but rather because of the nature of evil. I thought of God’s warning to Cain: the power of evil crouches at the door like a lion, eager to destroy and devour those who enter into sin.
The vast slums of Port au Prince are pretty rough places. Yet they are home for hundreds of thousands of people. Most of these are children. If people are there, God is there.
After we chased off the pigs and offered our prayer, I raised my head and saw three powerful things. I saw the wind blow the hat off or a woman, and a child run barefoot through the muck to get it for her. I saw a home-made kite, fashioned from twigs and old bags, and many prices of old string joined together, soaring high above the filth. And I saw the children running to meet us, squealing in joy, as we approached them with our music, our food and our books. Yes, this darkness is filled with countless twinkling stars. They are called children. I think of our home for orphan children in the mountains of Kenscoff. How many people remark it is like an oasis! How we have seen children from places like this recapture their childhood there! But there must be a way to help these children cling to their childhood, even in the face of brutish realities and hellish images. The blessings we have at our orphanage….security, beauty, peace, food, medicines, books…surely must overflow and reach here. Why not? Here is some great advice from Sister Mary Alban, a Canadian Sister of St Joseph who has been in Haiti for years. “If it’s old and ugly, paint it a bright color. If it’s barren, plant a flower. If it’s broken, glue it together (or even make something new) with the pieces. If its garbage, make compost. If they’re fighting, sing a song. If they’re sick, sit with them on the bed. If they are hungry, make soup.”
Guess who is parading into Wharf Jeremy with paints, plants, glue, guitars, medicine, food, and books. We are. And we will do our best to give these children a childhood.
On our way to the poor areas this past week, every day we made an extensive drive around Port-au-Prince in order to look for the wounded. Guardian angels in the form of absolute strangers detoured us away from areas of shooting, parted chanting mobs to let us pass through (as Moses parted the Red Sea), and signaled to us different people in distress. I will tell you about one of them. A man was pushing what we thought was a dead woman in a wheelbarrow. We thought he was heading to the morgue of the general hospital, already overflowing with 200 rotting bodies. We stopped to talk with him, and saw that the woman was not dead. She had been shot in the head yesterday, in the shoot-outs in the capital, and he had been wheeling all around the city ever since, looking in vain for help. She was nearly dead, and beyond saving. But we took her to a private hospital and paid all the bills for the best care they could give her. A visiting doctor chided me: she needs the home for the dying, not a hospital. I replied, “I am not putting her in the hospital for her, I am putting her in the hospital for her husband.” To me it was very important that her husband see that someone did everything possible for his wife, against all odds. Why? Because for me, he was the brightest light in Port-au-Prince that day, giving us an incredible witness of fidelity and love.
The holy ancient writers tell us that the purpose of the Transfiguration, when Christ’s face shone out as radiant as the sun, was to strengthen the apostles for the terrible darkness of Calvary, that would come before the Resurrection. It didn’t work. Most of Christ’s followers, including the first Pope, ran off in terror, just as most of us would have done. But that doesn’t make the reality of the Transfiguration any less true. Every word of the Bible is written for today, not yesterday. Beneath the most ordinary, or the most difficult, or the most brutish situations of life there is a light for us to see, and it bears a wondrous message of God’s love. It is always there, as a gift, when we pray for the right eyes to see it.
Fr Rick Frechette CP