Giving and Forgiving

It's Lent, the season of preparation for Easter. For many Catholics, it means giving up something special or trying to do something extra to bring our faith more in focus during the 40 days before Easter.

I decided to give up coffee, an indulgence in my day - and relatively easy to do - and spend extra time in reflection and prayer - not so easy for me to do. Even as the number of students and new requests for assistance that come to my office are fewer, I still find my time occupied with many things and my mind preoccupied.

I've been following a blog of a former campus minister, John Donaghy, that's been helpful for me this Lent: Walk the Way and there are two reflections I'd like to share. The first was from a week or so ago:

Do not condemn,
and you will not be condemned.
Luke 6: 36-38

It is so easy to condemn others and to demonize whose who oppose us. But the message of Christ is different. As the Russian novelist Aleksander Solzhenitsyn wrote in his classic novel, The Gulag Archipelago:

If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of their own heart? During the life of any heart this line keeps changing place; sometimes it is squeezed one way by exuberant evil and sometimes it shifts to allow enough space for good to flourish. One and the same human being is, at various ages, under various circumstances, a totally different human being.

These words have been helpful in the daily struggles to do what's right and to try to interrupt life around me. Yesterday's reflection he shared from Henri Nouwen:

Do I truly want to be so totally forgiven that a completely new way of living becomes possible?… Do I want to break away from my deep-rooted rebellion against God and surrender myself so absolutely to God’s love that a new person can emerge. Receiving forgiveness requires a total willingness to let God be God and do all the healing, restoring , and renewing.

Henri Nouwen, The Return of the Prodigal Son

Tomorrow I am to give a short presentation on Lent to my small Christian Community (called Jumuiya in Swahili) that meets each week. I realized today that I'm going to talk about giving and forgiving, knowing well how I need to forgive myself for not being or doing all that I'd hoped and ask God to make something new.

A couple photos from March...

John O'Donoghue is a Maryknoll Lay Missioner who has just transferred from East Timor and came for a visit in Mombasa last weekend. He arrived just in time for the local St. Patrick's Day party and one of his many Mombasa adventures was meeting with the Amkeni (Wake up) Support group for people living with HIV.

After talking to them about their lives and aspirations, they gave him a clap. Here claps can be very organized and fun. Usually there's someone that leads the clap and starts with demonstrating which clap they will be leading. John was given the big soda clap, where the 2-L bottle lid is twisted and twisted and twisted until finally it pops open with a BIG CLAP!

And one of my Irish friends at the St Patrick's Day party, Fr Peter. He and I went to an amazing concert under the stars the week before - it had a local Italian restaurant owner that sang to move mountains and hearts, a Kenyan opera singer and another performer who played the soprano sax.

Happy Lent everyone!

The way forward - Njia mbele

Often times I've been talking to people about kutafuta njia mbele - searching for the way forward. It's not always clear, but today clarity came in another form. The value of human dignity was crystal clear today, as I was reminded by a boy named Pius.

I have been touched by people living with disabilities in various ways before. In Los Angeles, there was a guy named Norm who lived across the street from me who very kindly offered to walk me home when we were crossing the street together. He was living in a group home and was really proud to show his other friends that we knew each other on subsequent times we'd see each other.

Last month I met the newest member of our Maryknoll Lay Missioners group in Kenya, who last worked at a shop where people with disabilities made equipment for others with disabilities. And last weekend, I was visiting with the brother of a friend who happens to be deaf. He and his friend gave me a "sign-name," which is taking your right hand and making the sign for M and then running it along your hairline from front to back, indicating my long hair. Our communication was entertaining for all - from my one semester community course in American Sign Language, I could at least provide some laughs.

And today, I entered my office to find a young boy sitting on the floor next to his mother, who had come seeking help. He fell sick within the first few days of his life and has not had good control of his muscles in the 16 years since. I'm not sure of his diagnosis, but was really moved by his spirit. He's not able to say much, but I was told that his mind wasn't affected and it was clear he understood what we were saying. His mother and I struggled to understand each other (in Swahili) and find the way forward. I know we will find a way for him to go to school. From what I could see, he's bright, but has never had a chance to go to school - perhaps from a combination of lack of funds for transportation, lack of influence, lack of knowledge of resources available, poverty and disease.

Pius showing us how he can hold a pen to write.

We'll find a way. It will take time and might not be as straight-forward or clear, but what is clear to me is how special this life is. A spirit unbroken after many years of trial and tribulation.

Tomorrow starts the season of Lent, the 40 days before Easter, a time of prayer and conversion. I am committing myself to more time in reflection and hope to share more in these weeks.

May we all keep our spirits strong in spite of the challenges we face.
Mary