Aa3udu al-ifriqiya ash-shamaal. ehlesh?

I return to North Africa. Why?

If you get outside of your own tourist-head, it's hard not to feel guilty in North Africa.

I rode a camel being pulled by three teenage boys in a southern Moroccan village that bordered the rise of the mighty Sahara. They spoke five languages fluently. They knew the rudiments of five more. They dressed in the expected bright blue Berber tunics that the tourist guidebooks boasted they would wear. As the led me on my camel over the sand dunes, I looked back to see twelve more teenage boys sitting idle on a dune near the village.

They took turns leading Western tourists on camels; took turns at making a few dhirham.

And that was all they had to live for. Rural, poor, highly conversant in multiple languages and yet illiterate in Arabic, their futures were in the village. They couldn't even fathom going to university, if they wanted to.

And back in the city, all of my Moroccan peers were in university. One of our professors at the CCCL (Center for Cross-Cultural Learning) was also a professor at Mohammad V University in Agdal. You could tell he lived to teach, and that he loved every minute of life. He brimmed with joie de vivre. And, he brimmed with hope and dreams for his students - particularly his Moroccan students.

He brought one of his classes to the CCCL to do true cross-cultural learning with us. They could not speak as many languages as the village boys, but they were hyper-literate: they could read, write, and speak Arabic, Spanish, French, and English, and some of them also Italian, German, and Tamazight, Riffi, or Tashelhit, one of the Berber languages, which were just beginning to be transcribed in Latin script, Arabic script, or a newly devised Amazigh (Berber) alphabet.

Huge pangs of guilt hit me while I was there, while I developed deeper friendships with my homestay sister and two other young women who were students at Mohammad V University. Just as talented as me, much more knowledgeable, with fluency in at least three languages - these three young women and thousands more young people like them had no hope. None. I knew that after my holiday in North Africa, I would return home to America. And while I might be marginally employed, our economy can swallow me into it, what with my entrepreneurial spirit, interest and education in several specialized fields, and my optimism. Thanks be to America.

But this is not only unfair, but unjust. Unjust that even in an economic downturn, I am able to take my skill set and carve out a living in America. A travesty that in North Africa, young people are fluent and literate in a literal handfull of languages, with bachelors' and masters' degress in diverse and necessary fields, and there are no jobs. Not one.

Doesn't matter how entrepreneurial you are. How smart. How clever. You will not find a job as a young person in North Africa. As a young person in the Middle East.

So, yes, the Middle East and North Africa make me feel guilty. Guilty for being American, guilty for staying in five star hotels and being waited on by young people lucky enough to get a job as a valet, a bellhop, or a janitor.

I'm a glutton for this guilt, I guess. It's a vital, enlivening sense of guilt. It makes me more human. It makes me more thankful. It gets me outside of my American brain, my American life, my American hang-ups. It reminds me to live simply, to live small, to live joyfully, to live gratefully.

And now, instead of returning for the usual sense of guilt that I find in the Arab world - that I found in 2007 in Morocco, 2008 in Egypt, Palestine, and Morocco, and 2010 in Palestine - I will be returning to let my eyes well with tears of joy, happiness, and pride that I do not deserve to feel.

I will swell with pride and awe at the youth of the Middle East - the young Arabs who have taken their lives, their countries, their governments into their own hands and are demanding something more. Something better. Something they deserve - and oh God do they deserve it more than I do, more than any American youth does.

Tears will roll down my cheeks as I remember my friends and peers in Morocco, and then think of millions of young people just like them, across the Arab world, recognizing their power, efficacy, and their righteousness, and fighting for their lives. Truly. For their lives.

After years of Insha' Allah, it is happening.

That is why I am returning.

Keep North Africa and the Middle East in your prayers, if you make them, or in your thoughts, if you don't.


Some notes, to enflesh the revolutions with quantitative data that represents the qualitative way of living in this part of the world:

Country
Percentage of total household consumption expenditures going to food
Percentage of population under age 30
Percentage of 15-29 population not working and not going to school

Morocco

36%+

57%

34%

Algeria

36%+

58%

37%

Tunisia

36%

52%

no data

Libya

no data

58%

29%

Egypt

38%

61%

37%

Jordan

36%+

64%

23%

Palestinian Territories

no data

72%

37%

Lebanon

no data

51%

16%

Iraq

no data

68%

43%

Yemen

no data

74%

49%

Choose life

Sermon for St. Martha's Episcopal Church

Sixth Sunday after Epiphany, February 13, 2011

Deuteronomy 30:15-20, 1 Corinthians 3:19, Matthew 5:21-37

I puzzled over this week’s Gospel for quite some time. Preaching without ever having taken a Homiletics course can be something of a challenge. So, I waited patiently with the text, and finally, in relation to this morning’s Old Testament lesson, something spoke to me. As Jesus discourses before his audience, he is laying before them choice. The choice between anger and reconciliation; fractured relationship and wholeness; the choice between our worst selves and our best selves.

A choice between a risen life and a living death.

Let your “yes” be “yes,” and your “no” be “no.”

In the Revised Common Lectionary, there are two appointed Hebrew Bible readings for Sixth Epiphany. Two – requiring a choice. The first reading is Ecclesiastes 15:15-20, where God “has placed before you fire and water; stretch out your hand for whichever you choose. Before each person are life and death, and whichever one chooses will be given.” And the second is what we read this morning in Deuteronomy, “Moses said to all Israel the words which the Lord commanded him, ‘See, I have set before you today life and prosperity, death and adversity. If you obey the commandments of the Lord your God… by loving the Lord.., walking in his ways … then you shall live and become numerous… If your heart turns away and you do not hear… I declare to you today that you shall perish….

Choose life so that you and your descendants may live…”

Fr. Tim allowed me to select the Hebrew Bible passage this morning, and you can see that, despite the choice I made to use Deuteronomy, the same message comes across in both. Brilliant lectionary. And the message to all of us is exactly what I faced when I chose the lesson: we have options set before us, and we all have a choice to make. Thousands of choices to make. And as the epistle reading this morning says, we're merely human.

So many choices, so little time.

There is a small piece of paper pinned on the bulletin board in my office – a piece of paper that reminds me of a series of choices a few summers ago.

Dear Allison
I hope Clay comes back next year. I hope you have a good time when we have ice cream and s’mores. Thank you for making camp fun and letting me come to camp. I hope I can come back next year.
From Billy.

Billy and his twin brother Patrick live in Pineville (pahn-vuhl) with their father Bill, and they attended Reading Camp at Pine Mountain for their second year this past summer. I have notes from my first conversation with their father, back in 2009, when I was calling all the campers’ parents and preparing for camp:

(grumbling): “This’ Bill.”
“Hi, Bill, this is Allison, the director of Reading Camp. How are you?”
“Oh, I’m fine, I’m fine. That lady done filled out those papers for the boys. They’re comin’ to yer camp.”
“I’m glad to hear it. And I’ve got it down that they’ll be on the bus.”
“mmm hmm. Now, I want to tell you ‘bout my boys. I’m the only one who’s raised ‘em, and they’re good boys. But, if you need to, you use a switch to make ‘em mind. If they wuz ever hateful, you tell ‘em I told you you could use a switch.”
“Oh, I’m sure we won’t have to do that.”
“Well, if you need to.”
“(haha). Alright. Well, Bill, you just call me if you have any questions.”

The first choice I made with these boys was to accept them to camp at all. It was a leap of faith, to say the least. We generally accept children who are in the middle 50^th percentile in reading. Patrick and Billy were definitely not in the middle 50^th. Their teacher had written on their forms, in all capital letters, “NON-READER.” Where he was given the option to name each boy’s strengths and weaknesses, he put “x’s” next to each weakness. “Phonics – weak, comprehension – weak, fluency – weak.” The parent-guardian form had been filled out by “that lady,” (Deb Obermann from St. Mary’s in Middlesboro) because Bill, the father, was illiterate and could not fill it out himself. His signature was simply, “Bill,” not “William Miracle or even Bill Miracle,” just “Bill,” in a scrawl-like cursive that looked like a first grader’s.

So, yes, it was a big decision to accept them at all. The first of many choices.

The boys arrived at camp on Sunday very sullen, shut-off, and internal. They were gruff, abrasive, and rude. Most volunteers had an immediate reaction of “uh oh, these kids are trouble.” I have to admit, I didn’t particularly like them. Which brings us to choice #2: to react as many of us would have liked, with discipline and rules and inflexibility, or react with patience, firmness, and create a structure in which they might feel comfortable and begin to open up. We committed to the latter. Reading Camp volunteers are pretty remarkable, actually. There’s an understanding amongst all of us that the children who are the hardest to handle, the easiest to dislike – those are the ones we will not give up on, the ones that we will commit to loving. They are the ones who need the encouragement and patience of a caring adult the most.

Patrick and Billy remained gruff and mean until Wednesday morning, when it finally seemed to “click” for them that everyone at camp cared desperately about them, that no one cared that they struggled so much to write their names, and that the teachers were ecstatic when they finally named all the letters of the alphabet. They formed a close bond with Aaron, a young man who was a writing center teacher. Mischevious and creative as he was, Aaron was able to envelop the learning process in games so that Billy and Patrick forgot that they were actually working. It was funny to watch the realization come to their eyes when Aaron would make a connection between the game and writing or reading. “Wait a minute…” their eyes said, and they would shut down all over again.

But, Aaron made a choice to commit to Patrick and Billy. Aaron kept working to find something to engage the boys, and midweek, he found their muse. Billy and Patrick really wanted to write letters to Marcie, a beautiful young woman who was our Pleasure Reading “librarian.” But, now they had a choice to make: out of their fear of failing again, out of their fear of embarrassment, they could be defensive, uncooperative, and unwilling, OR they could let their guard down, take a deep breath, and let Aaron help them. They chose the latter, thank God. It took Aaron’s coaxing, prodding, encouragement, and help with every letter of every word, but by Friday morning, the boys had written their letters to Marcie, and they beamed when they handed them to her. It was a sobering moment for all of us – smiles and not a few happy tears that these boys had been able to achieve something their public school teacher never thought possible. And I guess, an awe at the fact that in the course of a short week, several choices made us fall in love with those two very stubborn little boys.

To begin the ministry of Reading Camp at all was a choice made by several passionate members of our churches, who heard the Bishop’s call to “give away” the treasure of the Cathedral Domain, and who also heard devastating statistics about illiteracy, and put two and two together. It was a choice to respond, in whatever way we – the Episcopal Church - could, to the fact that

In the inner cities and poor rural areas, 68% of low-income 4^th graders cannot read at a basic level. (www.educyberpg.org)

To respond to the fact that

More than three out of four of those on welfare, 85% of unwed mothers and 68% of those arrested are illiterate. About three in five of America's prison inmates are illiterate. (Washington Literacy Council)

And to respond to the fact that in California, Arizona, and many other jurisdictions, prisons project how many jail cells they will need in 10, 15 or 20 years by looking at the number of fourth graders who are failing in reading.

St. Martha’s is a community centered on outreach. A community that sees a need, looks at its own resources, and puts two and two together. You have done book drives for Reading Camp in the past, and I know you are preparing to have another drive. I thank you. Our campers do need books – some of them have never owned a new book in their lives - and you are choosing to respond.

However, there is another opportunity I would like to share with you, another choice I would like you to consider.

Reading Camp needs your help – not only financially, not only through the donations of goods. We need YOU.

There will be six camps in our diocese this summer: day camps in Lexington, Covington, Danville, and Winchester; and overnight camps at the Domain and Pine Mountain. I have been in close communication with the directors of the camps, and I have looked at volunteer trends over the last few years. And I will tell you, we need you to run successful, life-giving programs for children like Patrick and Billy. Winchester needs your Spirit. Lexington needs your enthusiasm and know-how. The Cathedral Domain needs your ability to help build a cohesive camp community.

The choice before you is not as dire as Ecclesiastes– between fire and water, life and death – nor as dire as Deuteronomy – life and prosperity versus death and adversity. Your choice is between a transformed summer, a new experience of the grace of God, and the somewhat normal and expected course of June and July. At Reading Camp, you will feel the Spirit. You won’t face death and adversity if you can’t volunteer at Reading Camp, but if you do volunteer, you will feel life.

“Choose life so that you and your descendants may live, loving the Lord your God, obeying him, and holding fast to him,” Moses says.

Choose a new experience of life through Reading Camp. We need you to have successful camp programs, but more importantly, the children need you. The children need you to help them make the choice between fear and hope, between a reticence to try again and a desire to learn, between the life and prosperity of education and the death and adversity of a lack of academic opportunities and the poverty that follows – financial, mental, emotional, and spiritual.

Life and prosperity versus death and adversity.

A summer adventure versus something more humdrum.

Moses said, “Choose life so that you may live…’

Amen.

perfectly whole

I was at the gym last night, working on my balance. My ankles are weak, and landing my jumps safely, with rebound and buoyant ankles cushioning the impact, has become difficult. So, I stood, one-legged, in the center of a Bosu ball, leaning this way and that, trying to perform different maneuvers so to strengthen my ankles and improve my dancing.

Next to me was a woman on a pink yoga mat, breathing deeply, moving fluidly through the postures of the Sun Salutation. Her class had been canceled due to the sudden and rapid snowfall, but, she said when she finished, "I still needed to get my yoga in." I had trouble focusing on my own balance work, I was so enchanted by her. The Y is beautifully chaotic, with children running around and yelling on the basketball court, preteens trying to use machines and dropping the weights every so often, muscle men in the free weight area grunting and yelling with their exertion, the pound of feet on the treadmills. And yet here she was, quiet, peaceful, entranced, as though there was nothing going on around her. There was only her form, her mind, her breath, and the Sun Salutation.

I met with my confirmand again this week - the young woman whom I'm "mentoring" through her confirmation in the Episcopal Church. When I took on this mentor role, I didn't know I would like it so much. But I do. She's a bubbly, intelligent, and thoughtful fifteen year old, and we both are reaching a point of comfort where we can be candid, and frank, and honest. And, truth be told, our meetings may give me more to think about than they give her. I find this to be the case with most ministry-type things: I always receive far more than I give.

Towards the end of this particular meeting, we were again discussing youth in the church and how the service gets really boring, because "we do the same thing every single week." That was my brothers' perennial complaint: it never changes. It feels dead and static. It's boring.

I had to think for a while before I found a way to respond. I used to think it was deathly boring as well, and my poor mother had to put up with my obnoxious rebellion against church. She still made me go to church, but she let me sit out in the garden or wander around the building until the service was over. Now, I really do appreciate the Episcopal mass, so how was I going to convey its "magic" to myself - my own teenage self whom I saw in my confirmand's eyes?

She's an actor, and she attends the same arts high school I attended, so there's already some common ground there. I thought that a good place to start. "Well, you know how when you finally get "off-book" for a show, and you're able to really become your character? It's no longer you play-acting your character - you begin to fall away, and the character becomes you, you become your character?" She nodded. "That's what I think I love the most about playing piano, or singing, and definitely dancing - the moment when I've learned my piece so well, or learned my dance so well, that there's no longer a distinction between me and the music, or me and the dance. The veil is lifted. The music flows through me, the dance flows through me. And I become the dance."

"I think that's what distinguishes the student from the artist. What do you think? Are you still a student or have you experienced moments when you've been an artist?"

"Well," she said, "I think mostly I still struggle as a student, but sometimes there's these moments when I finally get off book, and the other actors get off book, and we really become our characters. We really feel the action of the play - we're no longer pretending."

"Exactly," I said. "And I think the biggest reason I'm able to appreciate Episcopal worship, which is really a catholic mass - we don't call it the "mass," but that's what it is - is because I am a student of the arts. I understand what it's like to practice and work to the point where I am no longer struggling to perform, but I AM the performance. I AM the dance, or the music. And I think knowing how to do that in the arts has allowed me to do that in worship, too. I know the words so well - I could say the Nicene Creed in my sleep - so when I go to church to worship, I don't have to think anymore. I can let myself fall away, and kind of let my mind go to another place. Will you try that sometime? It might make church a little more interesting."

"Yeah. Yeah, I will."

My youngest brother is a baseball player, and I wish I could share this same thing with him. Baseball players have hours and hours of batting practice, swinging the bat over and over so that in the heat of a game, they can focus, let worries and anxieties fall away, and focus on the pitcher and the ball speeding toward them. So they can stop thinking "turn my hips, pull the bat back, lean into the swing, see the ball, see the bat contact the ball, follow through, and now run like hell," and they can just be entirely in the moment, entirely focused and calm, letting thoughts about HOW to hit the ball fall away so that they can just DO it.

The same is true of all art forms and all sports.

And, the same is true for Episcopal worship.

Batting practice can get boring, but if you want to be a good baseball player, you do it anyway. Having to learn your lines as an actor can be tedious and frustrating, but you do it so you can BECOME your character.

Repeating my jig for the thousandth time is likewise monotonous, but I do it so that when I'm finally onstage, the dance can flow through me. Worries, cares, and details fall away so that the dance becomes a perfect whole. So that I can be made perfectly whole.

If you're bored with the mass, perhaps approach it in a new way, with fresh eyes. Immerse yourself in the experience, let reality drift away and let the worship take you to a different plain of being.

Be made perfectly whole.