Terror in Congo

I remember reading Bryan Mealer's article, "Congo's Daily Blood: Ruminations from a Failed State" in the April edition of Harper's Magazine last year (I would have loved to add a link to the article, but they are a little over-protective of their stuff). It was, and remains to this day, one of the most disturbing pieces of journalism I have ever read. At the time, I participated in an effort to increase awareness in Nashville about Darfur, and I was grateful for every celebrity who wore a button or a T-shirt, "Save Darfur." These days, it seems, the only way to get and keep the public's attention is by getting the ear of Oprah or George Clooney.

Eve Ensler isn't exactly a celebrity of that caliber; her fame is largely based on the occasional controversy around her play, "The Vagina Monologues." She is not a frequent guest on late night shows or at red carpet events, but she can write. She wrote a piece in Glamour magazine about the hellish violence against girls and women in eastern Congo. And Glamour apparently makes enough money from advertising to allow non-subscribers to read it online.

I find it almost impossible to speak from the pulpit about the violence the people of Congo - and especially the women and children - have been suffering for years. I cannot imagine writing about it in any necessary detail in the church newsletter because some of our young children might read it. But I want to encourage you to let what is happening in Congo shape your prayers and other actions.

Reading Teresa

There was a time when mention of Mother Teresa made me think of the famous cinnamon bun at Bongo Java. I knew about her work in Calcutta, but I wasn't particularly interested in her as a person. Every now and then snippets of her spiritual insight came across my desk, two-liners with her name attached to them; but, like I said, I wasn't too interested in her as a person.

A couple of days ago, during a prayer service, a friend mentioned that apparently for decades Teresa had known Christ only as 'the Absent One', that she had prayed and worked without a sense of God's presence. We talked briefly about what we mean when we say 'God' or what kinds of knowledge or certainty go with 'knowing God,' and we talked about prayer and silence.

I read the article in TIME magazine, and I didn't quite know what to make of it. She had shared her struggle with spiritual advisers, in conversations I would consider confidential. At least once she even asked that all her letters or anything she had ever written be destroyed, but as a prospective saint (or perhaps even as a nun under the vow of obedience) she could not claim rights of privacy most of us take for granted.

I am deeply moved by the way she integrated the profound and painful absence of God into her faith by embracing it as part of her sharing in the suffering of Jesus on the cross (Mark 15:34 "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?"). At the same time, I find it appalling how a bunch of men - from Fr. Brian Kolodiejchuk who edited and published her letters and writings, to several other priests who had spoken with her over the years, and all the way to Christopher Hitchens - read and interpret Teresa to turn her either into a saint of the church or, for lack of a better term, atheism's poster child. What appalls me is the violence of such interpretive work that turns a human life into a symbol; perhaps it is unavoidable for individuals who lead such public lives.

I'm not ready to add my voice to that choir of male explainers.

Perhaps I will read the book.

I find myself wondering how much my prayer life depends on a sense of God’s presence, on feeling that the Lord is near. I can’t say it does; the knowledge of God involves my thinking as well as my emotional faculties, my remembering and hoping, my serving and giving, but it doens’t depend on any one of them. For me, knowing God is rooted in trusting, and trusting integrates all the other ways of being in the world and relating to others.