I smelled magnolia and honeysuckle as I walked back to work and immediately, I was whisked back to my childhood backyard – sweaty and laughing as I played with my friends. Georgia in summer smells of cut grass, rain on hot pavement and honeysuckle. I miss it. I miss those scents filling my nostrils and spurring a thousand different memories through my mind. Home – it’s sacred, or it should be.
For so many people, their homes are not safe – whether it’s the 4 walls that make up a house, the confines of a city or an entire country.
I am an extremely privileged human. I almost always feel safe. I live in a country that is not my own, but they have welcomed me. For many in this land and in the world, that is not the case.
I visited the International Dentition Center (IDC) this morning and saw my friend Abdul.* He’s an unaccompanied minor. In his home country, he was jailed by an oppressive regime and escaped to Thailand. He’s a kid. He’s got a crooked smile and an eager energy that seems reserved only for teenage boys. Abdul’s friend David,* with whom he shares a room, is from a different continent. David’s a few years older than Abdul, and he knows his chances of obtaining refugee status with the United Nations and being resettled to another country are much slimmer than his friends’.
To look into David’s eyes and know that he knows that the deck is stacked against him, it’s heartbreaking. I couldn’t get David’s face out my mind for week after I met him. My colleague, and all-around kick butt-human, Constance, calls me a hope junkie. And she’s right. I crave it. I need it. After I met David, I kept wondering where the hope was. Where was the light for this kid who could use a break? Where was his plane ticket to another home?
In my faith tradition, Jesus tells and shows us what to do when we can’t find any hope. We make some. He said, and this is paraphrased, visit and get to know people who are in prison, open up your homes for people who need a place to stay, invite and welcome strangers, have people who are different from you at your dinner table, check-in with, and give extra attention to people who have lost a partner and kids who have no parents – that’s where the hope is – if you don’t see any, then make some. If David’s story needs some hope, then get to work. Advocate for him and take him his favorite dessert. Let him show you hope.
These things root us in our shared humanity, and as the Indians say, the divine in me recognizes the divine in you.
I forgot. I forgot I am as Chris Heurtz, the co-founder of our parent organization says, a “hope hustler”.
Currently, my home country is, to put it scientifically, a mess. There are centuries-old wounds that have gone unattended and are now riddled with puss and dirt. This also mirrors the rest of the world, there’s so much pain and hurt and loss and fear. She aches with it.
Three nights ago, my neighbors invited me to sit down and have a beer. I protested, but they insisted. I was invited into their space, into their home. I’m the outsider, the foreigner. I don’t speak their language well, and I’m not extremely knowledgeable about their customs and culture, and we don’t practice the same the religion.
That’s hope – some hospitality, welcoming a stranger, some awkward, muddled conversation and a little beer.
The truth is that the deck has been stacked in my favor. I am a white, middle-class American. My parents paid for me to attend college and they encouraged me to see the world and get to know her people. So much has been given to me. My race, ethnicity, nationality, and socio-economic status swirl together and create a set of privileges that I did not earn and that most humans do not have. So it’s strange for me to write about hope – or the lack-thereof. I am learning and unlearning how to use my privilege for good in the world – and often I am flailing and failing. I’m being taught by my neighbors, Jesus, Constance, and David to not just be a hope junkie, but a hope hustler as well.
Last night I heard Irish theologist and philosopher, Pete Rollins say,
“We think when we go to the prison that we are being good news to the prisoners, or if I go to the homeless, I am good news to the homeless, but what if they’re good news to us, because they tell us that there’s a problem in our social body that we’re not looking at. So, if we want to be converted as a society, we have to go to the most oppressed people in our community, let them speak to us as prophets, showing us the problems that exist within our community so that we can be converted, transformed, and society can improve.”
Amen, to this! Hope is equitable.
I just keep thinking that if the world seems a bit darker these days – then lets be hope makers. Here’s to visiting prisoners, inviting folks who are different from us in someway over for dinner (and if you’re not opposed, a beer), becoming a mentor, investing in a kids education, praying with someone of a different faith, fixing up the guest bed room for someone who needs it, and practicing listening.
As I was about to leave IDC today, I saw an older woman reach out and touch Abdul’s face, and caress his head. They had met minutes before. The woman is from a bordering country of Abdul’s, and the relationship between their countries is rocky at best. In this small moment this woman didn’t see an enemy, she saw a boy who is alone, and like her, a prisoner – and she reached out – humanity and dignity.
They will know us by our love -not by our man-made borders, walls, labels, or groups. Just our love. Have mercy on us.
* The names of my friends in IDC have been changed
Thanks for reading,
EM
