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January 22, 2008
If I had to describe Martin and Cindy to you, I might say that I know very little about them, except that they live outside of Geneva, Switzerland, they own three cats, and they are sweetly and recklessly trusting. You might say that this is quite a lot to know about someone.
I found them because they are Mennonites. We Mennonites have this peculiar quality about us, and that quality is that upon meeting another Mennonite, we immediately treat that other Mennonite as if they were long-lost family. (Perhaps this is for a reason. As we trace back our lineage at the table after dinner, we often find that we are long-lost family.)
If we were Jews or Sudanese Lost Boys being reunited after a time of torture, starvation, or other massive trauma, I could understand this treatment. But as Mennonites, most of our collective trauma occurred nearly 500 years ago. The stories of Martyr's Mirror are just that to us now: stories. The woman who sang and praised God as she burned at the stake until her tongue was cut from her head. The man who crossed a frozen river fleeing the authorities, turned back to see that one of his pursuers had fallen through the ice, so went back, pulled him out and was captured. These are simply bedtime stories, and yet somehow they have the power to bind us together across continents.
I called Martin and Cindy in Switzerland on Dad's suggestion because their name, address and phone number – and the fact that they have three cats – were listed in the directory known as "Mennonite Your Way." This directory is filled with names and phone numbers and fascinating facts about Mennonites all over the globe willing to host other Mennonites or their friends, feed them, and share genealogy charts for about the cost of an airport latte.
I called because I was trying to help a friend who was flying that very day to Geneva to represent the Dominican Republic at some meetings at the United Nations, who had received her Swiss visa the day before and now could begin planning her trip. She would be arriving the next day. I explained all of this to Cindy. The line went silent for a moment, and then she ventured, "We have three cats. You'll have to ask your friend if she's allergic to cats."
Cindy explained carefully the train my friend would have to take out of Geneva, and that she should call before leaving so that Cindy could meet her at the station. It would be either a ten-minute ride or a thirty-minute ride, depending on if it was an express train or not. I would confirm with Cindy after giving my friend this information.
Before I could do this, I got a call. "Hi, this is Cindy from Switzerland..." (Cindy is now making an international call to me.) "We talked on the phone a little while ago...?" (Yes, I remember her. I have not, after all, spoken with anyone else from Switzerland this morning.) "Well..." (Her voice is halting. She is nearly apologetic. Perhaps Martin has reminded her of some other commitment, or some other guest coming to stay with them. She will have to rescind her offer of hospitality. She will be sorry but firm, and the concern about cat allergies will be a moot point.) "We were just thinking, it might be easier for your friend if we just met her at the airport... What do you think? ...That is, if it's not too much trouble for you to get us her flight information and what time she'll be getting in."
I nearly giggled. (Where do you find these people? No one but Mennonites will believe this story. And Mennonites will wonder why I have made such a big deal of it. "Well, yes," they will say, incredulous. "What else is there to do in a situation such as that?") I told Cindy my friend would be thrilled. I would get her the flight information.
There are days when one is proud to be a part of the human race. And there are days when one is even prouder to be part of the Mennonite race – a good, simple, trusting race of humans who love cats.
January 20, 2008
I have sent this bit of writing to some people and read it aloud to some others. Now I dedicate it to Martin and Cindy and all of those who live and love and trust with abandon.
You can't approach a thing like love straight on. You've got to sneak up on it, sunglasses on, trying not to let the screen door slam.
Its name must be whispered into steaming cups of tea, to swirl there amidst camomile and honey. Written in pencil on the backs of church bulletins and slid under the door before dawn. Recorded on cassette tapes to be played back before audiences of intimate friends and their dogs.
For a thing such as love is too brilliant to behold in all its blinding purity. Faulkner knew this, and thus spent years tiptoeing around its house and calling it from the corner pay phone, disguising his voice with the voices of troubled boys and idiots.
It cannot be rightly captured or held in one's hands. Holding onto love to study it is like taking photographs in Nebraska. The grandeur and the broadness of it, the neverendingness, becomes instantly ordinary with a click of the shutter.
Yet we believe, bursting as children on Christmas Eve. We believe earnestly, as steadfastly as women who, eyes closed, rock in their rocking chairs and move rosary beads. We believe because we have experienced tiny glimpses of it, as sunlight refracts off of ice in glasses. We have felt it tingle along our bottom lip and blossom on our cheeks.
This, somehow, is enough. So we go on as Faulkner, sometimes on our bellies, sometimes doing cartwheels in broad daylight. In this way our lives are a celebration of the searching, the finding, the coming together. Lying on our backs in new grass, feeling the earth breathe and feeling cradled and whole.
January 15, 2008
Long before you were born, and long before your grandmother's grandmother brought our family to this place, God took the form of a bull. God took the form of a bull and crossed the island of Ayiti. Everywhere God stopped to rest, in that place took root a tree.
Around one particular tree, outside of the city of Gonaïves in northern Haiti, in a place called Badjo, people come together in the new year to celebrate.
The tree is called mapou. It is the sacred tree, and because it is a holy place, this is where the spirits congregate.
The people of this place built a temple next to the giant tree. They had built a second temple some distance away, but the floods of Hurricane Jean took down all but the foundation. The people cleared the rubble and tamped down the dirt floor, and they returned with their drums the next year and celebrated all of what remains.
You must know how to call them and make them feel welcome in this holy place. First you will start with kongo, then tomorrow as the sun sets you will wear white and play nago. You will pour out the first of every drink. You will pour it in the dirt toward each corner of Ayiti, for the spirits have come far and they will be thirsty.
We were four travelers who followed the bull's tracks to reach Badjo. We were four fair-skinned travelers, though two of us claimed not to be white, as one of our mothers is Italian and one of our fathers is Indian. We went to the place of the mapou to learn beauty and trust, to drink coffee with milk, to wipe dust and sweat from our foreheads, to feel the earth yawn and stretch its arms open wide in the presence of the spirits. To be as curious, helpless, oversized children.
You will sing, and in your singing you will invite them one by one into this space. You will light a candle and you will be blessed. You will be balanced, and you will not fall.
Mona speaks to us of unity. She is dressed in the most brilliant orange and her tightly wound hair is tied back in an orange cloth. The only small difference between us, she says, is that you are the color of the moon and we are the color of the earth.
You will invite Lemba. You will invite Gede. You will invite Wongol. You will invite them and they will come as they have come before, and they will bless us and all of those in our house. We have dug a pool to the roots of the mapou, for they may wish to bathe when they arrive.
Mona grips my shoulders and leans into my face. Here, today, there was born something vast. It will be greater than all of us, and it will bring goodness. One day all of the people on this earth will breathe free air. I am convinced that my children will see this.
This calling, drumming and dancing on the packed earth, this uniting of energies, we call Sevi Lwa. We serve the spirits with our first and best.
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