my covenant with you, as i head to haiti

A long time ago, Senator Kennedy made a covenant with the world: he promised to arduously dedicate his life to righting wrongs, replacing injustice with justice, and fighting-on for the voiceless; and this was all despite the dangers, with a lot of suffering along the way. - - Most notably, both of his brothers had been assassinated for some of their humanitarian and egalitarian positions on subjects such as war, race, and poverty. The news of the Senator's health condition is troubling for me as an American living in dreary times but also as a person who has had the privilege of meeting Senator Kennedy several times, as I am close with members of his immediate family as well as others in the "Kennedy clan." For them, I remain devastated. For our country, I am even more convinced of the necessity of the Obama Administration. Also, I will always remember how Senator Kennedy personally helped double the USAID food allotment for an orphanage in Haiti I am connected to. He went above and beyond for children in Haiti, and even sent the head of USAID -Latin America to the orphanage to meet with the director.

Reflecting on the life (personal and professional) commitments of Senator Kennedy, I am led to become more decisive about my own covenants with the world, god, and myself. What is my covenant? What will it be?

In about ten days, I will fly to Haiti to begin my job as a hospital administrator. As you are aware, the conditions of life in Haiti are inexcusable. I am going back to Haiti because I ordinarily carry with me an insurmountable burden from not being there. There are also plenty of material, spiritual, pedagogical, intellectual, and sociological "reasons" for this next phase. Haiti, although a close neighbor, retains the mystery of the unknown, and that can be scary. The instability of the country and its lack of resources cause great concern for those who love me, who know about my sporadic health problems, and who are aware that my risk-taking occasionally gets me into trouble.

While I continue to sort out my covenant with the world, I would like to make a covenant with you: I am going to do my best to take care of myself. Haiti is my new home; Haitians are my new neighbors; and a small hospital with a BIG vision is my new life, - - but none of this happens apart from your spiritual solidarity, or without the assurance that I have so many beautiful, and giving people to return to. I love you in the deep, deep, places in my heart. In quiet moments by the ocean, when I am alone with my thoughts from the day, of the world, and with tears, I will think of you, and of your love, for it brings me so much strength. When I am doing something like driving through a river in the back of a truck full of melons wondering how this instance of this is going to turn out, it is you who I will think of, and of the moments in which you each uniquely showed me that you loved me. Because of you, I am the luckiest woman alive.

I am going to have a great life in Haiti. Sometimes we essentialize the poor. We end up talking about the pain, and the struggles, the illness, and the strife with disregard for the other aspects of what it means to be human. I am going to live with people who give and love of themselves in the ways you do; and they will care for me too. Haitians are just as dynamic, committed, deep, giving, loving, suffering, cheering, dancing, laughing, crying, yearning, apathetic, bored, and questioning as any other group of persons I have ever encountered. For Americans - the accident of birth has caused us to live on a piece of land during a short period of time in which its inhabitants have more-or-less enjoyed extreme prosperity, and a powerful government. How this happened to us - - we will never know. But for me, I pray for the "best of both worlds." Please visit me. I promise to take very, very good care of you when you do.

Onward with affection and longing,
Kate

One of my favorite Rilke sonnets, translated from the German:

Be ahead of all parting, as though it already were
behind you, like the winter that has just gone by.
For among these winters there is one so endlessly winter
that only by wintering through it will your heart survive.

Be forever dead in Eurydice - - more gladly arise
into the seamless life proclaimed in your song.
Here, in the realm of decline, among momentary days,
be the crystal cup that shattered even as it rang.

Be-- and yet know the great void where all things begin,
the infinite source of your own most intense vibration,
so that, this once, you may give it your perfect assent.

To all that is used-up, and to all the muffled and dumb
creatures in the world's full reserve, the unsayable sums,
joyfully add yourself, and cancel the count.