Ministry

Today, I believe that I ministered for the first time, and not by example or deed, or any of those creative ways in which we hold tribute to living in the way of God’s kingdom, but in real conversation as a woman with a past to a woman with a past. I didn’t realize that I had ministered this afternoon, until several hours later while washing my dishes, and it just came over me. I remembered the joy I felt in my afternoon ministry; the comfort I felt in being there, and most of all, the normalcy of it to me - - it flooded my body, and I left the soapy sponge, in the crusty pasta sauce, in the bowl, in the sink, so I could sit down and think for a few minutes about the encounter.

Despite all the discussion about the topic at Divinity School, my brain is continually skeptical of forgiveness. My heart, - - a big fan of grace. But mercy, -- that’s what gives me a lump in my throat. My friend Sam who lives at Riverbend Maximum Security Institute is sort of like a grandfather figure to me, and he says that I must always remember mercy. He says God is only about mercy. “If he can remember mercy, why can’t I,” I often wonder.

Today I sat with a woman who is pursuing her PhD, and we talked about our lives, and the story of our twenties. I asked what she had done before her graduate school work. Laughing, at first she said she was a prostitute. I made a joke about her clientel. Then she paused and she said, “No, actually, in all seriousness, I was a drug dealer and I went to jail. And my boyfriend who I told you about, I met him in a halfway house.” In the shadow of Vanderbilt’s Kirkland Hall, I thought she was pulling my leg. But I quickly thought about my own life. A montage of my past came through my vision: the struggles, the goodbyes, the violence, the wilderness of my existence. I remembered that I am as much a victim and a sinner, as everybody else, and I realized that this woman was telling me the truth. She was a drug dealer before she was an academic. She was a liar before she was seeking the truth in these halls. So we talked, and talked, and talked, about our lives. There were no tears. There were no ah-ha moments. And when we were done, we got up with our lattes, and walked in the sunshine, back to our school work. And when I washed my dishes, I realized that I finally understood what ministry was about. Mercy.

sacred canopy

There's been something very clean for me to speak about how things are in Haiti or Palestine. In this place, things are this way. There, things are like this or that. In Haiti, children eat dirt cookies. In Palestine children have no plumbing.

In Bangladesh, it is bamboo being labored over and hauled around - - not sugar cane. In Bangladesh, children are not running from bulldozers, rather, they suffer a no-win battle with the rainy season. In Bangladesh I now know that poverty is not specified and particular. Extreme poverty looks almost the same everywhere. And it is heartbreaking. That sweet smell of pollution and human waste crosses political boundaries. The rickshaw, however, is special. Today, while traveling two hours away to interview micro-loan borrowers in villages, I watched hundreds of them on the streets. I likened them to sacred canopies, life-giving and vibrant with color, perhaps serving as shields.

dr. yunus says poverty belongs in a museum

It was my first week of Divinity School at Vanderbilt University, and the professor responded to my comment in a facetious manner - - "Wait, do you actually want to use this stuff?" As an academic with one foot in the ivory tower and another on the ground, I have struggled to make use of what I learn and order out of what I have experienced. Yesterday, with two months remaining in my Masters program, Dr. Muhammad Yunus sat next to me and spoke of the dangers of the university ranging from the hegemonic relationship between student and teacher to the unending elitism associated with higher education. He said, "Universities don't know much about people." Continuing, Dr. Yunus said what I have waited to hear all along, "the answers are known by those on the ground." I live in Nashville, Tennessee and attend Vanderbilt for graduate school, - just like Dr. Yunus once did.
I can only hope to find my own way to utilize what I have learned in order to empower those on the ground who have the answers but lack an access to the opportunity to change circumstances.