Haiti's revelations

When the tectonic plates slid, and human worlds collapsed, the ripples of pain flowed out around the globe from Haiti.

It was Tuesday, Jan. 12, when Port-au-Prince shook.

The phrase that captures it springs out at me from a course title by my friend and fellow parishioner, Rev. Jody Clark: "Trauma: When Hell Breaks Loose." The course description notes, "trauma comes into view when we find ourselves, by virtue of office or station, in the presence of those events that fall outside...the realm of expected circumstance."

 "Often such events cause us to bring into question some of our own sense of well being, purpose and identity."

 That description captures Haiti's impact.

 I responded much like others, helping organize a small donation at the office and worrying slightly as friends of mine left for the disaster to chronicle its impact.

 It was six days after Epiphany when the city's humblest homes and greatest cathedrals came tumbling down, severing what might have been an ordinary day in life with the extraordinarily horrific, as young and old, saints and ciminals, died without discrimination.

I write this as we enter into the fourth week of Epiphany, and Haiti is still in the awareness of our wealthy society, though a friend asked, "how long before we lose interest?"

Epiphany in our tradition means "to show" or "to reveal."

In Western churches, it evokes the coming of the wise men bringing gifts to visit the Christ child, who by so doing "reveal" Jesus to the world. It strikes me that this Epiphany we are revealing a disturbing of the soul that Clarke describes _ the moment when "events cause us to bring into question" our definition of normal.

True baptism rumbles our insides, beginning the turnabout that Paul had along a dusty road to Damascus. 

Maybe, or maybe not.

 If you turn to another, newer feature of this website's Chronicles, titled People Among Us, you find the wise thoughts of Barry Banks, a spiritual advisor to those who suffer from psychiatric illness and who have committed a crime.

Consider his description of inner transformation.

 "I believe inner transformation happens as I draw whatever is jarring to the soul close to me. And the closer that event is to me as a lived reality the more open I am to inner transformation. When I am personally troubled the event that brings this on cannot be distracted by the Simpsons television program or whatever may be calling out to me. All these things are set aside in order for me to give my fullest attention to that which jars my sensibilities. Why? Because I am in the process of inner transformation."

 He also talked about how Christ transforms people, cracking open their hearts. (Please read the ful interview for his full biblical references and context.)

 "We are transformed as we embrace the fullness of life that Christ imagined for us. This is about feeling the fullness of what it means to be friend, what it means to love, feeling the fullness of what it means to laugh, to party, feeling the fullness of what it means to worship, love God and on I could go to name whatever we might name. This is also about feeling the fullness of our suffering, our pain, feeling the fullness of our grief, feeling the fullness of lost relationships, our sadness and feeling the fullness of our anger to name a few," Barry wrote to me.

 "Jesus invites us to feel the fullness of life, whatever and however that might be for us as individuals and in so doing be transformed."

 It was a fortuity and blessing to read Barry's thoughts, which I'd asked for somewhat by chance and the circumstance of a moment in church.

 In truth, most often when pain and trauma is around me, I choose not to walk into it or embrace it.

 Around the corner, a little boy I knew of grew up and died very young. I am aware, but I say nothing.

 Down the street, a girl's home was auctioned off when tax bills couldn't be paid and she's moved to public housing. What a sin, I say to the neighbours.

 At choir, a man comes in the side door, and asks for money. I've none in my pocket, but others seem to find a $20 bill.

 And then there are days when I do live fully, and when others bless me with this fullness of Christ.

 I think back to the days after Cathy's mother died unexpectedly from meningitis.

 I stood at the front of the Church while my wife was in Ottawa with her family, and I remember that Sunday with crystal clarity. I remember people were singing Let Us Join Hands, and that I suddenly felt Darlene Drisdelle by my side, holding my hand, entering my little trauma. What a source of relief, to feel an upwelling of emotion suddenly released by a human friend.

 On the weekend past, I attended the memorial service for my brother's mother-in-law, at the First Unitarian Church in Ottawa, where people spoke before the soaring windows that overlooked the white slope leading down to the Ottawa River.

 The woman memorialized, Norma Hatcher, possessed the fullness of life. When she was with you, she gave birth to God in your soul.

 Those at the service responded to her memories in the writings they contributed and the thoughts of her from around the continent.

 My mother, Joan, provided readings of how two grandmothers "shared many joys and some sorrows."

 The births of grandsons, the family celebrations, the illnesses and the death of friends, flowed together to create life's fullness. Amidst it, grief and pleasure are entered into and family holidays are marked in some way, often with the grandmothers in the forefront.

 During the ceremony my mother cited lines from a poem by Max A. Coots:

 When lives are born or people die
 when something sacred is sensed in soil or sky

 Mark the time

 Respond with thought or prayer or smile or grief

 Let nothing living slip between the fingers of the mind,

 For all of these are holy things we will not, cannot find again.

 As I heard the stories, heard my mother's wisdom, I thought again of what Barry Banks was communicating to me. Each day, there are small traumas _ and sometimes large ones like Haiti. The secret to Christianity's happy life is to never be immune, and therefore to let God's infinite love infect you and guide your response