Hope Unnecessary

Hope is necessary, but is not a sufficient starting point . . . worship and praise are our necessary starting point, reorienting us to God. – Jonathan Ytterock

As the young man preaches his ordination sermon before a veritable bevy of ministers and elders, I am stuck on and struck by his words about hope and its place within our worship and our lives.

Hope – that thing ineffable that the writer of Hebrews calls the object of our faith.

Well, if faith is the evidence of things not seen, perhaps hope is the evidence of things seen – seen and found wanting.

And so it was that in early 2006, listening to the stories of Iraqis fled to Amman, Jordan, juxtaposed with reports from home that I wrote:

My young woman friend’s engagement party was scheduled and rescheduled three times because of security concerns, each proposed location deemed unsafe.  Finally, the party was had at home.  Unfortunately, her family live near a police station and the morning of the party, there was a car bomb at the station.  In addition to the carnage there, all the windows were blown out of their apartment.  Tired of rescheduling, they elected to fix the glass and have the party anyway.  About half the guests stayed away.  Yet, when she remembers her engagement, she smiles.  Even the violence of the day did not drive her from Baghdad.

But later, her step-brother was kidnapped and beaten.  He was ultimately returned, after a large ransom was paid.  Her father initially tried to haggle over the original ransom demand (a common practice); but the kidnappers reacted by threatening to kill his wife and daughter.  The family then fled to Amman.  Her husband continues to work in Iraq, but manages to come to Amman to visit her as often as he can.  She tells us this matter-of-factly and even with some humor, especially about the engagement party.  But there is an ever-present sadness in her eyes.

As I listen to this beautiful, bright young woman tell about her life and marriage, I am reminded that President Bush or someone in his administration recently remarked that one of the signs of improvement in Iraq is the fact that people continue to get married, that marriage is a sign of hope; therefore, things must be getting better in Iraq.
I remember and I am furious at the facile statement.  Mr. Bush is a baby boomer himself; does he really not know what that means?  Does he really forget that his own creation was born in a time dominated by fear?  Can he really not know that our generation’s existence owes as much to desperation as to hope?  Does he really not understand that hope itself is about a wish for something not now true?  That hope does not reflect an existing improved reality, but rather the lack of one?

Hope is for people who need, not people who have.

Ah for the day of dreams fulfilled . . . peace found . . . hope unnecessary . . .

A Wee Canto on a Life: Mourning the Death of Abu Hani

I only just now learned that Abu Hani died in December.  He was headed home to Baghdad.  It was a car accident.  A car accident.

Abu Hani was our landlord in Baghdad.  He survived Saddam Hussein, car bombs in his neighborhood, a mortar falling on his apartment building, thieves, and the day-to-day of dodging, weaving and dancing that was and has been life in Iraq for so long.

He and his family survived what we call the first Gulf War, hiding in a barn outside Baghdad.  They survived sanctions.  They survived escaping from Baghdad and the threat of the Jordanians to return Abu Hani to Iraq by force.  That may be my favorite Abu Hani story of all.

Along with millions of Iraqis, he finally fled his beloved Iraq to come to Amman.  His wife Um Hani was already there.  When he arrived, Jordanian officials told the passengers they would have to turn around and fly back to Iraq.

Time passed; Abu Hani argued and stalled long enough to ‘miss’ the return flight and as it got later in the day and into evening, he went to the hamam (the restroom) and changed into his pajamas, rolled out a blanket on the airport chairs and proceeded to make his place for the night.  When the officials challenged him, he calmly told them, “What do you mean I cannot do this?  I live here now.  This is my home.  From now on, I live in the airport because you won’t let me enter and go to my apartment in Amman with my wife.  So this is now my home.  I am very tired; I think I’ll get some rest.”

He rolled over and made as if to go to sleep.

Finally, the officials, mortified by the situation they had created, relented and agreed that Abu Hani could enter, but made him promise to tell none of his friends who had also come.  Of course he swore and of course he told them all.

On election day, Abu Hani took us walking around the neighborhood in Baghdad to various polling places showing everyone’s purple finger.  We sat many evenings around their table, eating, laughing, sharing stories.

He and Um Hani made us welcome.  They prayed for us and worried over us like mother hens.  They kept us safe as much from ourselves as from others.  They bade us welcome at their table in Jordan as well as in their apartment building in Baghdad.

Baghdad killed Abu Hani, finally.  He loved Baghdad.  He was Baghdadi through and through.  And so when the violence would calm, if only for a little bit, he would go back to oversee his investments as well as those of his friends and family.  And he survived.  Until the day when he did not.  And it was a car wreck.  In Jordan.  He was headed home again.  And none of the other passengers were even scratched.  And he is dead.  And it breaks my heart.  

You do not survive in Abu Hani’s world by being a fool.  And Abu Hani was no fool.  He was friend and protector, wisdom giver, proud father and husband, business man and consummate broker, witty and urbane, a Christian for whom the sands of Iraq ran in his blood.  And I mourn his passing with fond memories and a broken heart.

Oh, and I miss his laugh - the laugh of an Iraqi man - a laugh that contains the knowledge of fertile crescents and hanging gardens and wonders of the world and deserts and riches and poverty all beyond imagining – the laughter of one who knows much but tells little.

Christmas Eve in Amman

Christmas Eve, 2005, Amman, Jordan.
On Christmas Eve, I went to midnight Mass at a local Roman Catholic Church with a Roman Catholic colleague, a Jewish girl, her 'lapsed Protestant' boyfriend (from a Protestant family almost never having been to church himself) and a young Muslim friend.  The worshipers were almost all Philipino domestic workers and the service was in English.
  During communion (the Mass), I stayed with our guests while my Catholic colleague went forward to receive the host (the communion bread).  Jamil, my Muslim friend, asked why we didn't all go up and as I was trying to explain, it got less and less sensible to me.
As we sat, Jamil said, “I like this - it is very nice - it reminds me of Jesus (whom Muslims embrace as a prophet) loving and feeding the poor.”
  I turned to see the people (many of whom are among the poor) walking forward to receive the host from the priest and I saw with new eyes.  Jesus did come to feed the hungry, physically as well as spiritually.  Is communion an enactment of that reality as well as the reality of atoning sacrifice for salvation?  I want to think so.
  We, our guests and I, continued to watch quietly.  The question occurs to me:  who, starving to death, would I not feed?  It is the question I am left with as I marvel that my Muslim friend  wanted to participate and saw no reason why he should not.  Feeding those who lack:  it really is pretty simple, isn't it?

Beloved,
I wrote this reflection five years ago, as I prepared to return to Iraq in the wake of the kidnapping of four of my colleagues from CPT, the peace group I go to Iraq with.  It was a very difficult time, without much joy.  The rain and cold of that Christmas Eve night was appropriate to the mood . . . darkness was all around and the light was hard to find.
As we sat in the service, the priest prayed to God, “Let us be dazzled by Your light.”
I saw very little of God’s light in those days, but one sparkling moment was when my friend Jamil, his eyes alight with wonder, spoke of the beauty of Jesus feeding the poor.
In this Muslim man’s eyes, I saw the light of God that night.  The light from Jamil sustained me on many lonely nights, as he and his friends at the hotel we stayed in awaiting our entry visas into Iraq comforted and cared for me, prayed for my kidnapped colleagues (their friends as well), and generally brought joy out of their poverty to an American woman, who, but for them, was very much alone in her sorrow.
And so, this Christmas season, I pray for each of you . . . in your own sorrow and loss, in your own poverty, may you be aware of the surrounding joy of those you mistakenly believe have little to offer . . . may you who inhabit the churches have your eyes opened to the godliness of those whose feet have never darkened the church’s doors . . . may you standing on the outside see the beauty and wonder of the Jesus who would feed you and may you receive the courage to come inside, for you have much to offer as well as to receive . . . 
May this be the Christmas when we all sit down at God’s table as welcomed guests and receive the great meal of love that God in Christ prepared for us from before the beginning of time itself.
In God’s own dazzling light,
Beth Pyles, Pastor