What Will Save us Now?
24 May-7 June 2021: What Will Save Us Now?
(Beyond vaccinations and governmental aid, a deeper healing is still needed, a truly global transformation, toward solidarity and interdependence. The children of the world are watching.)
The woman walked toward me carrying the girl, two years old, and stood much closer than my comfort would have allowed. Having heard of this girl’s suffering, I very much wanted to meet her and offer help, but I had not expected this: a deformity so shocking it was all I could do not to turn away. The child’s eye was bloodshot, and bulging— but beyond bulging even, it seemed as if it might literally pop out of her head, pushed right into the face of whomever she looked upon. I’d walked with the people of this Dominican community for more than a decade at that point, but I still had moments like this one— of feeling cut to the quick, overwhelmed, both sensorily and in my heart, by the suffering of the people. My aspirations to help this girl now seemed laughable at best. (I am not a trained medical professional, and I get queasy real quick about most anything involving blood and guts.) I turned in on myself and, rather pathetically, felt almost as sorry for my own helplessness as I did for the girl.
Somehow, a breeze of grace stirred, reminding me to simply ask a question. An open-ended, simple question: How can I help?
Asking the question did not end up solving the problem, at least not right away. But it was the critical first step, taking me deep inside the girl’s pain, into her humanity, where she was a person, not a problem. A person whom I was invited to accompany— not fix— with compassion and hope, taking as my model the person who carried her, an aunt who had brought the girl from across the border in Haiti, more than one hundred miles away.
This question is one of those that started me on my journey in the Dominican Republic, one I’ve tried to teach every student I’ve worked with to ask. And it’s the question we need to hold onto as we continue this arduous pilgrimage, as a global human family, on which this pandemic has sent us. We may think that we’re “so done” with it, but we still have a long way to go. And the way starts with re-defining “we.”
***
There is of course another urgent question we have been asking around the world since the pandemic erupted: What will save us?
And of course, the majority of our planet’s people are still not only asking that question, they are shouting it from their knees, either being ravaged by the coronavirus (India, Brazil, and several other South American countries), or still waiting for its true fierceness to strike (many countries in Africa). Our brothers and sisters in the poorer nations of the world are still dying by the minute, or enduring severe illness on top of already wrenching poverty; we’re lacking vaccines and the public health systems to administer them, we’re lacking oxygen, ventilators, and medical professionals to treat those who fall ill, and we’re even at a loss to find places to bury or cremate so many dead human beings. This pandemic is most assuredly not “done.” Any thoughts to the contrary are simply naïve, short-sighted, self-absorbed, or flat-out delusional.
Let’s be clear: though the situation may be greatly improved generally in the U.S., it is still critical for many— especially for the most historically marginalized— and absolutely urgent from a global perspective. As of this writing, 75% of Covid-19 vaccinations worldwide have been administered in just ten countries, and the economic, educational, and social “recovery” is on a similar trajectory. Rich and destitute nations are being pried even further apart, erasing decades of progress in creating more global equality. The aplomb with which the typical Westerner views the extreme parsimony of the world’s wealthiest nations towards the poorest— hoarding vaccines and dollars by the billions—is nauseating. Frankly, it shakes my faith in humanity; when this pandemic began, I thought, surely this will change us. These 18 months have shown us, viscerally, that our every breath connects us all. So why are we not paying attention, and letting what we notice shape our beliefs, policies, and definition of “we”? What will save us?
The powers and principalities of the world moved heaven and earth to save “their own people” when the pandemic hit, turbo-charging vaccination development and distribution, putting cash in citizens’ pockets, bailing out businesses. That is admirable, to a point— to the point that the definition of “our own people” become geographically, religiously, or culturally exclusive. This particular crisis, because it was affecting enough privileged people in enough privileged pockets of the world, was deemed urgent enough to demand full global attention and resources. Why, for heaven’s sake, can we not muster the collective will globally to decide that the crises which affect only marginalized people— say, malnutrition— are equally urgent, equally deserving of full attention and resources? Because we make the mistake of thinking it “only” affects others.
If we act urgently, we have a chance to prevent millions of needless, senseless deaths— a chance to save lives, and save our collective soul. If we don’t, more of our brothers and sisters will continue to die, and we’ll be proving everyday that they’ve died in vain, since we stubbornly refuse to change.
We need massive investments in global public health, global education, and the welfare of the neediest in all respects. We need them made quickly, to make up for lost time, and we need them made lavishly, like the woman who anoints Jesus’ feet with precious oil. If we juxtapose the fervor and determination with which the US government set and then achieved its vaccination goals for “its own people” with its stance toward the pathetically low and slow COVAX goal of administering 2 billion doses by the end of 2021, we should weep. When it comes to “us,” let’s be idealistic, let’s smash all barriers and let money be no object. When it comes to “them,” well, let’s be reasonable, cautious, prudent, and realistic, because after all, something is better than nothing, right?
This kind of stark inequality of mercy and justice illustrates that, for all this time and all this pain, for all we’ve learned about the coronavirus, we seem not to have learned much at all about humanity.
If we need the science to lead us, to give us permission to act more like human beings, so be it. This virus has been telling us, teaching us at great cost day after day, that we are interdependent, not independent, that we are one holistic Body, not many separate nations.
We need to ignore the conventional wisdom of prudence and caution, and practice an almost reckless, “irresponsible” compassion for the suffering, placing faith in the Divine that the loaves will be multiplied and satisfy and leave twelve baskets full still to enjoy. And as in the Parable of the Sower, not every single seed will germinate, or last, but those that do will provide fruit abundantly, more than making up for those that do not.
In fact, the data tell us this is true: investments made in public health now will reap eye-popping returns, just as is the case in early education. And our heart does too. Just listen, it will tell you.
***
Our heart tells us something else as well. I heard it again recently— where else?—in the writings of dear Dorothy.
“[The] social order [is] accepted by the great mass of our Catholics. Even when they admit it is bad, they say, ‘What can we do?’ And the result is palliatives, taking care of the wrecks of the social order, rather than changing it so that there would not be quite so many broken homes, orphaned children, delinquents, industrial accidents, so much destitution in general.
“Palliatives, when what we need is a revolution. Each one of us can help start it. It is no use saying we are bored with the word. Let us not be escapists, but admit that it is upon us. We are going to have it imposed upon us, or we are going to make our own.” (Dorothy Day, By Little and By Little, p. 217)
One of the most wonderful things I experience when leading service-learning immersion programs in the Dominican Republic is the tangible sense that, person by person, and then collectively, the group has started to feel they want to make this kind of a revolution “our own.” To arrive at that moment, they’ve had to walk a few steps with the people they’ve encountered, on the path of pain, to a deep and despairing place.
There comes a point with every group I’ve led when they (or frankly, we) hit bottom. Usually it’s during the second half of the experience, once the participants, whether students or adults or both, have truly settled in and “landed,” created enough distance from the reality they left at home, and enough connection to the one they find themselves within, to be truly present. The chatter of the first few days, batting around gossip and shop talk particular to their school or job, eventually fades, replaced by a deeper-toned conversation about the very humble Dominican campesinos who have invited them into their lives for this short time.
And then it happens. The bottom. We find it, or it finds us, usually through an encounter with someone enduring extraordinary suffering. Suffering rooted in injustice and oppression, that cannot be rationalized in any way, including the hollow notion that “it’s all part of God’s plan.” What kind of God, I shudder to think, would actually plan for any of Her children to endure the torments of hell— like an aggressive retinoblastoma cancer turning the eye of a sweet little girl into a grotesque horror and popping it straight out of her head?
As it happens, that’s what afflicted that child I met, that’s what pushed her aunt to carry her those long, hot miles from Haiti, sometimes in a vehicle and sometimes on foot, to a Dominican community to which some of her family had already immigrated, where she felt she might find a shred of hope to grasp.
I remember feeling, in my own body, that very same feeling of the bottom, the same feeling I’d had when first walking through this community more than twenty years ago and seeing child after child who was hungry, naked, and sick, witnessing scores of adults seemingly shackled not only to poverty but, deeper down, to despair. That vast emptiness, that expansive numbness, a pain in the gut as if my very heart had dropped down into my stomach and was being slowly churned into a pulp and every last bit eaten away.
When I feel this happening in the group, when I see it in the participants’ slumped and sluggish bodies, I secretly rub my hands together and feel a jolt of joy. The channels are now open, I think, and I wait for what will happen next. Because it always does.
How can we help? What can we do? What do you need?
Some version of the question comes forth, from the heart. Asked with humility, openness, even vulnerability— a willingness to truly listen, with an open heart, and allow the heart to lead the mind and body in responding.
Sometimes the path to this question is a bit rocky, and false versions of it emerge all the time, questions that are in fact just academic ponderings or ego-trips disguised as noblesse oblige: “What if we got Bill Gates to visit here, or the Mariners?” “Why don’t we set up a bunch of Little Free Libraries?” “My uncle owns a construction company, how about we build everyone a new home! And pave all the dirt roads!” On and on, for hours or sometimes days, all no doubt proposed with sincerity, with some part of the heart, but none grounded in the deep listening necessary to make the whole heart, and thus God’s full creative Spirit, available to work its mysterious, miraculous ways.
Because the questions that come from the whole heart are more beautiful, brave, and creative, and they come as a gift— to the asker as well as the asked. Sometimes I’ve passed on that gift, by suggesting that participants ask this question, but sometimes they’ve received it another way, from another teacher, their own reflections, or the Holy Mystery herself.
This question has been answered in different ways over the years, depending both on the context and of whom it is asked. But when it’s asked of those I consider the wisest, those who are most steeped in the problem— people like Felicia and William, who have lived it or are still living it, who know the history as well as the broader context of it— their answers often boil down to this: Oración, sudor, y fondos. Prayer, sweat, and funds. That’s what we need.
Prayer: Because nothing worth doing will happen without relinquishing some degree of control, to a Higher Power and to others’ gifts, efforts, and imaginations. And nothing done without love will truly last (and neither will you).
Sweat: Because nothing worth doing will come easily, without some failures. And nothing done without any sacrifice (offered lovingly, not compulsorily) will last.
Funds: Because we live in the world as God gave it but humans made it, and we can’t expect everything (or anything) to be given for free, whether that’s concrete or college credits, and those that have must give funds to and for those who have not, the more lavishly the better, from a sense of mutual need, not paternalism or self-interest.
Nothing done on the cheap, whether in dollars, sweat, or love, will truly change anything, or really last.
This is a hard word to hear. What we want to instead is something specific, simple, and self-contained, a snap-in-place quick fix that can be accomplished, put on a shelf, and admired. Something tangible, measurable, achievement-oriented, for which we can produce compelling data and poignant photos about metrics, outcomes, and the almighty “impact” (perhaps the most over-used, and frankly bizarre, word in the nonprofit sector, unwittingly revealing a cultural bias toward the enduring myth of redemptive violence. But I’ll stand on that soapbox some other time.)
But this word is meant to be liberating. The invitation, and the hope, in offering it in this broad way is to leave plenty of room for individual creativity (as long as you’re still listening humbly, not on an ego-quest), collaboration with others, and the Holy Mystery. The invitation, and the hope, in envisioning it holistically is to communicate that we’re asking you to be fully engaged, fully present… and that that is all you need to do. You already have all you need, within you, since we all can pray and sweat and give resources in some way, on some level. No special preparation, degree, or training is required. Just start walking, join the pilgrimage, settle in for the journey.
It’s not always possible to pinpoint the exact moment when this shift happens in an individual or in the group, but like a runner’s second wind, it’s easy to spot once it has kicked in. There is a certain buoyancy of spirit, a lightness of laughter, even a courage to cry. And, on a language level, and a heart level, there is a shift from “they” and “them” to specific names of the Dominicans with whom these volunteers have been sharing these two weeks of life. There is a shift to a genuine relationship, as unusual as it may be, on a truly human level. As dear Dorothy wrote, “We truly serve the poor when we can call them by name.”
***
During my first year in the Dominican Republic, my mentor, Paul Burson, pulled me aside to work on some planning for a retreat with the group of students from Creighton University we were teaching that semester. A few weeks into the term, though some students were demonstrating a keen awareness of the depth of Dominicans’ and Haitians’ suffering, a majority were still clinging to the simplistic “these people are so happy and joyful even though they have nothing” stage, and it was time for a wake-up call. Some, we knew, would need not just to be called, but to be pushed.
It was time for a ghost story.
That’s what the story sounded like to me, even though Paul claimed it came from Luke’s 16th chapter. The parable of Lazarus at the gate of the rich man: If you haven’t read it, or read it recently, you need to. As usual, Jesus, the master storyteller and teacher, demonstrates his particular genius for hitting us right between the eyes, in the solar plexus, and through the gut, all at once— and miraculously, with love.
It’s a story in part about blindness to human suffering. The rich man ignores the destitute, sore-covered Lazarus, sitting day after day just outside his gate, because he does not see him— perhaps not literally with his eyes, but certainly with his heart. For that blindness, which we’re led to believe is at least somewhat intentional, the wealthy man condemns himself to an eternal, fiery prison, with no chance of parole. Frankly, it scared the hell out of me when I heard Paul read it—it felt like I’d never heard it before, even though it’s right there in the Scriptures— and its power continues to reverberate.
We need to read this story right now, today, especially at the highest levels of power. We need to listen to it, with our heart, be moved by it, woken up by it. We need to remove the scales from our eyes, kneel down to embrace Lazarus and ask forgiveness. And then ask, “How can I help?”
***
One hope I have, for myself as much as anyone else, is that this question will lead us to others: Who and what am I blind to now? How can I see (or first, desire to see) more clearly? Where does the God who loves the most vulnerable and poorest among us with special tenderness want this seeing to lead us, all of us as a human family?
The pilgrim’s path, the walk of faith that does justice and helps create deep and lasting transformation, asks us to stay with these and other beautiful, open-ended, courageous questions.
***
I try to pass on dear Dorothy’s wisdom to anyone I have the opportunity to teach: That we truly serve the poor when we can call them by name.
But I will not pass on the name of the little girl who looked at me with her cancerous eye. Nor what happened to her. She is on the island of Quisqueya (Hispaniola) and you can go there, ask around, and find her yourself, letting the questions lead you.
But before you do, I’ll be arrogant enough to say you should first look around you, spot Lazarus where you’ve been blind to him, and really try to see, from the heart. I need to do this, in a renewed way, myself too.
Take a good look, and really see Lazarus. Kneel down, shoo away the dogs licking his sores, clear away the scraps tossed all around him from the rich man’s table and give him some real food instead.
Look outside your own gate. And look around in the world, especially in those places the U.S. media doesn’t deem quite as worthy of column inches and air time, the poorest places around the world where the next bigger, even deadlier, wave of the pandemic has begun to hit. Look, and keep looking, and encourage (en-hearten) everyone you know to do the same.
Listen to Lazarus’s story, deeply, with your whole human heart. It is the story of this girl, and of so many more of our brothers and sisters in this short, precious life we live and breathe together. What you see, hear, smell, and feel will change your life.