Math ≠ ‘Miracles’”

The Pilgrim’s Practice: a journal

8 October 2020; “Math ≠ ‘Miracles’ ”

         This past Saturday, an intense fog visited us in the Seattle area, and like a less-than-favorite extended family member lacking sufficient social acuity to keep their visit interesting and appropriately short (we all have one of those), it lingered, and endured, and persisted, an all-embracing gray that never gave the early October daylight much of a chance. For me, it both mirrored and deepened the gloom I’d been feeling since mid-day Friday, a sometimes nauseous, sometimes fiery sadness, trying to hold the news pouring and pinging in, often unbidden, from both the US media and the family of my friend Papito in the D.R. The pain reminded me of when I’d strained a rib muscle recently: simple movements, normally unconscious, jabbed me sharply, sometimes making it hard to breathe.

         I’ll confess to emitting a full-throated whoop upon first hearing of Ddt’s positive coronavirus result, first thing Friday morning. (Not my best moment.) And not simply because of a craving to see him receive some type of Old Testament comeuppance. I thought, so foolishly, that this might turn the tide, that the flaunter-in-chief might come into some humility, might finally take this virus, and the deadly-serious advice of experts, seriously, and encourage his devotees to do the same. There’s nothing like experience to teach us, right? Well, apparently— we see now, after the made for TV moments of parading in a locked car on Sunday, and ripping off the mask on the White House steps Monday night, in both cases putting all those around him at great risk, since he’ll still be contagious for at least another week— apparently not.

         Don’t be afraid of Covid, read the tweet we wish we hadn’t heard about. Don’t let it dominate your life.

         Yes, utter foolishness to hope, for even a second, that this would change a thing. That the downplayer-in-chief would do anything except act the only part he knows well, from one of the few business ventures that’s ever turned him a profit, doing everything possible to “fire” the coronavirus, to show it and all of us that he’s in charge, he’s been fine all along, really, and that his show, with all its malicious deception stripping people of their jobs and homes and sanity and very lives, will go on.

         Every update and detail of the long weekend saga jabbed at me, as I simultaneously held Papito in a kind of extended prayer vigil, and— again foolishly, I admit— compared their situations. Both were being confronted with an illness (or in Papito’s case, illnesses; we don’t yet know) that reveals decades of taking inadequate care of oneself; however, rather than squandering his life for greed and vanities, much of Papito’s woundedness stems from his unwavering commitment to his community’s betterment, and the abuses he’s taken from a lifetime of living in what DdT has called a “shithole country,” absorbing the blows of poverty and racism day after day for 61 years. And both prefer to be very guarded about their vulnerabilities, projecting an image of strength and confidence they think appropriate for a leader. But Papito has only his own willpower with which to guard himself, rather than the full military and economic muscle of a global superpower.

         One more foolishness: I never should have watched the blasphemer-in-chief’s little soliloquy from Walter Reed; after the Bible-hoisting stunt in front of St. John’s Episcopal Church in D.C., I ought to have known better. When he did speak a line here and there about anyone beside himself, it was just more politically-calculated nonsense. Miracles, he said, straight down from God, that’s what he was experiencing because of all the amazing people at Walter Reed.

         Let’s be clear: Math does not equal “miracles.” When you get tested daily for coronavirus; when you get helicoptered door-to-door from your home to a world-class medical facility at the first inkling of symptoms; when you have a squad of doctors, backed by a battalion of nurses and other medical staff, tending just to you; when you have immediate and cost-is-no-issue access to cutting edge treatments (thanks to us taxpayers; you’re welcome, by the way), and doctors standing by to obsessively monitor their efficacy, and create contingencies should they not work out, which will also be enacted immediately, and without regard to cost (how do you feel about socialized health care now, dude?); when you have all this, and much more, it’s no miracle that you start stabilizing and recovering quickly. It’s just math. You just sum up all this power and privilege, and you’re pretty likely to beat the virus, brother. That’s no kind of miracle at all.

         But for all this, most of my emotional energy was with Papito, following his story as it came to me in a series of phone calls, texts, and audio messages. I felt like I was working with one of the long, heavy extension cords I use when cutting the grass or clipping the hedge: invariably, every time I need to stretch it out to its full length, it knots itself up, and I need to then disconnect the machine, reel the whole damn cord back in, and reverse-thread it through those knots to clear them out, over and over again. I went back and forth with one of Papito’s daughters, about to graduate medical school, and with a good friend of mine, a veteran physician on the EAB board who’s been receiving all the forwarded scans, tests, and analyses that I have, and in our conversations we did just that: reeled the whole damn cord back in, over and over, trying to untangle the knots, trying to stretch it back out into a coherent story.

         Because when a story makes sense, even if it disturbs us, we can at least grapple with it, and stand a chance of embracing it, even accepting it. When it keeps on slipping away, by contradicting itself or changing its inner logic or just plain eluding us, we feel that gap of understanding, as well as the drive to close it. When that gap is part of a good spy novel, it’s damn enjoyable. When it’s about the teetering health of a loved one, our drive to leap it is frenzied, crazy-making even, and the wait is pure anguish.

         The pieces, the knots, we’ve been trying to work through— or some of them— are these: For just how long has Papito seemed “off,” physically and mentally? When did the weight loss start? And how about the trembling hands? How often, and to what effect, did he seek treatment for his respiratory problems, over the past year, because of his emphysema? What, exactly, has caused this utterly dramatic decline in the past 3 weeks, during which he’s lost even more weight, to the point of looking gaunt? Since he’s not positive for HIV, COVID, or any other virus, could he have cancer?  And would that be cancer of the lungs— he was a chronic smoker for decades, after all? Or the brain— maybe that’s causing the unpredictable disorientation, memory loss, and slurred speech? Or somewhere else entirely?

         The Friday before last, one of Papito’s sons called me to explain how dire his father’s situation had become. His breathing was remarkably labored, and inconsistent, and he needed to be hospitalized. But, those of us who love the D.R. know, hospitals there come with many dangers, gutted by governmental corruption that siphons off funding, and by private theft than drains out equipment (to say nothing of professional medical talent). Rooms can be open-air, next to a major thoroughfare on which trucks spew diesel exhaust and motorcycles roar loudly, and you may need to bring your own mosquito net, just in case the one they’ve put up is full of holes, or actually isn’t there at all; you may get all sorts of great tests ordered up, but then a bunch of shoulder shrugs about where in the country you might find a hospital that has the capacity to administer them; and don’t even think about showing up unless you have cash in hand, since you’ll need to fork over a deposit if it looks like you’ll need significant care.

         The doctor was recommending Papito be hospitalized, so the children scraped together as much cash as they could for the deposit (I don’t even want to know at what interest rate, if they had to resort to a loan shark), and I assured them that my organization would cover the costs, even though it was not in our budget, especially the pandemic-adjusted budget. I hustled that weekend to get funding in place, to release Papito once he was stabilized, since hospitals there are still quaintly fond of the old debtor’s prison concept, and won’t release you until your bill is paid (though they will give you the option, kind souls, to choose between fending for yourself as you wait to pay, or continuing to be treated and fattening your bill).

         The next day, Papito’s situation worsened, and he entered the ICU. There he began to respond to medicines, breathe more normally, and become more coherent, and within three days was ready to go home. His sons went to pay the bill with funds EAB sent, and brought him home.

         Home, for Papito: his casita, his wife and children, his neighbors, the food and music and rhythm of life he loves, and all around him, the fruits of his work over decades as a community leader, unofficial missioner, and in my book at least, a living saint, radically improving the health and education of this former indentured servants’ work camp, which government and church have tried over and over again to throw under the bus. And home for Papito, we need to be honest, is also this: a cramped, hot, dusty, noisy place where privacy is a fantasy, systemic violence both clubs you over the head and trickles down, where people are very busy surviving and have precious little time and energy to think about how to care for their own long-term health.

         He was sent home not because he was well, only because he was no longer on death’s doorstep. He still needed a battery of psychological tests, which had to be postponed to focus upon getting him breathing again, so in the meantime the attending doctor prescribed a psychopharmacological cocktail to try to do something for him in this regard, rather than nothing. Or that’s at least what Papito’s daughter, and my doctor friend, both thought when they saw the prescription, since it frankly didn’t make any sense otherwise. (Thankfully, Papito did not get it filled.) Once again, things knotted, and we set to work trying to untangle them.

         My gut too was knotted. It seemed that Papito had survived, at least for now. But for how long would he last? I wondered when I might be able to see him again, and if I’d need to risk breaking pandemic quarantine protocol to do so. Which of course would put many vulnerable people in Papito’s community—most of all, him— in potentially grave danger. It was an impossible, churning conundrum.

         At the end of part I of The Long Loneliness, Dorothy Day describes a formative experience inside a Chicago jail cell during her fiery Leninist years, having been arrested as a protestor. In the jail simultaneously were many women, some chronically homeless, all carrying deep, decades-long wounds of poverty, abuse, addiction, and other tragedies. Hearing their voices so closely, immersed in the smell of their suffering, she felt “I was sharing, as I never had before, the life of the poorest of the poor.”

         And yet, a few lines later, she reveals that she also keenly felt a gap, one wider than she’d felt comfortable acknowledging. “I could get away, but what of the others? I could get away, because of my background, my education, my privilege. I suffered but was not part of it.”

         That keen sense of the gap is part of what has eaten away at my heart these past few weeks. My entire being revolted when considering the gap between Papito and the prevaricator-in-chief DdT, obscene as it was that one leader should get the world’s attention and resources, and another— far more deserving, to me— should get crumbs, and stale crumbs at that. But deeper down, in a quieter place, I grappled with another gap as well, between Papito and myself.

         I feel as close to Papito as I do to anyone I’ve shared life with in the D.R. In fact, it may be that I’m closer to him than with anyone else in my life outside my family. Still, this gap is present, and undeniable. I’ve been all over the D.R. and Haiti with Papito, built EAB from the ground-up with him, eaten countless meals with him, spent dozens of nights in his home, called him innumerable times on a personal basis for advice, perspective, or just to get out of my own little head… yet these past weeks, as he became seemingly someone else mentally, and his plunging physical health highlighted his place near the bottom of the world’s social hierarchy, I’ve never felt more distant, even while remaining in close contact. I was suffering, but I was not part of it. I have wanted to pull him across this gap, and embrace him fully, but that miracle, desperately needed, is painfully slow in arriving, if it is to come at all.

The World Where it Happened… were you there?

29 September 2020; “The World Where it Happened… were you there?”

         As you may already know, the New York Times detonated a journalistic bombshell yesterday, an exposé on the tax cheating of evader-in-chief DdT, giving us, finally, clarity on the decades of financial legerdemain he’s been engaged in, from the details (he paid just $750 in taxes the year he was elected president, and the same amount his first year in office) to the insidious big picture (he’s manipulated the tax code, and now the US presidency, to enrich himself and his family, at the expense not only of public infrastructure, but of justice itself). And I thank God they have done it, having poured in over four years of effort, cultivating trust in their sources (who themselves took great risks to procure the documents) as well as faith in free speech and democracy themselves. To believe that this exposé is important and will make a difference, in the face of the “alternative facts” wildfire DdT has helped ignite and fan his entire term, is the kind of radical faith our world needs right now. It’s essential reading.

         But what about the other bombshell, also essential reading, below the fold yesterday (at least in the national edition)— who of us saw that? About how pandemic-triggered school closures across the Global South (with specific focus upon India in this piece) are turning children into garbage collectors, trinket salespeople, prostitutes, and beggars, now and very likely— given the intimidating historical odds of ever returning to school after leaving it because of poverty— for the rest of their days?

         And what about the bombshell today, also below the fold, second-fiddle apparently to the second installment of the tax exposé? (The editors aren’t dummies; they know what will sell more papers. In fact there’s only a picture beneath the fold; the piece itself appears on page A8.) One million deaths in our global family because of the pandemic. One fifth of them in the U.S.—far more than would have been the case under competent presidential leadership— but a large percentage of them in the Global South, and getting precious little attention in Western media, precious little compassion in Western hearts.

         One million. We stammer when we try to swallow it. Yet we should also shake our head. Staggering as it is, it’s a lie, only part of the story. In our heart of hearts, we know better. It skips over the undercounts, happening sometimes innocently but all too often deliberately, all over the world: those who have died before they could be conclusively tested, and those whose deaths (and before that, their infections) were simply not reported, because of intentionally weak reporting mechanisms, or intentionally crass political agendas to keep things looking rosier than they actually are. And it looks past the indirect deaths, of the kind Nicholas Kristof and others have put before us with admirable persistence and courage: deaths from malnutrition, preventable illness, or violence (including suicide) brought about because of the massive economic downturn, the overburdened public health systems, and the killing stress this pandemic has brought upon us.

         One million human beings. One million Children of God.

         What if we committed to looking at it, thinking about it, breathing and praying with it, like this— that one million of our brothers and sisters, all God’s children, have died, and many needlessly? How might that change us?

         What if we just tried that, for a week, a day, or even an hour? Every time we see or hear a story about a human being, taking a moment in our own mind to say, “a Child of God.” A Child of God lost his father, who was shot by police yesterday… fourteen thousand children in the Seattle school district still cannot access virtual learning… all of the children of God in the Dominican Republic’s public school system are waiting for the opening of classes, now scheduled for November 2, and very likely they’ll lose more time than that, maybe the entire school year when all is said and done.

         How present are we to suffering— that of others, and even our own— on this level? It is indeed difficult it is to take the time, and create the mental and spiritual space within us, to take it in like this, but how essential. Even if we cannot do so in every moment, we must try to sometimes, if we stand a chance at understanding, and feeling, with any degree of honesty.

         I cannot imagine the Atlas-like challenge that it must be for school leaders worldwide to find ways to serve their students well right now. It’s a tangled, thorny mess to walk through, on the pencil-then ledge of a sheer cliff. When schools are open, kids can learn and play and socialize, and for many, it’s their best chance to eat and see a nurse and frankly, stay safe; parents can work, or look for work, and not have to live the lie of choosing between job and child. And yet, the logic of flattening the curve is simple: the longer we remain faithfully in lockdown mode— no work, no school, no nothing, just avoiding contact entirely— the more quickly we’ll get infection levels low enough to open back up again.

          I cannot judge with what level of good faith every leader has struggled with this. Certainly, some have mightily, and have developed wonderful solutions— look across the Pacific, to Australia and New Zealand, to name just a couple. And certainly, some, with cheerleader-in-chief DdT leading the pack, have seemingly not struggled at all, only swatted at it like an annoying fly who’s dared to board their yacht. Just get them open, just do it, it doesn’t matter how.

         Yes, we need schools open. But wait, it does matter how. I can’t speak to the logistical side, only to the spirit, and for that what comes into my heart is that hymn we’d sing every Good Friday as a child, without fail. Were you there, when they crucified my Lord?

         How aware, how present, are we to these children as Children of God? How present are we to what the Jesuit Jon Sobrino has written so eloquently about, the need to take the crucified peoples of the world down from the Cross? And that, of course, means we must first recognize the Child of God on that Cross, and get close enough to hear her cry, to pull out the nails in his hands and feet, to hold her in our arms and embrace her with love that she might yet live.

         This takes work, more heart and soul work than we may feel capable of many days. But it is our calling, and invites us— demands us, especially at a time like this— to take a breath, to take a step toward the Cross, come a little bit closer, and with faith and with the company of others, come closer still.

The Long Loneliness of Compadre Papito, el amigo de siempre

21 September 2020

The Long Loneliness of Compadre Papito, el amigo de siempre

Papito, my dear friend and compadre of many years, has fallen ill. This fall has been both dramatic and confusing: in the past two weeks he’s gone from more or less his normal routine (as much as this is possible, during a pandemic, in a community as dense and boisterous as Batey Libertad,), to being unable to walk without serious distress, or talk without slurring, and or even conduct a short conversation coherently. It’s not entirely clear yet what’s going on— not to the doctors who’ve seen him in Esperanza, not to my doctor friends in the US to whom I’ve forwarded the various scans, reports, and prescriptions he invariably photographs and sends me via whatsapp, not even to his family members, who include one daughter who is a doctor and another who is studying to be a nurse, and least of all to me, with no medical training whatsoever, only more experiences than I wish to remember accompanying loved ones through serious illness.

         Many hypotheses have emerged, and several still float around like buoys in the water: stroke, Parkinson’s, early dementia, hypothyroidism, and various pulmonary complications. He’s lived a hard, hard life, and has struggled to take care of himself, despite his unwavering commitment to take care of others. And that’s never been more apparent than now, both in how his system has seemingly collapsed all at once, like a dam’s sudden surrender to a river, and in his refusal, at first, to allow any family members to help manage his situation, make plans with the doctors, or even question what meds he was taking. He is only 61, but the life he’s lived, in the place he’s lived it, would have killed a lesser man years ago. And too often, it has.

         The first signs of a change in Papito, to me, started to emerge back in the winter, though in fact, and not surprisingly, it seems that his family had begun to notice them before then. In our regular phone calls, which occur sometimes weekly, sometimes daily, depending on the state of the community, he would occasionally drift into unrelated topics, or get quickly upset, or hang up without truly signing off. (In a culture that highly values greetings and good-byes, this last is unusual for someone so gifted in interpersonal relations). But these I attributed to the stress I knew he was bearing, accompanying his wife through her myriad tests and treatments for hypothyroidism and a cancerous tumor (benign, but still needing excision). I knew he felt, at least for a time, that his wife might not survive (and unfortunately I also know what’s that’s like), so I chalked it all up to this, and gave him a pass.

         But a phone call in early March jolted me out of that complacency. Paul Burson, my mentor and friend for even longer than Papito— the man who first brought me to the Dominican Republic, and introduced me to Papito— had just returned from leading a group of Regis University students on pilgrimage in the D.R.; they returned to the U.S. just before the WHO declared a pandemic, and both countries went into lock-down. Pablo called and said he had to tell me about Papito, and I could hear it in his voice: shock not only about the weight loss, but the trembling hands, and the trouble focusing. He suspected Parkinson’s.

         Hearing that, I felt the wind knocked out of my gut. How could this happen— again? For several years, another dear friend in the D.R. — truly one of the most brilliant people I know, a teacher, journalist, and community leader whose example, mentoring, and friendship have helped shape who I am today— was diagnosed with Parkinson’s, and since then, his struggles to speak, walk, and engage life as he once did have seemed more heartbreaking than hopeful. Though Papito is not as learned, he is equally brilliant, in the ways he has organized, led, and reconciled his incredibly complex and stubbornly divided community of Batey Libertad— where he was born and raised, and has raised his ten children and some grandchildren to boot— and helped lead Education Across Borders, the organization he and I co-founded with another Dominican.

         When I asked Papito directly about his health, relaying Pablo’s observations and deep concern, he pirouetted, saying that yes, he had lost a little weight, but that generally he was feeling fine, his normal self. And what about your hands, I asked. Ay Juan, es sólo la viejez— that’s just age. And his quick temper recently?  No, I haven’t been mad, he said, that’s just the way I talk sometimes. You know me, I’m passionate.

         What could I do? This man was my elder, and one of my best friends, someone I’ve trusted with my life. Much as I would have wanted to, I wasn’t about to push him hard on this, and begin to badger him like the persistent widow Jesus teaches about. At this distance from the D.R., and now even more so with international travel suspended, my sole connection with Papito for God only knew how long would be these phone calls. If he were to feel judged, or no longer trusted, he could very easily just stop taking my calls, and chalk it up— as would be quite plausible, actually— to poor technology in the D.R., overloaded phone and internet lines in this new age of the COVID-19 pandemic. I didn’t want to risk it, not at this moment.

         Three weeks ago, things shifted again, even more dramatically. As I often do, I recorded and sent a series of voice messages to the group of Dominican leaders and staff; since the six of us are spread out across different regions of both the D.R. and U.S., and video calls are beyond our technological reach right now, and neither Papito nor Fella use email, we’ve improvised this method as a way to keep in touch and keep the organization moving forward on matters that require everyone’s input. On this occasion, I was putting back on the table the long-lingering topic of legalizing Education Across Borders in the D.R. (Currently it only has that status in the U.S.). In this time of great uncertainty, it seemed to me an avenue to greater funding possibilities, among other benefits, as well as an important step to preserving the legacy of the work Papito and Fella have done in their communities, and continuing to extend it to others. Papito responded first, with an explosion: he accused me of essentially selling him out, shopping EAB around as if it could be sold to a larger and more established NGO like Catholic Relief Services. I am not going with that plan, he yelled into his recorded response, I won’t be subject to some other organization or anyone who won’t recognize all the years I’ve been working for my community. If you want to go form your own organization, go do it.

         There’s a line in one of Raymond Carver’s stories in which a character, on the phone with someone he’s known for decades, is struck dumb by something they say, and simply pulls the phone away from his ear and looks at it. That was my reaction, listening to this message. Who is this, I thought. I don’t know this person; this is not Papito.

         I did not call him back right away, but instead called Fella, our other co-founder who’s known Papito for as long as I have, and Yanlico, his mentee, now living in Washington, D.C. with his wife but with one foot still in the D.R. (like many recent immigrants), who has known him even longer. Over the next 24 hours, we traded observations and reflections, and started to build the picture, which became darker as we went— more complex, and less complete. I wanted to talk with his wife, my comadre Nanota, but my Kreyol is not up to the task, and though her Spanish is better, it is still only passable, and that felt too risky right now. Yanlico served as intermediary with her, and also took it upon himself to initiate contact with Papito’s three sons living in the U.S., as well as his children living in the D.R., including some still in the same home. Again, the picture enlarged, becoming clearer in places, murkier in others. Lots of weight loss, quicker temper, more restless and distracted, especially in conversation, and always— always— insisting that he go to the doctor alone, when he did in fact go, or if accompanied, that he control who talked to the doctor, and that he procured and took his medications by himself, without anyone’s help, thank you very much.

         The days following seemed to stretch out, and grind along, as I strung together phone calls, and tried to keep my son engaged in something other than youtube or video games during his last week of summer, a taller order this summer than in past. Some days, Papito would call and be completely incoherent, speaking very slowly, with great effort and little clarity; the junior staff member reported that occasionally Papito did not even recognize him, or remember his name, and family members said he would ramble on nearly nonstop; other days, his family would report he was un poquito mucho mejor— literally, “a little bit much better” (perhaps one of my favorite Dominicanisms), but then the next day, he’d be a Dali-esque version of himself again, distorted almost beyond recognition.

         What I experienced emotionally seemed to forecast how I would soon feel physically, in the second week of September, when the western wildfires’ smoke settled into Washington state and simply would not budge: stagnation, lethargy, anxiety when breathing, nausea when doing even the simplest tasks, and hoping hour by hour from a place of utter powerlessness, please God let this pass, and soon. Please, soon.

         This was my first personal experience with what I’d been reading about in the papers for months— longing to be with a loved one who is very ill, yet feeling paralyzed by the pandemic. Yes, I could have, technically, dropped everything and gone, since the D.R. is a country that will actually accept U.S. visitors right now. I could have told my wife that this was an emergency and she’d just have to do the best she could, managing our family while slogging through the Seattle Public School system’s sorry excuse for teacher training that they were cramming down the teachers’ throats, Zoom-zhaustion style, the week before the first day of the virtual school year; I could have risked spreading or catching infection, and just gone with that feeling I had that I just need to be there, no matter what, the same feeling that Papito’s sons in the US were sitting with.

But then, my doubts trickled in, and gained momentum. What could I really do there, after all, beyond what his wonderful family was already doing: sit with him, go to the doctors with him, and feel just as helpless, or even more so, than I do now? And how could my conscience bear the thought that I might carry an infection to him, knowing his long history of smoking and his on-going pulmonary complications even several years now after he’d quit? Or that I might infect someone else in that dense, humid, boisterous community where COVID has only (miraculously) infected twenty people, and killed one, where social distancing is a denial of plain reality, where soldiers come to enforce the curfew nightly and tell people, with a straight face, get back in your home, even if that home is a ten by ten box of tin sheets that has sucked up the day’s Caribbean sun and releases it all night long? Though I’ve worked for more than twenty years on building a ministry that prioritizes relationship over results, presence over projects, and simple faithfulness over “success,” I was questioning that, day and night, during those smoke-filled weeks, when Seattle’s air bordered on toxic, and so far I’ve decided to stay home.

         Papito’s sons have made a different choice, despite the pleadings of my wife and I. She worked in immigration law in her mid-twenties, and has kept tabs on it, especially since 2017, when the megalomaniac-in-chief DdT started messing around with it as a way to boost ratings among his devotees. Don’t go, we both counseled, having heard stories recently of people who, despite having a green card, have not been admitted back in the U.S. after visiting family abroad. But that advice fell on deaf ears, and perhaps for the better, for who am I to tell them how to live, where to go or not go, when their father is in a state like this.

         After all, I realize now that some part of my objection was not based in concern for them, but rather in my own, unexamined, loneliness. Ever since I’ve been unable to visit and work in the D.R. regularly as I did for fifteen years, I’ve longed for it in various ways. I’ve also come into a deepening acceptance of this distance, and celebrated the fruits it has generated, primarily my family’s more stabilized health but also the broadening and strengthening of EAB’s leadership, especially in the D.R., which I was able to experience quite powerfully during my short visits in 2017 and 2018. I was looking forward to the possibility of going again this summer, for a longer stay to launch a new project, before the pandemic took over our lives, and so at times these past months I’ve found myself visited by unbidden memories, many even sensorial though without a clear stimulus, that have given me both a breath of joy and an ache of melancholy: the way the campo pines and palms fade from green to black against the twilight sky; the fierce, thick midday heat of siesta, and the strange pleasure of polishing off a big, steaming plate of beans and rice despite it all; the smell of carbón wood smoke from a fogón’s clay stove; the early morning quiet, especially in Papito’s home, of a community just waking, with women and men singing songs of mourning as they begin another day of washing clothes or slogging through the rice fields, with a child wandering about looking for a stray bottle cap or branch to play with, with an egret gliding silently above in the brightening blue sky.

         Papito’s sons have only wanted to tend to their own feelings of loneliness, and Papito’s too, just as I have. So, risky though it is, the fact that they can do that is something to be celebrated.

         As is what their presence represents. This moment has brought forth something wonderful, despite the deepening pain and uncertainty. I have been talking with Papito as frequently as I can, often daily; regardless of his coherence I try to encourage him, telling him that he is now reaping the benefits, in his own flesh and blood, of what he has worked for all these long, lonely years. The body of people working together to support him—his family, his community members, and many friends here in the U.S— is a fulfillment of what he told me when we first met in 1997: that the people in his community needed to live like human beings. And human beings, as Mother Teresa taught us, are most human when we think and act as if we actually belong to each other, as if we are parts of One Body, as St Paul so beautifully wrote.

         I would dearly like to be part of this Body in a different way, there on the ground, in his home, seeing his face. But I am humbled, and deeply proud, when I consider who is there, and how much more important that is. The adult children who are taking him to the doctors, who are sending me the scans and test results and prescriptions, are all college educated, and one is a doctor; they can help Papito navigate the complexities of his situation, and advocate with the care providers, much more skillfully than he could on his own, and certainly much more fruitfully than he would have been able to twenty-five (or even five) years ago. The junior staff member who has now temporarily assumed Papito’s duties is also a college graduate, a gifted teacher, and an emerging leader, who will keep EAB’s work going; years ago, had Papito fallen ill like this, our organization would have been hanging by a thread. All of these young adults, and many, many more, have been educated, and their families housed with dignity, thanks to Papito’s work in building Education Across Borders, and even more deeply than that, in living as a true human being. And devoting his life to the long, lonely work of helping others do the same.

         In the “Postscript” of The Long Loneliness, her autobiography, Dorothy Day writes, “The final word is love. At times it has been, in the words of Father Zossima, a harsh and dreadful thing, and our very faith in love has been tried through fire.”

         In the D.R., my writings, and my life as a writer, mean little to many people I know, most of whom are too overwhelmed with surviving to think much about literature, and some of whom were never given the chance to learn to read. Papito’s formal education does not extend nearly as far as his natural intelligence would have merited; we’ll never have the kind of friendship in which we sit up talking about Tolstoy and Garcia-Márquez, but at times he articulates his wisdom as if he too were a writer. A few years ago, when someone asked him to describe how he and I have worked together to help his community, he didn’t offer a resume-type answer of statistics, achievements, or awards. He smiled and said, El es nuestro amigo de siempre.  He’s our forever friend.

         I’ve rarely treasured a compliment so much.

         Day continues:  “We cannot love God unless we love each other. We know him in the breaking of bread, and we know each other in the breaking of bread, and we are not alone anymore. Heaven is a banquet and life is a banquet, too, even with a crust, where there is companionship.”

         Much more than I, Papito has been el amigo de siempre. He has sought out so many lost sheep, nursed so many parts of the Body back to health, and worked tirelessly, often anonymously, to help others see how important, vital, they are, lost or sick as they might be in that moment. I pray daily for his healing, and in the meantime, I’m consoled knowing that his children and his friends everywhere are faithfully taking up his mission.

         Day ends her autobiography with: “We have all known the long loneliness and we have learned that the only solution is love and that love comes with community.”

         Papito’s spiritual community— which now extends far beyond Batey Libertad, in the hearts of thousands of people he has touched over the years— is wounded now, feeling vulnerable. But we are strong, hopeful, and healing… by little and by little.

On Pilgrimage

14 September 2020 “On Pilgrimage”

Going to confession is hard. Writing a book is hard because you are “giving yourself away.” But if you love, you want to give yourself. (Dorothy Day, The Long Loneliness)

         For all its darkness, pain, and suffering, this pandemic has quietly brought many gifts as well. Easy for me to say, I know, since to date, I’ve yet to lose a loved one to the coronavirus (though I fear I may soon), all my family members have maintained decent health, and both my job and my wife’s have remained intact. Those in and of themselves are cherished gifts, of course, which I give thanks for, though probably not enough. And there have been others, all of which have helped mitigate the on-going stress of juggling work, child-rearing, and all-family-all-the-time togetherness. Grace notes sung beautifully into the void, stars in the sky’s deep darkness.

         One of them has been a reconnection with the work of Dorothy Day. And in truth, with her spirit too. Reading through her books again, and reflecting on her life of witness, I’ve felt a deeper kinship than I had before. Perhaps in the past I was a bit too hung up on her “mistakes”: the times she just nodded along with the Church dogma and hierarchy; her use of gender-exclusive language (though it was perfectly typical of her time); the passages in her columns and books that could have done well with significant editing, lacking the beauty and polish of Augustine or Merton; or maybe (most ridiculous of all), the simple fact that she was a woman, and I’m a man.

         But recently, aided by grace I’m sure, I let her in more freely, embraced her on her own terms. Since March, many of us have been struck by the staggering lines for food, the quick swelling of the unemployed, and the increasingly large and desperate homeless population. These, of course, were her people, her family, her Body with which she broke bread countless times, always finding the Bread of Life within them too. The sharpened focus many of us now have upon the most basic necessities— which we never should have lost in the first place— started me seeking out Day again. And soon, with some trepidation, to call her Dorothy.

         I have found treasures, many cups of cool, clear water in these parched times. Dorothy’s specific combination of talents— as a writer, reader, activist, and missioner— her deep calling to work for systemic justice while sharing life shoulder-to-shoulder with the poorest of the poor, and her specifically Catholic grounding, for better and worse, have helped me feel a warm kinship with her, a kind guide on this pilgrimage of life.

         And so I’ve named this space, as well as this specific column today, in her honor, to invite her pilgrim spirit to guide my words, and your reading. Her column in the Catholic Worker was titled On Pilgrimage, and one book of her selected columns shares that name.        

         O dear Lord, you may be thinking, yet another blog. Doesn’t this fool know any better?

         Well, that’s fair, on both counts. There is indeed too much out there to read, and it’s naive of me to think anyone will want to add this to their heap. And yes, I am a fool, in some respects, doing a fool’s work. My only hope, beyond begging your occasional indulgence in this space, is that I do so in the spirit Dorothy wrote of in 1946, after having gone through the whole period of the “good” war screaming her throat raw that no war is actually “good.” We confess to being fools, and wish that it were more so.

          This space will hold reflections and wonderings about the life of mission, in the spirit Dorothy and others have been inspiring me to live it: as a writer, teacher, activist, husband, parent, son, and brother to the human and non-human Family. I can’t promise the prose (or the poetry) will always glisten, or that I’ll never ramble or rant, only that everything here will be heartfelt, honest, and try to go to someplace deeper. I’m offering this space as a part of a practice of faithfulness, trying to detach from the results and give God’s holy mystery some room to move around and breathe. In these times, I daresay, that’s something that could be useful.

         I hope you’ll occasionally find something in this pilgrim’s journal (hey, we could call it a “Plog,” right? A Pilgrim’s blog?) that tastes like cool, clear water. And that you’ll pass the cup to someone else, who also might be thirsty.

         Allow me to finish by continuing that passage from The Long Loneliness…

         You write as you are impelled to write, about man and his problems, his relation to God and his fellows. You write about yourself because in the long run all man’s problems are the same, his human needs of sustenance and love… [it’s] a harrowingly painful job. I feel I have done nothing well. But I have done what I could.