I found love

Before I knew it I was weeping. Again.

It was Good Friday.

Just minutes earlier, I was standing in front of a child who was abandoned at the hospital upon her birth because of severe deformities. She was nearly three years old, but barely looked even eight months old. She was crib-ridden and helpless, lacking the ability to roll herself over or even touch her own deformed face.

There are sixteen of these abandoned children living at the Missionaries of the Poor home in downtown Kingston. I thought to myself, this is the type of story you hear about on a 20/20 special. The type of story where the riveting images stay with you for weeks and you mourn a child you have never touched, telling her heart-wrenching story to your friends and family, constantly counting the blessings in your life.

The brother tickled her arm. “See her smile through her eyes?” Her face was severely deformed, teeth where a nose should be, a split down the center, and a mass growing out of her head, seeming like a second head. “You can see Christ in her eyes,” he lovingly said.

Missionaries of the Poor is an international Catholic monastic order of brothers dedicated to serving the abandoned, destitute, diseased and mentally and physically disabled. They were founded by Father Holong, a Jamaican priest, in 1981 and serve in Kingston, Jamaica, Uganda, Kenya, India, and the Philippines. For a good article on these wonderful men, check out http://www.jamaica-gleaner.com/gleaner/20081116/out/out1.html or their website is http://www.missionariesofthepoor.org/

Now, I was standing in the streets of one of Kingston’s ghettos outside of the MOP Children’s home having one of the most profound spiritual experiences of my life.

The brothers took turns reenacting the Passion of Jesus Christ, carrying the life size wooden cross down the decrepit street in Kingston one at a time, stopping fourteen times for each station to be read aloud over a microphone for all in the streets to hear. It took an hour and a half. We walked in a procession of brothers, faithful community members, and mentally and physically disabled men, women and children in the midday Kingston sun.

The first time we stopped, each brother dutifully knelt right there in the middle of the street. Looking around, the brothers seemed to be kneeling on a cloud, peaceful, beautiful, mournful and reverent. They asked those who were fit, to kneel as well. I remember thinking, if that brother could endure the suffering of carrying that cross, the least I can do is kneel in solidarity. So I bent down on the uneven road, folded my skirt under my knees, and knelt on the boiling hot and rocky surface. There was mucky sewer water running down the side of the road, just inches from my Sunday’s best and I could smell rotting, burning trash. The pavement dug into my knees and the heat on the road scorched my skin. I remember being ashamed of even these mental complaints as I witnessed the very suffering surrounding me. The very suffering present in the reenactment. We were walking the streets of one of the world’s poorest and most violent cities, where suffering like I have never known, happens on the daily.

I remember looking around. The brother was holding the cross on his left shoulder, with another brother kneeling beside him with his hand resting on the cross. Dozens of other brothers were scattered in the road, their white habits contrasting against the dark and dirty road as they knelt as a symbol of faith, peace and love. There was an elderly man and his wife kneeling with their gaze set on the ground in front of them. She had to help her husband off his knees each of the fourteen times, with determination and strength in their eyes.

We sang choruses as we processed along the street, gathering children and adults on our way. " I have decided to follow Jesus...no turning back, no turning back..The cross before me, the world behind me..." rang loud in clear through the collection of voices in the street. And yes, there was the cross, right before me, as I walked along with tears strewn eye at the profound impact of this event. Jesus died for each of us. Whether you believe him to be the son of God or not, the beauty and strength in that man, to die by crucifixion, for those he loves, is an awing thing. I found so much sadness in the procession, but so much love as well!

I found love in the brother who carried the little angel of a girl the entire time, except to put her down to stand next to him as he knelt. She would just stand there, patiently waiting for her angel to pick her back up and hold her in his arms as they carried on.

I found love in the mentally disabled woman’s hand that I held to keep her on track.

I found love in one sickly man pushing another sickly man in a wheelchair.

I found love in the elderly man who unsteadily but purposefully stepped to the beat of the chorus.

I found love in children and adults on the roadside in front of their war torn homes who decided to walk with us, the crucified walking with the crucified.

I found love like I’ve never found it. And my chest still feels like it might explode.

It makes me so happy to know there are people like the Brothers in this world, who will sacrifice their life for the abandoned and destitute. Who will love the "unlovable". Without them, many in this world would be forgotten.

I felt in solidarity with a larger world. A world I've been thirsting for, yearning for. I was in solidarity with the crucified of today, of yesterday, of nearly 2000 years ago. I knelt alongside the brothers, I walked alongside the disabled, I hugged Michela as we both shed tears. I felt alone but in such a unity with the world. I felt purpose. I felt that we were all sharing each others suffering, as we processed down the street as one people. And I truly realized at that moment, through suffering together, we can carry each other so nobody suffers alone.

We each have our cross to bear, my blind 88 year old friend often tells me. (yes, the one I brought to the hospital the other day)

Oh, a life of privilege

Jamaica has free health care!! That should be good, right?

Man, I just got back from the hospital. A routine checkup for a nearly blind 88 year old friend (yes, I have a bunch of them) who lives in the village I work in had an appointment...so that should mean in and out, right? Back at home, I can fit a doctor visit in during a lunch break. Oh, the convenience.

The majority of the world does not live like we do...I am learning that more and more.

Privilege.

Since the last election, the fees for visits to the hospital and most medications were waived as long as you attend a public hospital or clinic. But the hospitals and clinics are understaffed, under supplied, overcrowded and even more so now than ever before now that health care is free.

This morning we left at 5:30 AM to reach the hospital before they started giving out numbers...you know, like they do at the deli counter. It was 6 AM and we got number 30...thirty whole patients in front of us even though we got there at 6 AM!!! We sat and waited, him in his wheelchair because he is blind and cannot walk anymore, and me under this outdoor tent that I am pretty sure traps heat more than anything..waiting and waiting and waiting.

The benches inside were jam packed. There were children of all ages in their school uniforms, a mother nursing her child, an elderly woman who was blind, a woman coughing a horrible cough. People everywhere. The outdoor tent held those who were more than ten patients away and who weren't in wheel chairs. There were a few occasions that patients started arguing with the security attendant, convinced the roster was being altered and other people were being favored and pushed up on the list. I mean, its possible and probably occurred.

I kept thinking about those who were waiting. The children are missing a full day of school. The parents are missing a full day of work. And these are routine visits, for like a cold or a strange pain. They are at a public hospital because they are already struggling financially...I wonder what another day out of work must mean.

Finally, at around 2 PM, my 88 year old friend had been seen by a doctor, obtained a prescription for his ailments and a reminder slip that his next "appointment" was on September 22, of course anytime, which means earlier than 6AM if you want to be seen sooner. He was exhausted! We still had to pick up the prescriptions, which meant a trip to another building on the campus to wait for another half hour for the medications, only one of which they had on hand. For the rest, we went to a nearby pharmacy to purchase the ones he could afford, which was only one out of the three.

All in all, it was a good day...he did see the doctor after all, which isn't always the case. But every time I bring people from the village to the hospital, the most surprising thing to me is that they do not complain about the wait. It is a way of life here...inserted into the routine of living...but oh so different from what I am used to. Sometimes I think about how that corporate executive or big time lawyer would react if given these circumstances without any way around it...if they couldn't buy themselves convenience. Or even the average American, myself included. Doomed to just wait and wait and wait. The people who are waiting should be the ones who are working to earn some desperately needed money. Who declared that money rules the world? Because money talks, right? Something just doesn't seem right...

Oh, a life of privilege.