Guest blog by my cousin Megan Elsley:
December 3rd is World Disability Day, and this year I spent it at an Ashram for children with disabilities in Pune, India, learning from people who are traditionally rejected by society. Snehalaya means house of love, and it is populated by the most amazing children. They know that they are worth loving.
That was the message conveyed throughout the three-day gathering of thousands in Zocalo, the town square of Mexico City. read
Click below to watch my message on youtube
Here is my message from Chimbote, Peru
As I composed an email today, I became slightly distracted by my friend’s status, which read, “The world is your oyster”. read
Desert Rain Community – Chaparral, New Mexico, 9th April
Today I fulfilled one of my dreams – to partake in a Native American Sweat Lodge Ceremony (in the South East Desert of New Mexico!) As we gathered near the entrance, we prayed to the Four Directions, acknowledging the various aspects of creation with each turn…reminding us of the Great Chain of Being that both holds us and surrounds us (of which we are mostly unaware). We entered the Sweat Lodge on our hands and knees, moving in a circular direction until we each took our place. Going into the Sweat Lodge is symbolic of a kind of reentering the womb… and it sure has its similarities!!! The ceremony itself was profoundly centering – each taking turns to share, first simply expressing what we feel we are being taught or becoming more conscious of us at this point in our lives. Secondly, offering the prayers of our hearts in that moment. We also burned some sage and along with the incense, allowed our burdens as well as our gratitudes be swept up by the Great Spirit. Each time we began with a Native American song, accompanied by the native drum. Amidst this somewhat ‘outer’ expression, something deeper was taking place. In fact, I discovered a place where everything belongs. Once you enter the lodge, the smoke and heat encircles every part of you, filling every inch of your body as you inhale…every cell…all the ‘in-between’ places – there is just no way around it. No part of any of us could be hidden from this ‘cleansing’. In this space, as I adopted the physical challenge of the extreme heat and my breathing struggled, every part of me was drawn into the encounter, slowly surrendering to a heightened state of being. A seeming cloudiness disguised a rising awareness (a cellular awareness) of my very essence: my ‘whole-ness’…. our ‘holy-ness’.
El Paso, Texas, USA 2nd April.
Today I met Sophia, a woman who works at the women’s cooperative in Juarez, just across the border into Mexico … but in another world. She told me that her husband was shot and killed in the little convenience store they own, just 4 weeks ago. It sounds like such a common story, a daily occurrence now with the drug war going on here in Juarez, innocent people getting killed…Sofia says she feels like God has forgotten her. We tried to talk but without someone interpreting it was almost impossible. So we just sat in silence. But we were together. We exchanged our stories through loving silence…I’ve never experienced anything like it. When she was about to leave she told me that she loves me and that I am part of her family now.
Kambu region, Kenya 10th Feb.
On our way back to the parish along the dusty roads that appear off the main Highway to Mombassa, I noticed a building in the distance behind some trees and said to Fr Thomas “what’s that? Can we go there?” It turned out to be a school, the poorest school I have ever seen. As we pulled up, the Principal came out of his office, looking a little startled at our arrival. He immediately sent for a chair for us to sit down. We asked some questions about the school and listened as he shared with us about the struggles the school is facing, particularly the lack of food supplies, which had been promised to arrive each week but which had not come for 3 months now. “Many of these children are literally starving….” he told us. I asked if I could visit the classes. Much to my surprise, the children seemed frightened of me. When I asked the teacher what was wrong, he said to me “it’s not just the color of your skin, its your hair, your camera, your sunglasses….its everything about you.” I discovered that I am the first “white” person to visit this school, in fact I am the first visitor they have ever had…and apparently I am the only white person these kids have ever seen (I’m assuming they don’t have TV). Wow, that just blows me away. I can’t help imagining what it would be like to send some young people here from Australia, or anywhere really. It would just make their year! And to spend some time with these gorgeous kids would impact anyone’s life forever.
On my “tour” of the school, I saw the staff room with one table of texts books (about a dozen books) – the total sum of resources for the entire teaching staff. I also saw one class having a lesson about HIV / AIDS and how it is spread. We were then shown “the garden”…some very sorry looking seedlings barely alive in the only shady spot on the school grounds…and yet the Principal expressed such hope that there may be some food from these dried-out seedlings, but not enough. As we drove off the kids chased the car waving and calling out “goodbye”. My last sight of that place was some small children foraging through the forest looking for something to eat, some berries or something…
I discovered today that we are supposed to be going to a tiny community called Atiak (near the Sudanese border) and that the people there have been preparing for my visit for months! But we are having such trouble finding a vehicle for the 4 hour drive there tomorrow. This saga with the car is making me realise how conscious people need to be to have integrity in mission. To just turn up here and have access to our own vehicle would not show solidarity with these people who are so poor and share a few vehicles with the entire community….
18th Feb… we can’t go…problems with the vehicles…I feel completely devastated…mainly because I feel I have let them down so much…I just heard how they have prepared dances and ceremony and even a new name for me: Anya-Dwe – something that means “daughter of the moon” in the local language, Acholi. They gave me this name because they haven’t had a guest from afar for some decades. I’m sending up the little koalas and some books with one of the priests…Can’t believe we’ve traveled so far and still we can’t quite reach them…this is so sad…
I’m sitting here under the cashew nut tree reflecting on what I just heard about the groundsman here, a young guy…very friendly. Fr Charles told me the story of how the man’s wife was abducted by the rebels and she never returned home. He thinks she must have been killed by now. I can’t even imagine that… He has 2 small children back in his village over 100 kms away and yet here he is serving with such humility and kindness. Ahh…he just brought me a chair…wow, amazing, once again reminding me how we are all so connected
HOPE
found me today
and awoke me from my slumber
of unfeeling
a little boy’s shoes
tattered and torn beyond belief
but somebody noticed
someone cared
…an act of love
the evidence remaining
somewhere in the realm
of eternity
