Magnanimity and Restraint

Help each one of us, gracious Father, to live in such magnanimity and restraint that the Head of the Church may never have cause to say to any one of us, "This is my body, broken by you."

Prayer from China

From the Vespers Office for Friday, First Week of Advent
The Divine Hours: Prayers for Autumn and Wintertime

I first came upon this prayer a year ago, and was grateful to be reminded of it again this past Advent. The word magnanimity intrigues me. The Latin translation, according to my print version of the American Heritage dictionary, is great-souled. Other definitions include noble of mind and heart and generous in forgiving.

What a beautiful phrase, great-souled.

Since returning from Congo, life has flooded forth with issues, concerns, worries, conversations, hard questions, sad admissions. It's life. But it's been life in emotional high gear. And when I'm living in emotional high gear, I leave restraint and magnanimity standing alone at the bus stop.

Much of the last number of weeks has revolved around my 88-year-old father. He had decided quite suddenly, or so it seemed to my sister and me, to move from his apartment to a senior living facility--the very one he and Mom had lived in during the last two years of her life. So on the day after Thanksgiving, we, along with my brother-in-law, nephews, daughter, and a friend, moved Dad. I admit, preparing for the move I was not very great souled nor was I restrained. My energies were focused on cleaning out files and emptying drawers to lighten the load for moving day.

The move went smoothly and quickly, and by the very next day, Dad's new apartment looked cozy and settled.

And here is where God reminded me to strive towards magnanimity and restraint. And continues to remind me.

My dad, bumping along through a move that unsettled and confused him, even though he initiated it, was grateful and gracious. He has every reason to be angry. He knows that confusion and loss of memory are frequent visitors. In the few months since this move he has chosen and been forced to relinquish ever more of his responsibilities and freedoms. Most recently, he has had to give up driving his own car.

He gets tangled in the threads of new information. Confuses days and times. And he still misses his wife, my mother, who died two years ago. But he is magnanimous, restrained, and grateful. 

So many times over the last few years, as Mom's health failed, as my brother-in-law say his parents decline in health, as friends have cared for ailing parents, I've wondered, "Why, God? Why not spare these dear people? These are people who have followed you, lived lives worthy of your kingdom, been faithful in their walk of faith, and responsive to the needs of others. Why do you allow them to linger when they would prefer to cross over?"

Back home

CI-UCBC Welcome Center under construction.

Photo courtesy of Grant Hahn

It's hard to believe that I've been back in the states for almost two weeks. Fall, with its crisp mornings, blue skies, and crinkled leaves is upon us. "The Holidays" are rushing in. But Congo and CI-UCBC are never far from my thoughts. In fact, they are the first thoughts when I wake in the morning. Faculty, staff, students, and the workmen of CI-UCBC are my first morning prayers. The dust, the early morning whiff of charcoal smoke, and the rooster's pre-dawn call are still very much alive in my memory.

God has been merciful and bridled my tendency to judge--well at least judge people. So now you know one of my dirty little secrets! Yes, I fall into, "Can you believe..." and "If only she or he would..." too quickly. When Jesus pointed out the hypocrisy and the shortcomings of the Pharisees, he was reminding me of those same faults.

I will judge our culture of consumerism. That's appropriate. That's the siren that tempts me to selfishness and self-preservation. Already stores have loaded their shelves and decorated their windows to tempt spending. Catalogues and flyers arrive daily with encouragement to buy. "Find exactly what you're looking for," "We believe" (yes! on the cover of an Eddie Bauer catalogue!), and, of course, the inevitable, "Hurry in!"

So, the real question. What am I going to do about it? About this temptation to accept the context of middle class America, the context of my locale? That's what is scary. Actually, I have been more afraid of that than anything else. I wasn't afraid of going to Congo. Of traveling alone. Of being in another culture and context. I have been afraid of living into my own selfishness in place that makes it so easy and even encourages it.

I don't have any clean answers other than to keep Congo and CI-UCBC clearly in my sight as a measure of my daily choices. Am I living simply? Responsibly? Focused on others rather than myself? Keenly aware that all I have comes from God? Taking action on behalf of "the least of these"?

You know, it's scary putting this out here. Making it somewhat public. But this is the only way to be accountable.

A Congo reality: Education corrupted and enslaved

"I am building a house."

"I need new shoes."

"My family is traveling."

These are the kind of announcements that Congo's university professors make at the beginning of their classes. It would be one thing if such announcements were efforts to build relationships with students through the sharing of appropriate, personal information. These announcements, instead, are indicators of the kind of payment teachers expect from their students--that they DO expect payment.

Education in Congo has been corrupted and remains enslaved to power and the elite. This was a consistent message that I heard from the faculty, staff, and students of UCBC. David Kasali speaks of science (by which he means academic learning and knowledge) and the academy as "under lock and key." Be clear, we are not talking about the rich knowledge of society, family, and culture--that knowledge shared over the cooking fire, in the care of family and community elders. We're talking about the learning and knowledge within the academy, within the professions, within the structures of school and academia. The knowledge that could transform, but that maintains the status quo in a short-sighted effort to protect personal power. And these are the attitudes, contexts, and actions that UCBC is committed to transforming.

So, you  may wonder, "What does a corrupt system of education look like? What does it mean?" The Congolese faculty at UCBC--all of whom have managed to survive that system and are dedicated to a radically different approach and understanding of knowledge--shared their assessment and experiences during one of our faculty development sessions.

"Teachers hope to see students fail." In the Congolese education system, one's salary depends upon maintaining an imbalance between those who know and those who don't, between teacher and student, between personal power and community powerlessness. The more students per teacher, the more salary the teacher can excise, through basic fees and various bribes and "corruption fees." Because university professors are eager to keep their ranks small, they thwart rather than encourage graduate students working for their doctorates by delaying reading papers or exams and demanding fees for their services. Across the university system, and presumably in the secondary system, if you want to be assured to pass, then expect to pay in money or services. If you want your exam read, then pay. Female students are pressured to pay with their bodies. Want to make a point to your students about who is (or isn't) in control? Toss the papers across the desk and declare, "I will read the ones that land on the desks, and ignore the ones that fall on the floor." Yes, that is a true story.

"Students have expectations to fail, so they give less effort." A teacher that wants to see a student fail will look to trip and confuse students won't be concerned whether students understand the material or care to help students develop competence, let alone excellence. A student that knows her or his chances of passing, let alone excelling (which, most likely, is not a shared goal or expectation) are limited will do only what is necessary to pass. They pay the bribes. They learn to copy and cheat. The goal is to pass the class, not to learn. In general, then, once students are accepted into university, their motivation flags. And, of course, the teachers and their methods do nothing to change that.

"Students do not pay attention to their own skills." This translates in a couple of ways. For one thing, university students choose to study in particular "faculties" (what the U.S. systems calls, "departments" or "majors") based on available jobs or on what is available to study at that university. A students' imagination about her or his future is shuttered to possibilities. This is compounded by the fact that secondary schools in Congo tend to focus on particular faculties. This school may focus on applied sciences. Another on history and geography. You go to the school closest to where you live, not to the school that meets your interest areas or abilities. So from secondary school on, Congolese students are "tracked," not according to ability or interest, but according to availability.

A first-hand experience: During my first week at UCBC, a preparatory student, Prince, wanted to talk with me about his "psychological problem." Prince explained that he was having trouble in his studies. That he could read and read, study and study, but not learn the material. Then he said something that clued me in. "I don't have this trouble with my maths or physics."

Prince was noticeably relieved when I explained that we all have certain subjects we find easier or harder than others. That we have different strengths. That our talents and brains and abilities are different. What a surprise to me (and to him) that here, as a beginning college student, was the first time anyone had explained this concept of different abilities to him.

So, by their own assessment or through the system, students are pushed to study what is personally expeditious. They do not know how to choose their faculty/major based on their own aptitude or interest. In fact, they do not even know where their aptitudes lie.

"There is a lack of culture of reading and research in the education system." In very practical terms, there are no books. There are no libraries. What books exist are in the hands of the professors. And guess how eager they are to share? The UCBC Congolese teachers said on several occasions, "In secondary school you copy your teacher's notes from the blackboard. In university you take dictation. Teachers lecture from their syllabus, and you copy everything down. That's what you study," In fact, syllabus in Congo is the class content. Of course, if you have money, you can buy the syllabus (which saves your pencils and your writing hand, and buys another bag of cement for the teacher's new house). And of course, assessing students' learning is all about seeing if they can recite back all that the teacher has said.

"Students lack belief in what is learned. There is no transformation in their thinking." Hmmm...that's not a hard one to understand, is it? In my words, "Students don't trust their teachers or their education." And in David Kasali's words, "Science is locked away." And if there is no transformation in thinking, then where is the understanding? Where is the imagination?

Ah...there is so much more to share. But let me close with two things.

1. A corrupted and enslaved education system contributes to "the permanent economic crisis." It also contributes to the systemic corruption that enslaves the country. We Americans who listened to this conversation of the UCBC Congolese faculty were incredulous as they names these challenges. "How can it be so?" It was Bora, one of the UCBC communications professors, who said, "This is a whole system. This thinking affects everything in this country."

2. This is precisely why the work of CI-UCBC is so vital. CI-UCBC is about transforming its students, transforming their thinking by teaching and living and building relationships in a radically different way, so that they can lead in the transformation of their country. David Kasali teaches a course to preparatory students called, "DRC Realities." One of his goals in the course is, he says, "To make students angry." The course is about helping students understand the history of their country and also opening up their eyes to the reality that as individuals they have responsibility. As Congolese, they cannot continue to see and live as victims of their history--a very long history of abuse and corruption. That change depends on them. But, as he said to me just last week, "You can only change what you understand."

Two realities

It's a glorious fall day here in central Ohio (yes, central Ohio has its beauty). My heart is torn, however. My first thoughts upon waking today were my newfound sisters and brothers in the Congo. So my first prayers were for them this morning--for health; safe transportation; clarity of thought; food and clean water; confirmation and assurance that what they are doing is right, for the glory of God, for the transformation of the hearts, minds, and ways of doing business in Congo.

The trip home yesterday provided a gentle transition. When I bumped up against the "realities" of life in the western world, discouragement threatened to derail me. But that's good, because I am greedy to remember the "realities" of life in Congo to which my Congolese teachers are introducing me. Here are two clashes from yesterday.

Institutional cleanliness. We arrived at the Amsterdam airport at 5:30 am Monday, November 1. The airport was prepped and spotless. Floors clean. Tables at the kiosks ready for the first customers. The bathroom shiny in white tile. The sink, spotless white enamel. The tap an easy turn to hot or cold. I was surprised to remember that I could brush my teeth with water directly from the tap. There was were drinking fountains available at various stops around the airport. The terminal floor, a white-grey tile, was bright. The lighting bright. So many fellow travelers, it seemed had white sneakers. Clean. Brand new.

My memories shot back to the hard-packed red clay and the red dust that accompanies every action of the day in Beni, every surface that you touch. The floors at UCBC will eventually be tiled or laid with cement, but right now they are dirt. Every morning students sprinkle the floors with water to settle the dust. At UCBC we cover computers with cloths whenever they're not in use to shield them from the dust. I'm embarrassed that I too quickly expressed my selfish and western worry about dust getting into the keys and on the screen of my laptop during my first week at UCBC. We will have running water and indoor plumbing at UCBC. We will also be building public latrines and shower places for the community that lives around us. But right now our toilets are the Congolese version of the outhouse (and there ARE separate facilities for women and men). Our neighbors must gather water from the stream or haul it from a public tap. There is no indoor plumbing.

I thought about the children, the vendors, the people along the road every day, many barefoot or in sandals, hauling heavy loads of charcoal, cooking oil, lumber. The road always kicking itself up--either as dust or mud. The water cans that people use to collect and carry water from the community tap (where, by the way, they have to pay). Women washing clothes along the banks of the stream, rubbing clothes against the hard rocks.

Clash number 2. Education and a cup of coffee.

In Detroit I splurged and bought a grande latte and a piece of candy. What I paid for this treat was the equivalent of one month's school fees for a primary grade child in Congo. There is no public education in Congo. There is no expenditure in the national government for education--not at primary, secondary, or university level. School fees pay the teachers. One Congolese friend explained that the cost for primary education in the area is $33/year for primary and $50/year for secondary. I don't know if that is high, low, or average. But it's what his family pays. There was a man who came to UCBC last week to see if he could sell some of the carvings he makes. His kids had been excluded from school because he couldn't pay the fees.

I took the top of the latte and thought about the many children in Beni who, rather than being in school during the day, were helping to sell bananas, taking care of younger siblings, cutting greens for the family meal, playing in the open spaces, because their families couldn't afford $3 a month for school.

Was I already succumbing to the seduction of ease and excess? Yes. And this is what I'm most fearful of. Giving in. Forgetting. Participating in a culture that focuses on accumulation, self, and resource wastefulness. This is a topic for a much longer post. But it's important to "get it out there."

For all my time in Congo, I didn't take many pictures. One reason is that I wanted to rely on my visceral memory--the feel, sounds, smells, and sights--directly, immediately. To allow them to become part of me, to change me, to perhaps work some kind of "transformation" in me. A picture becomes a 2-dimensional object, distant, a representation. I did not want these three weeks in Congo to ossify or turn into souvenirs of some isolated event that I revisit only when they need to be dusted and moved for the next "experience."

Today I still feel the red dust. I've scraped it from my sneakers into the tiny, hand-painted China box. I know that this morning, before classes began, a couple of students sprinkled water from a can onto the floors of the classrooms at UCBC. I also know that once the floors are tiled and there are toilets with running water that the students and faculty of UCBC will not remove themselves from their communities, sanitized, educated, separate. May my brush with some of the Congo realities keep me walking the path to "do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with our God."

No longer able to delay the inevitable

In another hour or so I head to the Entebbe Airport and leave this marvelous place behind. I'll leave it behind physically. But it's (Beni, Congo, that is) coming with me in my heart. I've decided that when I unpack tomorrow afternoon, I'll scrape the red dirt packed against the treads of my tennis shoes into a tiny China box that was my mom's. A keepsake of sorts. A reminder of the baptism of dust with which Congo blessed me.

But right now, I'm sitting on the porch here at Central Inn, and American pop/rock music is blaring on an outside speaker. I've chosen acceptance rather than frustration, anger, or disappointment. I'm learning, at this decade of my life, that it's easier, healthier, and even more joyful, to accept such incongruencies.

Today I've tried to prepare myself and imagine what transition will be like. I've tried to imagine how to answer the inevitable, "How was your trip?" Here are some possibilities:

• "Well...tell me first your expectations, then I'll see if I can answer accordingly."
• "Let's start with a pot of tea."
• "Can I show you some of the dust of Beni?"
• "Where have you seen Jesus this past week?"
• "Have you ever hung onto a vision that was so bold and audacious that other people who considered themselves 'reasonable' just shook their heads?"
• "Let me tell you about Kaza who came to Beni just finishing his secondary school--some 50 km from his home, knowing no one. He earned $20 after 3 days of hard labor, cutting and hauling wood for a stranger. The first thing Kaza did when he received that $20 was to give $2 to God. His tithe. His First Fruits."
• "Challenging. Glorious. Inspiring. Exhausting. Joyous. Unsettling. Beautiful. A reminder that I still have a lot to learn."

Interesting...the music here has changed to a Ugandan singer. The moon has risen over Lake Victoria--almost full, resting in a soft halo. The birds are calling for the evening, gathering in flocks and settling into the trees.

Thanks be to God.

Icons

Red clay of the unfinished walkway. The outside charcoal stove where Maria, Kaswera, and Linda cook. The plastic buckets that we use to carry hot water for bathing. In three very short weeks these have become icons of this place and time.

Red clay, dust, hardpacked earth breaks free here to grow lush vegetation. There is no escaping the red dust. I bathe and wash my hair in the morning only to arrive at school, not two hours later, baptized for the day by this earth. I run my hands through my hair and feel the coating of dust from our drive. My feet are powdered red.

During one of our professional development days, a teacher held out a piece of chalk and explained that it symbolizes teaching here. You can write on the blackboard (a 4' x 6' piece of plywood painted black and mounted on two posts). She explained that you write on the board, erase, and write something else. But the shadows of all the previous writing remain. And the chalk dust clings to your hand. You can't shake the experiences, the interchanges, the conversations. Everything about teaching here stays with you.

The Congolese red clay, burnished and fine, clings to me. Each day when I return home, I am eager to take a bath, even though it's a cold one (hot ones are at night, after the fire has been used to cook our food). I am eager to get clean. I need, no, I want, refreshment from the day. Or do I?

I will miss it--this baptism dust.

The buckets. 20-liter plastic workhorses. We use them to cart bath water and launder clothes. Dishwashing and large loads of laundry are done in deep and wide plastic basins outside in the open passage between the house the outside kitchen. On the road, along the paths, people haul water in big, yellow, rectangular jugs. They must be 40, 50, or more liters. Everyone carries water here. But what irony! There are almost daily deep and drenching rain showers. Rivers and streams are the capillaries and blood vessels that trace, it seems, every valley and crevice. The Congo River is here--a river second only to the Amazon in terms of its flow. So how much personal energy, time, and resources are lost daily as people have to carry their water?

Back to here--the buckets. We share them. They are daily reminders to be humble. They are daily reminders that when I lose touch, step away from my basic needs, rely on systems, processes, other people's labor to meet my basic needs, I too easily neglect to care, to honor, to be grateful. At home I can turn on the shower and let hot water run, fill up the pipes, wash down the drain before even stepping under the shower head. Here, on those nights when I wait to take a hot bath, when the charcoal fire is no longer needed to cook food, when we can enjoy its excess to heat pots of water, I make every preparation first. Lay out clothes, towel, and soap. Check and recheck the drain plug to make sure it's secure. Only then do I go to the kitchen, dip the pitcher into the pot of hot water and pour into my bucket, reaching down into the bucket so as to pour hot water directly, and not lose any of the precious heat in the cooling air. And when I take the bucket into the bathroom and pour it into the tub, I am judicious in adding just enough cool water from the tap.

And the outside charcoal stove where Kaswera, Maria, and Linda cook. It's always a joy to be there and help--peel potatoes, pick through the cassava flour, rinse and sort beans.  Stove, fire, food preparation. It is hard work to cook this way. I do not romanticize this stove and the charcoal fire. But I am gladly branded by its fragrance and the accompanying voices, mostly in Swahili. It is a reminder that living is best when we allow our lives to weave and flow together, unbounded. The charcoal fire wakes me every morning when Kasero (sp?) the night watchman, starts the stove for the day. Subtle yet pungent as incense, it drifts around the corner of the house and into the open window of the bedroom just as light cracks the sky.

Launching the new academic year, Saturday, October 24, 2009

Saturday, October 24, was the official opening of the school year for UCBC. It was a community celebration. A welcome center had been under construction for several weeks--a covered, outdoor space for occasions such as this. During the past two weeks, workmen were diligent to complete the structure. They pounded the dirt floor with timbers to flatten it. They carried stones, hand-dug from the property, to lay as foundation for the floor. On Friday, the day before the opening ceremony, they poured and spread cement.

Saturday morning began with heavy rains that swept in from the south. By mid morning, the skies began to clear. Students had already been busy setting up chairs in the main room of the academic building. They set the welcome center as the main stage and seating area for faculty and guests, hung banners, and started preparing food for the expected crowd of 500.

By the time the ceremony began in the afternoon, we had blue sky and sun. The energy among the staff and students was electric. The Ebenezer Choir, the student-led choir, began our time together with praise and worship music primarily from their own tradition and language.

Students and community members gathered along with family and friends. There were a couple of folks with MONUC insignias, various local leaders and public officials, and local business people.

The day was important not just to mark the start of the academic year, but to live out two guiding values of CI-UCBC: Community and Service. CI-UCBC is committed to opening the doors of knowledge (what is referred to here as science) to the community. CI-UCBC is taking active steps to breach the walls that have kept knowledge and power in the hands of a few. Knowledge/Science in Congo, as David Kasali has reminded me on several occasions, has been locked away. It has been under control of the few and the powerful for personal gain, prestige, and destruction. CI-UCBC is working to redeem knowledge and science so that it is not only available to all, but is used for the common good, to improve life here, transform this country.

So to invite the community, including the neighbors who live along the edges of the property and the workmen who labor on the buildings, is to say, "We are here with you--not just for you. We are here as part of this community for the good of all."

That is one reason why, even though the academic building is not, in American terms, "complete," CI-UCBC has built the welcome center and begun construction of the Community Center. Until Saturday I had been confused and even unsettled at this decision. After all, why wouldn't we want to complete a building, finish, furnish, and outfit it completely before starting on yet another project? It didn't fit my American frame of mind.

On Saturday I understood. After the official ceremony, everyone was invited to look at the master building plans for the university and tour the Community Center, which is very much under construction. Following that was an opportunity to see a slide show of the architect's renderings of the entire CI-UCBC campus. It was clear from the questions and comments that community members were excited, appreciative, eager to see this work move forward. They could see that this place would provide services for them, for the community. It will be a place where community members can come for classes, groups can have meetings, outside organizations can host conferences, where services for women and children can be provided and literacy classes for the neighborhood will be housed.

Last week I heard David say, "The Congolese have said, 'We have heard. We want to see.' " By starting the Community Center, by inviting the community to the celebration, CI-UCBC was able to show in action, visibly, concretely, that CI-UCBC is living out a vision for its students, for the community, and for the nation.

David shared another powerful story recently. Two or three years ago, when CI-UCBC had only land and the whispers of construction activity, David met with a local businessman to tell him the vision of CI-UCBC and ask for his support. The man listened and indicated that perhaps he would do something. A year passed without David hearing anything more from this businessman. They met again sometime later at a meeting. The workshop was completed, the academic building was up and in use, and ground was being dug for the Community Center. The businessman admitted that after his first meeting with David, he laughed to himself, certain that nothing would come of the plans David had laid out. But now, at this meeting, the businessman was ready to admit he was wrong. That he was contributing 10 bags of cement that day (a significant contribution) and would be donating another 10 bags very soon after.

"Ten bags of cement?" you might query. "What's so great about that?" It's not only critical, material contributions to the work. It is a statement that affirms, "We have heard. We have also seen. We are part of this community and this service."