I am back in Omaha now, to be with my family for the holidays and with my grandmother during what are probably her last days on earth. I experience this time with her as graced time, and it is a blessing to be able to be here. It is the same way I felt two years ago, when I was able to be with my grandfather as he was dying. My grandmother and I have had some great conversations about the meaning of life and death which are a comfort to both of us.
The dying give us a great gift which we may not be aware of, and that they also are not aware of. They invite us to be better than we are, to face our fears ofour own mortality, to set aside whatever "issues" we may have with them, and be present to them during the most vulnerable part of their lives.
In this context, I have been reflecting anew on the Mary-Martha story in Luke 10:38-42. I remember past scripture reflection groups, where people got upset about this passage, because Martha seems to be the one performing the most useful tasks, while Jesus claims that Mary has taken the better path. This scripture has been problematic for me for a different reason: because I identify most with Mary, who sits in the living room while her sister does all the dishes. Even though Jesus claims that Mary has chosen the better way, what is a Mary supposed to do with her life that is useful? And you cannot spend too much time sitting in the living room while someone else does all the work without getting people mad at you. Anyway, it seems that Mary's is a ministry of presence, which is how I experience being with my grandmother, and is also how I experience accompaniment work. In the end, ministry is fundamentally about presence. Yes, we have to get the dishes done, but Jesus understood that Mary had chosen the true path of ministry.
Monday, January 1, 2007
Saturday, November 4, 2006
For Love of Coffee
I cannot describe in words the economic poverty in Haiti. I have worked and lived all over the place, and still never seen anything like Haiti. I thought Bolivia would compare, but it does not. I notice that I now use Haiti as the benchmark....arethe roads as bad as in Haiti? Are there as many people living without clean water, electricity, and something besides an open fire for cooking? Is adult illiteracyas high? Are there as many houses that look substandard?
The answer is always no. I hate writing this, truthfully, because I feel like all my Haitian friends who receive these emails will be horrified. Haiti is much more than economic deprivation. As I write this, I am drinking Haitian rum and thinking about past fun times in Baraderes (...singing Haitian folk songs in the rectory in Baraderes at the top of our lungs, teaching the middle school students how to sing "We Are Marching in the Light of God" in 5 languages, drinking Prestige beer on the balcony...). Haiti remains in my heart, which explains why I spent 9 days of my vacation there.
And yes, it has more to offer than just fine alcoholic beverages.....When I was working on the US-Mexico Border last summer, one of the groups CPT worked with was called JustCoffee, which is the brand name of a cooperative of coffee farmers in Chiapas, Mexico. The organization buys the coffee from its members at a fair trade price, then roasts, bags, markets, and ships it to the north. Providing a just price to the farmers and keeping the jobs in Mexico is way of facilitating people being able to stay on their land, instead of migrating through the dangerous desert heat and the Border Patrol in order to findbetter wages up north, in the US.
I began to think that perhaps we could replicate the JustCoffee model in Baraderes. I knew from past work that there are coffee farmers in Baraderes, and also that at one time Haiti produced some of the best coffee in the world. I also knew that St. John's has done awesome work in Baraderes with education and public health, but while the children are being educated and staying healthier, there are still no jobs. Anyway, long story short, a group of us assembled to test out the idea, and found it warmly received by the coffee producers in Baraderes. So we traveled in October to talk to the farmers and see the coffee farms.
The trip to the growers involved a long and grueling hike in the heat and humidity. When we reached the top of the mountain, the site of the home of one of the growers, his wife greeted us with freshly-prepared coffee served on fine china. This was in a home with no sanitation facilities and with dirt floors.
We are all learning a great deal about coffee production. These are useful things that they do not teach you in seminary, such as what color the berry has to be when you pick it, how to husk them by hand, and what is the most common coffee bean pest. I am now the proud owner of two manuals about management of the commoncoffee borer.
We are still processing what we learned in Baraderes and have not made any decisions about how we will proceed next. We brought back about 25 lbs. of green beans for quality testing and will evaluate the results. As the project continues to unfold, I will write about it.
The answer is always no. I hate writing this, truthfully, because I feel like all my Haitian friends who receive these emails will be horrified. Haiti is much more than economic deprivation. As I write this, I am drinking Haitian rum and thinking about past fun times in Baraderes (...singing Haitian folk songs in the rectory in Baraderes at the top of our lungs, teaching the middle school students how to sing "We Are Marching in the Light of God" in 5 languages, drinking Prestige beer on the balcony...). Haiti remains in my heart, which explains why I spent 9 days of my vacation there.
And yes, it has more to offer than just fine alcoholic beverages.....When I was working on the US-Mexico Border last summer, one of the groups CPT worked with was called JustCoffee, which is the brand name of a cooperative of coffee farmers in Chiapas, Mexico. The organization buys the coffee from its members at a fair trade price, then roasts, bags, markets, and ships it to the north. Providing a just price to the farmers and keeping the jobs in Mexico is way of facilitating people being able to stay on their land, instead of migrating through the dangerous desert heat and the Border Patrol in order to findbetter wages up north, in the US.
I began to think that perhaps we could replicate the JustCoffee model in Baraderes. I knew from past work that there are coffee farmers in Baraderes, and also that at one time Haiti produced some of the best coffee in the world. I also knew that St. John's has done awesome work in Baraderes with education and public health, but while the children are being educated and staying healthier, there are still no jobs. Anyway, long story short, a group of us assembled to test out the idea, and found it warmly received by the coffee producers in Baraderes. So we traveled in October to talk to the farmers and see the coffee farms.
The trip to the growers involved a long and grueling hike in the heat and humidity. When we reached the top of the mountain, the site of the home of one of the growers, his wife greeted us with freshly-prepared coffee served on fine china. This was in a home with no sanitation facilities and with dirt floors.
We are all learning a great deal about coffee production. These are useful things that they do not teach you in seminary, such as what color the berry has to be when you pick it, how to husk them by hand, and what is the most common coffee bean pest. I am now the proud owner of two manuals about management of the commoncoffee borer.
We are still processing what we learned in Baraderes and have not made any decisions about how we will proceed next. We brought back about 25 lbs. of green beans for quality testing and will evaluate the results. As the project continues to unfold, I will write about it.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
