Benedictine Weekend

Holy Week again is accented in Benedictine friendship.  Friday and Saturday I went on retreat with a small group of Benedictine Oblates.  Since December I've been attending an Oblate group in Kansas City and asking myself the question, "Where have you been all my life?" I would love to find a way of making this kind of group a constant in my life.  Oblates are lay members associated with a particular Benedictine community and can be comprised of people from various Christian traditions--protestant, Catholic, Episcopal, Orthodox, etc.  I love the ecumenical nature of the group.  We have so much to learn from each other as we host each other's experience. While we come from different experience and tradition we share important convictions--firstly we want to follow Christ better and better and secondly we hope to shape this following through the Benedictine rule of life.  It occurs to me that all people have "rules of life" which shape the lives we choose --written and unwritten.  For me it is good to try on this Benedictine way of following Jesus.  The retreat made me feel a bit homesick for my Benedictine friends in Busan.  I spent a very special Holy Week with them last year.   The friendships in Korea and my KC Benedictine friends are invaluable to my own Christian formation.  

I continue to be interested in all things talking about "what it means to be human" and at Benedictine community in Atchison, KS, I found the following quote in our worship together.  

Oscar Armulfo Romero:  

"For the church, the many abuses of human life, liberty and dignity are a heartfelt suffering.  The church, entrusted with the earth's glory, believes that in each person is the Creator's image and that everyone who tramples it offends God.  As the holy defender of God's rights and of God's images, the church must cry out.  It takes as spittle in its face, as lashes on its back, as the cross in its passion, all that human beings suffer, even though they be unbelievers.  They suffer as God's images.  There is no dichotomy between humans and God's image.  Whoever tortures a human being, whoever abuses a human being, whoever outrages a human being abuses God's image, and the church takes as its own that cross, that martyrdom."

Benedictines speak of "welcoming the stranger as if you are welcoming Christ."  This is a commitment I've seen practiced so well and while I associate it with Benedictines I know it is really just Biblical.    Interesting to me Romero is calling the church to something similar and he is exposing how we fail to "welcome Christ" in the suffering stranger.  The church is invited to host God.  What an amazing calling we have!!   Humanity  is to be welcomed as hosts to the "Creator's Image."  What if we really believed that?  When we welcome the stranger, the one who lives by a different creed and culture, the one who suffers from poverty and/or abuse, the one who comes from a different Christian paradigm, we do welcome God, don't we?  The mystery of our host-work is that somehow God hosts us in our hosting.  This Holy Week, might we be called remember and repent of the ways we've abused God by not hosting His own humanity well?  

Being Converted To A New Kind of Faith

The best kept secret in Kansas City is not a secret any more.  A few months ago some friends at church told me about an organization in town that exists to host international visitors. The organization is connected to the State Department. Their mission is to "to create peace through diplomacy". The "secrect" is the International Visitors Council of Kansas City.

Tonight I participated in hosting a dinner for Algerian visitors with a group of friends.  For each of the visitors it was their first visit to the United States.  They didn't speak much English so we were so thankful for the willing translator who came along to help us communicate with each other.  Some of my best living abroad memories are those spent in another's home.   So it was a treat to be on the receiving end of welcoming foreign guests.   Our Algerian guests work as librarians for their National Library and have been visiting USA libraries for a couple of weeks.   

 

I learned so much from listening tonight.  Our 3 guests are Muslim. When their faith tradition first came up (it came up through almost everything they talked about!) I asked, "How could I tell if someone practiced Islam?"  They answered by talking about the importance of prayer, the doing of good works and of giving to the poor.  They spoke of Muhammed very much like I'd speak about Jesus--with such conviction and admiration.  I was fascinated by the urgency with which they spoke about their faith practice and commitment.  I sensed that they had a message for us as Americans.  

They wanted us to know that Islam is about loving people and not about terror.  Those who do acts of terror are not practicing "true" Islam.  I could say something similar about the "true" practice of Christianity.   Both in what our Algerian guests said and how they said it I felt from them a deep sorrow for the people who share "their faith" with terror.  I wondered if I would be so explicitely compassionate about my faith if I were sitting in their home in Algeria.

My picture of what it looks like to practice Islam has been reframed tonight by three gentle, gracious and loving Algerians.  Their kindness and their recieving of our space made me want to learn more about what it means to practice Islam.  Will I be converted? I think I could be. No, not to Islam. But this is my hunch: in learning more about Islam I could become more authentic in the way I practice Christianity and following Christ. I'm convinced that by learning something more about those who seem so different I can learn to love God and love the other better than I've done before.    Isn't this what we are called to as Christians?  Through hospitality--making room for our international guests--I entered into a space where reconciliation was possible--room was made for me to see myself and the other in a way that brought us together.  

 

As I sat there listening intently and sharing laughter I realized that hospitality and reconciliation are twins.  They are two sides to the same coin. Both are about making room and both offer the invitation of conversion. When possibilities for hospitality and reconciliation enter into our lives we are invited to change, we are encouraged to grow, we are enabled to love.   There are all kinds of "others" in our lives. It is a risky business to invite others into our space--our home space, our life space and especially our heart space. If we do invite others in we may be converted to a new kind of faith; one that takes us closer to the very God who transforms us by his hospitable and reconciling presence.