A honeymoon, Haiti and Chile

Thanks to diomass intern Waetie Kumahia for this post.

It is was a Sunday in 2002, and I was feeling fresh-faced and
inquisitive about everything in New Orleans, Louisiana and the
potential to move there for a teaching opportunity at the Isidore
Newman School. My research had told me that the House of Blues
Gospel Brunch was one place to prioritize during my visit, and the
passion and beauty of the worship that morning made it so none of us
listeners wanted to leave. When we did pour out of that sacred
building and into the humid streets, I left with the desire to reach
out further to the city that had so quickly embraced me. But, as I
began to talk to mothers, gamblers, and restaurant owners about their
experiences living there, many cautioned against my decision to move. One
elderly woman warned, “Those who make it here, usually strive to get
out”. Or I was told how the combined effect of dependency on tourism
and the lack of any restrictions around the opening and closing of
bars made it so that the local man, with three children and bills to
pay, could gamble his life away at any time of night. It was not hard
to see how all of this could be prohibitive to the city’s
infrastructure and social ties. In the end, my decision to move back
to Boston for another opportunity was only partially tied to these
admonishments, but they did stay with me.

Three years later, I thought of those words and the people of
Louisiana on the morning after my wedding day. It was raining heavily,
and my husband and I had awoken in our hotel with great plans for our
honeymoon and a future that we prayed would be marked by blessings
and favor. Yet, when we turned on the television that day, and for the
remaining five days of our honeymoon, the tragedy and mayhem of black people, marooned and suffering, was always within view. Our horror and guilt as we sat-- passively, thinking about the cost of our lavish affair and how it might have been used differently ---all
of this was palatable in the seemingly acrid taste of our dinners by
candlelight. The memory of these times are etched in with the early
days of our young marriage as we both realized that the honeymoon was truly over and real marriage, and real life had begun.

And here we are in a week like this, where we watch our neighbors flee for shelter from the rain on Monday, where we complain that our basements are flooded, and my husband and I are curled
up safely in bed at night. Here we are thinking about Haiti, thinking about Chile, and thinking about our mortgage. I am wondering what more I can do aside from sending a text to the Red Cross. I think about those people who drive around with bumper stickers that say, “What would Jesus do?” I think, in this case, I know, but in the din of my responsibilities and personal life, Waltham seems as far away as Haiti. Not a day goes by during this year of service where I don’t realize
how much bigger and greater God’s plans are for me than what I
imagined at 22 while walking the streets of New Orleans. Today, as I
discern my next steps, I pray that my heart and mind will be open to
the irony and unpredictably of the next leg of my journey.