From across the coffee shop, I observe a middle-aged woman with dark-rimmed glasses and a button-down blouse. After ordering an in-house mug and a scone, or whatever middle-aged women eat for breakfast, she goes over to the counter with the five different pots of coffee, takes a step back to compensate for her now-less-than-perfect eyesight, shifts her weight to the right leg and turns her head slightly. She pushes down the lever and all throughout the coffee shop you hear the air coming out along with the few remaining drops of coffee in the pot. She pushes it down several more times. Then she glances over at the bar and the cashier and makes her way in that direction. Still two or three paces away, she leans towards the barista and, with the now-splattered mug in one hand she points up (though she intends to point at the pots behind her) and says, as if whispering, but in a completely audible voice, “The yirgacheffe is all.”
That’s right: “The. Yirgacheffe. Is. All.”
This is how Lancastrians speak. Even the high society organic-fair-trade coffee drinkers among us, who are careful to e-nun-ci-ate every syllable of the very exotic, very swanky word yirgacheffe, speak this way.
To say that something is all is to say it is gone, used up, heretofore nonexistent. And it should be noted that this phrase, intended as a statement, ends with what sounds suspiciously like the sort of voice inflection that, in most corners of the English-speaking world, is reserved for questions.
“The yirgacheffe is all?”
It occurs to me as I sip on my own cup of yirgacheffe that maybe, just maybe, this phrase I ponder - this mostly nonsensical but in this situation completely understood statement-question hybrid - has never been spoken before in the history of the planet.
These, I realize, are among the just deserts of waking up early and going to the coffee shop in an attempt to become a born again morning person.
“Creed” by Steve Turner
This is the creed I have written on behalf of all us.
We believe in Marxfreudanddarwin
We believe everything is OK
as long as you don’t hurt anyone,
to the best of your definition of hurt,
and to the best of your knowledge.
We believe in sex before, during, and after marriage.
We believe in the therapy of sin.
We believe that adultery is fun.
We believe that sodomy is OK.
We believe that taboos are taboo.
We believe that everything is getting better
despite evidence to the contrary.
The evidence must be investigated
And you can prove anything with evidence.
We believe there’s something in
horoscopes, UFO’s and bent spoons;
Jesus was a good man
just like Buddha, Mohammed, and ourselves.
He was a good moral teacher
although we think His good morals were bad.
We believe that all religions are basically the same–
at least the one that we read was.
They all believe in love and goodness.
They only differ on matters of
creation, sin, heaven, hell, God, and salvation.
We believe that after death comes the Nothing
Because when you ask the dead what happens they say nothing.
If death is not the end, if the dead have lied,
then it’s compulsory heaven for all
excepting perhaps Hitler, Stalin, and Genghis Khan.
We believe in Masters and Johnson.
What’s selected is average.
What’s average is normal.
What’s normal is good.
We believe in total disarmament.
We believe there are direct links between warfare and bloodshed.
Americans should beat their guns into tractors
and the Russians would be sure to follow.
We believe that man is essentially good.
It’s only his behavior that lets him down.
This is the fault of society.
Society is the fault of conditions.
Conditions are the fault of society.
We believe that each man must find the truth that is right for him.
Reality will adapt accordingly.
The universe will readjust.
History will alter.
We believe that there is no absolute truth
excepting the truth that there is no absolute truth.
We believe in the rejection of creeds,
and the flowering of individual thought.
“Chance” a post-script
If chance be the Father of all flesh,
disaster is his rainbow in the sky,
and when you hear
State of Emergency!
Sniper Kills Ten!
Troops on Rampage!
Whites go Looting!
Bomb Blasts School!
It is but the sound of man worshiping his maker.
an important poem by Vincent Harding
I
I had a dream.
And I saw a city,
A city that rose up out of the crust of the earth.
And it’s streets were paved with asphalt,
And a river of dirty water ran down along it’s curbs.
It was a city
And its people knew no hope.
They were chased and herded from place to place by the churning jaws of bulldozers.
They were closed up in the anonymous cubicles of great brick prisons called housing projects.
They were forced out of work by the fearsome machines,
And by the sparseness of their learning.
They were torn into many pieces by the hostile angers of racial fears and guilt and prejudice.
Their workers were exploited.
Their children and teen-agers had no parks to play in.
No pools to swim in,
No space in crowded rooms to learn in,
No hopes to dream in,
And the people knew no hope.
Their bosses underpaid them.
Their landlords overcharged them.
Their churches deserted them.
And all of life in the city seemed dark and wild, like a jungle,
A jungle lined with asphalt.
And the people sat in darkness
II
I had a dream,
And I saw a city,
A city clothed in neon-lighted darkness.
And I heard men talking.
And I looked at them.
Across their chests in large, golden letters—written by their own hands—
Across their chests were written the words:
“I am a Christian.”
And the Christians looked at the city and said;
“How terrible…How terrible…How terrible.”
And the Christians looked at the city and said:
“That is no place to live,
But some of our people have wandered there,
And we must go and rescue them.
And we must go and gather them, like huddled sheep into a fold;
And we will call it a City Church.”
So they built their church.
And the people came,
And they walked past all the weary, broken, exploited, dying men who lined the city’s streets.
Year after year they walked past,
Wearing their signs: “I am a Christian.”
Then one day the people in the church said:
“This neighborhood is too bad for good Christians.
Let us go to the suburbs where God dwells, and build a church there.
And one by one they walked away, past all the weary, broken, exploited, dying men.
They walked fast.
And did not hear a voice that said:
“…the least of these…the least of these…”
And they walked by, and they went out, and they built a church.
The church was high and lifted up, and it even had a cross.
But the church was hollow,
And the people were hollow,
And their hearts (their hearts?) were hard as the asphalt streets of the jungle.
III
I had a dream.
And I saw a city,
A city clothed in bright and gaudy darkness.
And I saw more men with signs across their chest.
And they were Christians too.
And I heard them say:
“How terrible…how terrible…how terrible.
The city is filled with sinners:
To save sinners,
To save sinners.
But they are so unlike us,
So bad,
So dark,
So poor,
So strange,
But we are supposed to save them…
To save them,
To save them.”
And one man said:
“Can’t we save them without going where they are?”
And they worked to find a way to save and be safe at the same time.
Meanwhile, I saw them build a church,
And they called it a Mission,
A City Mission:
And all the children came by to see what this was.
And the city missionaries who had been sent to save them gathered them in.
So easy to work with children, they said,
And they are so safe, so safe.
And week after week they saved the children
(Saved them from getting in their parent’s way on Sunday morning).
And in the dream the City Missionaries looked like Pied Pipers, with their long row of children stretched out behind them,
And the parents wondered in Christianity was only for children.
And when the missionaries finally came to see them, and refused to sit in their broken chair, and kept looking at the plaster falling, and used a thousand words that had no meaning, and talked about rescuing them from hell while they were freezing in the apartment, and asked them if they were saved, and walked out into their shiny care, and drove off to their nice, safe neighborhood—
When that happened, the parents knew;
This version of Christianity had no light for their jungle.
Then, soon, the children saw too; it was all a children’s game;
And when they became old enough they got horns of their own,
And blew them high and loud,
And marched off sneering, swearing, into the darkness.
IV
I had a dream,
And I saw the Christians in the dark city,
And I heard them say:
“We need a revival to save these kinds of people.”
And they rented the auditorium,
And they called in the expert revivalist,
And every night all the Christians came, and heard all the old, unintelligible, comfortable words, and sang all the old assuring songs, and went through all the old motions when the call was made.
Meanwhile, on the outside,
All the other people waited impatiently in the darkness for the Christians to come out, and let the basketball game begin.
V
I had a dream.
And I saw Christians with guilty consciences,
And I heard them say:
“What shall we do?
What shall we do?
What shall we do?
These people want to come to OUR church,
To OUR church.”
And someone said:
“Let’s build a church for THEM,
For THEM,
They like to be with each other anyway.”
And they started the church,
And the people walked in.
And for a while, as heads were bowed in prayer, they did not know.
But then, the prayers ended,
And they people looked up, and looked around,
And saw that every face was THEIR face,
THEIR face,
And every color was THEIR color,
THEIR color.
And they stood up, and shouted loudly within themselves:
“Let me out of this ghetto, this pious, guilt-built ghetto.”
And they walked out into the darkness,
And the darkness seemed darker than ever before,
And the good Christians looked, and said,
“These people just don’t appreciate what WE do for THEM.”
VI
And just as the night seemed darkest, I had another dream.
I dreamed that I saw young men walking,
Walking into the heart of the city, into the depths of the darkness.
They had no signs, except their lives.
And they walked into the heart of the darkness and said:
“Let us live here, and work for light.”
They said, “Let us live here and help the rootless find a root for their lives.
Let us live here, and help the nameless find their names.”
They said, “Let us live here and walk with the jobless until they find work.
Let us live here, and sit in the landlord’s office until he gives more heat and charges less rent.”
They said, “Let us live here, and throw open the doors of this deserted church to all the people of every race and class;
Let us work with them to find the reconciliation God has brought.”
And they said, “Let us walk the asphalt streets with the young people, sharing their lives, learning their language, playing their sidewalk, backyard games, knowing the agonies of their isolation.”
And they said, “Let us live here, and minister to as many men as God gives us grace,
Let us live here,
And die here, with out brothers of the jungle,
Sharing their apartments and their plans.”
And the people saw them,
And someone asked who they were,
A few really knew—
They had no signs—
But someone said he thought they might be Christians,
And this was hard to believe, but the people smiled;
And a little light began to shine in the heart of the asphalt jungle.
VII
Then in my dream I saw young men,
And I saw the young men and women
Those who worked in the city called Chicago,
Cleveland,
Washington,
Atlanta,
And they were weary,
And the job was more than they could bear alone,
And I saw them turn, turn and look for help,
And I heard them call:
“Come and help us,
Come and share this joyful agony, joyful agony,
Come as brothers in the task,
Come and live and work with us,
Teachers for the crowded schools,
Doctors for the overflowing clinics,
Social workers for the fragmented families,
Nurses for the bulging wards,
Pastors for the yearning flocks,
Workers for the fighting gangs,
Christians.
Christians who will come and live here,
Here in the heart of the darkness,
Who will live here and love here that a light might shine for all.
Come.”
I heard them call,
And I saw the good Christians across the country,
And their answers tore out my heart.
Some said, “There isn’t enough money there.”
Some said, “It’s too bad there. I couldn’t raise children.”
Some said, “I’m going into foreign missions, where things aren’t quite so dark.”
Some said, “The suburbs are so nice.”
Some said, “But I like it here on the farm.”
Some said,
Some said…
And one by one they turned their backs and began to walk away.
At this moment my dream was shattered by the sound of a great and mighty whisper, almost a pleading sound;
And a voice said:
“Come, help me, for I am hungry in the darkness.”
And a voice said:
“Come, help me, for I am thirsty in the darkness.”
And a voice said:
“Come, help me, for I am a stranger in this asphalt jungle.”
And a voice said, “Come, help me, for I have been stripped naked, naked of all legal rights and protection of the law, simply because I am black in the darkness.”
And a voice said:
“Come, help me, for my heart is sick with hopelessness and fear in the darkness.”
And a voice said:
“Come, live with me in the prison of my segregated community, and we will break down the walls together.”
And the voices were many,
And the voice was one,
And the Christians knew whose Voice it was.
And they turned,
And their faces were etched with the agonies of decisions.
And the dream ended.
But the voice remains,
And the voices remain,
And the city still yearns for light.
And the Kind who lives with the least of his brothers in the asphalt jungle…
Yearns for us.
One of the places every visitor to Cambodia sees is Tuol Sleng (or S-21), the genocide museum in Phnom Penh, which is the site of the secret prison where thousands were tortured by the Khmer Rouge before being marched out to the infamous ‘killing fields’. I have visited the place twice - most recently on my twenty-fourth birthday (not the most celebratory choice, to be sure).
The feeling you have as you leave Tuol Sleng is much like the feeling you have leaving the US Holocaust Memorial Museum in DC. But whereas the holocaust museum is shiny and imposing and was designed specifically to make you feel a certain way (which it does very effectively), Tuol Sleng is crude and dirty and has been left almost exactly the way it was when the Khmer Rouge fled in 1979. Plus, there is no mistaking that before it was a secret torture prison, it was a school, which makes the feeling you’re left with, whatever that feeling is, even stronger.
As you pass from classroom to classroom, you see photos on the walls of beaten bodies lying on beds. The beds, the instruments of torture, and the plain tile floor - visible in the photos - are all still there. Another part of the museum has hundreds of black and white mug shots taken by guards to document their prisoners. If you want to know how they tortured and killed the estimated 17,000+ people who passed through the prison (with only eight known survivors), there are plenty of harrowing details out there.
The mastermind behind it all, the former chief of the secret police with the Khmer Rouge, is Comrade Duch. He is the first and only Khmer Rouge leader to admit to any atrocities and this week he has been testifying before the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia. CNN.com is covering the story here.
What is particularly interesting about this story, if you ask me, is that Duch became an evangelical Christian in the 90s and was actually ‘discovered’ by a foreign journalist, found working under a different name as a humanitarian and lay pastor near the Thai border. You can read his story at Wikipedia.
If you think of it, and you’re the praying type, say a prayer for the long-suffering people of Cambodia and for Duch. Pray that somehow justice and mercy would shine through. Pray for healing. And for hope.