Light Night

I thought I should update you all on some of my activities here in Liverpool. Last Friday I helped the cathedral celebrate LightNight which is a one-night free arts and culture celebration across the city. Venues take advantage of the long days, the sun now sets between 9:30-10 as opposed to 4-4:30 in winter, to celebrate..well...light. The main space of the cathedral featured performances of many choirs to start off the night before a DJ and light show start and went till late in the night.

The Lady Chapel featured an icon of Christ surrounded by loads of candles, incense, which the cathedral does not typically use in services, this cool soundtrack, and places for people to light their own candles. There was also sung compline every hour which people could participate in if they wanted but mainly space became a sort of respite from the loud music of the main space. Many were drawn into the beautiful way the icon was presented on simmering blue and orange cloth in the haze of incense, below the beautiful blue stained glass windows of the Lady Chapel. Many took pictures of the altar and spent a long time just looking at it.

The use of the space could have offended either the religious, as the high altar of the cathedral did become a sort of backdrop for a dance party, and I did at one point have to protect the Paschal candle from the overflow of dancers but the more secular audience could also have been offended as compline was never announced it sort of just happened and one could have felt slightly trapped in a religious service by social convention. Yet, the magic of the night was that things just flowed into one another. Space was made for a convergence of religion and secular. The cathedral showed it's commitment to being a space for all people. A people's cathedral, not something above the city but connected to it. I don't know that I can come close to conveying how important I think that is here and in other places but I hope it continues.  

If you would like to see some of my videos of LightNight you check them out on my Instagram here.

Data

I have spent a good chunk of my time here entering data. Now you might think that sounds boring and I'll admit it's not the first thing a long to do at work but it has to be done. I enter in data about the guests who come to the food bank. Name, address, DOB, country of origin, number and age of children, asylum or refugee status, etc.

I see them when I work at the food bank too. I usually greet them and then check their names in our system to see if they've been before. We muddle through the questions needed for my database even though I only speak English fluently and perhaps they only speak Arabic, or Farsi, or French, or Lingala, or Swahili, or Pashto, or Dari, or Kurdish, oh but not the Kurdish that our volunteer speaks another type of Kurdish. I could learn 15 different languages and I would still have problems communicating with some. 

I try to show something to a guest in her language, she mutters to Akbar. "No good." says, Akbar. "Why?" I ask. "She from the country area, ya know? She never learned to read." 

You might think the face to face interactions like that would be the hardest but they're not. There is a person in front of you, they do not have time for you to become emotionally overwhelmed by their position in life. They need you to get on with it. It's inputting data that I feel the weight of them. Perhaps because I can consider them more in that space. 

The woman from earlier: 28, 1 adult 3 children under 10, Afghanistan.

When I enter in people with my birth year I think about them the most. I volunteered to leave my homeland, family, and friends to come here. Someday I will get to go home. She must have been driven out. Why else would you leave with 3 children under 10 and travel over 8,000 km? Partly on foot but maybe they were smuggled at certain points. She will probably never be able to go back.

 I think a lot about how different our lives are and I wonder if I would be able to live her life.

On Hospitality

"Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for by doing that some have entertained angels without knowing it." Hebrews 13:2

It has been almost four weeks since I got to England and settled into the Tsedaqah House, a three story victorian style, next to the Liverpool Cathedral. The views are immense. Out my front door I can see the great cathedral building that I feel in awe of every day and to the back, I can see down to Albert Dock and the Mersey River.  The house itself is very cozy and Emily Bethany (a Canadian housemate) and I have done well to make it feel more like home.

You may have been caught off guard by that funny name for my house, Tsedaqah. A more common transliteration is "Tzedakah" (ze-DAH-ka) but nevertheless, its literal translation is "to do justice" but is more commonly associated with the Jewish concept of charity. Since I am neither a Jew or a scholar of the Jewish faith I don't think I can accurately explain what this concept means in Jewish faith but if you are interested I think this might be a safe place to start.But back to the story of my house, the house has four bedrooms and one room that is very small and more like an office? or maybe just a really large closet that will soon have a twin (or single as they say here) bed in it. Emily and I both sleep on the second floor with fairly large sized rooms. Bethany is on the third in a smaller room but it has an epic view of the docks and most importantly there is a large bedroom with an ensuite bathroom which serves as a guest room for various guests of the Liverpool Cathedral or Liverpool Diocese. (The small office/closet room will be available as well but so that if we have friends visit there is a room for them.

Being an innkeeper extraordinaire has been a cool experience so far. I have learned new skills like towel origami. I have so far mastered dogs and swans as pictured below:

But aside from my goofy and cheesy towel art, I have been considering what being hospitable means and how to engage in hospitality with those I do not know. How often have I invited someone to stay with me or eat with me who I did not know much about? These are scary things and in part, they are scary because as a society we are continually reminded of people who wish to do others harm in every true murder show (Dateline, First 48, Investigation Discovery) and local news report. While surely there are people like that in the world today, there were also people like that in the days of Jesus. I mean the Good Samaritan story is pretty graphic and yet the call is not to be hospitable to those you know. No, it's "do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers" or Romans 12:13 "Contribute to the needs of the Saints, extend hospitality to strangers." There are others but these are my favorite because they seem the most direct. 

If we, as Christians, hold to the idea that living our faith is what we are called to do, then we must also acknowledge that sometimes it will have to be a vulnerable and courageous thing to do. It will have to involve some personal risk, discomfort, and perhaps even rejection. I wish to see in myself and also in others more last minute invites to dinner, regardless of the "state of one's home." More "crappy dinner parties" but with a mix of those strong hold friends and those people, you wouldn't normally invite. Or maybe you just put out an invite on social media that you'll be having dinner and if people are interested in coming they should feel free. (There is a man studying to be a priest here who does this every week, oh and he has a family of 3 children. They fed 28 people last Monday) Find some goal of hospitality that works for you but work towards being more hospitable because there is so much joy in that.

I have not mastered the art of hospitality, I often think I have just begun even understand what it is but what a joy to learn something new. What a joy to experience all sorts of people God has sent and what a joy to be someone invited to the table.

A Placement

I met Mohammad and Hussein in their living room in the summer of 2015. Mohammad was obviously older not just in size but in mannerism. He scolded Hussein for being fidgety and loud while I talked to their father. "They don't know English," he said sternly, "and they don't trust the police, the police are not useful where we come from. If they get separated from you, they will not know what to do." "I understand" I replied as reassuringly as I could, "I won't let them get lost." Then he rose and called to his daughters. The boys came with me and the girls went in another car and off we went.

The family consisted of the boys, their sisters, their mother, and father. Six in total living in a three bedroom apartment in Dallas. They had come from Iraq, where the Father had been an interpreter for the military during the Iraq War. His work had made him a target for violence and the family was allowed to come to the United States with SIVs or Special Immigrant Visas. Other SIVs I've talked with have similar stories. They don't let the kids play outside and tell them never to answer the door because they are afraid that someone will use the kids as an easy target.  

In the past six months after moving to Texas, the children had barely left the house because they not only lacked language skills but so did their mother. Their father's language skills had helped him get a job as a taxi driver but he had become the sole provider for the six of them and he worked as often as he could. Today, however, was different. Today we were off to a baseball game.

Hussein did a better job containing himself as we set out on the road but between the limited English the kids spoke and my nonexistent Arabic skills the short half hour car ride started out uncomfortable. I wanted very badly to ask them if they were excited to see a new sport. To know what their favorite sports or games were and if they had ever been to a professional sports event at all. All of this was profoundly out of reach for me. So I turned on the radio to see if they would dance or knew any of the songs on the radio. If they did they didn’t let on and sat politely staring out their windows at the traffic. As we’re driving I checked my rear view mirror and saw twelve motorcycles coming up to pass me. I quickly pointed to the kids to look out the windows and as I did the bikers split off from one another and passed on either side and then reformed the group in front of me. The brothers were so excited they started talking to one another and pointing and all I could think was, whether in Iraq or the U.S. some things, like Harleys, are always cool.

We met up with many other children from other families from different countries Some spoke the same language some didn't. The thing they shared the most was that they were all attempting to start over, to go back to being carefree children. Many had never been inside a sports arena, they were wide-eyed and fascinated with every aspect of the stadium. Popcorn was purchased which caused great laughter because many had never had it and little to no baseball was actually watched. We all left happier and more silly than we had started out.

We often think of mission work as being work that takes place in what we might call developing or third world countries. Rarely do we consider that mission work will need to take place in a Western city like Liverpool, England but the truth is the European Union is just beginning to understand the enormity of the number of asylum seekers and refugees coming from Syria and north Africa. I've been working for the past year to help raise money and awareness for the refugee community here in Texas and as my one year position at Refugee Services of Texas came to an end I knew that I wanted to continue that work. 

Welcoming strangers can be a scary thing but God often asks us to lean into what is scary. On this issue, He does so repeatedly in Deuteronomy 10:19, Leviticus 19:34, Matthew 25:34-40, Hebrews 13:1 & Romans 12:13. In my efforts to imitate the life Christ has shown us, I cannot help but think how blessed I am that He has given me the opportunity and ability to extend hospitality to those we might call strangers. That is why I am so happy to share that I will be working with the Anglican Diocese of Liverpool and the British Red Cross to help with the European crisis. I can't tell you how blessed I am to be going and how excited I am to share it with you.

Cheers,

Kate