snow mischief

The magic of the first snowfall is that it makes me pay attention in a new way.

It was my day of rest so I was frustrated that I had woken up early when my body could have used more sleep. But as I yanked my blinds open and noticed a blanket of white outside this morning, I couldn’t help but succumb to the invitation to experience the transformation that had transpired in our city overnight.    I threw on a jacket and clunky snow boots and stepped outside into the frigid air and the crisp crunch of fresh snow beneath my feet. As I journeyed towards the river, aware of the snow swirling around my face, I found myself asking God what sort of mischief he woke me up for today.

I returned home to prepare breakfast and, drawing the curtains of our living room window, I invited this fresh scenery into my day.

In the midst of breakfast preparations I learned we were short of flour, so, encouraged by my housemate, I dashed back outside and down the street  to a neighbour’s, bowl and measuring cup in hand and returned, mission accomplished, in time to enjoy a casual breakfast with some housemates and a neighbour that I’ve been getting to know. While we were chatting, we noticed flashing red lights reflecting through the window. I went to perch on the couch and investigate.

From that perch throughout the day we watched a procession of ambulance, then police and finally a coroner coming to my next door neighbour’s house to receive the body of our now deceased friend Willy. Willy’s memory had been going downhill recently.  He was the first person to welcome me as I stepped out of my car the day I moved to Saskatoon. He proceeded to welcome me anew every time we saw one another.  Finally the procession of professional responders ended, and the familiar white van that Willy’s son drives pulled up into their disabled parking zone. Watching him climb out of his van and step onto the snowy walk, I was struck with how ordinary his homecoming seemed, and how drastically different this homecoming would be from every other one when his father rose on shaky knees to greet him.

My housemates and I decided we should be more than witnesses to this great shift, but offer some sort of neighbourly companionship in their grief – a demonstration that we see you and are with you. We delivered warm soup and bread and I proceeded to shovel their walk. I’ve always enjoyed this chore because it’s not very often I get to use my body in practical helpful ways. So as I was getting into the scrape-lift-toss flow of it, I remembered we had new neighbors that moved in on the other side of us. Besides a quick hello when they commanded their dogs to quit barking at me one night, I had yet to meet them. So I cruised with the shovel on over to their place, realizing the futility of this act as the swirling snow quickly covered my tracks. Then I paused at the edge of their property line and thought of Dave, the next house over. A passionate advocate for non-violence and redistribution of food and power to the poor, I’ve grown a fondness for this self-proclaimed punk-rocker neighbour. I hadn’t seen him in a while, I suppose the change of seasons makes our friendly porch greetings less frequent. And across the street, I knew this mother and son duo had just returned from a sunny getaway because I had been on the same flight with them that weekend and we carpooled home together. I’m sure the snow wasn’t a welcome surprise as she rushed off to work early that morning.

I laughed at the dilemma I had gotten myself into, I’d be shoveling snow all the day through before I got to the end of the neighbours that I cared about, only to have to start all over again as the snow kept falling. Giving into the futility of the chore, I committed to finishing this task when the snow stopped swirling, and packed it up to head inside and reheat my coffee. I noticed a message from Dave when I went in. He had been checking in on us, seeing the commotion of police and ambulance earlier and wanted to make sure we’re okay.

In this love your neighbour business that I’ve embraced, I was dreading the come of winter, the end of picnics in the park, and casual chit chats in front yards. I imagined these being replaced by frenzied dashes from door to car, closed doors and covered windows, protective hoods shielding our faces and limiting our ability to see one another.  But now, embracing the change of seasons, I’m noticing that presence and togetherness is still possible in this wintry wilderness. I’m not a saint for shoveling snow. Please don’t hear that. But I am learning from saints how to pay attention to the invitations in my day.

‘It used to be

That when I would wake in the morning

I could with confidence say,

”What am ‘I’ going to

Do?”

That was before the seed

Cracked open.

Now Hafiz is certain:

There are two of us housed

In this body,

Doing the shopping together in the market and

Tickling each other

While fixing the evening’s food.

Now when I awake

All the internal instruments play the same music:

”God, what love-mischief can ‘We’ do

For the world

Today?”’

-Hafiz

 

little steps

I approached a group that was pausing to take a picture by this new art installment. Two young first nations boys posed proudly under the beams of this towering structure while their caregiver kept re-positioning himself to get the best angle for a photo. A sign nearby explained that this art was commissioned in 2016 as part of Saskatoon’s year of reconciliation. Still, I was puzzled about the symbolism and meaning of the art. So I asked this group if they could help me. I noticed that on one side, the wind chimes were all ordered by colour, but on the other side, they colours were all intermingled.  The older of the boys pondered this with me,
“well I recognize those colours”, he replied  “They’re Metis and Cree colours!”
“He would know”, the caregiver eagerly backs up the young boy “they’re learning native studies in school now!”

Creator God, thank you for the strides taken in this city towards better understanding one another. Thank you for the beauty of diversity here and the hope that our lives may be intertwined. Help us to approach the distance ahead that still needs to be covered with humility and openness.

“The Coming Spring,” by Canadian artist, Gordon Reeve, was commissioned by the Saskatoon Tribal Council and the City of Saskatoon, with funding from the Government of Canada.  Its creation is in response to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada’s Calls to Action, No. 79: educating and creating a sense of shared awakening.   For more information, visit saskatoon.ca/publicart.

the circle

Being harassed by a man didn’t seem like a surprise to her.

Shoulders hunched, her plaid jacket, nestled right up close to her ears serves as a protective barrier,
and it still won’t block out his nagging.
With one hand                                                                                                                                    he holds a gasoline soaked rag up to his nose and huffs.
With the other hand, he tries to grabs hers. Instinctively, She recoils her hand inward into her puffy barrier.

“Fuck off!” she yells as she darts across the street.

She leaves a trail of colourful language behind, and he daringly follows.
Across the street he holds up his rag and huffs. His defensive barrier. He’s invincible.
“Come with me”. He begs her.
She shrugs her coat up higher and bolts across the street again, straight towards two other men.

She approaches them with the determination of a wounded warrior entering her refuge, her fortress. They huddle together these 3, confer a little, and within seconds the men are off on a mission, following that brazen man.
“Those two were my uncles”, she explains to me as we step into the gas station where we’ve congregated.

“Let’s take a breather” I suggest, I offer to buy her a coffee.
“ya, okay. Can I have a pepsi instead?”
By the time we’ve had our drinks, the uncles are back. I’m relieved we’re not left to guess what happened.
“I know that guy.” One explains, “ He come into the 601 all the time. I volunteer there. I’ll give him a talking to tomorrow.
She visibly relaxes in the wisdom that elders speak.

the circle

now fortified,

it’s function in its protection,

it’s acknowledgement and immediate response to harm done,

It’s hope for healing and

a cry for never again.

A resilient Cree family in Saskatoon.

Heartwarming Housewarming

We have a friend in the neighbourhood who pops by with predictable frequency. Through the summer, we’ve been were grateful for these visits. With her unstable shelter situation and her variable mental health, every visit brings with it the assurance that she is alive and well and embracing another day. She always comes by with treats. Recently we each received a card wishing us a happy thanksgiving, Halloween and belated birthday. The cards were signed from “her royal highness”

two weeks ago she approached me excitedly at church to tell me she has a new place! It’s in the notorious Regent hotel, whose owners are currently being sued for their negligence. The Sahota’s are known for taking advantage of the poor’s vulnerable housing position to charge rent for ill-maintained rooms. Another building of theirs, the Balmoral, was closed this summer and all the tenants relocated because it was deemed unfit to live in.
So my friend agrees that it’s not the best living situation, BUT, she has her own bathtub. Normally you’d have to pay extra for a room with a bathroom and even more for a room with a tub – paying around $800 for these basic accommodations.

I pick up a simple plant from Chinatown on my way to visit her and wait outside the front doors for Lena, my roommate who is along for the visit. I watch the cops arrest someone across the street. I wonder if this is one of the dealers the police have been cracking down on lately as they try to grapple with the opioid crisis.

When Lena arrives, we take a deep breath and exchange a look that says “here-we-go!” Neither of us has been in the notorious hotel before. We pull open the door and although there are signs everywhere about limited visiting hours, and guests needing to provide ID, the front desk workers don’t even bat an eye as we breeze through the lobby. I whisper to Lena it’s because we look like nurses and social workers. One win for privilege.

We beeline past the elevator – knowing from our neighbours that it is constantly malfunctioning and usually out of service, leaving many residents with disabilities stranded, cooped up in their rooms. Not wanting to risk it, we opt for stairs. The marble staircase is impressive, it hearkens back to the original grandeur of this building a century ago when it was located in the heart of the theatre district. The wooden floor that once carried tourists and business people is now littered with trash and rigs that we step over as we search for our friend’s room.

We find it, with a banner on her door bidding us “welcome”

our friend beams as she welcomes us in and shows us around. She points to the card table and suggests adding the plant to the small collection of dishes there. Besides her bed and a wooden chair this is the only furniture. She doesn’t have a kettle or a fridge yet, but she offers us tea, coffee or milk anyways.

She has great vision and sees the potential in the room – she imagines a fridge and a loveseat in one corner, a curtain draping over her bed, giving the illusion of a separate room. She shows us where she’s labelled on the walls “this is where the rats come in”. Today, she is hoping someone will come and fill those holes. In the meantime, a few rat trips are strategically placed. We peek through the plastic curtain on the window to check out the view. We watch the rats playing on the other side of her window. Just past them is the new condo development, sequel 138. Her window offers a view into their bright courtyard complete with skywalks and a glass elevator. The fresh, clean luxury of the new building is jarring in comparison to this crumbling, neglected hotel.

The finest feature of the room is the adjacent bathroom, and it’s true this room is nearly the size of a typical SRO room in the neighbourhood. The toilet leaks, the sink doubles as a dish washer and clothes washer, the bathtub constantly looks dirty thanks to someone’s attempts to paint it over. But it’s a luxury compared to sharing the dorm style toilets down the hall.
She continues to point out the character of the room. You can tell where a sloppy paint job attempted to cover up graffiti left from some previous residents. “This one here was a nude woman”, our friend explains. ”See she’s sitting, and there’s fish crawling up her crotch. That one there is another nude. It’s not really my style. I’m thinking of getting a bunch of flower pictures to cover them up.”
her optimism baffles me and her creativity inspires me.

When we ask about her neighbours, she tells us that when she came home after visiting us on thanksgiving evening, she watched her neighbour get beat up down the hall. It all started with a small yippy dog. Her stories both fascinate and terrify me as I try to keep up, discerning what is true and what is embellished by her paranoia. Then I wonder why not just give her the benefit of the doubt? Then I can step into her world and see things as she does.

As she sees it, this room is brimming with potential. Especially because she has her own bathtub.

Improving Eyesight

Improving Eyesight

“The Spirit of the Lord is on me,
because he has anointed me
to proclaim good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners
and recovery of sight for the blind,
to set the oppressed free,
to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”     Luke 4:18-19

We all are born blind to realities other than our own. This was true for me growing up in places where most others were Caucasian, middle class. We ate the same food at lunch, we had the same values for independence, creativity and achievement. There wasn’t much diversity, and if there was, difference was awkward and uncomfortable. So I ignored it, assuming everyone’s realities mirrored my own. I was colorblind. In my blindness, racism and othering didn’t exist. But as I began to pursue God’s kingdom values, I was invited to expand my circles and rub shoulders with people different than me. It was awkward and it was beautiful

Meeting Asha* for the first time  –I walked into her home – an apartment that was too hot in a cold Saskatoon winter that was too cold. I was expecting a joyful welcome and introduction to the Iraqi family. Instead, I was greeted by the daughter and ushered quietly into a room full of women, dressed in black, covered heads bowed respectfully. Sorrowfully.  They were grieving in an unfamiliar way. I learned that Asha* was grieving for her father who had just died back home, a world away. I heard her long for her husband, her family, her support back home in Iraq. In the midst of sorrow, I saw the beauty in these Muslim women’s practice of togetherness, even when my first instinct was to let her grieve privately. I was humbled as the daughter served me food and cared for me, honored me amidst all the other distractions. Out of this, a curious, beautiful friendship was formed.

I began to seek out interactions like this. I searched for opportunities to sit at the feet of First Nations elders, to celebrate Chinese New Year, to make dulma and dumplings and momos and samosas. I learned to shake my booty from the Congolese cultural group in the west end of Saskatoon, I learned to belly dance in my kitchen from my Afghani roommate and I learned to don myself in a sari at a Bengali New Year celebration.  I’m a bad cook and a worse dancer but my eyesight is improving!

The scales began to fall from my eyes and I saw and I noticed – why are there way more First Nations people in my poor neighbourhood than in the rest of the city – at the local soup kitchen or in prison or in foster care? Why are others applying stereotypes to my Asian friend? Why is it only the white people who are talking from the front at church? Why are my friends living in a tent or in their car or numb to the effects of their bud bug ridden home? I need to first see these discrepancies to begin to get to the root of the injustices I’ve been blind to. And I see these only when I am up close, in proximity with the poor, the powerless,  and those with stories that have been different than my own.

*not her real name

Lord, Teach us to pray

Parables from the neighbourhood

I often reflect on how much I have learned about God’s heart by spending my life among my neighbours who experience poverty. It is easy for me to see how Jesus would treasure and honour my neighbours if he encountered them on earth today. When Jesus taught, he often spoke in parables, creating relevant, resonant stories to make a point. A few weeks ago,  some interns and I responded to Jesus’ teaching on prayer by crafting some parables out of the lessons we are learning from our neighbours
In Luke 11, Jesus responds to the disciples request “Lord, teach us to pray”

“  Jesus said to them, “If one of you has a friend and goes to him in the night and says, ‘Friend, give me three loaves of bread, for a friend of mine is on a trip and has stopped at my house. I have no food to give him.’  The man inside the house will say, ‘Do not trouble me. The door is shut. My children and I are in bed. I cannot get up and give you bread.’ I say to you, he may not get up and give him bread because he is a friend. Yet, if he keeps on asking, he will get up and give him as much as he needs.  I say to you, ask, and what you ask for will be given to you. Look, and what you are looking for you will find. Knock, and the door you are knocking on will be opened to you. For everyone who asks, will receive what he asks for. Everyone who looks, will find what he is looking for. Everyone who knocks, will have the door opened to him. “
We see this same persistent, desperate, trust emulated among our neighbours. This constantly challenges my middle-class desire to be self-sufficient. Here then, is where I see God’s heart in my neighbours:

How many of you then, when you have a felt need, bring it before the community I’ve provided you with?

Every Sunday in church, Dan announces his need for a TV before everyone gathered. You chuckle at the frivolousness of this ask in light of the real inadequacies faced by him and others in the neighbourhood – homeless, hunger, illness, loneliness – the things you consider real, deserving needs. Yet his ask ruminates in your mind and in others’ as he persistently reminds the church every Sunday of his need. Until one sunday he comes in and brazenly announces, “Well, someone here gave me a TV, so you all can just forget about it!”

---

 

Suppose this woman is diagnosed with cancer again.

It is has threatened her vocal chords, her abdomen, immune system before 3 separate times. When she finds out, it doesn’t crush her but she starts praying more.  She reads psalms aloud so her whole spirit can absorb them.  And she invests more and more in the church and community, rather than conserve her energy.

One day she walks into a church and she is thrown backward by the force of healing.  She believes with certainty at that moment that she is healed.

---

Suppose then a group of Chinese seniors and youth go to city council to prevent a condo development in their neighbourhood. They say to council, “Do not approve this rezoning application, for in our neighbourhood we find community and livelihood, and it is threatened by gentrification.” And the city council will answer, “I disagree, because there needs revitalization and more supply of housing.” I tell you, even though city council will not deny the rezoning application because they represent their constituents, they will deny it because of the group’s persistence.

---

 

If you then, who are selfish and apathetic, know how to give good gifts to your neighbours,  How much more will your generous Parent in heaven give good things to those who ask?

P is for Picnics in the Park

I’ve slowly been reconnecting in the neighbourhood after spending 2 months trotting around the world, visiting Servant Partners sites and receiving important training for the work we do. Honestly, the homecoming has been hard with my low capacity from jet-lag, and transition into a new job description that I’m still trying to figure out. Shortly after returning, I decided to attend a neighbourhood picnic, so I could reconnect with all my favourite people in one shot.  Through this picnic, the inspiring leadership of a neighbour and many meaningfully interactions, I was reminded of what it looks to bravely pursue our hopes for this neighbourhood. I was reminded why I am so proud to call this neighbourhood home

Earlier this summer, Nicole received a small grant to host weekly picnics in the park. She had a vision to see neighbours build a sense of community, defying the class and culture barriers that tend to segregate our neighbourhood. We had just started these picnics before I left for the Philippines, so I entrusted the leadership into Nicole’s hands, praying that the preparation and pep talks in June were enough to sustain her hopes and vision through the chaos of summer.

Fast forward 2 months to my return, I was blown away when I attended my first picnic. Nicole welcomed the crowd at the picnic, and in her opening acknowledgements she shared that these gatherings were the highlight of her summer.  And I can see why…

Multiple interactions that evening were evidence to the growing sense of community among this diverse assortment of neighbours. There was an excited bustle as we picked our way along the buffet, our neighbours had contributed generously this week!

I connected with a new friend from Malaysia, she was excited to learn I had been in her country only a week before. I hugged Cuya (big brother) Joseph, my Filipino friend, I told him about his “twin” I had met in the Philippines. I felt like I understood him so much better now after being saturated in his home culture for weeks.

I reconnected with a neighbour who had recently been home to SE Asia to mourn her mother’s passing alongside her siblings. It was her first time visiting home since she fled as a refugee a few years ago.  While we chatted, we watched our friend Mike, entertain her young daughter. Mike boasts a scraggly white ponytail, a welcoming smile, and a lingering scent of cigarette smoke. We often tease Mike that he’d be friends with anyone, except for politicians. To which he’ll correct me with a sly grin, “and sometimes, I’ll even befriend one of them!” As we observe the trust this toddler extends to Mike, the mother remarks that “she must remember him from last year’s picnics”. And hand in hand, this unlikely duo marches off mischievously towards the spray park.

Meanwhile, lounging on a picnic blanket, with dinner plates still poised on their laps, one of my roommates offers to pray for a neighbour. She has shared her concern for her son who is in treatment in Saskatchewan, and she asks for prayer for her back pain. I make sure to introduce myself to this neighbour’s father who has joined this group for the first time with his 3 youngest daughters. They promise to come again.

I make sure to give Pam a hug when she arrives. She is a long-suffering neighbourhood leader who gets a tonne of work done with such gentle calmness, you’d think she’s on vacation. I admire her resilience, but lately I’ve noticed she seems especially exhausted. I tell her I’d been praying for her, that she’d find the courage and creativity to say NO to new invitations that seemed tiring. She chuckles and shares how that prayer was answered mere moments ago. She had been in a conference call that was going overtime, when others offered to continue the conversation a little longer, she declined saying “NO, I have somewhere to be tonight”, and she politely and determinedly marched off towards our picnic!

These are the friends new and old who are dear to me, the ones who are helping me get my feet back on the ground as I re-enter Vancouver. This is the kind of community I long for others to experience, a place of gracious acceptance. You might even consider it a glimpse of the Kingdom of God.

 

*names have been changed to heighten the sense of mystery and intrigue

Prayers of the People

I offered to carry her coffee out the door for her, but by the time we got out into the pouring rain I realized she couldn’t juggle the coffee, umbrella, and her walker.  I decided to stick around for the walk to the bus stop. She was excited to tell me about her new psychiatrist she was about to visit.

“He’s soooo cool”, she said in a comically sultry voice.

She was very intent not to be late, so as we j-walked across Hastings street, we prayed together that the bus would come quickly.

“Please God, let the bus come now so Chrissy can get to her appointment on time”

“Oh gracious and compassionate God” she chimed in “you’re sooooo loving”… then she leaned over to me and whispered conspiratorially “I’m just buttering him up”… “please, oh  please bring the bus on time. You’re a good God, thank you for bringing the rain, we love the rain, were not complaining! Even if we are getting a little wet. We’re not complaining. Even if we’re cold, we’re not complaining! ”

“not complaining” I added for affirmation. And we chuckled together. As if we could sweet talk the Almighty.

It was around that time that we saw the bus whiz on past us up ahead.

“oh darn”, said Chrissy, defeated. But since we were in the spirit of petitioning anyway, we huddled under the umbrella a little longer and prayed for all sorts of things while we waited. She led us in prayer for all the people in the hospitals and all the sea creatures in the ocean… that they wouldn’t be hurt by the terrible oil spills. She prayed for me too, looking up sheepishly when she couldn’t remember my name.

When the bus finally did come, and she hoisted her walker on board and waved farewell, we both felt relieved to get out of the damp chill. Yet for all the hunched over shivering we had endured, I felt lighter and brighter as I walked back to the apartment building we had come from.  I even sang a little tune outloud as I strolled back, a habit I’ve picked up recently because it really doesn’t seem to bother anyone here.

I have a hard time coping with rainy days here. But I’ve been managing okay. Thanks to the prayers of the people.

My Meeting Place with God

When you spend a Saturday afternoon watching nursery rhymes about Halloween you know it’s been a rough day. That, or you’re planning for an ESL conversation group! In this case, at the end of October, it was both.

Not all high-5s and smiles
The pressure was mounting as D-day (decision day) approaches and I sift out my life direction from competing fears and desires. I found myself analyzing every interaction and wondering “am I really made for this?” “is this bringing me joy?”. This, combined with some stress in the home has been exhausting! We were nearing the end of October when ran out of grocery money for the month. We went on a week-long spending freeze – no fresh groceries until November 1! (we tried to put a positive spin on it by calling it “the pantry challenge”). I remember learning about the negative effects of financial stress on one’s life- how it compounds all other stresses and significantly decreases intelligent output. I’m feeling it! It certainly gave me empathy for neighbours who live on a tight budget every month and still try to be decent people.  But on this day I was on edge, I had no more decent output left – I would look at a roommate and be irritated, resentful, bitter, how dare they be in the same room as me! I do not like this deprave version of myself
To get a break, I went to a nearby coffee shop, ‘my office’. I’ve hit the point in this neighbourhood where I can’t really get a break from loving on people unless I leave the neighbourhood entirely. Even at my sacred office, I must be prepared to be interruptible. But today, these interruptions reminded me of the gift that my neighbours are to me. Dorothy Day’s character in the film Entertaining Angels spends her life extending hospitality to people living in desperate poverty on the streets of New York. At one point, when the film portrays her as beyond burnt out she asserts: says “It’s been a very lonely life. I’ve been looking to fill the emptiness. Now I see that it begins with these people, the ones that nobody else wants … They are my meeting place with God. And if I will give them a chance, I know that God will fill me with love, fill me through these people.”

While our ministries and contexts are very different, that day at the coffeshop when I was depleted and exhausted and irritable, it was so true that God chose to meet me and fill me through my neighbours, the ones I have come here to learn from and to love. All within an hour at the coffee shop.

Sitting at this coffee shop, I received a text from a woman who has opened her building to me and gathered her neighbours to practice ESL together . She wrote “today, I don’t know why I really think abt you. We all love u.” Thanks pal! It feels nice to be loved!
J&A and their stroller of pumpkins that their daughters had just carved rolled by just before that.  We laughed as the mom tried to convince me that the great pumpkin has magical powers. Between that, and her dreams about tooth fairies, the dad and I concluded that she had been spending too much time with their daughters. They went on their way, smiling. And I couldn’t help but notice that it felt nice to laugh.
A whole parade of children dragging along a frazzled, but smiling, mom passed by a little later. As I stepped out to chat with my friend, her son started asking when our next potluck would be. He was excited to get together but adamant that “we are not watching back to the future again. I did I not understand that movie AT ALL.” Their mom and I had a brief but important conversation about our shared need for self-care and escape from the hectic environments we live in. It felt nice to have a shared experience with her.
I had just settled in again when I spotted my friend and her toddler daughter peeking into storefronts, looking for a place to sell her art. The daughter’s face lit up when she saw me watching through the window and she rushed (in a toddling sort of way) to give me a high 5. It felt nice to be recognized.

Henri Nouwen teaches that once you are in community with the poor, you will discover you own poverty and accept it. You will face your limitations. You will hear God’s voice say “I love you right there, where you are weak and poor, too”. When you are in community with the poor, you are closer to the heart of God. We become a fellowship of the weak.

Thank you God for meeting me in my own limitations. Thank you for meeting me  through my neighbours.

I submit this story to you 2 weeks later when I am far away from this neighbourhood. In light of recognizing my limitations and my exhaustion, God has called me deeper into rest and stillness to teach me to lean into what my neighbours demonstrated for me. That I am beloved! Right there, in those places of weakness, I am seen, recognized, and loved!

Nameless

Last week I had the honour of reading, wondering, reflecting and responding with two other young women in our creative writing group. We encountered a story about an interaction between Jesus and “the bleeding woman” that is recorded in the gospels  https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Mark+5%3A24-43&version=NLT

My friend Janice did a beautiful job of capturing many emotions and conjectures as we created our own ‘in-between-the-lines’ version of this story.

Nameless

” Nameless to this society of Jews,
For the bloodstream in my womb was badly bruised!
I was not amused by this cursed condition,
Nor can I wave a magic wand like a mad magician.

To be healed, the doctors said, I must pay a lot of money.
But at this stage in my sickness, the blood became runny.
This terrible condition separated me from my family and friends,
For there was no end or specialist that they could send.

I felt discriminated, eliminated, cast out, obliterated!

Almost giving up, I cornered myself in my room,
Tears fell before me; it was hard to breathe,
My cheeks soaked with a reservoir of pain,
My heart weighted an awful lot of shame.

I was desperate and needed help,
For my health deteriorating so fast.
Isolated in my room,
I prayed for this ordeal to pass.

Down my legs and thighs,
The blood I could never hide or disguise.
In my last days of almost giving up,
The blood began to fill many cups.

So I got up even though I was ill,
And crossed the hump of the hill.
There was news on this terrain,
That a man named Jesus was here to save.

Healing was not imaginable,
But I set out on this mission anyway,
Born to this moment of hope,
That this pain would go away.

And to my dismay,
There were crowds like sardines, I could drown!
I wanted to scream out loud,
It was like a circus of folks in the town!

But somehow, I inched forward,
With the blood creeping on every step I took.
I soon fell dizzy as if I was slapped by a book.
Blacking out, I was dry from thirst in my mouth.

But soon I found myself upon Jesus’s presence,
So I bowed in my very fragile essence.
It was in my belief and understanding that Jesus could heal,
But was this truth actually real?

Nearing fainting, I tugged on his robe,
And in my mind I started to float like a sailboat.
The crowds were massive, I went blank.
Invisible like a canvas,
Heavy with fear like an army tank.

I stood there and immediately I felt
A surge of energy passed through my bones.
Something was happening to me,
And no longer did I feel alone!

I noticed Jesus felt my tuck on his robe,
His faced then glowed,
As he stapled his feet
On the ground of the road.

I heard him ask the crowd, “Who had touched me?”

Frightened at first, because I was surely at my worst,
But I then approached him and fell to my knees,
Soon realizing the suffering had been freed.

He looked down at me with the most loving eyes.
I felt his compassion, his warmth,
Higher than the skies!

“You are healed; no longer do you need to kneel,
For you have found me in faith.

Woman,
No longer you have to hide in caves,
For now you are saved”

– Janice