For this cause I have sent you—On that theme, I was offered the chance this week to go back to Haiti with a group during the coming spring. I don't know yet if the schedule will be feasible. God, I hope so. I'm already thinking about what I could do this time around to better connect with people.
that you might lay the foundation of the Zion of God;
that a feast of fat things might be prepared for the poor—
a feast of fat things, of wine on the lees well refined—
that the earth may know that the mouths of the prophets will not fail;
a supper of the house of the Lord, well prepared,
to which all nations will be invited—
first the rich and the learned, the wise and the noble.
And after that comes the day of my power;
then shall the poor, the lame, the blind, and the deaf,
come in to the marriage of the Lamb
and partake of the supper of the Lord,
prepared for the great day to come.
Behold, I, the Lord, have spoken it.
(D&C 58:6-12)
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It's been an insanely busy month for me, finishing up conference papers and writing applications for jobs and fellowships. It's stressful, worrying about whether I'll have a full-time academic position of some kind next year, or whether I'll be scrounging for work. On Friday night, after I'd emailed off one last document, I finally had some breathing room, so Hugo and I drove up with the dog to spend a couple nights at a little lakeside cabin owned by some very generous friends.
On Saturday afternoon, we drove to a city across the Virginia border where there's a thrift store we like to visit to find old books. I found this incredibly funky "street-hip" paraphrase of the Bible that for three dollars I had to own, and then there were a few other books I was tempted by, but they didn't have prices clearly marked. So I was hovering by the counter waiting to inquire with the cashier, a thirty- or forty-something man I'd not seen there before. He was talking with two other men, apparently about either the Iraq or Afghanistan war, and complaining about how in the liberal media all you ever hear about is how many of their little kids got killed, and frankly he doesn't give a damn because this is war, and we ought to just drop the bomb on them, and the three of them agreed that there are no true conservatives anymore...
This rage came over me, and I turned and reshelved the books I'd been going to inquire about. I wanted to just walk out altogether—except I really wanted that funky Bible, so I walked up to the counter and paid for it. The cashier was polite, and I was polite, even though I was thinking I ought to say something, but I didn't, I just grabbed Hugo and got the hell out of there. In the car, I fumed to Hugo about what had happened. "You should write them a letter," Hugo suggested. And I thought: Sure, I guess, but isn't that the coward's way out, since I didn't have the guts to say something in person?
I feel like I used to back on my mission, when I'd feel this impulse to talk to someone, but then I wouldn't, and then I'd keep thinking back on it guiltily, with "Open your mouth, and it shall be filled" running through my head.
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Speaking of opening your mouth and having it filled: On Friday morning, sometime between 4:30 and 5:30 a.m., I was jolted awake by men shouting on the floor below and banging on someone's door. I looked at the window, but didn't see cop cars (no flashing lights), so I listened from behind our front door to figure out if the disturbance was still going on, and whether we ought to call the cops. And then somehow—I was sleepy, so my memory of all this is fuzzy—it dawned on me that there were cop cars outside: three of them, plus a white van, but all unmarked. What was going on downstairs was a raid, with men in bulletproof vests and big rifles and a dog barking in one of the cars.
Hugo and I knew immediately who they must be coming for: the young guy living with the Mexican family downstairs who smokes pot in the stairway practically every morning. Always very polite; asked Hugo for help jumpstarting his car one morning. We'd often see him out behind the apartment building, watching the kids of the family he lives with—his sobrinos or primos, I assume. He was clearly unemployed, and we guessed he might be a dealer.
Still, the raid came as a shock, and as much as I appreciate the law's interest in helping clean up crime in our neighborhood, I also feel kind of... I dunno... creeped out by it. How long has our building been under observation—which in a way means, how long have I been under observation—without my knowing it? It feels very Foucault, very "panopticon power of the state"-ish. And I feel badly that men with guns were shouting and breaking down the doors of an apartment where children live. At one point, as I was listening from behind our door, I heard one of the cops say something about how the hallways are clear, they're all in the front room, and I immediately had this image of the poor mother and her sobbing children huddled in the living room while the cops tromp around.
I have this impulse to go down and make some kind of effort to reach out to the family (that's the connection to "Open your mouth, and it shall be filled"), but I have no idea what to say or do.
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I read D&C 163 this week, the latest addition to the Community of Christ canon. Lots of highlighting, lots to talk about, potentially, but I don't really feel that words are being given to me yet, so I'll wait until next week.
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