Week of December 2, 2009
Josie A.

"No one can hurt you if you are determined to do only what is right; if you do have to suffer for being good, you will count it a blessing. There is no need to be afraid or to worry about them. Simply reverence the lord Christ in your hearts, and always have your answer ready for people who ask you the reason for the hope that you all have. But give it with courtesy and respect and with a clear conscience, so that those who slander you when you are living a good life in Christ may be proved wrong in the accusation that they bring. And if it is the will of God that you should suffer, it is better to suffer for doing right than for doing wrong."
     Peter 3:13-17 (The Jerusalem Bible)

I imagined evil simply had an inexplicablesense of humor.

In a classic shtick of cold war comedy, my family was torn apart when I was eight years old; my mother and I were allowed to leave communist Cuba while my father and brother were forced to stay behind.

At the airport, those departing were made to sit together in a small room surrounded by glass. Outside, their loved ones pressed their faces and hands against the cubicle; knowing they may never see those on the other side again. Inside that room of glass, no one was allowed to speak, no one was allowed to approach the walls. No one got the joke, so almost everyone was crying.

I remember my mother's eyes. Outside, people passing by were encouraged to laugh at the 'gusanos' (worms) inside, and most especially at the people outside who wept at the loss (often irrevocable) of the families they selflessly encouraged to leave. Most passersby got a good proletariat laugh. Twelve years later, I saw my brother again, broken in body, mind and spirit from ten years of occasional torture in one of the island's prison camps. I remember my mother's eyes when she saw him as well.

I thought about those unforgettable days of classic collectivist slapstick when Jere Paddack and I briefly visited the Popalzai family. In the bright eyes of little eight year-old Nabela I saw a glimmer of hope faintly remembered. In the weary eyes and face of Fahima I again saw my mother's countenance back in 1961.

Like me, little Nabela had a mother that shielded her. Hopefully, she will never remember whispered conversations about Kabul soccer stadium, where Burka-shrouded women would be paraded around the track on the backs of pickups to the cheering of men in the stands. Charged with such heinous crimes as having uncovered ankles, wearing make up, or daring to speak up for some semblance of rights they were there to die.

A couple of circles around the track on the back of a Toyota pickup, a couple of smacks on the head as they were dragged to the middle of the stadium (soiling yourself along the way or begging for your life would really get the bleachers howling), then down on your knees, a little grandstanding from the master-of-ceremonies as he pressed the muzzle of a Kalashnikov to the back of the head, and Blam!

The crowd roars, gets to its feet. Now THAT'S entertainment folks. Opening act's over. Drag out the body. Get ready for the next act. The show must go on. For a little child of eight, it's all like a bad Fellini movie. That kind of terror is almost unreal or better survived when viewed as a macabre inexplicable comedy.

Jesus knew that terror very well. No one inflicted it better than the Romans of his day.

Mary's eyes must have had the same sad expression as Fahima's sometimes do. I can almost see the eyes sink deeper into the weary face when they first beheld the bloody back of her Son torn open by the lash. Her tears running like the blood from the crown of thorns. Her desperate disbelief as she looked out from her own glass cubicle upon His death on the cross, while passersby laughed at the "King of the Jews".

Did she live to see James die as well? Surely, the death of one son would have been enough for the eyes of Mary. For the eyes of Fahima. For my mother's eyes. For the eyes of all the mothers who watched their children burn as human torches to light the evenings at the Circus Maximus. For the disbelieving eyes of a Nigerian mother hearing her child's skull crack at the hands of religious fanatics. For the unfeeling eyes of a crack addicted mother at a shooting gallery in Trenton pleading to anyone who will listen, that she will give away her HIV-riddled body for sex in exchange for just one more fix.

I am by faith justified. But God knows, sometimes I'm caught off-guard by the glare of the eyes of so many who suffer; and my faith wavers.

Yet, when I look into little Nabela's eyes, I am by her hope justified in believing that my faith can overcome all this and more. A faith that tells me the eyes of God look back and take in all the pain -- or all the greed -- that justify our actions.

Contributed by Jose A.
Published Monday December 2, 2002
Week 1 of Liturgical Year B