Patrick's Musings #8

Last Sunday Kim and I journeyed to the large oceanside slum of Cite Soleil. Mother Teresa once called Cite Soleil, “the poorest two-miles on earth.” Needless to say, spending even a morning in this Port-au-Prince neighborhood was intense. CONASPEH has several hundred small community churches in Cite Soleil and I have been fortunate enough to preach at 3 of them in the past few weeks. However, this week’s visit to Cite Soleil was different than the previous two.



After church concluded, Kim and I stepped outside of the building and were immediately bombarded by children that wanted to hold our hands, touch our white skin, and simply be loved for a little while. The children were scantily dressed; most of them did not have shoes, several were without pants, and all of them were dirty and showing signs of malnutrition.Pastor Timothy, whose church we attended, led us through the neighborhood to show us a school he started for the community. As we walked the smiling children clung to us while proudly telling us about their school.The kids managed to navigate us through piles of garbage, puddles of stagnant water, and various street vendors cooking and selling rice and fried plantains amidst the overwhelming filth. Finally, we reached our destination where the children took us by the hand up steep concrete stairs to the school. On the balcony of the school, we found a great view of Cite Soleil. The tin roofs of the tiny shanties spread out almost as far as I could see. Stray dogs, goats, and chickens casually meandered through the neighborhood, mothers washed clothes in large bowls of soapy water while their children played soccer in the street with plastic pop bottles. And yet, alongside the poverty and the repressive nature of Cite Soleil, the blue boundless ocean sat lining one of the edges of the massive slum.

The paradox of the site was profound. For me, the ocean has always been the most spiritual and liberating manifestation of Being in the world. It functions to create a deep sense of connectedness to all life, while speaking to an unfathomable mystery that can never be fully articulated with words or religious dogma. Seeing this beautiful expression of interconnectivity and truth sitting amongst some of the most oppressive poverty in the world was moving. I internalized the paradox myself, feeling both a sense of utter separation from the everyday reality of the residents of Cite Soleil, and also a glimpse into that deeper reality of the shared experience of existence. I believe the obvious dissimilarities between my life circumstances and those found in Cite Soleil can be honored while still being attuned to the unifying force of life that binds us together.

In my opinion, one of the reasons that inhumane situations, such as that of Cite Soleil, continue to exist is because a sense of connectedness with others is absent for much of humanity. This is perhaps even more true in the United States where our wealth, military power, and sense of cultural superiority has tended to breed a perceived sense of isolation from other forms of life, including people residing in different parts of the world. I’m not sure that Kim and I have a more important job during our time in Haiti than to foster and explore this mutual connection both with the Haitian people, as well as with our friends and family back home. If our collected consciousness is going to evolve into a more loving and compassionate way of being in the world that more fully reflects our divine nature, then we must began to explore the reality that connects us to other people and to the natural world. Eckhart Tolle writes, “True salvation is to know yourself as an inseparable part of the timeless and formless One Life from which all that exists derives its being.” Jesus once said, “Truly I tell you, what you do unto the least of these my brothers and sisters, you do unto me.” Let 2009 be a year where we explore our divine connection with the people of Haiti and everywhere else in the world.