Quakers & Peace Worldwide: Asia & Africa
QUAKERS & PEACE WORLDWIDE: ASIA & AFRICA
272. Going Back: A poet who was once a Marine returns to Vietnam (by W.D. Ehrhart; 1987)
About the Author—W.D. Ehrhart enlisted in the US Marine Corps at age 17 (June 1966). After serving in Vietnam & receiving an honorable Discharge, he earned a BA from Swarthmore College & an MA from the Univ. of Illinois, Chicago. [He has written many poems that were published &] has taught at Sandy Springs Friends School, George School, & Germantown Friends School. In December 1985 Ehrhart returned to Vietnam to see the country against which he had once waged war. This pamphlet is an account of that journey.
[Excerpt from FOR MRS. NA]: I’d never say I’m sorry…Here I am at last—/and here you are./ And you lost 5 sons in the war./ and you haven’t any left./ And I’m staring at my hands /and eating tears,/ trying to think of something else to say/ besides “I’m sorry.”
[Excerpt from TWICE BETRAYED, about an Amer-Asian child left behind]: Some American soldier/ came to your mother for love, or lust…or respite from loneliness/ and you happened… I have no way to tell you that I cannot stay here/ and I cannot take you with me… I will dream you are my own daughter./ But none of that will matter when you come here tomorrow and I’m gone. W.D. Ehrhart
[Introduction]—Nguyen Thi Na is 67 years old. She lives in a small hamlet in Cu Chi District 35 km west of the city once called Saigon. There, ½ a dozen small children giggle nervously and scurried out of sight. [Inside her house], I bow uneasily to Mrs. Na and take a seat. [During the introduction], Mrs. Na’s eyes are brimming with tears. “I gave all 5 of my sons to the Revolution… I have suffered so much misery—and you did this to me.” I can only sit in stunned silence dizzy from heat and shock. Why have I put myself deeply into debt and traveled halfway around the world just to confront a reality more terrible than imagination? This is not what I wanted, I think as another wave of nausea washes over me.
[Traveling to Vietnam/Arriving in Hanoi]—What I wanted was a great catharsis, a personal healing that would finally allow me to put demons to bed and get on with my life. I had served 13 months in an infantry battalion in central Vietnam. I had been a model Marine, [wounded, decorated, and promoted]. [In the process] I wreaked havoc upon the people of Vietnam. The memories of Vietnam at war, and my complicity in that war, have never left me. If I could only see the Vietnamese getting on with their lives, I too would be able to let go.
It is no easy task to travel to Vietnam. After 4 long years of false starts and dead ends, in December 1985, I finally found myself aboard a Russian-built Air Laos turboprop. Scattered among the fields and houses were the pockmarks of craters left behind by American bombers a full 13 years earlier.
In the city of Hanoi, [bikes were everywhere, thousands of them]; they were the workhorses of everyday life. The north Vietnamese army used bicycles [on the Ho Chi Minh trail] to haul ammunition and medical supplies 1,000 miles through American bombs to the battlefields of the south. Now, cars, trucks, and bicycles seem remarkably considerate of each other.
I had hardly arrived when I was told that I would not be able to visit a single place that I had served in. I had need to see those places again, to see children playing and old men tending water buffalo on the once-bloody soil upon which I had nearly died. I had come a long way physically and emotionally to see them. It is hard for a man of 37 to have come to terms with his own foolish romanticism.
Hanoi Tour—My hosts had planned a full schedule for me, and there was no use trying to explain that I was not interested. [We visited several committee headquarters having to do with Vietnamese culture, and war history]. And a funny thing happened; in spite of my bitter personal disappointment, I began to get interested. I visited Van Mieu Pagoda—the Temple of Literature. Founded in 1077, it operated continuously for 8 centuries; now it is preserved as a museum and cultural shrine. [I heard the war experiences of several people in Hanoi. I found myself feeling a bond and sometimes liking those once my enemies].
Then there was Jade Hill Pagoda, on an island in Restoration Sword Lake. It was built to honor a 13th century Vietnamese general who defeated Chinese invaders. China has invaded Vietnam repeatedly over the course of the past 4 millenia, at one time occupying Vietnam for nearly 1,000 years. The recent intrusions by Japan, France, and the US are mere aberrations in the great sweep of Vietnamese history.
“China is our natural enemy,” General Kinh Chi said, “If only American policymakers had taken the time to learn what every Vietnamese school child knows, how very different might have been the course of the past 40 years.” Many Vietnamese revered Ho Chi Minh, and thought of him in much the same way that we think of George Washington. How many Viet Cong did our blundering ignorance produce?
Hanoi is a poor city in a poor country. There are a few new buildings. Most were built by the French before WWII. I walked alone through the streets of Hanoi for many hours and many miles during my week there. I found a Buddhist pagoda and a Catholic cathedral. Most people assumed I was Russian. In the older section of the city, Old Hanoi, the streets were clogged with small shops. Young soldiers are everywhere, but armed soldiers are rare. There was a kind of pride and strength that was real and undeniable.
Ho Chi Minh City—[As I flew over the places where I’d actually been stationed, I was feeling a bit ashamed of myself about] pouting because I couldn’t play out my private little fantasy [in visiting those places]. Once one of the busiest airports in the world, Tan Son Nhut is now hardly a shadow of its former self. Much of the older French architecture has been supplanted by new American-style buildings. Ho Chi Minh City is a madhouse of buses 3-wheeled Lambrettas, motorbikes, and motor scooters compared to Hanoi.
The war crimes exhibit in Ho Chi Minh City contains as much material about post-liberation Chinese crimes and the crimes of Pol Pot as it does about the long American war. I am reminded again that we were hardly more than a brief interlude in Vietnam’s struggle against their giant northern neighbor. My guide spent 6 years in prison under the Saigon regime (1968-1974). She said, “If we do not have successful national reunification, history has taught us that we will end up as a province of China.”
[I met 2 men in restaurants; one was educated under the defeated regime, the other fought in the Viet Minh army for 20 or 30 years. I asked the veteran, “Doesn’t it seem dull sometimes to lead such a quiet life?” “Oh, no,” he quickly replied. “I did what was necessary, but I never liked it. Give me 100 years of peace. A thousand. I don’t want any more war. He held my hand like I was his grandson, [which is a long standing], curious and beautiful custom. [As a young man, I saw it and thought they must be “queer.”]
[A former secretary for the Americans, now running a coffee shop asked for my help. She had an official document from US immigration saying she had been accepted for the Orderly Departure Program]. “I can’t get an exit visa,” she says. “I don’t know what I can do,” I reply. I leave the coffeeshop with a [helpless], hollow feeling inside. The rich and powerful got out. The junior lieutenants and faithful servants we left behind.
General Nguyen Huu Hanh spent 29 years in the Saigon army fighting the communists. He said, “I am not a communist, but this is my country and the important thing now is to get on with rebuilding it. [US advisors interfered with his command, forced him to sack a senior lieutenant, and he was relieved of command when he refused to call an air strike on an area with heavy civilian population. The entire area, including the local army garrison went over to the Viet Cong after the air strike.
[Mr. Duc of the district People’s Committee showed me around the Cu Chi District: a state farm that used to be an American base (no sign of the base remains); a “field” of craters from B-52 bombings. Mr. Duc says “We’re filling them in as fast as we can. But we have to haul earth from a long distance, and we have very little heavy equipment; it has to be done by manual labor. He took me to the district hospital].
[I see water buffalo plowing, rice being threshed, graceful fishing nets above small waterways. This is the Vietnam I remember: rural, simple, almost eternal. What’s different is the absence of war, the absence of Americans, barbed wire, artillery, choppers, and jet fighters. Half my life I have longed to witness peace in this land I have never been able to see in my mind’s eye except in the midst of war. Remember this. The world continues. There are winners and there are losers, but the war is over. [Mr. Duc also introduced me to Mrs. Na, the woman I visited at the beginning of this pamphlet]. [Excerpt from “Guerilla War”: It’s practically impossible/ to tell civilians/ from the Viet Cong./After awhile/ you quit trying.]
[I met] Tran Thi Bich at the open pavilion commemorating the tunnels of Cu Chi. Beginning in 1965, the VC constructed over 320 km of interconnecting [tunnels]. Americans never found more than a small portion of them. Some even ran under US military installations [and were use to blow up US choppers]. Miss Bich grew up in the tunnels, from age 8 to 18. [I took a trip down 50 yards of pitch black and horribly confining tunnels]. [They endured life in the tunnels and fought an effective war]. No wonder they beat us.
It isn’t just the American architecture or the awful smog that makes Ho Chi Minh City different from Hanoi, or the fact that things are only 10 years rundown instead of 40. Most of the street punks, draft evaders, prostitutes, & drug dealers that pandered to off-duty American GIs are gone. Ho Chi Minh City is a much safer & saner place than Saigon ever was during the war. I am much more at ease out in the country amid the rice fields & irrigation ditches & twisting waterways. I had forgotten the dust of Vietnam; powdery fine & six inches thick on the road to Tay Ninh. [A soldier with a loaded AK-47 prevents me from getting pictures of the river there].
The Pagoda of the [30 ft. pink] Sleeping Buddha perches on a hillside high above South China Sea on the outskirts of Vung Tau, 125 km east of Ho Chi Minh City. [Years ago I took “souvenirs” from another Buddhist temple before the roof collapsed; we had spent a ½ hour battering in the walls]. [This time] I take incense sticks & hold them while the old man lights them. I bow three times, then place the incense in a large painted vase.
[Excerpt from TWICE BETRAYED, by Ehrhart, about Nguyen Thi My Huong, an Amer-Asian child left behind]: Some American soldier/ came to your mother for love, or lust…or respite from loneliness/ and you happened… I have no way to tell you that I cannot stay here/ and I cannot take you with me… I will dream you are my own daughter./ But none of that will matter when you come here tomorrow and I’m gone.
Nguyen Thi My Huong is 14 years old, a beautiful white Amerasian. Perhaps it is true, as General Kinh has told me, that most Amerasians really have been successfully integrated into Vietnamese society. I don’t know. I met Huong and her friend Nguyen Ngoc Tuan in the park across from the old National Assembly on my 1st night in Ho Chi Minh City. Huong says she has papers and will be going to America in 4 months, [but I don’t think so]. Our last night I tell her I’ll miss her, and she shyly asks for a kiss goodbye].
General Kinh Chi joined the Viet Minh in 1945; all 7 of his children served in the army; he is no longer an active general. He is waiting for me in the hotel lobby on the morning I am to leave. I have grown very fond of this man who has been a kind host and solicitous companion, full of humor and grace. It is hard to believe that in another time he might have killed me. Most of my fellow passengers are Vietnamese, Orderly Departure Program emigrants bound for new lives in France and the United States.
[Conclusion]—[8 American veterans were allowed to go to central Vietnam at the same time I was told I could not]. But now when I think of Vietnam, I won’t see in my mind’s eye the barbed wire, grim patrols, & [sudden], violent death. Now I will see those graceful fishing boats gliding out of the late afternoon sun across South China Sea toward safe harbor at Vung Tau, & buffalo boys riding the backs of those great gray beasts in the fields. I don’t think for a moment that all is well in Vietnam. Effects of 80 years of colonial exploitation, 30 years of war, & 10 years of economic & diplomatic isolation were every where painfully evident, as was the austere presence of a government I can hardly feel too comfortable with. [Along with the memory of some faithful lieutenants and servants left behind, I will carry forever the kiss I received from Nguyen Thi My Huong.
I am more concerned these days about the war my children may one day be asked or ordered to fight. Now we are being told that if we don’t stop communist in Nicaragua, we will have to fight in the streets of Brownsville, TX. How long will it be before my government sends my children to wage war against the children of another Nguyen Thi Na? Old Mrs. Na wanted little else than for us to stop killing her children and go home.
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367. Quaker in Vietnam: Rick Thompson (by Beth Taylor; 2003)
About the Author—Beth Taylor is a Senior Lecturer in Expository Writing in the English Department at Brown University. This essay was in a series published recently in the "Friends Journal," the anthology Friends and the Vietnam War, and the web site, "Writing Vietnam." She lives in Rhode Island with her husband & 3 sons.
[The Quaker Legacy & Vietnam]—I was raised a [traditional] Quaker in the farmlands of Bucks County, north of Philadelphia. We believed in nonviolence, social reform, & finding God through inner light & silent meeting. During WWII my father built roads (NH), fought forest fires (MT), & supervised a violent hospital mental ward (VA). In 1965, the Vietnam War's problems became impossible to ignore. Some of the boys I knew left for Vietnam, Canada, or prison; they seemed human sacrifices to a war with little redeeming value.
We children were taught that we had a certain legacy to uphold. There were Taylors who gave Quaker testimony at extreme cost. Others became lawyers, businessmen, farmers, or teachers. My grandfather and Rick's grandfather, Francis Taylor, had a law office that looked out at Philadelphia's city hall. [President Hoover & the 1936 Democratic Convention called on his services as a Quaker minister]. Grandfather Taylor died before we grandchildren were born, but we knew all about him. He valued service, learning, ritual, and historical recall. His children passed on their pride and anxiety [to be the same kind of good Quaker] to us, their children.
[Rick Thompson's Call to Vietnam]—I was proud in 1972 when my cousin Rick Thompson decided to go to Vietnam to help in the American Friends Service Committee's (AFSC) medical rehab center in Quang Ngai. He had sent back his draft card to protest the draft's inequities; he felt obligated to help the war victims. He boarded at the Quaker Westtown High School, & visited our family faithfully & sometimes stayed with us.
Rick met Nan Schroeder at Iowa State University. Rick helped organize a war protest at Westtown, but thought that war resistance was dangerous. His attitude changed, resulting in a letter to his hometown Draft Board denouncing the Selective Service System as "selectively parasitic on the disadvantaged of our society ... The Selective Service System compels persons to align themselves with hatred instead of love, deception instead of integrity and servitude instead of freedom." He invoked Minute 29 of the Philadelphia YM of 1968: "Friends agree that conscription is evil and we condemn the system ...[and] withhold cooperation with conscription. Each individual ... must be led by his conscience to decide what his response must be."
Rick fell in love with "Fritz," Linda Fritz. They worked together on the University Lectures Committee & a National Affairs symposium on "Indians: 1st Americans Last." In May 1971, Rick served as an intern for the Friends Committee on National Legislation (FCNL); he wrote reports on Native American legislation. Rick brought Linda Fritz to visit us, & we were charmed by her humor and smarts & assumed they would marry.
In late spring of 1972 Rick announced he had applied and been approved for a position as a generalist for the AFSC in their rehab center in Quang Ngai, Vietnam. He struggled with the risks, his parent's hopes, and his love for Fritz. Larry and Marge wished their son would abide by the law and be a CO and do alternative service, [but they respected the choice of his own conscience]. Rick wrote: "It has occurred to me that despite the horrors of war ... armed warfare is a vortex drawing persons of all persuasions to its center ... we are attracted and excited by the chaos, the elemental reactions, and destruction ... My responsibilities are minimal ... my commitment to Linda, AFSC, my family, and above all to the Light Within. "
Linda joined Rick for the last 2 weeks in July, with his parents & his sisters at a Minnesota lake cabin. Linda wrote: "I felt desperate about Rick's leaving but never told him I didn't think he should go. I trusted him to make the right decision ... to go to Vietnamese on his own terms. When we said good-bye ... I sobbed as I could never remember sobbing."
Rick visited our family August of 1972. We talked of teachers, Old Quakers, the war, Nixon & Grandfather Taylor. Rick was going to Vietnam because as a Quaker he couldn't not go, to somehow help in this crucible of a war. While Rick was flying to a world many of us only thought about, my life was much different, with a 20-room cottage in Maine, summer job, sailing, sunning, cooking lobster, & dinner-time political discussions.
[Arriving in Vietnam]—In Vietnam Rick faced a life the exact opposite of mine—one where physical comforts were few, security was in doubt, love was on hold, & every moment was an education in the unfamiliar. The AFSC rehab center adjoined a hospital at Quang Ngai, near the coast, halfway between Saigon & Hanoi. There was a modest operating room, & workshops for making prosthetics, wheelchair, & crutches. Many of the workers were former patients. Compared to WWII's 22,000 disabled soldiers, 80,000 Vietnamese had lost an arm or a leg. The World Rehab Fund turned out 1,300 artificial limbs a month. The Quang Ngai center was a smaller, similar operation. Children returned as they outgrew legs; grown-ups returned when they were wounded again.
Rick fixed everything: tools, machines, electricity, VW bus. He would negotiate & run errands, including flying to Saigon. His new teammates liked him for his enthusiasm, humor, & dependability. He wrote: "The war that is winding down at home is in full swing. The center has more patients than ever now." Besides repairing bodies, the team met former political prisoners, helped reunite sundered families, & tried to avoid troubles with local authorities. Every interaction between noncombatant Americans & local Vietnamese was essentially economic. [It was less a mission of service & more an atonement] for the sin of entering Vietnamese culture.
Rick was confused by the interdependence of pacifist & military agencies. Rick writes: "Americans here are nice, open, moralistic ... [not the] demonic, depraved, unconscionable people the "peace movement" [sees] ... I can't help but come back to ... [seeing] that this war has an [irrational] momentum all its own ... I am a participant in the absurd. I have stepped behind the looking glass." He began to feel far from his world back home in every way: physically; spiritually; emotionally. He missed the freedom to roam & the quiet of Quaker meeting. He felt set loose on a rudderless raft, long departed from familiar landmarks. In the lines he quoted from hymns or "the Quaker Calendar" I hear Rick, in the act of writing in his journal, creating a Quaker meeting. Rick could recreate their comfort through hearing the hymns of Quaker Sunday School as he wrote their lines in his journal.
[Rick and Linda]—In these 1st few months his outlook changed and his relationship with Fritz began to falter. [Even phone calls carried a sense of the military's involvement, with a reference to] Comsat being involved in military electronics manufacture. Rick worried that she and her friends were romanticizing him. Linda's words of empathy and vain comfort were apparently hard for Rick to hear. So he began to push her away. His immediate concerns and relationships seemed concrete and his relationship with Linda abstract. The harsh lessons of Vietnam were deepening Rick's alienation from American ways. He decided to create a slide show documenting the "neo-colonialist domination" of Vietnam to be shown along with the AFSC's slide show.
[Rick and Nan]—As Rick continued to work everyday with maimed bodies from a war that wouldn't stop, his fury grew at the political games being played over peace. Rick wrote: "The hollowness of our ends is for all the world to see. Who would dare call a shifting of emphasis and power a "peace" settlement? Nothing has been resolved except that the level of violence is no longer productive to either side." After 4 intense months in Vietnam, he went to Japan to visit Nan and the Japanese countryside. The thrived on the change of pace, but did not get the physical or mental rest he needed. Nan remembers that Rick's rejection of American ways was full blown by then. She knew that Rick "was rebelling from his social class."
Nixon and Kissinger negotiated the cease-fire. Rick wrote: "[Here] there is as much, if not more fighting going on now as before the cease-fire ... I call a 'em as I see 'em, and this is merely a well camouflaged retreat ... they're leaving us some good things: a typewriter and a lot of medical supplies." For the next few months Rick immersed himself in the daily busyness of the rehab center. He made it clear in a June letter that after 10 months in Quang Ngai, he was well into the watershed experience of his life. "Vietnam has meant a rush of changes in my life ... There are now few Americans in town, for that matter few Westerners. There has been integration into the Vietnamese culture and language. There has been the whole reassessment of America. In all I feel stimulated like never before. I am most afraid of falling into an existence that would be securely comfortable & routinized."
[Plane Crash, November 17th and Funeral]—A week after the letter, I was hitchhiking through Switzerland before heading for Paris & England. I sat down on a bench by Jung Frau, a mountain & wrote Rick what was to be my last postcard to him, musing about the contrast in our lives. Nan joined him in Vietnam before continuing her trip home around the world. She witnessed tense confrontations with hostile Vietnamese & light moments with Quang Ngai staff. We were intruding in a civil war which many saw as a continuation of France's war; we could only make matters worse. The only moral response was to embrace the humanity on both sides. Rick was living the issues and saw himself as an authority. In November, Rick was stranded in Saigon by a monsoon. On the 17th he took a plane north in a storm; he was in no way afraid of flying. The plane, lost in slashing rain smashed into the side of a mountain.
The news that Rick's plane had crashed was relayed from AFSC to FCNL to Aunt Marge & Uncle Larry in Kansas City. [What followed was the family's panicked & Linda's grief-stricken search for more information]. Nan was in denial of his death for a few days. After calls between Quakers, State Department, & South Vietnamese military, a search party of soldiers & local people who knew Rick found the plane in an area of cliffs & trees high in the mountains. Rick was the only 6-foot long charred body, surrounded by small ones. The rehab center created a massive wooden coffin without using a nail. They cleaned & wrapped Rick's body in muslin & placed him in the coffin filled with tea leaves. They gathered on the rehab center's front patio for a ceremony of sorrow. His Vietnamese & Quaker friends spoke & signed a paper witnessing their presence at the ceremony. 2 friends slept in front of his coffin, keeping the candles & incense lit, according to Vietnamese tradition.
Claudia of the AFSC wrote from the rehab center: "For many days," mourners came from many villages to 'chia buon' (share sadness). Visitors spent hours in front of his altar, including two very old monks. They wondered how these old men survived when such a strong young man had died. We all wonder the same thing." The whole town of Quang Ngai seemed to share in the grief. After the onslaught of decisions about burial, Rick and his massive coffin were burned on a funeral pyre, his ashes collected and flown home to be buried under the huge old tree behind the Abington Friends Meeting House.
[Aftermath and Retrospective]—It wasn't until 25 years later, when I read Rick's journals, that I under-stood how deeply Rick had assimilated into Vietnamese ways, and how passionately he felt his disaffection from American culture. His sister belt he might never have come home. Nan said: "He loved the people, and the country itself which is very beautiful ... He admired his father's work as a lawyer and I felt that Rick may used that profession around some cause ... Rick took his Quaker beliefs very seriously." His parents remember that for a while it helped to tell people that they had lost a son in Vietnam. Margery wrote: "I wonder if the time will come when my last thoughts at night are not about Rick and my 1st thoughts in the morning are not about him.
Uncle Larry says grief brought Marge & him closer. But for a long time he would burst into tears all of a sudden; he found some relief in helping others, which he continues to do today. His sister Terrie named her 2nd child after Rick, & talked about Rick with a Vietnam vet she felt she could trust. [Susie, the little sister Rick adored] would confide in Rick. When Rick's plane crashed, Susie crashed too. She said: "I found comfort in drinking. I would drink until the bar closed & make sure I had some for Sunday ... I realized Rick wouldn't have wanted me to do this, so I went & talked to a doctor and it helped ... I think about him daily even after 30 years.
Nan says: "When you're in Asia, & you're a Westerner, you have a unique role." Going back to an Asia [without Rick] had more a sense of loss than a sense of gain. The passage of time helped. Now, besides sadness that he's gone, she can look back & feel joy that they "collided & connected" for a little while. It was hard for Linda to help with essay, [especially listening] to Rick's young, vibrant, sometimes tired voice. She said to me: "Your father & I spent a long, quiet visit there, lying under the trees [at Abington Meeting House] & remembering a very special young man."
At first, I felt that my next logical step was to go to Quang Ngai, to help as Rick had done. Linda Fritz said: "Your family has lost enough. You don't have to do this"; I went to teach at a Quaker boy's school instead. Nan said: "I think people like Rick should be honored on that Wall. His pacifist contribution to Vietnam, was at least as significant as the efforts of military personnel working in the name of the [fallacious] "domino theory." This essay is my Wall for Rick. I now write him into my room, so I can enjoy his energy, his humor, & his intense care once again. He said before he left: "I am excited, I am apprehensive, I am open to what may result."
381. Fire of Heart: Norman Morrison’s Legacy in Viet Nam & at home (by Ann Morrison Welsh; 2005)
About the Author—After the sacrificial death of her husband, Norman Morrison, in a Vietnam War protest, Anne Morrison became active in peace work, especially with the American Friends Service Committee. She writes for 2 NC weeklies. She & her husband, Robert Welsh, are members of Swannanoa Valley Friends Meeting in Black Mountain, NC. This essay originated as a talk in February 2005 to a Holy Ground spiritual retreat.
Norman Morrison gave his life today to express concern over great loss of life & human suffering caused by Viet Nam war. He was protesting our government’s deep military involvement in this war. He felt that all citizens must speak their true convictions about our country’s actions. Ann Morrison Welsh
High on a hill/ the peace dove settles at last./ Let us walk together/ young and old,/ children leading the way/ through soft green rice paddies/ up the gentle slope/ to the pagoda … Buddha songs drift/ across the paddies./ Once my country rained fire/ on your people./ Now we walk down the hill/ together, laughing,/ to the temple of our friends. Christina Morrison
[Introduction]—On November 2, 1965, my husband, Norman R. Morrison, gave his life in protest of the Viet Nam War, standing 40 feet below Robert McNamara’s office. Something beyond him compelled him to try to stop the war in the strongest way he could imagine, using self-immolation in the Buddhist tradition. I was totally unprepared for this kind of witness, as it was not my own.
A Place to Begin/ The Poetic Vision/ 2 Mules to a Wagon—Until I was a toddler I had a loving nanny, [who had to leave] when my father lost his job. I developed a deep bond with my grandmother Calla Lilly Marshall who died unexpectedly of a heart attack. My parents, William Howard & Mary Frances Marshall Corpening were loving & educated, egalitarian & democratic. My brother John was a willful challenge to our parents; my role was quiet, helpful peacemaker. I wondered why black children in the little house near us didn't go to our school just across the road. Dad brought the issue of segregation to the fore by announcing to his students that he for one was ready to integrate. He revered the natural world and believed in the general goodness of people.
I was raised in the Methodist Church; I became an agnostic. While at Duke, my intellectual world and spiritual worldview expanded through teachers who took seriously their teaching and their perspective on things that mattered. Then in the midst of my disbelief I discovered Quakerism. Helen Bevington opened the world of poetry for me, especially that of Gerard Manley Hopkins, who opened a heretofore unknown doorway of imaginative language for me; his faith spoke powerfully to my condition.
In 1955, I met Norman Morrison, a Christian, passionate pacifist, intense & work-driven. He loved nature, loved to dance, & was kind of quirky. A history major at the College of Wooster, he was headed for Presbyterian ministry, [even while] he was exploring the Society of Friends. After 2 rocky years of long-distance courtship, we decided to link our fates, & were married in September 1957, under the care of Durham Friends Meeting. We had a year of study at New College Seminary & the University of Edinburgh & traveled through Europe.
[We moved to Charlotte, NC and helped establish a meeting there]. Norman joined efforts to desegregate the downtown movie theater, and we boycotted local segregated restaurants. The 1960’s, with the Civil Rights Movement and the growing peace movement, were challenging and turbulent. The world distracted us at times from paying enough attention to our children. Norman was excited and challenged by his position as executive secretary of Stony Run Friends Meeting. He had many gifts, but at times lacked diplomacy and patience. He could have pursued other careers, but he chose religion and Quaker service and would stick to it to the end.
November 2, 1965—During 1965 Norman focused increasingly on the war. He tried all the conventional ways to protest the war, but they did not seem to work. Norman kept to himself the overwhelming mission he suddenly felt called to that day. Had I known, I would have gone to any length on earth to stop him, even calling the police. He and Emily were gone when I got back from picking up Ben and Christina from school.
That night I got 2 phone calls: 1 from a Newsweek reporter; one from Fort Myer, saying that Norman had severely burned himself. He didn't say whether Norman was dead or not & I did not ask; I knew intuitively that he was. George Webb, Harry Scott & I drove to Fort Myer. A nurse was waiting with Emily, wrapped in a white blanket. It was an incredible relief to hold Emily in my arms again. I wrote a brief statement that George wrote on a scrap of paper & read to the reporters. [The statement is shared at the beginning of these impressions].
A Changed World—What I think happened is this: Norman had packed Emily’s bag and taken her with him to the Pentagon. He held his child in his arms as long as he could without harming her, then he put her down or gave her to someone. Emily’s proximity to danger was horrifying. Her harming or death would have been unspeakable and maybe unforgivable. Had he allowed himself to feel his love for them or to feel how much they and I would suffer, I believe the pain and loss might have stopped him.
[He wrote a letter making clear the certainty of his decision, and the answer to his prayers]. He did it “for the children in the priest’s village (referring to a village that was bombed after Viet Cong passed through)]. I tried to explain their father’s death to Ben and Christina. My words may have been a noble effort, but they were woefully inadequate. The children and I should have cried our hearts out together. Because we did not, I am afraid we all remained in a state of shock and frozen grief for years.
Who was Norman Morrison?/ After November 2nd—Norman claimed loyalty to “the Way of the Cross.” He tried to live by the love commandment of the New Testament. [He and his brother] Ralph had a strict taskmaster for a father and supportive grandparents. After graduating the College of Wooster, he went on to Western Theological Seminary in Pittsburgh. Norman had a loyalty to “the philosophy of guided drift.” He tried to live his life attuned to an inner guide, the source of inspiration about the course he was to follow.
I felt I had no time to grieve or be depressed. I had to be strong for the children’s sake. I tried to carry on his witness for peace, to do what I could to end war. [I had] personal support of local & faraway friends. We heard from people overseas. The Vietnamese government issued a postage stamp in Norman’s honor, & President Ho Chi Minh issued an invitation to visit Viet Nam. I didn’t want to do something that might be taking sides. I believed that Norman had given his life for an end to the war, not a victory of one side over the other.
Many understood Norman’s radical witness, & many didn’t. What he did was in spirit realm rather than reason. I joined American Friends Service Committee’s board of directors & served on a national Peace Education Committee. I married Bill Beidler, an old family friend in 1967. He offered much-needed love, support & stability; the marriage lasted 5 years. Bill brought many gifts to our family, but as a marriage it was a still birth. There was a huge emptiness. I searched for meaning in my life & how to live with pain, regret, death & loss.
Loss Upon Loss—In 14 years I lost 5 members of my family, including Norman & my son Ben. We desperately struggled with Ben against a rare form of bone cancer. Even though it was to be a losing battle, Ben was stoic, strong & good spirited, considering what he endured. Ben & I were close, attuned to each other’s feelings. After he died, I wanted to die. I slowly let out my feelings and discovered my heart. In the darkness of his years of pain and final dying, Ben’s spirit continued to shine; even in anger it shone. “The rock shining dark rays, and the rounded/ Crystal the ocean his beams of blackness and silence/ Edged with azure, bordered with voices … There is nothing but shines though it shine darkness …”
I married Bob Welsh in the manner of Friends in 1974; he had been a great aid & comfort in Ben’s final year. Several years ago I found myself on depression's doorstep. I felt worthless, out of touch with myself & God. [I saw a scene] that conveyed to me the palpable, deep reality of God’s love [& beauty]. I, too, was beautiful. I began again. I learned to value myself in a new way. Several times in my life I have had the feeling of being held in God's hand. Now I am in the evening of my life. Looking back, I consider myself very fortunate & [privileged for all I was able to do]. And just a few years ago, I discovered an enormous treasure—the love of the Vietnamese people—by experiencing firsthand the effect that Norman’s witness left on their hearts & lives.
Journey to Viet Nam—In 1999, 34 years after Norman’s death, I went to Viet Nam with Christina, Emily & their respective partners. For our family it was a journey of friendship and reconciliation with our traumatic past. The generous support of friends made the trip possible. During our 2 weeks in Vietnam we were treated royally, meeting with national leaders and dignitaries. Our time in that beautiful old country was packed with moment after moment of celebration, flowers, tears and hugs. As we moved through these moments, we were ever mindful of Norman, as well as friends back home. Pham Van Dong, the former diplomat said of Norman: “To us he is a saint! He will live forever in our hearts.” The Vietnamese people showered us with such love, generosity and kindness, at times it was almost overwhelming.
[They asked why I waited so long]. I responded: “It couldn’t have been a day sooner. It took that long—34 years—to heal enough, & to summon the courage to face our grief, our past & our pain.” Alone in my room in the old La Thanh Hotel, I cried, & even wailed & keened over Norman’s death. I raged & yelled at him & the injustice of life; I let it all out. “Lord, help me. I can’t carry this load anymore. I can’t carry this family by myself.” The next day I woke up refreshed & with a sense of peace. That what Norman did long ago in a desperate attempt to stop the war still shines brightly in their hearts surprised us. I think it would have surprised Norman.
Into the Earth—Our memorial service in Norman’s honor was at Peace Park. Trees planted there honor those who died on both sides. We planted 3 in Norman’s memory, burned incense & prayed with our Vietnamese friends. The plaque to Norman describes him as “American Quaker, World Citizen, One life given for one world, one human family.” [Nguyen Ngoc Hung joined us on the hill, & told us how he cried when he heard the news] “that someone in America cared enough … that he would give up his life …” The 4 of us cried together.
Christina wrote the poem Peace Pagoda, which reads in part: High on a hill/ the peace dove settles at last./ Let us walk together/ young and old,/ children leading the way/ through soft green rice paddies/ up the gentle slope/ to the pagoda … Buddha songs drift/ across the paddies./ Once my country rained fire/ on your people./ Now we walk down the hill/ together, laughing,/ to the temple of our friends.
“Emily, My Child” (by To Huu, in Vietnamese)/ The Tears Told Us—
Emily, come with me/ Later you’ll grow up, you’ll know the streets, no longer feel lost./ “Where are we going, Daddy?”/ “To the riverbank, the Potomac.” “What do you want me to see, Daddy?”/ I want you dear, to see the Pentagon./ Oh my child, your round eyes/ Oh my child, your locks so golden/ Ask no more questions … McNamara/ Where are you hiding, asshole? In the burial yard/ Of a 5-corner building/ Each corner a continent/ You still squeeze your head/ Inside hot flames/ Like the ostrich buries its head in the scorching sands …
In whose name?/ You bury the bloom of our youth in coffins/ Oh, those strong, handsome sons/ Who can transform nature into electricity, steel/ For people’s happiness today! …
Tonight, your mother will come find you/ You’ll hug her and kiss/ Her for me/ and tell your mother this for me:/ I left happpy, mother, don’t be sad!/ Washington/ Twilight/ Remains or is lost?/ It’s come, the moment when my heart’s brightest/ I set fire to myself/ So the flames dazzle/ Truth.
A young [South] Vietnamese man at Pendle Hill, Dat Dutinth told me “I once knew this poem. Everyone did. People in South Viet Nam were also moved by Norman Morrison’s death. [He was a] voice of conscience. Emily as the innocent child who survived death became a symbol of hope for the Vietnamese in a devastating war. 34 years later Emily wrote a response.
For To Huu: “In Viet Nam/ In the dust and blood/ Days after my father died,/ you wrote a poem./ For many people/ You created in words a symbol/ Of hope and the future with “Emily.”/ You helped me understand/ My father/ And to love me from afar./ I did not know you wrote a poem. In America I was a strange child/ With an odd past,/ Someone who did not like to tell the/ Long story of her childhood/ Or her father’s death …”
“Thank you for giving me a moment,/ A feather/ Under a tree/ That helped me/ Carry the weight of my past/ More lightly and/ Wholly./ Thank you for writing a poem/ Wherein/ The love my father felt/ For a far-off land/ Traveled back/ And rested in my heart.” Even in 1999, Emily was treated almost reverentially by our Vietnamese companions as the living representation of Norman’s love and sacrifice.
We were very moved by the tears in the eyes of the Vietnamese who told us about learning of Norman’s self-immolation; especially the men. Khong Dai Minh, once a buffalo boy said: “One day, the headmaster called us together & told us about Morrison … Of course, we all cried. I could not believe someone in another country would die for us.” [All of us] in that room cried again. Pham Khac Lam said: “Then came the sacrifice of Morrison, a blazing light which lit up the sky, a flame of liberty and hope.”
It was as if Norman’s act had sent an arrow of love and compassion from his heart half way around the world and into the hearts of the Vietnamese people. It was [and still is] a wondrous thing. Vu Xuan Hong said: “We would have fought to the last man for our freedom, even if it would have taken us 30 more years. There would have been more deaths on both sides. Even if it was 10 more years, I am convinced Morrison and the peace movement helped to shorten the war and save lives.”
Time to Forgive—Viet Nam is a beautiful, agrarian country with an ancient, distinguished heritage, now at peace. We encountered little resentment toward our country, but rather openness, curiosity & friendliness. A gifted interpreter, Bui The Giang told us: “China invaded Viet Nam. The Vietnamese captured, & beheaded the emperor’s son. Then we made restitution. We had a bronze statue made of the emperor’s son & sent it as a peace offering … We have a history of bringing gifts to placate or assuage those we defeat, to make friends with them.
I asked: “How have you been able to forgive us American, French, Chinese, Japanese & others?” Our guide Bui Van Nghi answered: “It’s just in our nature … If you hold on to the past too tight, you miss the present & the future. The spirits of deceased loved ones are still celebrated. We believe they are nearby. They are close to us.” Each Vietnamese family creates an altar where religious objects are placed along with flowers, incense, & photos. I created such a place of memory on a table in our living room, including photos & the beautifully carved Buddha with the 1,000 Hands Statue given to us by Pham Van Dong. Viet Nam may have something to teach us about dealing with loss, not holding grudges, and being open to the future. About forgiving and healing.
Nghi wrote When a Small Child, which reads in part: “When a child/ I learned a poem … Since then, I know 2 Americas, 2 Americans:/ One with aspiration for peace & humanities,/ One with lust of warmonger./ I respect the people who love peace/ And hate war,/ Like most of my Vietnamese compatriots, … Like all progressive people on earth … I want you to convey my love/ & affection of the Vietnamese people/ To the people who braved their lives/ For peace,/ To normal Americans,/ To Viet Nam Veterans./ Please tell them to come back …Viet Nam needs more & more friends./ Viet Nam loves peace & understanding,/ Reconciliation & Friendship … May God bless Viet Nam./ May God bless Americans./ May God bless all families/ in Viet Nam and USA.”
For me our trip was full of healing and worth all the effort and challenges. When I looked into the eyes of the Vietnamese people and saw the love they still have for Norman, I knew that something beautiful had risen from the ashes of agony and loss. His was an act of love and courage, and it conveyed an unspeakable beauty. It has become part of the Great Mystery of life. One theme in Norman’s life was denial of the “friends vs. enemies” dichotomy. The other theme is how necessary forgiveness and compassion are for healing.
Norman’s story is also about how one act, one moment in a life can set so much into motion and affect so many. Julia Cameron said: “Within me, I carry God. Within God, I am carried.” Just these 2 lines express part of the Great Mystery. Within the Great Mystery, how are we to act? How else but by trying to do the best we know, and trusting in the Inward Guide? Others, seen and unseen are standing with us whenever we stand for the sake of humanity. Robinson Jeffers wrote: “And we know that the enormous invulnerable beauty of things/ Is the face of God, to live gladly in its presence, and die without grief or fear, knowing it survives us.”
[Introduction]—On November 2, 1965, my husband, Norman R. Morrison, gave his life in protest of the Viet Nam War, standing 40 feet below Robert McNamara’s office. Something beyond him compelled him to try to stop the war in the strongest way he could imagine, using self-immolation in the Buddhist tradition. I was totally unprepared for this kind of witness, as it was not my own.
A Place to Begin/ The Poetic Vision/ 2 Mules to a Wagon—Until I was a toddler I had a loving nanny, [who had to leave] when my father lost his job. I developed a deep bond with my grandmother Calla Lilly Marshall who died unexpectedly of a heart attack. My parents, William Howard & Mary Frances Marshall Corpening were loving & educated, egalitarian & democratic. My brother John was a willful challenge to our parents; my role was quiet, helpful peacemaker. I wondered why black children in the little house near us didn't go to our school just across the road. Dad brought the issue of segregation to the fore by announcing to his students that he for one was ready to integrate. He revered the natural world and believed in the general goodness of people.
I was raised in the Methodist Church; I became an agnostic. While at Duke, my intellectual world and spiritual worldview expanded through teachers who took seriously their teaching and their perspective on things that mattered. Then in the midst of my disbelief I discovered Quakerism. Helen Bevington opened the world of poetry for me, especially that of Gerard Manley Hopkins, who opened a heretofore unknown doorway of imaginative language for me; his faith spoke powerfully to my condition.
In 1955, I met Norman Morrison, a Christian, passionate pacifist, intense & work-driven. He loved nature, loved to dance, & was kind of quirky. A history major at the College of Wooster, he was headed for Presbyterian ministry, [even while] he was exploring the Society of Friends. After 2 rocky years of long-distance courtship, we decided to link our fates, & were married in September 1957, under the care of Durham Friends Meeting. We had a year of study at New College Seminary & the University of Edinburgh & traveled through Europe.
[We moved to Charlotte, NC and helped establish a meeting there]. Norman joined efforts to desegregate the downtown movie theater, and we boycotted local segregated restaurants. The 1960’s, with the Civil Rights Movement and the growing peace movement, were challenging and turbulent. The world distracted us at times from paying enough attention to our children. Norman was excited and challenged by his position as executive secretary of Stony Run Friends Meeting. He had many gifts, but at times lacked diplomacy and patience. He could have pursued other careers, but he chose religion and Quaker service and would stick to it to the end.
November 2, 1965—During 1965 Norman focused increasingly on the war. He tried all the conventional ways to protest the war, but they did not seem to work. Norman kept to himself the overwhelming mission he suddenly felt called to that day. Had I known, I would have gone to any length on earth to stop him, even calling the police. He and Emily were gone when I got back from picking up Ben and Christina from school.
That night I got 2 phone calls: 1 from a Newsweek reporter; one from Fort Myer, saying that Norman had severely burned himself. He didn't say whether Norman was dead or not & I did not ask; I knew intuitively that he was. George Webb, Harry Scott & I drove to Fort Myer. A nurse was waiting with Emily, wrapped in a white blanket. It was an incredible relief to hold Emily in my arms again. I wrote a brief statement that George wrote on a scrap of paper & read to the reporters. [The statement is shared at the beginning of these impressions].
A Changed World—What I think happened is this: Norman had packed Emily’s bag and taken her with him to the Pentagon. He held his child in his arms as long as he could without harming her, then he put her down or gave her to someone. Emily’s proximity to danger was horrifying. Her harming or death would have been unspeakable and maybe unforgivable. Had he allowed himself to feel his love for them or to feel how much they and I would suffer, I believe the pain and loss might have stopped him.
[He wrote a letter making clear the certainty of his decision, and the answer to his prayers]. He did it “for the children in the priest’s village (referring to a village that was bombed after Viet Cong passed through)]. I tried to explain their father’s death to Ben and Christina. My words may have been a noble effort, but they were woefully inadequate. The children and I should have cried our hearts out together. Because we did not, I am afraid we all remained in a state of shock and frozen grief for years.
Who was Norman Morrison?/ After November 2nd—Norman claimed loyalty to “the Way of the Cross.” He tried to live by the love commandment of the New Testament. [He and his brother] Ralph had a strict taskmaster for a father and supportive grandparents. After graduating the College of Wooster, he went on to Western Theological Seminary in Pittsburgh. Norman had a loyalty to “the philosophy of guided drift.” He tried to live his life attuned to an inner guide, the source of inspiration about the course he was to follow.
I felt I had no time to grieve or be depressed. I had to be strong for the children’s sake. I tried to carry on his witness for peace, to do what I could to end war. [I had] personal support of local & faraway friends. We heard from people overseas. The Vietnamese government issued a postage stamp in Norman’s honor, & President Ho Chi Minh issued an invitation to visit Viet Nam. I didn’t want to do something that might be taking sides. I believed that Norman had given his life for an end to the war, not a victory of one side over the other.
Many understood Norman’s radical witness, & many didn’t. What he did was in spirit realm rather than reason. I joined American Friends Service Committee’s board of directors & served on a national Peace Education Committee. I married Bill Beidler, an old family friend in 1967. He offered much-needed love, support & stability; the marriage lasted 5 years. Bill brought many gifts to our family, but as a marriage it was a still birth. There was a huge emptiness. I searched for meaning in my life & how to live with pain, regret, death & loss.
Loss Upon Loss—In 14 years I lost 5 members of my family, including Norman & my son Ben. We desperately struggled with Ben against a rare form of bone cancer. Even though it was to be a losing battle, Ben was stoic, strong & good spirited, considering what he endured. Ben & I were close, attuned to each other’s feelings. After he died, I wanted to die. I slowly let out my feelings and discovered my heart. In the darkness of his years of pain and final dying, Ben’s spirit continued to shine; even in anger it shone. “The rock shining dark rays, and the rounded/ Crystal the ocean his beams of blackness and silence/ Edged with azure, bordered with voices … There is nothing but shines though it shine darkness …”
I married Bob Welsh in the manner of Friends in 1974; he had been a great aid & comfort in Ben’s final year. Several years ago I found myself on depression's doorstep. I felt worthless, out of touch with myself & God. [I saw a scene] that conveyed to me the palpable, deep reality of God’s love [& beauty]. I, too, was beautiful. I began again. I learned to value myself in a new way. Several times in my life I have had the feeling of being held in God's hand. Now I am in the evening of my life. Looking back, I consider myself very fortunate & [privileged for all I was able to do]. And just a few years ago, I discovered an enormous treasure—the love of the Vietnamese people—by experiencing firsthand the effect that Norman’s witness left on their hearts & lives.
Journey to Viet Nam—In 1999, 34 years after Norman’s death, I went to Viet Nam with Christina, Emily & their respective partners. For our family it was a journey of friendship and reconciliation with our traumatic past. The generous support of friends made the trip possible. During our 2 weeks in Vietnam we were treated royally, meeting with national leaders and dignitaries. Our time in that beautiful old country was packed with moment after moment of celebration, flowers, tears and hugs. As we moved through these moments, we were ever mindful of Norman, as well as friends back home. Pham Van Dong, the former diplomat said of Norman: “To us he is a saint! He will live forever in our hearts.” The Vietnamese people showered us with such love, generosity and kindness, at times it was almost overwhelming.
[They asked why I waited so long]. I responded: “It couldn’t have been a day sooner. It took that long—34 years—to heal enough, & to summon the courage to face our grief, our past & our pain.” Alone in my room in the old La Thanh Hotel, I cried, & even wailed & keened over Norman’s death. I raged & yelled at him & the injustice of life; I let it all out. “Lord, help me. I can’t carry this load anymore. I can’t carry this family by myself.” The next day I woke up refreshed & with a sense of peace. That what Norman did long ago in a desperate attempt to stop the war still shines brightly in their hearts surprised us. I think it would have surprised Norman.
Into the Earth—Our memorial service in Norman’s honor was at Peace Park. Trees planted there honor those who died on both sides. We planted 3 in Norman’s memory, burned incense & prayed with our Vietnamese friends. The plaque to Norman describes him as “American Quaker, World Citizen, One life given for one world, one human family.” [Nguyen Ngoc Hung joined us on the hill, & told us how he cried when he heard the news] “that someone in America cared enough … that he would give up his life …” The 4 of us cried together.
Christina wrote the poem Peace Pagoda, which reads in part: High on a hill/ the peace dove settles at last./ Let us walk together/ young and old,/ children leading the way/ through soft green rice paddies/ up the gentle slope/ to the pagoda … Buddha songs drift/ across the paddies./ Once my country rained fire/ on your people./ Now we walk down the hill/ together, laughing,/ to the temple of our friends.
“Emily, My Child” (by To Huu, in Vietnamese)/ The Tears Told Us—
Emily, come with me/ Later you’ll grow up, you’ll know the streets, no longer feel lost./ “Where are we going, Daddy?”/ “To the riverbank, the Potomac.” “What do you want me to see, Daddy?”/ I want you dear, to see the Pentagon./ Oh my child, your round eyes/ Oh my child, your locks so golden/ Ask no more questions … McNamara/ Where are you hiding, asshole? In the burial yard/ Of a 5-corner building/ Each corner a continent/ You still squeeze your head/ Inside hot flames/ Like the ostrich buries its head in the scorching sands …
In whose name?/ You bury the bloom of our youth in coffins/ Oh, those strong, handsome sons/ Who can transform nature into electricity, steel/ For people’s happiness today! …
Tonight, your mother will come find you/ You’ll hug her and kiss/ Her for me/ and tell your mother this for me:/ I left happpy, mother, don’t be sad!/ Washington/ Twilight/ Remains or is lost?/ It’s come, the moment when my heart’s brightest/ I set fire to myself/ So the flames dazzle/ Truth.
A young [South] Vietnamese man at Pendle Hill, Dat Dutinth told me “I once knew this poem. Everyone did. People in South Viet Nam were also moved by Norman Morrison’s death. [He was a] voice of conscience. Emily as the innocent child who survived death became a symbol of hope for the Vietnamese in a devastating war. 34 years later Emily wrote a response.
For To Huu: “In Viet Nam/ In the dust and blood/ Days after my father died,/ you wrote a poem./ For many people/ You created in words a symbol/ Of hope and the future with “Emily.”/ You helped me understand/ My father/ And to love me from afar./ I did not know you wrote a poem. In America I was a strange child/ With an odd past,/ Someone who did not like to tell the/ Long story of her childhood/ Or her father’s death …”
“Thank you for giving me a moment,/ A feather/ Under a tree/ That helped me/ Carry the weight of my past/ More lightly and/ Wholly./ Thank you for writing a poem/ Wherein/ The love my father felt/ For a far-off land/ Traveled back/ And rested in my heart.” Even in 1999, Emily was treated almost reverentially by our Vietnamese companions as the living representation of Norman’s love and sacrifice.
We were very moved by the tears in the eyes of the Vietnamese who told us about learning of Norman’s self-immolation; especially the men. Khong Dai Minh, once a buffalo boy said: “One day, the headmaster called us together & told us about Morrison … Of course, we all cried. I could not believe someone in another country would die for us.” [All of us] in that room cried again. Pham Khac Lam said: “Then came the sacrifice of Morrison, a blazing light which lit up the sky, a flame of liberty and hope.”
It was as if Norman’s act had sent an arrow of love and compassion from his heart half way around the world and into the hearts of the Vietnamese people. It was [and still is] a wondrous thing. Vu Xuan Hong said: “We would have fought to the last man for our freedom, even if it would have taken us 30 more years. There would have been more deaths on both sides. Even if it was 10 more years, I am convinced Morrison and the peace movement helped to shorten the war and save lives.”
Time to Forgive—Viet Nam is a beautiful, agrarian country with an ancient, distinguished heritage, now at peace. We encountered little resentment toward our country, but rather openness, curiosity & friendliness. A gifted interpreter, Bui The Giang told us: “China invaded Viet Nam. The Vietnamese captured, & beheaded the emperor’s son. Then we made restitution. We had a bronze statue made of the emperor’s son & sent it as a peace offering … We have a history of bringing gifts to placate or assuage those we defeat, to make friends with them.
I asked: “How have you been able to forgive us American, French, Chinese, Japanese & others?” Our guide Bui Van Nghi answered: “It’s just in our nature … If you hold on to the past too tight, you miss the present & the future. The spirits of deceased loved ones are still celebrated. We believe they are nearby. They are close to us.” Each Vietnamese family creates an altar where religious objects are placed along with flowers, incense, & photos. I created such a place of memory on a table in our living room, including photos & the beautifully carved Buddha with the 1,000 Hands Statue given to us by Pham Van Dong. Viet Nam may have something to teach us about dealing with loss, not holding grudges, and being open to the future. About forgiving and healing.
Nghi wrote When a Small Child, which reads in part: “When a child/ I learned a poem … Since then, I know 2 Americas, 2 Americans:/ One with aspiration for peace & humanities,/ One with lust of warmonger./ I respect the people who love peace/ And hate war,/ Like most of my Vietnamese compatriots, … Like all progressive people on earth … I want you to convey my love/ & affection of the Vietnamese people/ To the people who braved their lives/ For peace,/ To normal Americans,/ To Viet Nam Veterans./ Please tell them to come back …Viet Nam needs more & more friends./ Viet Nam loves peace & understanding,/ Reconciliation & Friendship … May God bless Viet Nam./ May God bless Americans./ May God bless all families/ in Viet Nam and USA.”
For me our trip was full of healing and worth all the effort and challenges. When I looked into the eyes of the Vietnamese people and saw the love they still have for Norman, I knew that something beautiful had risen from the ashes of agony and loss. His was an act of love and courage, and it conveyed an unspeakable beauty. It has become part of the Great Mystery of life. One theme in Norman’s life was denial of the “friends vs. enemies” dichotomy. The other theme is how necessary forgiveness and compassion are for healing.
Norman’s story is also about how one act, one moment in a life can set so much into motion and affect so many. Julia Cameron said: “Within me, I carry God. Within God, I am carried.” Just these 2 lines express part of the Great Mystery. Within the Great Mystery, how are we to act? How else but by trying to do the best we know, and trusting in the Inward Guide? Others, seen and unseen are standing with us whenever we stand for the sake of humanity. Robinson Jeffers wrote: “And we know that the enormous invulnerable beauty of things/ Is the face of God, to live gladly in its presence, and die without grief or fear, knowing it survives us.”
31. Quakerism and India (by Horace G. Alexander; 1945)
PREFATORY NOTE ON THE AUTHOR—Horace G. Alexander: Woodbrooke Lecturer at Pendle Hill; Spring Term 1945. History scholar of King’s College, Cambridge. Director of studies at Woodbrooke. [He visited] India from 1927-28 & has since followed Indian affairs constantly. He was Head of the Friend’s Ambulance Unit in India. His recreation is as an ornithologist delighting in the birds of Europe, Asia, & North America.
I. Introductory—George Fox and his associates were filled with a zeal to proclaim “Truth” to the ends of the earth. Within a few years they had penetrated as far as Constantinople in the East and New England [across the sea] in the West. The bitter persecution of Quakers crippled these valiant efforts to take “Truth” into every land. [Besides English-speaking settlements], Quakerism took no root elsewhere till the 19th and 20th centuries. In the 2nd half of the 19th century the Society of Friends or some Yearly Meetings (YM) established “Christian missions” in Japan, China, central India, 2 African islands, and the Middle East.
The purposes of this pamphlet are to attempt an appraisement of the work undertaken by India mission during some 80 years, to note certain other recent Quaker contact with India, & to see if anything is demanded of the Society of Friends in this age by the growth of nationalism, [race feelings, & progress] in those lands. How do Asia’s poverty problems & Asia’s [desire] to be free from Western control touch the Society of Friends?
II. Indian and Quakerism, 1850-1940—[The Society 1st reacted to the situation in India after the Indian Mutiny of 1857]. Charles Gilpin, editor of the The Friend, [wrote of the Quaker’s] “profound sorrow and alarm [about] that spirit of sanguinary vengeance [from] our public journalists.” He also said: “We hold as by a thread our supremacy in our vast, ill-gotten and ill-governed Eastern Empire.” [In The Friend] he discusses the real causes of the outbreak: tortures of Indians by [English-sponsored] tax-collectors; “pride and hauteur” of English officers; [unethical] “disposition of our countrymen.” In the January 1858 issue someone wrote about [the cycle of military occupation, commerce & “re-investment” in further conquest]. The Quakers John Bright and Joseph among others kept a close watch on Indian policy; John Bright spoke out in Parliament on India’s welfare.
A small group of Indians were impressed by Quakers & started a small meeting for worship in Calcutta. 3 English Friends visited Calcutta from November 1862-summer of 1864. For some years the Calcutta group continued. Rachel Metcalfe went to India in 1866 with the support of the newly formed Friends Foreign Mission Association (FFMA); there is no record of her visiting this Hindu-Quaker Group. The Calcutta group died out. The Editor of The Friend wrote in 1869: “As long as missionaries are sent out to establish their own sects and Churches … we have little faith in the forms of religion so planted.” Rachelle Metcalfe went to Benares to help an Anglican Church missionary. In 1869, she was joined by 2 American Friends, Elkanah and Irena Beard.
In 1870, the 3 of them moved to Jubbalpore in the Central Provinces, & later to Hoshangabad. This pre-dominantly agricultural district has remained the “Friends district” ever since. [The villagers] drawn into the new Christian community became dependent on the leadership offered by the missionaries. Building an autonomous group was a laborious process [dependent on land ownership and a secure position in some hereditary caste].
Rachel Metcalfe was elevated to a pedestal Indians erect for the white man or woman whom they respect or love—or fear. Some refuse to stand on it, but such humility is an uncommon virtue. Most Christian missions blossom into schools, student hostels, hospital & dispensaries. They were needed, but are they the main task of Christian missions? [For Rachel Metcalfe] not even the medical needs or the cry of famine orphans must stand in the way [of evangelism]. [Evangelists & institutional workers] tended to grow further & further apart.
In 1902 there were no fewer than 31 Quaker missionaries working in the Central Provinces; in 1945 there were only 8 or 10. The total membership of the Yearly Meeting is under 400. A hospital, 2 schools, a boys’ hostel, a girls’ boarding school, an experimental farm, and a few scattered relics of other Monthly Meetings are the total visible result of 80 years of the devoted labours of 50 men and women.
Today, as always, the Indian Quaker community in the Central Provinces is handicapped by the economic struggle. [Young men go away to the big cities], & in the process they influence their [big city] neighbors to see religion in terms of daily life that is pure & true, rather than religious observance & ritual. [Rather than growing] an Indian section of the Society of Friends, it influences the direction of the whole Christian church of mid-India towards practical mysticism. Christian cooperation with concerned Hindu & Muslim neighbors is being developed. Since 1890, the Ohio YM (Friends Church) has been responsible for a mission in the district around Nowgong, Bundelkhund, Central India. Care of orphans, medical activity, & evangelism have been chief phases of the work. New England YM and other American Friends have given support to this work of Ohio Friends.
III. Emergency Relief in India, 1942-1945—Both M. K. Gandhi and Rabindranath Tagore have shared some views in common with Quakers. The state of conflict between Indian Nationalism and the British Government has been a matter of increasing concern to London YM. [Quaker groups] sympathetic to Indian freedom have been formed. Individual English Friends were in close personal, confidential relations with Gandhi and Nehru and other political leaders. The Friends Service Council (FSC) [replacing the FFMA in 1926] recognized that India’s mystical tradition suggests a kinship between some Hindus and Quakers. It promoted contact between Quakers and Hindus in India and with Indian students in England.
Men of the Friends Ambulance Unit (FAU), having assisted with civilian victims of London bombings, offered to go to India to help with civil defense. Horace Alexander and Richard Symonds contacted Gandhi, who said: “If you come to serve India, perhaps to serve under our leadership or direction, your arrival just now is especially welcome.” The FAU in London had also recognized that it would be well to have women in the section in India. Pamela Bankart went to work establishing contact with the tiny fringe of emancipated women of Calcutta, and helped organize with them a new Women’s Emergency Service.
After bombings in December 1942, the FAU was in action for a time among civilians in Calcutta, on the roads leading to Bihar, and in eastern Bengal and Assam. In October 1942 a cyclone of exceptional intensity and size hit the southwest corner of Bengal. The storm-whipped tide broke the seawall in many places; some 850 miles² was inundated by the sea. It was the medical need of the survivors that brought the FAU into the field. For over a month Jean Cottle and her colleagues worked hard at inoculating against cholera. Milk distribution centers for children were started that continued even after food distribution ended in March 1943. [At one point after food distribution ended] it was a heart-breaking business for the FAU workers and their colleagues to find themselves feeding small children with milk while the adult population began to starve.
Indian volunteers were eager to work with the FAU in Midnapore. The FAU’s need for volunteers provided the outlet for a growing enthusiasm for social work that the educated middle-class girls of Bengal were feeling. Throughout the period of cyclone relief, it was FAU’s experience that voluntary workers were more often than not reliable, tireless, & efficient. By mid-summer landless laborers & their their families were dying of starvation.
The 1st act of the FAU in direct relation to the famine was to help in establishing a canteen for undernourished children in Calcutta; before long it expanded to include [most if not all of Bengal]. The English and wealthy Indians gave generously to the FAU work. The American Friends Service Committee (AFSC) began sending workers, vitamins, and badly needed food stuffs. In Calcutta in the summer of 1943 the mothers cooked the food and paid a farthing, something each day towards the cost of the meal to avoid the demoralizing effects of being on the dole. The FAU kept the need for rehabilitation constantly in view. 3 industrial centers have been established near Calcutta for the widows and children without fathers. The FAU centers are partially run by a working committee [in a relaxed and cheerful manner].
The FAU found that small, interest free loans could be made to [destitute craftsfolk] who could then buy supplies and implements, and get back into production. A model-village reconstruction project was started in Hati-berya, Midnapore. In all these activities Friends’ workers have been successful in getting all groups to work together harmoniously. They were able to reconcile differences and to act as catalytic agents, with an effect that appeared to be more far-reaching than the results of the actual work done. The FAU and AFSC had by example rendered various practical services to the province of Bengal.
IV. Estimate & Forecast—The differences between the FFMA & the FAU are as] instructive as the parallels. [They both had the danger of becoming guardians for life of orphans]. Whereas the FFMA was ready & eager to turn Indian orphans into Quakers, the FAU had no such desire. The FFMA believed in tending, fertilizing, watering a tiny patch of soil by intensive means. The FAU has cast its bread upon the waters of a great ocean.
In China, especially in the remote Szchuan province, the pioneer missionaries were mere “foreign devils.” They had to prove themselves by demonstrating to a practically minded people that the Christians had brought something worth having. Today the Society of Friends, as it is seen in West China, is still an alien growth, with no roots. Chinese intellectuals say that the Quaker style of religion is just the thing to appeal to Chinese, but there is no sign of them joining the Society or of starting a kindred religio-social society of their own.
[There are several “Quaker outposts” in China]. [There is also a] FAU and a group of the AFSC giving their services for the period of the war. They aren't trying to turn non-Christian Chinese into Christians or Quakers. Can the FAU & the AFSC have a wider influence than any of the older missionary bodies? At best you may find many Christian islands of hope & comparative prosperity amidst the fear and poverty of these great eastern lands. But they remain insulated. The non-Christians in general fight shy of organizations that are felt to be serving a propagandist cause. [The Christians’] spiritual imperialism is suspect. [There is a certain futility about] improvements that do not win the intelligent support of landlords, administrators, or party leaders.
The FAU & AFSC seem to be influencing the whole life of peoples & provinces in a way that few missions have done. To those who have experienced “walking cheerfully over the world, answering that of God in every man,” & the richness that comes from this way of living, there is something almost mean in the desire to see one’s Hindu or other non-Christian friends “converted” to Christianity. Not so does God’s truth enter people’s hearts. The non-evangelistic work which the FAU have demonstrated in China India seems to provide a pattern for a healthier relationship of eastern & western workers [sharing] the modern world with the disinherited.
[In the 1930s], Hilda Cashmore decided to launch an experiment in social welfare work among Indian villagers with the support of Friends’ Service Council; she did not want this to be mixed up with missionary work. [She utilized] some disused Quaker buildings and acquired some land to settle some aboriginals and do horticultural experiments on. After 2 or 3 years she persuaded Ranjit Chetsingh, an Indian Friend and his wife to join her; she eventually left them in charge. [Handicraft/community schools were developed, as well as a reading room and institute. The concept of a social settlement did not fit well with the background of old mission work. Ranjit and Doris Chetsingh moved to Delhi. [Ranjit has widespread community support]. For the 1st time a Quaker project in India is being shaped from the outset by an Indian mind. If Friends can cooperate in India with seekers after truth of other faiths, they may do more indirectly to undermine ancient superstitions, bad social habits and communal bigotry than by any direct attack or partisan activity.
Demands for freedom from western dominance comes from India, China, Burma, Malaya, Java, Siam, Indo-China, Philippines, Korea, & Japan. The world needs the action of dedicated groups of men & women who will spend a few years of their lives in some eastern city. India & the East needs a sprinkling of Quaker saints, prefer-ably the kind that is quite sure they are not saints. The similarities of Quakerism and Hindu mysticism include: the life of the spirit is the source of all right living; seeking the life of the spirit is not an excuse for escape from the world; communion with God becomes the spring and source of pure and selfless social action. The West has much to learn from India: the naturalness of religion; the world of the spirit is our natural home; God is a fit subject for daily conversation. [Quakerism may provide a] channel through which the best traditions of western social impulse and Gandhian religion may flow together for the mutual enrichment of East and West.
[About the Author]—Amiya Chandra Chakravarty (1901–1986) was an Indian literary critic, academic, & Bengali poet. He studied in Hare School, Calcutta, & graduated from St. Columba, Hazaribagh. He wrote both poetry & prose & a number of articles in journals of India, England and the US. He was a close associate of Rabindrath Tagore, & edited several books of his poetry. He was also an associate of Gandhi, & an expert on the American catholic writer & monk, Thomas Merton. He taught literature & comparative religion in India for nearly a decade & then for more than 2 decades at universities in England & the US.
FOREWORD—Humans live simultaneously or successively in the worlds of: matter; mind; spirit; the individual; the social; his own imaginings; God’s creation. Those who seek simple solutions for complex problems commit the original sin of over-simplification, & doom themselves to perpetual disappointment. [The problem of mass violence must be solved simultaneously on many levels: political; demographic; food production; distribution; ideology; religion.
Some persons are organically tough, aggressive, ruthless, and power-loving. And the religion of the 20th century is nationalistic idolatry; established religions are being used in service to the state. Finally, the population of our planet is increasing much faster than presently available supplies of food and raw materials. Professor A.V. Hill writes: “The pre-war standard [in India] was, in fact, very poor, much of the population existed below the level of a decent life. Yet the gigantic national effort proposed in the 5 Year Plan, may only just restore that miserable standard. An overuse of natural resources could result in the meantime … [The application of modern science and technology using the best humanitarian motives] has led to a problem of the utmost public gravity.” The huge amounts spent on armaments and the political consequences of this pressure of population are aggravated by inefficient production and inequitable distribution.
The great merit of Indian philosophy that Amiya Chakravarty discusses here is the fact that it goes back to 1st principles. Because of the human position between animal and divine, peace on earth possesses a cosmic significance. [For humans], peace that passes understanding begins with [worldly] peace that does not pass understanding. The ultimate and strongest reason to refrain from violence is metaphysical in its nature. A good philosophy must be accompanied by good: political institutions, control of population, agriculture; technology; distribution of wealth; occupational therapy for [military strongmen]. Even in India nationalistic idolatry is now taking its place as the subcontinent’s religion. Gandhi, the last of the great exponents of India’s traditional philosophy of peace was cremated with full military honors. ALDOUS HUXLEY
[The Glories of Peace in India]—Society has to be guided by values inherent to reality rather than by expediency. Both in philosophical ideas and in practice, India has refused to permit the elimination of differences in order to obtain unity; her contact with neighbors outside has not been aggressive. Gandhi’s new technique of revolution brought out the finest elements in the 2 great civilizations Western and Eastern. The urge to achieve a humane and integrative society is centered in India’s generally accepted faith in the sanctity of life.
Yet India had her Kautilya, who compiled and advocated codes of ruthless politics. Practitioners of his code have not been wanting. The people chose Gandhi and not a more violent leader to guide their spiritual and national destiny. Much earlier they chose Buddha, rather than men who wielded animal magnetism. Saintly leaders became the center of one movement after another in the course of India’s history. Today, facing an international situation, India shuns intellectual experts who use moral arguments to drag her into global militarism. In India, the preponderance of opinion is against the use of violence no matter how great the emergency. Their age-long faith makes it impossible for them to glorify war. India’s testimony must be examined and clarified. For her peoples, the greatest danger comes from minds which would oppose evil with evil and call it good. The whole business of civilization is to discover the [narrow] way, and this cannot be done if we continue to think and act on the basis of “inevitable” cruelty and violence.
[Hindu and Buddhist Peace Principles]—India’s opposition to war is grounded in the philosophy of love, ahimsa. Supreme peace, para shanti, is the objective, attainable through spiritually controlled lives; the instrument is compassion. Religion is dharma, the nature of reality, revealing the truth of unity. The active principle in creation, praiti, is identified with the immanent nature of God. The religious man discovers that active principle, & uses its power with goodness & purity. The serene pursuit of ahimsa will lead to fulfillment.
When one recognizes pervasive divinity in all, evil is seen as a challenge & trial which has to be met with illumined mind & active love. There is unbroken unity which has to be grasped; lacking such knowledge, our actions are fragmentary & ineffective. In true society, ego-conflict is neutralized by a union of enlightened selves. By rising to the higher levels of our being we partake of Buddha called the infinite mind, aparimeya manasa.
The 3 aspect of Divine Reality: the peaceful, shantam; the good, shivram, and the undivided, admaitam, cannot be denied in our relationships. Compassionate action, right action, is purifying strength; it also destroys, wears away, the evil that binds us. Through right action alone, we return to the way; wrong action is further deviation. The true way is that of humility, courage and compassion.
[Humans & the Law]—(Law is used here to indicate the unchangeable Principle which governs the universe.) To be peaceful one has to be spiritually rooted and practice the law of divine love. Without accepting the primacy of the divine law, the law of human relationship cannot be properly observed. Violence or evil can never be a cure for violence and evil. Both oppose the law of existence; they deny the right of existence to others. Violence must be stopped in the mind so that individual or group acts of fratricide can be stopped. [We share a reality]. To deny reality to anyone, [for any reason] is to deny our own reality.
To Gandhi, love's law was the deepest teaching of the Indian scriptures, and he found interrelated proof of it in his reading of science. He said: “That cohesive force among animate beings is love … I have found that life persists in the midst of destruction and, therefore, there must be a higher law than that of destruction.” Buddha said: “akkodhena jine kodham (conquer anger with non-anger); asadhum sadhuna jine (conquer the evil-doer by goodness). Evil is cancelled in proportion as goodness is exerted. Any outside coercion which hinders the inner growth is harmful to all, while the atmosphere of love and expectation makes for social well-being.
When Buddha spoke of the sanction of measureless love [not unlike a mother’s love], he was referring both to the objective existence of such love, and to its transforming power. Non-violence, ahimsa, cannot be practiced by one who is not constantly transcending himself and reaching the power of truth at every stage in the conscious practice of virtue. The Indian concept of morality is built on the divinely grounded life. India also rejected the creed of “necessary evil.” Spiritual law does not allow evil to be practiced by men who claim a special category of immunity for themselves. The compulsion of goodness lies within & depends on the realization of divine love for its acceptance. Nonviolence is a corollary to the spiritual practice of the law of love.
[India’s Tradition of Peace in Practice]—India’s tradition of peace wasn't restricted to ideals but tested & applied at various levels of life & society. The caste system had its origin in the philosophy of tolerance allowing all sections of people to live together protected by guilds. In every age leaders have arisen challenging discrimination. Some of the greatest spiritual men, like Buddha, Kavir, Nanak, Gandhi, revered & followed by millions, were from the so-called “lesser,” non-Brahmin categories. Rabindranath Tagore, through inherited disassociation & repudiation of his “Brahmin” stamp, stood for India’s higher ideals. India’s testimony of peace will largely depend on what the peoples can do in getting rid of the evils of caste, idolatry, & communalism.
Sikhism, founded by Nanak, incorporated the finest features of Hinduism and Islam, rejected idolatry, priest-craft and herd-like servitude to Vedic or other texts or doctrines. Nanak was utterly dedicated to nonviolence. The fact that his own successors, as in other religions, often betrayed their heritage, and allowed Nanak’s testimony to be violated, proves that spiritual truth is preserved by constant vigilance.
In ancient epics, primitive types of heroism are extolled side by side with unreserved adoration for the ways of peace. Asoka (269 to 232 B.C.) was appalled by the misery and destruction he had achieved. In embracing Buddhism, the emperor renounced the life of violence and abolished war-waging as a function of the State of which he was ruler. Dharma is the moral law, both implicit and manifest. Dharma meant originally both the nature of things, and that which binds together. The background to the Gandhi movement and its sanctions can be traced in this historical and spiritual faith of India. Toward the end of his career, Asoka seems to have been convinced that reflection and meditation were of greater efficacy than moral regulation.
Evil offers opposition so that higher resources of man can be called into being. In fables even animals learn to associate in goodness; this may be evolution’s modern interpretation. The Gita gives the picture of a battle between good & evil which is waged in the human soul. The goal is spiritual freedom. The whole point of karma is that victory is certain if the character is true, if the will is “informed” & shaped by spiritual light.
The confusion created by the Gita’s 2 Krishnas, a war-charioteer, & an advocate of compassion & God-like purity, is lamentable; the 2 Krishnas cannot be reconciled. Krishna shows the supreme path of spiritual freedom, moksha, as attainable through divine purity. The Gita supports the effort of the Indian mind to apply divine laws to human life. The influence of the Gita & its message of spiritual action has been deep & continuous on the Indian mind. Spiritual leaders from the time of Chaitanya to Saint Ramakrishna never felt any doubt as to the moral and social consequences of a spiritualized life. [India’s contact with Islamic ideals and Christian testimony have] strengthened India’s ethical thinking.
Civilization must be judged and prized, not by the amount of power it has developed, but by how much it has evolved and given expression to, by its laws and institutions, the love of humanity. Rabindranath Tagore
[Rabindranath Tagore]—Tagore’s father, Maharshi gave concrete expression to the idea of spiritual fellowship and peaceful sharing by establishing an asrama, or center for spiritual work, near Calcutta: Santiniketan (abode of peace). Rabindranath Tagore took over Santiniketan from his father, and turned it into an active center for the training of a new generation of teachers and students whose primary responsibility would be to cultivate the spirit of loyalty to humankind. This community not only had representatives from India, but very soon students from China, Japan, and co-workers from the West joined it.
[Tagore rejected caste, idolatry, & communal divisions, while embracing co-education, unity of service & devotion]. The foundation of peace was to be laid in communities where different races & nations could meet in centers & be exposed through study & personal contact to mutualities of experience. During WWI, any member of the warring nations who wanted a spiritual atmosphere for the pursuit of international activities was welcome at Saniniketan. As Tagore put it, the coming together of man is still an external fact; it has to be turned into truth.
It was at Santiniketan that Tagore and Gandhi met. During many weeks Tagore and Gandhi exchanged their ideas and experiences. They were united in a common devotion to spiritual freedom & remained lifelong friends. The one was primarily a thinker & educator, the other was a liberator. Mahatma Gandhi’s work for peace is unique in that he effectively harnessed spiritual resources to the task of winning freedom for humankind.
[Gandhi’s Training Camps]—Inspired by Indian asramas, & influenced by Tolstoy & Thoreau, Gandhi started his satyagraha camps in Africa based on the Patanjali Yoga Sutras: Ahimsa (nonviolence); Satya (truth); Asteya ([sexual] continence); Brahmacharya (Non-possession); Aparigraha-Yamah (self-control). Gandhi had his community practice truth-force, as against impulse & reflex action, in daily behavior within the group & in relation with the larger society. Exploration of fundamental laws & the facts of daily life would reveal the framework of responsibility for each worker according to his special problems.
Gandhi did not sidestep the evil which had to be challenged, but he insisted on methods which saved humanity from injury and destruction. Ahimsa is the equivalent of Jesus’ demand for recognition of the spiritual personality of all and the law of love as the supreme force. Gandhi believed in the transforming power of calm courage, nonviolent group action and forbearance. If 100 M. K. Gandhis failed, that would not negate the truth of the law of love; it would merely prove the unworthiness of the instrument. The cure [for moral infection] was there and had to be found. The whole process of finding [the cure for evil] he called “experiments with truth.” In the satyagraha camp, the worker was to be spiritually changed and prepared in order to become a precision instrument, morally guided, for remedying social ills. Training camps, he felt, were necessary for all people.
Because we are human beings we are mutually responsible. We are not in a position to judge from outside, nor can we punish without equally sharing in the punishment. Violent situations are not inevitable, but man-made and controllable by man. The trained moral person will not think of masses of people anywhere as wholly and solely wrong and in any case destroyable.
[Intercession]—The training camp is to train individuals in intercessory action's technique. The will to serve follows a different course [from self-righteousness]. [A police action], a minimum, non-destructive & detentive use of force would be a valid intercession, according to many. The term “police action” can be euphemistically used to include ruthless destructive force, even in peace time. Intercession must begin with the trained individual. The intercessor must place himself at the disposal of those who suffer & fight; he must arrive with courage, & love, & the testimony of faith. A new chain-reaction, beneficent & creative, will have been started.
Intercessory action leads to contact with those who war and suffer and need succor. Intervention is done from afar; there is no human contact with the peoples but an agonizing destroying act from outside. Precedence is no principle. The fact that somebody did something first does not therefore allow us to do it next, and with greater power to wreak evil. The inherent goodness or badness of a thing has no relation to the inherent goodness or badness of the thing against which it is paired. A satyagrahi had to know when to act and how to refrain; he should expect conversion in his so-called enemy and be ready to examine fresh proofs. The peace worker must learn the secret of combining resolution with charity, decisiveness with continuous sensitivity.
[Conclusion]—Gandhi’s principles have been largely unexamined by the international world, hence the odd, [inaccurate] use of the word “neutral” in connection with India’s positive policy of working with and serving peoples and nations, instead of a partisanship which estranges a nation from others. The user of truth does not expect an easy path; neither is he sure of infallibility on his part. Any difficulty encountered will have to be conquered by human and moral means, not by denial and destruction.
Gandhi’s work in India was rendered difficult by the fact that people were more crushed, disorganized and often resigned to their fate than a modern European society would be. [The only way to know how calm, disciplined courage would work in the face of stiff, totalitarian government resistance] is to persist in the application of moral law, and seek know it and apply it in new circumstances. Experiments with truth-force cannot succeed if mixed up with such other beliefs and practices as are a clear denial of the eternal principles of truth. We cannot practice methods which we condemn in others.
Gandhi began with the people at the rural, humble level, demanding the utmost from simple men & women, & got answers undelivered by doubters & deviationists. The techniques he used can be further developed. Population control is a necessity as well as humane & planned emigration [& immigration] policies. The UN awaits proper use by a human society partially freed from the neurosis of power, political schisms & economic aggressiveness. Satyagraha, truth-force, must be used instead of violence because violence negates the law of God, and brings disaster and shame to all. Such a testimony of peace is not merely India’s, but one that most men and women in humanity would know in their own hearts. And we can succeed only if we pursue truth together.
[Rabindranath Tagore]—Tagore’s father, Maharshi gave concrete expression to the idea of spiritual fellowship and peaceful sharing by establishing an asrama, or center for spiritual work, near Calcutta: Santiniketan (abode of peace). Rabindranath Tagore took over Santiniketan from his father, and turned it into an active center for the training of a new generation of teachers and students whose primary responsibility would be to cultivate the spirit of loyalty to humankind. This community not only had representatives from India, but very soon students from China, Japan, and co-workers from the West joined it.
[Tagore rejected caste, idolatry, & communal divisions, while embracing co-education, unity of service & devotion]. The foundation of peace was to be laid in communities where different races & nations could meet in centers & be exposed through study & personal contact to mutualities of experience. During WWI, any member of the warring nations who wanted a spiritual atmosphere for the pursuit of international activities was welcome at Saniniketan. As Tagore put it, the coming together of man is still an external fact; it has to be turned into truth.
It was at Santiniketan that Tagore and Gandhi met. During many weeks Tagore and Gandhi exchanged their ideas and experiences. They were united in a common devotion to spiritual freedom & remained lifelong friends. The one was primarily a thinker & educator, the other was a liberator. Mahatma Gandhi’s work for peace is unique in that he effectively harnessed spiritual resources to the task of winning freedom for humankind.
[Gandhi’s Training Camps]—Inspired by Indian asramas, & influenced by Tolstoy & Thoreau, Gandhi started his satyagraha camps in Africa based on the Patanjali Yoga Sutras: Ahimsa (nonviolence); Satya (truth); Asteya ([sexual] continence); Brahmacharya (Non-possession); Aparigraha-Yamah (self-control). Gandhi had his community practice truth-force, as against impulse & reflex action, in daily behavior within the group & in relation with the larger society. Exploration of fundamental laws & the facts of daily life would reveal the framework of responsibility for each worker according to his special problems.
Gandhi did not sidestep the evil which had to be challenged, but he insisted on methods which saved humanity from injury and destruction. Ahimsa is the equivalent of Jesus’ demand for recognition of the spiritual personality of all and the law of love as the supreme force. Gandhi believed in the transforming power of calm courage, nonviolent group action and forbearance. If 100 M. K. Gandhis failed, that would not negate the truth of the law of love; it would merely prove the unworthiness of the instrument. The cure [for moral infection] was there and had to be found. The whole process of finding [the cure for evil] he called “experiments with truth.” In the satyagraha camp, the worker was to be spiritually changed and prepared in order to become a precision instrument, morally guided, for remedying social ills. Training camps, he felt, were necessary for all people.
Because we are human beings we are mutually responsible. We are not in a position to judge from outside, nor can we punish without equally sharing in the punishment. Violent situations are not inevitable, but man-made and controllable by man. The trained moral person will not think of masses of people anywhere as wholly and solely wrong and in any case destroyable.
[Intercession]—The training camp is to train individuals in intercessory action's technique. The will to serve follows a different course [from self-righteousness]. [A police action], a minimum, non-destructive & detentive use of force would be a valid intercession, according to many. The term “police action” can be euphemistically used to include ruthless destructive force, even in peace time. Intercession must begin with the trained individual. The intercessor must place himself at the disposal of those who suffer & fight; he must arrive with courage, & love, & the testimony of faith. A new chain-reaction, beneficent & creative, will have been started.
Intercessory action leads to contact with those who war and suffer and need succor. Intervention is done from afar; there is no human contact with the peoples but an agonizing destroying act from outside. Precedence is no principle. The fact that somebody did something first does not therefore allow us to do it next, and with greater power to wreak evil. The inherent goodness or badness of a thing has no relation to the inherent goodness or badness of the thing against which it is paired. A satyagrahi had to know when to act and how to refrain; he should expect conversion in his so-called enemy and be ready to examine fresh proofs. The peace worker must learn the secret of combining resolution with charity, decisiveness with continuous sensitivity.
[Conclusion]—Gandhi’s principles have been largely unexamined by the international world, hence the odd, [inaccurate] use of the word “neutral” in connection with India’s positive policy of working with and serving peoples and nations, instead of a partisanship which estranges a nation from others. The user of truth does not expect an easy path; neither is he sure of infallibility on his part. Any difficulty encountered will have to be conquered by human and moral means, not by denial and destruction.
Gandhi’s work in India was rendered difficult by the fact that people were more crushed, disorganized and often resigned to their fate than a modern European society would be. [The only way to know how calm, disciplined courage would work in the face of stiff, totalitarian government resistance] is to persist in the application of moral law, and seek know it and apply it in new circumstances. Experiments with truth-force cannot succeed if mixed up with such other beliefs and practices as are a clear denial of the eternal principles of truth. We cannot practice methods which we condemn in others.
Gandhi began with the people at the rural, humble level, demanding the utmost from simple men & women, & got answers undelivered by doubters & deviationists. The techniques he used can be further developed. Population control is a necessity as well as humane & planned emigration [& immigration] policies. The UN awaits proper use by a human society partially freed from the neurosis of power, political schisms & economic aggressiveness. Satyagraha, truth-force, must be used instead of violence because violence negates the law of God, and brings disaster and shame to all. Such a testimony of peace is not merely India’s, but one that most men and women in humanity would know in their own hearts. And we can succeed only if we pursue truth together.
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319 Stories from Kenya (by Tom and Liz Gates; 1995)
About the Authors—Tom and Liz Gates were in western Kenya from Nov. 1991 to May of 1994. They are the parents of 2 boys, Matthew (13) and Nathan (11). Tom is a family physician; Liz is a school teacher. Tom came to Friends through studying conscientious objection; Liz came to Friends through Tom. This pamphlet draws on their mutual experiences living and working at Friends Lugulu Hospital in Kenya.
Preface—The stories here were 1st presented as plenary address to New England YM. We alternated stories of our experiences; that mimics the way we work. Tom was a physician & had a clear role at the hospital. Liz home-schooled our sons, held household together, assisted in administrative tasks, taught computer skills, & responded to emergencies [outside the hospital]. Kenya has a child mortality rate 10 times higher than the US; per capita income is $300 per year & falling; patients regularly die for lack of proper medicines; sugar & milk are in short supply. Daily struggle of people’s lives has joy & meaning that can be difficult for us to comprehend.
The Rich Young Man (Mark 10: 17-22): Go, sell everything you have & give to the poor … then come & follow me—We considered applying to Lugulu Hospital in 1983, but with an infant son and a 2nd one coming [we decided to wait and] remain open to any future leadings. In 1989, we wondered if we [were close to a time] when such an undertaking would be possible. [Around the same time] Isaiah Bikokwa, a Kenyan Friend and missionary whom we had met wrote to tell us he felt that God was calling us to work in Kenya. Could we do it?
We felt like the rich young man, whose “things” prevented him from following God’s leading. What was hardest to give up was our security, our illusions of being in charge and in control. William Kriedler said: “Protection is from God; safety comes from the devil.” When we were ready to surrender some of our obsessive quest for security, only then could we experience the true protection that comes from God.
All of this sounds so noble, but of course it was not like that. [We didn’t sell everything, we put it in storage], as a kind of backup security. [We applied tentatively, found clearness to go, and then had the opportunity postponed for a year and then were offered it again]. [Only after 18 months of the process] were we prepared to answer unequivocally with the prophet Isaiah “Here we are Lord. Send us.”
Who Am I, that I should go to Pharaoh, and bring the Israelites out of Egypt? God said, “I will be with you.” (Exodus 3:10-12)—Elizabeth: I felt I had much in common with Moses. What could I, a public school teacher in rural NH, possibly offer to people in Kenya? I had to trust God to show me.
Lugulu came as a violent shock to me. Nothing in all my previous experience had prepared me for the reality of living in the 3rd World. Everything was different: the food, the people, the language, even the trees and birds. I was coming down with a severe case of culture shock. I felt lost and vulnerable; I survived by clinging to the very clear leading I had once felt, that God had a purpose in calling both of us to work in Kenya. After 3 weeks [in this state], Tom thought we might be forced to return home.
Edith Ratcliff, a living legend in Kenya, founder & builder of Lugulu Hospital for 30 years, showed up in our home in need of serious medical attention; she had hepatitis. Suddenly, I had someone else to worry about, someone who needed a lot of care & attention from me. She gradually gained strength & began to join for meals & conversation. She told us of her trip to Kenya & the early days in Lugulu. She stayed with us for a full month. Edith’s arrival was when my healing began. [After she left], I was ready to dig in & begin my work in Lugulu.
A Heart of Flesh I will remove from your body the heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. (Ezekiel 36:26)—Tom: Practicing medicine in Lugulu required major adjustments on my part. There were few medicines and lab tests, no specialists to consult, and little opportunity to refer to a larger hospital. I treated diseases new to me: malaria, typhoid fever, tuberculosis, AIDS, tetanus, and rabies.
The most difficult adjustment for me was the terrible toll of the children dying. In the 1st quarter of 1994, 67 children under age 10 died, 1 out of every 8 child admissions. I was never very good at dealing with all this. [I was told that all I could do was move on to the next bed, all I could say was “Pole sana, mama. Pole sana, mama. Amekufa (We are very sorry, mama. Your child has died.”) It became my most polished Swahili phrase.
Equanimity was absolutely necessary, but it isn't the same as not caring. It isn't aspiring to a heart of stone, but learning that the heart of flesh which God has given us comes with a price. The constant danger for me was that in persevering I would become numb and callous. Invariably something happened to wake me up and turn my heart back to flesh. [As 1 child died and a mother grieved, I could] look around the ward, and see her pain reflected back in the faces of the other mothers. [Something always shook] me out of my sense of complacency.
Give me Water If only you knew … who it is that is asking you for a drink, you would have asked him & he would have given you living water.” (John 4: 7-15)—Drawing water was something I had not anticipated doing in Kenya. There was virtually never running water during our entire time in Lugulu. 3 times a day, women would line up & await their turn to draw up water with a bucket & rope. I wanted to learn how to carry water on my head, & I didn’t want to be served ahead of the others. [I gradually learned how, but] even when I performed flawlessly, the very thought of a white woman carrying water on her head drew nervous laughter from the crowd.
It was easier to carry water on my head than to persuade others that I shouldn't be treated preferentially. No matter how long we stayed, the watchmen would always consider me a guest & serve me first. The physical drudgery of carrying water 2 or 3 times a day, & preoccupation with having enough, were a constant part of life in Lugulu; slowly that water came to be living water for me, [& connected me to the community]. [I sometimes drew my own water, &] the most precious times were when I was allowed to draw for other women, serving them as they served me. [The most meaningful tribute I received was] “You are one of us—you carry water.”
Instruct those who are rich … Tell them to do good and to grow rich in noble actions, to be ready to give away & to share, and to acquire a treasure which will form a good foundation for the future (I Timothy 6:17-18)
For I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances. I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, in plenty or in want. I can do everything through him who gives me strength. (Philippians 4:11-13)
The Lord is Your Keeper (Psalm 121)—Dr. Lugaria read Psalm 121 to us when we arrived, & again when we left. The words are familiar & comforting. The Kenyans took the sentiments of this Psalm quite literally. [They would say prayers for protection or “traveling mercies” for journeys. They would pray for food & money]. For Kenyans, getting money to pay fees or buy seeds was as much out of their control as whether not or the rains would come; praying was natural response. Kenya isn't a place where our American sense of self-sufficiency could long survive. [Relying for help from unlikely, unexpected sources was important part of life at Lugulu]. There was always hope. Sometimes hope was rewarded, & sometimes it was not—but there was always hope.
Kapkateny—Elizabeth: When violence broke out between the Bukusu and Saboat people on Mt. Eglon, [2 of the many place people found refuge were Namwele Friends Church and Kapkateny, east of Namwele]. Ann Lipson brought the sick from Kapkateny to the hospital and promised to pay their bills. Between Ann in Britain and us in the US, we raised enough money to pay all those bills. [Measles broke out, which could be fatal in malnourished or sick children. People from Britain visiting the hospital worked with their churches to send Vitamin A to Lugulu hospital]. When a 5-year old girl weighing 20 lbs. died, I drove her mother to a place near her shamba, homestead, which was hazardous even to visit, so that the mother could fulfill her obligation to bury her daughter at home. “Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.” As I watched her walk away, I wept, and silently prayed that somehow this young mother could feel that comfort.
Isn't This to Know Me? (Jeremiah 22: 15-16)—Tom: Always in the back of our minds, we pictured Kenya as a spiritual quest; it didn’t happen like that. There were no lightning bolts, no mystical experiences. We grew spiritually in unexpected ways. We found countless opportunities that invited us to help create meaning. We met God countless times in people asking for help. None of this was easy. Some days it seemed that the interruptions, the constant flow of visitors with such overwhelming needs, would drive us crazy. Responding in love to “one of the least of these my brothers” wasn't an abstract principle in Lugulu; they were on our porch every day. The emergencies, people on the porch, all things that were the bane of our existence in Lugulu weren't just unavoidable nuisances. They were opportunities given by God to allow us to show that it isn't just me, but Christ who lives in me. Love “isn't just a matter of words & talk … but must show itself in action (I John 3:18).
The Poor Widow (Luke 21: 1-4)—Elizabeth: I feel as though I met [“the poor widow”] in Kenya. Her 2-year-old son, Japeth, came to our hospital after spilling hot porridge on himself. Infection had destroyed a lot of skin; the wound was infested with maggots; he was also malnourished. I tried to help by bringing him hard-boiled eggs each day. It was hard for me to see Japeth’s suffering. [He slowly recovered], but he was left with disfiguring scars & a barely functional left arm & hand. [But he could not be discharged until his bill was paid].
Kenyan friends persuaded me to have a “porch sale”; it netted over 9,000 shillings. I decided the best use for the money was to pay Japeth’s bill & send him home. Japeth’s mother entered our house, embraced me, shook my hand several dozen times. She then prayed loudly & fervently for several minutes in Swahili, thanking God that her child had been released & asking for blessing on both our families. She presented me with a battered cardboard box containing a large, angry duck, who proceeded to flap & quack all around our house, & finally out the door. She gave all that she had, her “2 tiny coins”; I paid Japeth’s bill out of the extra that I had.
Instruct those Who are Rich Tell them to do good & to grow rich in noble action; be ready to give away, to share, & to acquire a treasure which will form a good future foundation (I Timothy 6:17-18)—Tom: It took the experience of living in different culture to teach us how Christianity, especially the Quaker variety, can be a challenge to the dominant culture. In Kenya, becoming a Christian can mean making a decisive break with one’s culture. It may mean rejecting [magic], elders' authority, perhaps marrying outside of one’s own ethnic group. Christians in Kenya face these issues daily; I respect their faith & courage in doing so. [& yet] Kenyans could be blind to their culture’s negative parts [e.g. patriarchy, bride price, polygamy, ethnic & tribal chauvinism], things that were [just] the way the world is; not even their deep religious faith could challenge them.
An important effect [of our 2½ years was that we found in the US] that we could see a many ways in which our faith is, or should be, a challenge to the wider culture in which we live. Chief among these is extreme consumerism & materialism of our culture; what were once luxuries are now considered necessities. Even if we resist [our culture’s temptations] 99% of the time, we still accumulate much more than we need, more than is spiritually healthy. A couple who served 9 years in Liberia, [perceived] themselves to be rich, even though their income was about the same as their neighbors. Those of us who are rich in this world’s goods shouldn’t be proud; our riches aren’t a reward for anything we have done. Neither should we feel guilty. We must see riches as opportunities for doing good. Paul writes in II Corinthians 9:11: “You will always be rich enough to be generous.”
Epilogue—To many readers, the stories we have told may seem amazing, And yet, we do not feel like amazing people. We responded by doing the best we could, exactly what most Friends would have done in the same circumstances. If we were to sum up our lessons, it would be in these words: “Those who try to make their life secure will lose it, but those who lose their life will find it” (Luke 17:33). We close with an excerpt from our final newsletter, written just a few days before we left Lugulu:
Looking back, we are aware that so much of what we have written about in these newsletters has been negative; [the negatives] are part of the reality of life there. But the other reality in Africa that is missed by mass media is that despite all the hardships & suffering, Africa is not a joyless place. The people, sustained by the traditional family, community, & God, have kept their capacity to find joy and meaning where [Americans] may see only deprivation; we have felt somehow closer to the heart of life.
For I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances. I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any & every situation, whether well fed or hungry, in plenty or in want. I can do everything through him who gives me strength. (Philippians 4:11-13)
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About the Authors—Tom and Liz Gates were in western Kenya from Nov. 1991 to May of 1994. They are the parents of 2 boys, Matthew (13) and Nathan (11). Tom is a family physician; Liz is a school teacher. Tom came to Friends through studying conscientious objection; Liz came to Friends through Tom. This pamphlet draws on their mutual experiences living and working at Friends Lugulu Hospital in Kenya.
Preface—The stories here were 1st presented as plenary address to New England YM. We alternated stories of our experiences; that mimics the way we work. Tom was a physician & had a clear role at the hospital. Liz home-schooled our sons, held household together, assisted in administrative tasks, taught computer skills, & responded to emergencies [outside the hospital]. Kenya has a child mortality rate 10 times higher than the US; per capita income is $300 per year & falling; patients regularly die for lack of proper medicines; sugar & milk are in short supply. Daily struggle of people’s lives has joy & meaning that can be difficult for us to comprehend.
The Rich Young Man (Mark 10: 17-22): Go, sell everything you have & give to the poor … then come & follow me—We considered applying to Lugulu Hospital in 1983, but with an infant son and a 2nd one coming [we decided to wait and] remain open to any future leadings. In 1989, we wondered if we [were close to a time] when such an undertaking would be possible. [Around the same time] Isaiah Bikokwa, a Kenyan Friend and missionary whom we had met wrote to tell us he felt that God was calling us to work in Kenya. Could we do it?
We felt like the rich young man, whose “things” prevented him from following God’s leading. What was hardest to give up was our security, our illusions of being in charge and in control. William Kriedler said: “Protection is from God; safety comes from the devil.” When we were ready to surrender some of our obsessive quest for security, only then could we experience the true protection that comes from God.
All of this sounds so noble, but of course it was not like that. [We didn’t sell everything, we put it in storage], as a kind of backup security. [We applied tentatively, found clearness to go, and then had the opportunity postponed for a year and then were offered it again]. [Only after 18 months of the process] were we prepared to answer unequivocally with the prophet Isaiah “Here we are Lord. Send us.”
Who Am I, that I should go to Pharaoh, and bring the Israelites out of Egypt? God said, “I will be with you.” (Exodus 3:10-12)—Elizabeth: I felt I had much in common with Moses. What could I, a public school teacher in rural NH, possibly offer to people in Kenya? I had to trust God to show me.
Lugulu came as a violent shock to me. Nothing in all my previous experience had prepared me for the reality of living in the 3rd World. Everything was different: the food, the people, the language, even the trees and birds. I was coming down with a severe case of culture shock. I felt lost and vulnerable; I survived by clinging to the very clear leading I had once felt, that God had a purpose in calling both of us to work in Kenya. After 3 weeks [in this state], Tom thought we might be forced to return home.
Edith Ratcliff, a living legend in Kenya, founder & builder of Lugulu Hospital for 30 years, showed up in our home in need of serious medical attention; she had hepatitis. Suddenly, I had someone else to worry about, someone who needed a lot of care & attention from me. She gradually gained strength & began to join for meals & conversation. She told us of her trip to Kenya & the early days in Lugulu. She stayed with us for a full month. Edith’s arrival was when my healing began. [After she left], I was ready to dig in & begin my work in Lugulu.
A Heart of Flesh I will remove from your body the heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. (Ezekiel 36:26)—Tom: Practicing medicine in Lugulu required major adjustments on my part. There were few medicines and lab tests, no specialists to consult, and little opportunity to refer to a larger hospital. I treated diseases new to me: malaria, typhoid fever, tuberculosis, AIDS, tetanus, and rabies.
The most difficult adjustment for me was the terrible toll of the children dying. In the 1st quarter of 1994, 67 children under age 10 died, 1 out of every 8 child admissions. I was never very good at dealing with all this. [I was told that all I could do was move on to the next bed, all I could say was “Pole sana, mama. Pole sana, mama. Amekufa (We are very sorry, mama. Your child has died.”) It became my most polished Swahili phrase.
Equanimity was absolutely necessary, but it isn't the same as not caring. It isn't aspiring to a heart of stone, but learning that the heart of flesh which God has given us comes with a price. The constant danger for me was that in persevering I would become numb and callous. Invariably something happened to wake me up and turn my heart back to flesh. [As 1 child died and a mother grieved, I could] look around the ward, and see her pain reflected back in the faces of the other mothers. [Something always shook] me out of my sense of complacency.
Give me Water If only you knew … who it is that is asking you for a drink, you would have asked him & he would have given you living water.” (John 4: 7-15)—Drawing water was something I had not anticipated doing in Kenya. There was virtually never running water during our entire time in Lugulu. 3 times a day, women would line up & await their turn to draw up water with a bucket & rope. I wanted to learn how to carry water on my head, & I didn’t want to be served ahead of the others. [I gradually learned how, but] even when I performed flawlessly, the very thought of a white woman carrying water on her head drew nervous laughter from the crowd.
It was easier to carry water on my head than to persuade others that I shouldn't be treated preferentially. No matter how long we stayed, the watchmen would always consider me a guest & serve me first. The physical drudgery of carrying water 2 or 3 times a day, & preoccupation with having enough, were a constant part of life in Lugulu; slowly that water came to be living water for me, [& connected me to the community]. [I sometimes drew my own water, &] the most precious times were when I was allowed to draw for other women, serving them as they served me. [The most meaningful tribute I received was] “You are one of us—you carry water.”
Instruct those who are rich … Tell them to do good and to grow rich in noble actions, to be ready to give away & to share, and to acquire a treasure which will form a good foundation for the future (I Timothy 6:17-18)
For I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances. I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, in plenty or in want. I can do everything through him who gives me strength. (Philippians 4:11-13)
The Lord is Your Keeper (Psalm 121)—Dr. Lugaria read Psalm 121 to us when we arrived, & again when we left. The words are familiar & comforting. The Kenyans took the sentiments of this Psalm quite literally. [They would say prayers for protection or “traveling mercies” for journeys. They would pray for food & money]. For Kenyans, getting money to pay fees or buy seeds was as much out of their control as whether not or the rains would come; praying was natural response. Kenya isn't a place where our American sense of self-sufficiency could long survive. [Relying for help from unlikely, unexpected sources was important part of life at Lugulu]. There was always hope. Sometimes hope was rewarded, & sometimes it was not—but there was always hope.
Kapkateny—Elizabeth: When violence broke out between the Bukusu and Saboat people on Mt. Eglon, [2 of the many place people found refuge were Namwele Friends Church and Kapkateny, east of Namwele]. Ann Lipson brought the sick from Kapkateny to the hospital and promised to pay their bills. Between Ann in Britain and us in the US, we raised enough money to pay all those bills. [Measles broke out, which could be fatal in malnourished or sick children. People from Britain visiting the hospital worked with their churches to send Vitamin A to Lugulu hospital]. When a 5-year old girl weighing 20 lbs. died, I drove her mother to a place near her shamba, homestead, which was hazardous even to visit, so that the mother could fulfill her obligation to bury her daughter at home. “Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.” As I watched her walk away, I wept, and silently prayed that somehow this young mother could feel that comfort.
Isn't This to Know Me? (Jeremiah 22: 15-16)—Tom: Always in the back of our minds, we pictured Kenya as a spiritual quest; it didn’t happen like that. There were no lightning bolts, no mystical experiences. We grew spiritually in unexpected ways. We found countless opportunities that invited us to help create meaning. We met God countless times in people asking for help. None of this was easy. Some days it seemed that the interruptions, the constant flow of visitors with such overwhelming needs, would drive us crazy. Responding in love to “one of the least of these my brothers” wasn't an abstract principle in Lugulu; they were on our porch every day. The emergencies, people on the porch, all things that were the bane of our existence in Lugulu weren't just unavoidable nuisances. They were opportunities given by God to allow us to show that it isn't just me, but Christ who lives in me. Love “isn't just a matter of words & talk … but must show itself in action (I John 3:18).
The Poor Widow (Luke 21: 1-4)—Elizabeth: I feel as though I met [“the poor widow”] in Kenya. Her 2-year-old son, Japeth, came to our hospital after spilling hot porridge on himself. Infection had destroyed a lot of skin; the wound was infested with maggots; he was also malnourished. I tried to help by bringing him hard-boiled eggs each day. It was hard for me to see Japeth’s suffering. [He slowly recovered], but he was left with disfiguring scars & a barely functional left arm & hand. [But he could not be discharged until his bill was paid].
Kenyan friends persuaded me to have a “porch sale”; it netted over 9,000 shillings. I decided the best use for the money was to pay Japeth’s bill & send him home. Japeth’s mother entered our house, embraced me, shook my hand several dozen times. She then prayed loudly & fervently for several minutes in Swahili, thanking God that her child had been released & asking for blessing on both our families. She presented me with a battered cardboard box containing a large, angry duck, who proceeded to flap & quack all around our house, & finally out the door. She gave all that she had, her “2 tiny coins”; I paid Japeth’s bill out of the extra that I had.
Instruct those Who are Rich Tell them to do good & to grow rich in noble action; be ready to give away, to share, & to acquire a treasure which will form a good future foundation (I Timothy 6:17-18)—Tom: It took the experience of living in different culture to teach us how Christianity, especially the Quaker variety, can be a challenge to the dominant culture. In Kenya, becoming a Christian can mean making a decisive break with one’s culture. It may mean rejecting [magic], elders' authority, perhaps marrying outside of one’s own ethnic group. Christians in Kenya face these issues daily; I respect their faith & courage in doing so. [& yet] Kenyans could be blind to their culture’s negative parts [e.g. patriarchy, bride price, polygamy, ethnic & tribal chauvinism], things that were [just] the way the world is; not even their deep religious faith could challenge them.
An important effect [of our 2½ years was that we found in the US] that we could see a many ways in which our faith is, or should be, a challenge to the wider culture in which we live. Chief among these is extreme consumerism & materialism of our culture; what were once luxuries are now considered necessities. Even if we resist [our culture’s temptations] 99% of the time, we still accumulate much more than we need, more than is spiritually healthy. A couple who served 9 years in Liberia, [perceived] themselves to be rich, even though their income was about the same as their neighbors. Those of us who are rich in this world’s goods shouldn’t be proud; our riches aren’t a reward for anything we have done. Neither should we feel guilty. We must see riches as opportunities for doing good. Paul writes in II Corinthians 9:11: “You will always be rich enough to be generous.”
Epilogue—To many readers, the stories we have told may seem amazing, And yet, we do not feel like amazing people. We responded by doing the best we could, exactly what most Friends would have done in the same circumstances. If we were to sum up our lessons, it would be in these words: “Those who try to make their life secure will lose it, but those who lose their life will find it” (Luke 17:33). We close with an excerpt from our final newsletter, written just a few days before we left Lugulu:
Looking back, we are aware that so much of what we have written about in these newsletters has been negative; [the negatives] are part of the reality of life there. But the other reality in Africa that is missed by mass media is that despite all the hardships & suffering, Africa is not a joyless place. The people, sustained by the traditional family, community, & God, have kept their capacity to find joy and meaning where [Americans] may see only deprivation; we have felt somehow closer to the heart of life.
For I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances. I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any & every situation, whether well fed or hungry, in plenty or in want. I can do everything through him who gives me strength. (Philippians 4:11-13)
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341. Sickness, Suffering, and Healing: More Stories from another Place (by Tom Gates; 1998)
About the Author—Tom Gates is a graduate of Williams College and Harvard Medical School. He was family practitioner for 8 years before he, his wife Elizabeth, and their sons, followed God's leading to Friends Lugulu Hospital in rural western Kenya for 3 years. In 1997, the Gates family returned to Lugulu for 2 months. They maintain a close working relationship with the hospital and [the current doctors. In 1999, 3 family practice residents from Lancaster General Hospital where Tom works will do elective rotations at Lugulu Hospital.
Introduction—This pamphlet is an attempt to honor the requests to commit some of the stories about our Lugulu experiences to writing; these stories are about specific patients of mine. I believe that in the matters of sickness and healing, Africa has much to teach us, especially about the meaning of suffering and mortality. We have forgotten the meaning and are in denial. I use scripture in each story's beginning to convey its central importance for Kenyan Friends. The description "nation of the book" [i.e. Bible] would fit Kenya today.
Homes sometimes have only the Swahili Bible, & each hospital bedstand has a copy of the New Testament, often in use. All life is religious. In some small way, the Bible story began to feel like our own story, & we began to find our story's meaning within the larger narrative's context. At one point we were quite discouraged because all of us had been sick with malaria, some more than once. Our friend Esther remarked: "It's the work of Satan—he's trying to discourage you." Esther knew the cause of malaria, but was more concerned with the meaning. We could see our malaria as a random, impersonal event, or as a spiritual challenge to our call to serve in Kenya.
Stories are important to humans for their meaning, for fitting them into a larger context and more fundamental meanings. Hauerwas and Willimon write: "Story is the fundamental means of talking about and listening to God, the only human means available to ... make comprehensible what it means to be with God ... My life [story] is given cosmic, eternal significance as it is caught up within God's larger account of history."
Elizabeth—Save me, O God ... I am wearied with crying out;/ my throat is sore,/ my eyes grow dim as I wait for God to help me. [Psalm 69: 1-3] After 2 months in Lugulu, I wasn't used to crowded hospital conditions, chickens wandering through, or the enormous constraints a 3rd world economy places on modern medicine. [But I was finally beginning to feel useful]. I saw a 16 year-old boarding-school girl being carried to the outpatient building; I waited to hear news. Soon after, the hospital watchman came at a half-run, so I knew I would find something more serious than a broken leg. She had begun to have trouble breathing, & to have swelling in her face; it wasn't an allergic reaction. I realized that, having been hit in the neck with a hockey stick, Elizabeth had fractured her larynx, and air was escaping from her airway into the surrounding tissue, causing more swelling that would soon close off her airway, and she would suffocate. [She began to implore me and pray].
[I made an incision across her neck to release some blood and air, then sliced open her trachea through swollen tissue and inserted a tube to draw in air]. The air ambulance refused service because of uncertain payment; she made a 2-hour drive to a private hospital, and recovered at a hospital in Nairobi. [Her parents had been domestics for the country's President, who agreed to meet her expenses]. 3 weeks later, she was back in school. I saw her once after that, and what I initially interpreted as nonchalance or ingratitude, I have since come to see as a fundamental cultural characteristic, a belief that survival is never the result of blind luck, or even medical skills. Elizabeth knew that her life was a gift, that God had spared her life for some greater purpose.
Maximilla— ... I will sing of your strength,/ in the morning I sing of your love ... I will sing to the Lord all my life;/ I will sing praise to my God as long as I live. [Psalms 59:16; 104.33] With experience, I learned to recognize those who could not be helped, but medicine is a very inexact science, and there were always surprises. Some patients died suddenly and unexpectedly, while others miraculously recovered, against all odds. The night Maximilla came to us, after her family tried 2 other places, she had a temperature of 105, was barely responsive, with contractures of muscles, and deep, foul bed sores. She looked like a nursing home patient, not a 18 year-old new mother. She was unlikely to survive the night, let alone recover.
We did what we could; her fever abated and she tested negative for HIV. As she gained strength, it became obvious that something had happened to her mind. Her answers were monosyllables, and in her delirium she would sing hymns loudly and off-key at all hours in a public ward with 30 other people; it was her only communication, as if she might be able to regain her previous health through it. The other patients were remarkably tolerant, perhaps because they knew better than I that her healing would come through singing; they would sometimes join in quietly. Her singing became softer, less off-key, and actually pleasant to hear; she began to eat and gain strength. Her singing, which had been such a trial to others on the ward, became a blessing to all who heard her. Almost exactly 2 months from the day she was admitted, with bed sores healed and walking with a home-made walker, she was discharged. Her child had somehow survived the long separation. I am not certain of the exact nature of Maximilla's original medical problem, or her recovery. Somehow, her tremendous physical and spiritual resiliency, her primal desire to nurture, and especially her singing, might have unlocked otherwise hidden powers of healing. She gave new meaning to the hymn entitled How Can I Keep from Singing.
Janis "Cursed be the fruit of your womb ..." [Deuteronomy 28:18]—I also have difficulty explaining why patients like Janis suddenly die. She came to Lugulu out of concern that her baby was now 4 weeks over-due. It was discovered that her fetus had died. Labor should have been spontaneous but didn't happen. There were serious health risks & induced labor was called for. In Lugulu, a midwife would count drops of pitocin going through the IV & adjust the infusion rate by hand. There was danger of the uterus rupturing.
After more than 2 days of increased pitocin, there were signs of imminent rupture; we prepared for surgery. The surgery appeared to go well as I sutured up the tear in her uterus. All of a sudden, Janis was not ventilating and her blood pressure was undetectable. After 10 minutes of hectic activity, it became clear that nothing was working. All of us instinctively gathered in stunned silence to gaze on Janis' now-lifeless body. Amniotic fluid must have entered into the systemic circulation, where it caused cardiovascular collapse and death. I had never seen it before in over 2,000 deliveries.
In typically African style, 2 old mama relatives began wailing and rending their clothes. Within 2 hours, a large delegation of extended family members arrived. The family prepared the bodies of both mother and child, loaded them on the truck and arranged themselves around their somber cargo. They sang mournful hymns on their journey home. Virtually the entire patient population watch this scene in solemn silence.
Janis had died because of a series of 4 increasingly unlikely events, a sort of "bad luck to the 4th power," ending with the incredibly rare entry of amniotic fluid into the systemic circulation. An alternative explanation was that there was another woman claiming Janis' husband as father of her child, and demanding he marry her; he refused. When the woman's father begged that Janis raise the child, Janis refused. The woman's father pronounced a curse on Janis and her pregnancy. For many Kenyans, the mysterious world of curses, witchcraft, and black magic was very real; members of her husband's family burned Janis' body. In truth, much of what happens on the level of the individual patient is beyond our ability to predict and control. [Sometimes the main factor is the medicine; sometimes it is from within the patient; sometimes it is God's healing touch]. A good explanation may be that of "being called home by God; sometimes "bad luck" may do as an explanation. On rare occasions, death seems like a dark and malevolent spirit, independent of our individual lives, that relentlessly seeks us out. This seems to me to be the best description of Janis' death.
Peter—Jesus said: "For mortals it is impossible [to save someone], but not for God; for God all things are possible." [Mark 10:27] This is a story about Peter Chemaya & typhoid fever. It is also about my education about what's possible for mortals, & what's possible for God. Peter had been sick with high fever & abdominal pain for several days before he came to a Lugulu health center in Kaptama. He was transferred to Lugulu 4 days later. He didn't seem that sick, but he had a subtle degree of abdominal distension & a telltale, confused, apathetic, empty stare. A quick needle into his abdomen yielded a syringe of pus. There was perforation of the small bowel. Those more experienced than I in the needed surgery were unavailable. I was going to have to operate myself. This wasn't my first surgery. Only the knowledge that there was no alternative, that this was Peter's only chance, gave me the courage to proceed.
The surgery itself went well. 7 days later, we found his dressing soaked with pus and his surgical incision gaping open all the way down to his intestines. I had to operate again, and now I was in completely unknown territory. This surgery did not go well. I left his intestines undisturbed, cleaned his abdomen, and try to close the wound as best I could. The first week, Peter remained critically ill, with no objective sign of improvement. Peter made me promise not to do any more surgery. The drainage gradually stopped, and the huge open wound began to heal from the bottom up. Peter began to eat, and become a little more active. Morning rounds at Peter's bed became more & more a welcome reminder of God's grace & healing power. Although only a quarter of the needed money was raised, it was Christmas Eve, so we allowed him to be discharged. For 2 months, I hardly spoke to Peter for more than a minute or two, & then only about daily health issues. Yet there was a bond between us, the bond of 2 mere mortals who had stared into the abyss of the impossible, held hands & leaped, & somehow found themselves together on the other side. Together we learned that with God, all things are possible.
Collapsing Towers—Do you think [those who died under the towers] were more guilty than all the others living in Jerusalem? No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you too will perish. Luke 13: 4-5. April 7, 1993, I went for a 5-mile run at dawn. The roads were already busy with people [walking a long way to begin their days at work, market, or school]. Often the school children would delight in running with me for a few 100 yards. I sometimes felt like the pied piper, with 10 or 12 children trailing behind. Coming back to the hospital, I heard singing from the Lugulu Girls Boarding School, with scores of girls leaving on Easter break. They carried their luggage to the road to wait for a matatu ride home. Matatus were privately-owned, covered pickups with benches; they were the core of the transportation system in rural Kenya. A traveler will rarely have to wait more than a few minutes before one comes along to take her in the right direction; the system is efficient & very flexible.
[My morning free-time was interrupted by a rare phone call, saying my presence was needed because of an emergency]. I ended up doing triage on some of the 3 dozen girls waiting in the compound. I found 2 dead and 1dying; I pulled sheets over the dead bodies. Another died while her lacerations were being sown up. An overloaded matatu had lost control and overturned on a steep downhill curve about a mile from the school. A total of 4 Lugulu students and 4 pedestrians were killed and over 20 were injured.
The contrast of joyous singing earlier with 4 corpses an hour later was a jarring reminder of how suddenly and cruelly death can impose itself into the routine of our lives. We would rather blame the victims or even God than face the possibility that some things just happen, for no particular reason. Jesus makes 3 points [in the passage quoted at the beginning of this story] worth remembering: God did not single out those who died for punishment; we all share the same mortal fate that struck these victims; what is most important is how we have lived. It is all the meaning I dare attribute to such a senseless tragedy.
Priscilla—Our hope for [God] is firm, because we know that just as [Christ] shares in our sufferings, so also you share in our comfort. II Corinthians 1:3-7. I was sometimes confused when new nurses would come through the hospital—some for a month as temps, some for training before going to an outlying dispensary, some in preparation for permanent placement at Lugulu. I took no particular notice of Priscilla's appearance in Lugulu. Priscilla was made head nurse on the pediatric ward, which often had 30 to 50 sick children, in a 24-bed ward. 1 out of every 8 pediatric admissions died during their hospitalization.
I soon came to see Priscilla as a trusted ally in my volunteered extra work on the pediatric ward, where good medical care and attention could save lives. Priscilla was an island of calm and compassion in near-chaos; over the next 2 years, we experienced a great deal together. When I returned after a 3-year absence, I didn't find her right away. When I did, it was clear that her appearance had changed; she had lost a lot of weight. I saw her again several days later; she was in the hospital as a patient. I discovered she had oral thrush, which I had medicine for. I told her it was important to find out why she had it in the first place. She readily agreed to my suggestion that she be tested for HIV. Her response to the medicine was dramatic; 2 days later she was discharged.
On my final rounds in the children's ward, where we so often worked together, she shared the news that she tested positive for HIV. After talking about how she didn't believe she got it sexually, I reminded her that HIV was sometimes spread by needle sticks. She seemed comforted by thinking she contracted it in the service of the children to whom she had been so devoted. She had stopped taking the medicine, depending on God for her healing, as she did once before. I prayed with her, praying to the God of all comfort in II Corinthians. I saw in Priscilla's eyes the suffering of an entire continent, where ⅔ of the world's HIV cases happen, to 20 million Africans, mostly women and children, and most without basic medicines to help with symptoms. Was believing God would heal one of HIV & restore one's life, great faith or denial?
Over her last weeks, as life slowly left her emaciated body, she was said to be comforted & consoled by her faith, totally accepting of her death. Did the dying person achieve "acceptance," or was one stuck in "denial?" Unlike dying in our culture, she didn't need a fatal illness to teach her acceptance; death is a constant presence in Kenya. She learned what Paul wrote in Romans 14: 7-8: "For none of us lives for ourselves alone, and none of us dies for ourselves alone. If we live, we live for the Lord; and if we die, we die for the Lord. So, whether we live or die, we belong to the Lord."
Epilogue—While being about my patients [& colleagues], the stories are also valuable lessons to learn about those "other places" that don't necessarily share our scientific & secular world view. For me, the other place was one small corner of a particular country in Africa. The attitudes & beliefs to which I am referring are in fact widespread in much of sub-Saharan Africa, judging from conversations with those living in different parts of the continent, & from how Kenyans refer to their own sensibilities. Science has produced treatments & cures for ancient scourges, beyond our wildest dreams. And yet, we in the 20th century haven't eliminated suffering. [From our choice of words, which speak of "suffer with," "suffer together," and "study of suffering,"] we see a peculiarly modern idea of suffering: that suffering is something to be [shared,] studied, controlled, & eliminated. No matter how many diseases western medicine learns to cure, humans are still mortal; in the end we all die of something. [Intensive care units], euthanasia, and assisted suicide can be seen [in one sense] as manifestations of our modern belief that all suffering is necessarily a form of pathology.
Consider an East African proverb, which translates as "there is no medicine for death." African suffering is seen as an inevitable and inherent aspect of life, and that one should not aspire to escape suffering, but rather to suffer well, in a noble and worthy manner. We should not presume to eliminate suffering. Poverty, tropical diseases, corruption, economic shortages, and the AIDS epidemic are all daily realities for most of the African population. And yet, those who have lived there can testify that deep joy, spiritual meaning, and true community seems to bloom, like desert flowers amidst the hardships of Africa. How can we account for the [African] paradox of joy within suffering; where does the patience come from?
Patience is the virtue that allows many Africans to bear the burden of their suffering with such characteristic grace. This is what allowed Priscilla to see God's healing even within her inexorable decline from AIDS. Africa taught me that suffering, rightly understood, is integral to life, and certainly to the practice of medicine. Before really modern medicine, physicians understood that they were to be a "suffering presence" to their patients, a bridge from the isolated patient's lonely suffering, a vital connection to the outside world of the living. There are still times when what those who suffer need most is for us to simply be with them, [bearing their burdens a little], and perhaps to redeem their suffering by the telling of their stories.
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341. Sickness, Suffering, and Healing: More Stories from another Place (by Tom Gates; 1998)
About the Author—Tom Gates is a graduate of Williams College and Harvard Medical School. He was family practitioner for 8 years before he, his wife Elizabeth, and their sons, followed God's leading to Friends Lugulu Hospital in rural western Kenya for 3 years. In 1997, the Gates family returned to Lugulu for 2 months. They maintain a close working relationship with the hospital and [the current doctors. In 1999, 3 family practice residents from Lancaster General Hospital where Tom works will do elective rotations at Lugulu Hospital.
Introduction—This pamphlet is an attempt to honor the requests to commit some of the stories about our Lugulu experiences to writing; these stories are about specific patients of mine. I believe that in the matters of sickness and healing, Africa has much to teach us, especially about the meaning of suffering and mortality. We have forgotten the meaning and are in denial. I use scripture in each story's beginning to convey its central importance for Kenyan Friends. The description "nation of the book" [i.e. Bible] would fit Kenya today.
Homes sometimes have only the Swahili Bible, & each hospital bedstand has a copy of the New Testament, often in use. All life is religious. In some small way, the Bible story began to feel like our own story, & we began to find our story's meaning within the larger narrative's context. At one point we were quite discouraged because all of us had been sick with malaria, some more than once. Our friend Esther remarked: "It's the work of Satan—he's trying to discourage you." Esther knew the cause of malaria, but was more concerned with the meaning. We could see our malaria as a random, impersonal event, or as a spiritual challenge to our call to serve in Kenya.
Stories are important to humans for their meaning, for fitting them into a larger context and more fundamental meanings. Hauerwas and Willimon write: "Story is the fundamental means of talking about and listening to God, the only human means available to ... make comprehensible what it means to be with God ... My life [story] is given cosmic, eternal significance as it is caught up within God's larger account of history."
Elizabeth—Save me, O God ... I am wearied with crying out;/ my throat is sore,/ my eyes grow dim as I wait for God to help me. [Psalm 69: 1-3] After 2 months in Lugulu, I wasn't used to crowded hospital conditions, chickens wandering through, or the enormous constraints a 3rd world economy places on modern medicine. [But I was finally beginning to feel useful]. I saw a 16 year-old boarding-school girl being carried to the outpatient building; I waited to hear news. Soon after, the hospital watchman came at a half-run, so I knew I would find something more serious than a broken leg. She had begun to have trouble breathing, & to have swelling in her face; it wasn't an allergic reaction. I realized that, having been hit in the neck with a hockey stick, Elizabeth had fractured her larynx, and air was escaping from her airway into the surrounding tissue, causing more swelling that would soon close off her airway, and she would suffocate. [She began to implore me and pray].
[I made an incision across her neck to release some blood and air, then sliced open her trachea through swollen tissue and inserted a tube to draw in air]. The air ambulance refused service because of uncertain payment; she made a 2-hour drive to a private hospital, and recovered at a hospital in Nairobi. [Her parents had been domestics for the country's President, who agreed to meet her expenses]. 3 weeks later, she was back in school. I saw her once after that, and what I initially interpreted as nonchalance or ingratitude, I have since come to see as a fundamental cultural characteristic, a belief that survival is never the result of blind luck, or even medical skills. Elizabeth knew that her life was a gift, that God had spared her life for some greater purpose.
Maximilla— ... I will sing of your strength,/ in the morning I sing of your love ... I will sing to the Lord all my life;/ I will sing praise to my God as long as I live. [Psalms 59:16; 104.33] With experience, I learned to recognize those who could not be helped, but medicine is a very inexact science, and there were always surprises. Some patients died suddenly and unexpectedly, while others miraculously recovered, against all odds. The night Maximilla came to us, after her family tried 2 other places, she had a temperature of 105, was barely responsive, with contractures of muscles, and deep, foul bed sores. She looked like a nursing home patient, not a 18 year-old new mother. She was unlikely to survive the night, let alone recover.
We did what we could; her fever abated and she tested negative for HIV. As she gained strength, it became obvious that something had happened to her mind. Her answers were monosyllables, and in her delirium she would sing hymns loudly and off-key at all hours in a public ward with 30 other people; it was her only communication, as if she might be able to regain her previous health through it. The other patients were remarkably tolerant, perhaps because they knew better than I that her healing would come through singing; they would sometimes join in quietly. Her singing became softer, less off-key, and actually pleasant to hear; she began to eat and gain strength. Her singing, which had been such a trial to others on the ward, became a blessing to all who heard her. Almost exactly 2 months from the day she was admitted, with bed sores healed and walking with a home-made walker, she was discharged. Her child had somehow survived the long separation. I am not certain of the exact nature of Maximilla's original medical problem, or her recovery. Somehow, her tremendous physical and spiritual resiliency, her primal desire to nurture, and especially her singing, might have unlocked otherwise hidden powers of healing. She gave new meaning to the hymn entitled How Can I Keep from Singing.
Janis "Cursed be the fruit of your womb ..." [Deuteronomy 28:18]—I also have difficulty explaining why patients like Janis suddenly die. She came to Lugulu out of concern that her baby was now 4 weeks over-due. It was discovered that her fetus had died. Labor should have been spontaneous but didn't happen. There were serious health risks & induced labor was called for. In Lugulu, a midwife would count drops of pitocin going through the IV & adjust the infusion rate by hand. There was danger of the uterus rupturing.
After more than 2 days of increased pitocin, there were signs of imminent rupture; we prepared for surgery. The surgery appeared to go well as I sutured up the tear in her uterus. All of a sudden, Janis was not ventilating and her blood pressure was undetectable. After 10 minutes of hectic activity, it became clear that nothing was working. All of us instinctively gathered in stunned silence to gaze on Janis' now-lifeless body. Amniotic fluid must have entered into the systemic circulation, where it caused cardiovascular collapse and death. I had never seen it before in over 2,000 deliveries.
In typically African style, 2 old mama relatives began wailing and rending their clothes. Within 2 hours, a large delegation of extended family members arrived. The family prepared the bodies of both mother and child, loaded them on the truck and arranged themselves around their somber cargo. They sang mournful hymns on their journey home. Virtually the entire patient population watch this scene in solemn silence.
Janis had died because of a series of 4 increasingly unlikely events, a sort of "bad luck to the 4th power," ending with the incredibly rare entry of amniotic fluid into the systemic circulation. An alternative explanation was that there was another woman claiming Janis' husband as father of her child, and demanding he marry her; he refused. When the woman's father begged that Janis raise the child, Janis refused. The woman's father pronounced a curse on Janis and her pregnancy. For many Kenyans, the mysterious world of curses, witchcraft, and black magic was very real; members of her husband's family burned Janis' body. In truth, much of what happens on the level of the individual patient is beyond our ability to predict and control. [Sometimes the main factor is the medicine; sometimes it is from within the patient; sometimes it is God's healing touch]. A good explanation may be that of "being called home by God; sometimes "bad luck" may do as an explanation. On rare occasions, death seems like a dark and malevolent spirit, independent of our individual lives, that relentlessly seeks us out. This seems to me to be the best description of Janis' death.
Peter—Jesus said: "For mortals it is impossible [to save someone], but not for God; for God all things are possible." [Mark 10:27] This is a story about Peter Chemaya & typhoid fever. It is also about my education about what's possible for mortals, & what's possible for God. Peter had been sick with high fever & abdominal pain for several days before he came to a Lugulu health center in Kaptama. He was transferred to Lugulu 4 days later. He didn't seem that sick, but he had a subtle degree of abdominal distension & a telltale, confused, apathetic, empty stare. A quick needle into his abdomen yielded a syringe of pus. There was perforation of the small bowel. Those more experienced than I in the needed surgery were unavailable. I was going to have to operate myself. This wasn't my first surgery. Only the knowledge that there was no alternative, that this was Peter's only chance, gave me the courage to proceed.
The surgery itself went well. 7 days later, we found his dressing soaked with pus and his surgical incision gaping open all the way down to his intestines. I had to operate again, and now I was in completely unknown territory. This surgery did not go well. I left his intestines undisturbed, cleaned his abdomen, and try to close the wound as best I could. The first week, Peter remained critically ill, with no objective sign of improvement. Peter made me promise not to do any more surgery. The drainage gradually stopped, and the huge open wound began to heal from the bottom up. Peter began to eat, and become a little more active. Morning rounds at Peter's bed became more & more a welcome reminder of God's grace & healing power. Although only a quarter of the needed money was raised, it was Christmas Eve, so we allowed him to be discharged. For 2 months, I hardly spoke to Peter for more than a minute or two, & then only about daily health issues. Yet there was a bond between us, the bond of 2 mere mortals who had stared into the abyss of the impossible, held hands & leaped, & somehow found themselves together on the other side. Together we learned that with God, all things are possible.
Collapsing Towers—Do you think [those who died under the towers] were more guilty than all the others living in Jerusalem? No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you too will perish. Luke 13: 4-5. April 7, 1993, I went for a 5-mile run at dawn. The roads were already busy with people [walking a long way to begin their days at work, market, or school]. Often the school children would delight in running with me for a few 100 yards. I sometimes felt like the pied piper, with 10 or 12 children trailing behind. Coming back to the hospital, I heard singing from the Lugulu Girls Boarding School, with scores of girls leaving on Easter break. They carried their luggage to the road to wait for a matatu ride home. Matatus were privately-owned, covered pickups with benches; they were the core of the transportation system in rural Kenya. A traveler will rarely have to wait more than a few minutes before one comes along to take her in the right direction; the system is efficient & very flexible.
[My morning free-time was interrupted by a rare phone call, saying my presence was needed because of an emergency]. I ended up doing triage on some of the 3 dozen girls waiting in the compound. I found 2 dead and 1dying; I pulled sheets over the dead bodies. Another died while her lacerations were being sown up. An overloaded matatu had lost control and overturned on a steep downhill curve about a mile from the school. A total of 4 Lugulu students and 4 pedestrians were killed and over 20 were injured.
The contrast of joyous singing earlier with 4 corpses an hour later was a jarring reminder of how suddenly and cruelly death can impose itself into the routine of our lives. We would rather blame the victims or even God than face the possibility that some things just happen, for no particular reason. Jesus makes 3 points [in the passage quoted at the beginning of this story] worth remembering: God did not single out those who died for punishment; we all share the same mortal fate that struck these victims; what is most important is how we have lived. It is all the meaning I dare attribute to such a senseless tragedy.
Priscilla—Our hope for [God] is firm, because we know that just as [Christ] shares in our sufferings, so also you share in our comfort. II Corinthians 1:3-7. I was sometimes confused when new nurses would come through the hospital—some for a month as temps, some for training before going to an outlying dispensary, some in preparation for permanent placement at Lugulu. I took no particular notice of Priscilla's appearance in Lugulu. Priscilla was made head nurse on the pediatric ward, which often had 30 to 50 sick children, in a 24-bed ward. 1 out of every 8 pediatric admissions died during their hospitalization.
I soon came to see Priscilla as a trusted ally in my volunteered extra work on the pediatric ward, where good medical care and attention could save lives. Priscilla was an island of calm and compassion in near-chaos; over the next 2 years, we experienced a great deal together. When I returned after a 3-year absence, I didn't find her right away. When I did, it was clear that her appearance had changed; she had lost a lot of weight. I saw her again several days later; she was in the hospital as a patient. I discovered she had oral thrush, which I had medicine for. I told her it was important to find out why she had it in the first place. She readily agreed to my suggestion that she be tested for HIV. Her response to the medicine was dramatic; 2 days later she was discharged.
On my final rounds in the children's ward, where we so often worked together, she shared the news that she tested positive for HIV. After talking about how she didn't believe she got it sexually, I reminded her that HIV was sometimes spread by needle sticks. She seemed comforted by thinking she contracted it in the service of the children to whom she had been so devoted. She had stopped taking the medicine, depending on God for her healing, as she did once before. I prayed with her, praying to the God of all comfort in II Corinthians. I saw in Priscilla's eyes the suffering of an entire continent, where ⅔ of the world's HIV cases happen, to 20 million Africans, mostly women and children, and most without basic medicines to help with symptoms. Was believing God would heal one of HIV & restore one's life, great faith or denial?
Over her last weeks, as life slowly left her emaciated body, she was said to be comforted & consoled by her faith, totally accepting of her death. Did the dying person achieve "acceptance," or was one stuck in "denial?" Unlike dying in our culture, she didn't need a fatal illness to teach her acceptance; death is a constant presence in Kenya. She learned what Paul wrote in Romans 14: 7-8: "For none of us lives for ourselves alone, and none of us dies for ourselves alone. If we live, we live for the Lord; and if we die, we die for the Lord. So, whether we live or die, we belong to the Lord."
Epilogue—While being about my patients [& colleagues], the stories are also valuable lessons to learn about those "other places" that don't necessarily share our scientific & secular world view. For me, the other place was one small corner of a particular country in Africa. The attitudes & beliefs to which I am referring are in fact widespread in much of sub-Saharan Africa, judging from conversations with those living in different parts of the continent, & from how Kenyans refer to their own sensibilities. Science has produced treatments & cures for ancient scourges, beyond our wildest dreams. And yet, we in the 20th century haven't eliminated suffering. [From our choice of words, which speak of "suffer with," "suffer together," and "study of suffering,"] we see a peculiarly modern idea of suffering: that suffering is something to be [shared,] studied, controlled, & eliminated. No matter how many diseases western medicine learns to cure, humans are still mortal; in the end we all die of something. [Intensive care units], euthanasia, and assisted suicide can be seen [in one sense] as manifestations of our modern belief that all suffering is necessarily a form of pathology.
Consider an East African proverb, which translates as "there is no medicine for death." African suffering is seen as an inevitable and inherent aspect of life, and that one should not aspire to escape suffering, but rather to suffer well, in a noble and worthy manner. We should not presume to eliminate suffering. Poverty, tropical diseases, corruption, economic shortages, and the AIDS epidemic are all daily realities for most of the African population. And yet, those who have lived there can testify that deep joy, spiritual meaning, and true community seems to bloom, like desert flowers amidst the hardships of Africa. How can we account for the [African] paradox of joy within suffering; where does the patience come from?
Patience is the virtue that allows many Africans to bear the burden of their suffering with such characteristic grace. This is what allowed Priscilla to see God's healing even within her inexorable decline from AIDS. Africa taught me that suffering, rightly understood, is integral to life, and certainly to the practice of medicine. Before really modern medicine, physicians understood that they were to be a "suffering presence" to their patients, a bridge from the isolated patient's lonely suffering, a vital connection to the outside world of the living. There are still times when what those who suffer need most is for us to simply be with them, [bearing their burdens a little], and perhaps to redeem their suffering by the telling of their stories.
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