Out of my distress I call on the Lord…Where is the world to save the hunger strikers?

“Out of my distress I call on the Lord;  

the Lord answered me and set me free. 

The Lord is on my side; I will not fear. 

What can man do to me?    

The Lord is on my side as my helper;

I shall look in triumph on those who hate me.”

Psalm 118:5-7

The words of the Psalmist in Sunday’s reading are echoed in the poetry of detainee Adnan Latif who, though cleared for release, died in the US military detention center at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba last September.  He was held without charge for 11 years.  Adnan wrote,

“Where is the world to save us from torture?      

 Where is the world to save us from the fire and sadnesss?  

Where is the world to save the hunger strikers?

But we are content, on the side of justice and right, 

worshipping the Almighty.

And our motto on this island is, salaam.”

This Sunday, April 7th, marks the 60^th day of the hunger strike that has spread through the Guantanamo where 166 men continue to languish despite Obama’s promise in 2008 to close it. The government now acknowledges 39 men on hunger strike, while lawyers insist that the number is closer to 130.

Attorney Army Captain Jason Wright calls the strike, “a manifestation of sheer desperation and hopelessness.” According to Shaker Aamer, a detainee cleared for release but who remains confined, “prisoners are being mistreated in gratuitous ways.” This includes a Syrian who, paralyzed due to maltreatment while in detention, is being denied the use of his wheelchair, as well as withholding of appropriate sleeping mats and potable water. 

As people of faith, our motto too is salaam, peace.  As Christians we are called to be representatives of God’s compassion and mercy, to love both neighbor and enemy.  As Americans we are free and responsible to challenge our representatives when they are engaged in actions that are immoral and unjust.  Guantanamo is both.  Through this hunger strike the men there are calling out to us.

Let us honor their faith and live into ours by responding in any way we can.  Here are a few suggestions:

1)      Join members of Witness Against Torture in a “rolling fast.” See www.witnesstorture.org.

2)      Write a letter to prisoners at Guantanamo.  See, http://ccrjustice.org/WriteGitmoPrisoners.

3)      Make phone calls:

·        Call the White House and insist that President Obama fulfill his promise to close Guantanamo: 202-456-1111, 202-456-1414

·        Call the U.S. Southern Command to decry the conditions at Guantanamo: 305.437.1213

·        Call the Department of Defense: 703-571-3343

Join in a national day of action on April 11^th.  See www.witnesstorture.org for more information.

Who Will Save the Hunger Striker?

“Eternal God…You know that these men have testified falsely against me.  Would you let me die, though I am not guilty of all their malicious charges?”

This week the daily mass readings begin with the cry of Susannah, unjustly accused by corrupt officials, sentenced to death in the presence of the people.  We read that God hears her.  But Susannah is not saved by a bolt of lightning striking down her foes, or by being mysteriously transported to safety.  God arouses the Holy Spirit stirring a “young lad,” Daniel, a witness in a crowd of impassive witnesses, and this small person shouts, “I will have no part in the death of this woman!”

People in the crowd are startled.  Many had been grieved by the proceedings, but this was out of their hands, the elders, the leaders had decided.  Yet here is this stirring, “What did you say?” they ask.

And Daniel says to the people, “Have you become fools, you Israelites, to condemn a daughter of Israel without due process and in the absence of clear evidence?”

In this story, the people respond, turning the tables by turning the accusers over for questioning.  It is now they who must prove their case, which they fail to do.  So Susannah is delivered, back to her family, and the accusers take her place in receiving the full penalty of the law.

I am struck by how clearly this story illustrates that God moves by moving people. Would this providential delivery have been possible had Daniel not responded to the spirit stirring him to speak?  What if the people had not listened?  What does all of this mean for us in our time?

Hearing this story for the first time, my thoughts immediately went to an outcry that is currently falling on deaf ears.  There are 166 men being held at Guantanamo Bay detention center in Cuba.  They are held there without due process, accused in the absence of clear evidence.  Their detention is indefinite, a torturous reality.  Adding insult to injury, the sacred texts of these men of faith are being tampered with and desecrated, letters from their wives and children are censored or withheld.  At Guantanamo, more men have died (9) than have been convicted of a crime (6). The men are experiencing a living death, confined to their tomb until the day that their corpse can be released to their family without fear that it will speak of what it has suffered. 

Yet the men there are finding ways to cry out, to God, to their captors, to this crowd of people in the United States, to us.  They are using the only tool they have left, their own body, hunger striking.  They are not demanding release, only humane treatment, just procedures. 

As a woman of faith, I sense the Holy Spirit seeking to arouse a voice in the crowd.  We are given the example of Daniel for a reason.  God desires compassion and justice and these divine gifts come through people who respond.  But what can we do, when the prisoners are not standing directly before us, when the crowd is not crushing about us?

We can still adopt and adapt Daniel’s words, “I will have no part in the death of these men,” “Have we become fools, to condemn men without due process and in the absence of clear evidence?”  And we can find the crowds to speak it to, and draw a crowd to speak it with us.

Witness Against Torture (WAT), a group of men and women from across the United States, has been seeking an end to indefinite detention, due process and resettlement for those detained, and the closure of Guantanamo Bay detention center since 2005.  Together we are responding to the hunger strikes with tangible actions.  Beginning March 24^th (Holy Week, for those in the Catholic tradition) we will hold a seven day solidarity fast.  Throughout that week we encourage people to call the White House; send letters to the prisoners acknowledging that they have been heard by the public, even if officials have yet to respond; join us for vigils (see witnesstorture.org to find out if there are any happening in your city, or start your own); participate in the fast for a day or more; spread the news in any way you can.

Adnan Latif, a Muslim man who, after eleven years of detention, died at Guantanamo wrote a poignant poem in which he asks, “Who will save the hunger striker?” He died, without ever having been proved guilty of “all their malicious charges.”  How many deaths before the cry is heard?

Read more at Democracy Now

WAT Emergency Response

Correction

 Last night, while having a sweet talk with Ted and my parents over the phone.  My father brought to my attention a significant, unfortunate, typo in my last post.  Midway through the third paragraph there is a sentence with the phrase, “I am in a state of absolute despair.”  Absent from this phrase is the small but crucial word, “not.”  Please note the following correction: “I am not in a state of absolute despair.”  Which I hope you will see demonstrated in what is yet to come in my words and in my actions.

I have been thinking a great deal and talking to several dear friends and family members since the last post, sharing and clarifying.  I have also written a bit but am faced with reconsidering whether this is an appropriate space for me to continue engaging the process of self, social and spiritual evaluation.

Much love to all.

I write not that I might air the clean laundry, but the dirty...

When asked why I have not updated this blog, I reply, “Oh, I’ve been so busy.”  I am sorry to say, I was lying.  While it is true that many major events and life changes have been underway, those events and changes are all the more reason for writing.  This post is an effort at transparency, though, I do fear at times that explanations themselves tend to muddy the waters. Be that as it may, here is my confession: The primary reason, rising above the usual scattered excuses, that I have not been writing is that I have, for lack of a more appropriate term, been depressed.

As I write, there is a wedding celebration transpiring in the auditorium.  I can hear occasional bursts of applause and jovial voices.  I can imagine the sumptuous African foods that have been in the process of preparation from last night all the way through to this afternoon.  I stayed home after my house shift today, in spite of feeling the urge to escape the city, just so that I could attend this very celebration.  Instead, I am in my room, too ashamed of my eyelids and nose, swollen from hours of weeping, to show my face downstairs. 

I’ve been reluctant to disclose my discouraged state, for a few reasons beyond the usual embarrassment, lack of adequate explanation, etc. One is that I do not want to give the impression that I am sad all the time, I’m not.  I have been able to rest in genuinely happy and peaceful moments, enjoy other peoples company, feel energized by work or ideas.  Another is that I am not in a state of absolute despair, I have not yet reached that point. Finally, because of my recent marriage.  Though it is certainly an upheaval of my former life, it is also an island of stability in the midst of this tumultuous sea of doubt that seems to swell over almost every other aspect of my life. Ted’s loving presence continually returns me to appreciation for life and others and myself.

Other recent life changes we might shift our attention to are a recent move to New York City and to Maryhouse.  Admittedly, I have been sorely tempted to point my finger at these.  I catch myself making exaggerated comparisons between my move to Chicago and my move here.  In Chicago, I felt my life expanding, as though I was taking a deep, enlivening breath; I was eager to involve myself in every opportunity that presented itself, no matter how intimidating.  In New York, I feel crumpled, as though I’ve had the breath knocked out of me in a painful whoosh and I am inclined to opt out of every opportunity that presents itself, no matter how appealing.

 It is little wonder that a person who loves solitude and natural places might feel claustrophobic living in an unruly house of twenty-five people and a city that seems obsessed with hiding the earth beneath concrete and the sky behind buildings.  There is more to this, though, than geography. And I know that the transition has been subtle and varied, experiencing shifts long before my shift in locale and community.

Bearing that in mind, I will go back a bit on what I have said and assert that, in fact, my troubles do have something to do with marriage, and Manhattan, and Maryhouse! Not because they create this interior disturbance, but because they confront me with it.  Manhattan’s rejection of nature, subjection of the poor and projection of the importance of image and success forces me to consider where I really stand in relation to these things. Maryhouse, somehow, acts as a mirror and holds before my face everything I don’t like about myself. Living here I feel weak, indecisive, unassertive, disorganized, wasteful, petty, lacking vision and imagination, lacking in compassion, socially timid, etc, etc, etc.  In addition to that all of my critique for the community, which I will not include here, can be turned on myself. 

In addition to a new city and community, a new relationship requires more new relationships.  It is necessary to meet and connect with new people.  This has never been easy for me and the challenge is intensified by being in a state where I feel that I am struggling to “keep it together,” so to speak. Thus I am inhibited beyond my usual shyness by the contradictory inclinations to always be open and truthful and to put on my best face.  Marriage also complicates my usual coping techniques.  Making decisions with someone else is hard.  Not only is there the possibility of not agreeing, but also the feeling of not wanting to inadvertently coerce the other into doing something they don’t want and that they (and thus you who love them) will regret.  I feel weighed down by this. 

Historically, my response to feeling inadequate or disconnected or disinterested with a job or a group or a place has been to leave it.  To point my ship toward new horizons and sail on.  Now, if not absolutely held back, I am slowed by the presence of another person, whom I will never desert.  Now I am forced to remain while the ugly aspects of myself make their mean presence known.  I cannot turn my back on the difficult questions of how to love the same person(s) over and over again each day.  I cannot avoid the challenge of dwelling within a neighborhood and a culture where I feel I do not belong. I can’t shake off the feeling of confusion and dismay about how to live justly when I am, and the society I live in is, so corrupt. Now that my life is intentionally shared, I cannot simply disengage and start over.  Thus, my husband is not so much a “ball and chain” as an anchor, holding me, teaching me what it is to remain.

Ever since the Avett Brothers came out with the song, “Weight of Lies,” I have felt haunted by the lyrics:

Disappear from your home town,

go and find the people that you know.

Show them all your good parts and

leave town when the bad ones start to show...

The weight of lies will bring you down

follow you to every town

‘cause nothin’ happens here that doesn’t happen there…

I feel an invisible knowing look levied on me every time I hear the song, yet I can’t stop listening.  I have been feeling and thinking and writing about wanting to break this pattern of skimming the surface of questions and work and relationships for years.  I have been praying for something or someone to help me plant roots, stay the course, to sink deeper, not into despair but into revealed, engaged life.  I have considered all manner of escapes to get me there.  Ironically, it seems possible that the way to deeper, abiding, deliverance may be this “trap” I have willfully walked into.

Despite my gratitude for this realization, I feel inadequate to live into it.  Part of my dismay is that someone who has had so much unreservedly given to her (me) can be so stingy and cautious with how she spends her life.  Though I speak and write of it often, I am reluctant to actively seek out and experiment with living out Love and Truth.  Though I am quick to criticize what I don’t like, I am unable to articulate what I want.   Armed with the art of manipulating words, and trained to bring pieces of writing to a conclusion, I often wrap up my musings with a positive resolution.  Sometimes it is accurate, other times it is not.  This time, I want to be frank.  I’m not finished.

Tonight I finally read for the first time an article from the Catholic Worker archives that Ted had sent to me before I moved here.  It is by our friend Pat Jordan, a fellow admirer of the Jewish philosopher and humanitarian, Martin Buber.  Pat sums up his brief biography of Buber using excerpts from his writing to construct an imaginary address from Buber to the readers of the CW.  Little wonder, my ego-centric mind imagines this articled from 1978 was written for me, in this moment.  The following is a quote from Buber:

“Existence will remain meaningless for you if you yourself do not penetrate into it with active love, and if you do not in this way discover its meaning for yourself.  Everything is waiting to be hallowed by you; it is waiting to be disclosed in its meaning, and to be realized in it by you…meet the world with the fullness of your being and you shall meet God…If you wish to believe, love.”

Pat responds to this, writing, “Renew your faith. Yes, your faith, your trust in God.  You must, for your task demands it.  Remember, ‘One who loves God only as the moral ideal is bound soon to reach the point of despair at the conduct of the world.’”

“The power of turning,” again, quoting Buber, “which radically changes the situation, never reveals itself outside the crisis.  This power begins to function when one, gripped by despair, instead of allowing himself to be submerged, calls forth his primal powers and accomplishes with them the turning of his very existence.  It happens this way, both in the life of the person and in that of the race.”

Before Ted went downstairs to the aforementioned wedding, he sat with me in the midst of my wallowing; asking questions, reflecting on his own experiences, holding on to me.  I laid on the bed after he left and tried not to let the fact that I was up here feeling and looking pathetic while others were downstairs celebrating exacerbate my melancholia.  I picked up a pen and wrote a challenge to what I keep feeling:

“I am not a wasted life.  There is still today.”

Anyone who has been depressed knows that it is accompanied by an overload of self-focus and an absence self-confidence.  It is a time in which one feels very little hope in creating or implementing alternatives, very little motivation to act and shamefully selfish.  Writing this is an act of hope, an attempt to encourage myself that I am “keeping my wits about me,” (as my old friend Larry used to continually advise) and that maybe, just maybe, I have something to offer in the simple act of sharing myself. Granted, I am only "saying" this in writing.  If reading this enables others to be more bold, I am grateful. If nothing else, offering this wordy translation of my thoughts reminds me that I am still here, and you are still there, and we still have today to choose who we will be.

A Day

June 7, 2012

One week from today, Ted and I will take a plane to Atlanta for Grace and Ryan’s wedding.  I won’t be returning to New York until July 8, after Ted and I too are married.

Beneath the trees in Tompkins Square Park, the sunny afternoon becomes cool.  The grass long with patches of dark exposed soil dividing it.

This morning I woke to the loud clear voice of a police officer speaking firmly but gently to a woman on the sidewalk beneath my window, which is three floors above the front door.

“Is that Katie?” I wondered.  There are not many other young women with that distinctive mop of matted gray hair that seems loosely set on the scalp.  I heard the officer describing her condition, “lacerations,” I heard, and before long, an ambulance arrived.

By the time I was downstairs, ready to assume my “on house” duties, the woman was packed away in the ambulance while officers continued to linger outside, increasing in rank and numbers.  Then the news cameras came.  All the while, poor Dee (a long-time resident who struggles with hoarding and emotional outbursts and has had 911 called for her before against her will) clung to the door, watching every move, asking me if I was going to do anything about them taking pictures of the house.

I went about my work in the kitchen – occasionally peeking out the window, getting updates from Dee and Eugene – trying to pull out and utilize as much of the abundance of donated food I had strategically packed into the refrigerator the previous night, and prepare it for today’s open lunch.

When the ambulance left, I put a crate of cellophane wrapped sandwich triangles (a gift of leftovers from a middle school after their last day of school) on a folding chair on the stoop with a sign that read, “Good morning! Please help yourself to a sandwich!”  and while doing so noticed a police car still present, hours after the initial incident.  We all speculated as to why this incident was being drawn out through the morning – were the Hell’s Angels, whose clubhouse is only a few buildings down, involved?  Is there an investigation underway? A search for the assailant?

As soon as I’d ducked back into the house a tall, broad young man approached the door.  He spoke in broken English with a thick eastern European (?) accent, asking if he might volunteer for us.  Trying to make sense of what exactly he was offering and explain in brief our houses function, I was interrupted by another woman, with a large dog on a leash and a sweaty red face who quickly approached the door, “I need a plastic bag or paper or something – my dog pooped!”  Excusing myself and returning with the requested bag, I suggested to “Oz” that if he is interested in learning more about volunteering at a house with more of a soup line perhaps he ought to go a few blocks over and give St. Joe’s a try.

A few minutes later, when I’d resumed preparing a salad and re-inventing last night’s dinner into a new soup, someone called out from the dining room, “Amy, someone’s at the door!”  By the time I’d wiped my hand and walked into the dining room (just adjacent to the kitchen) someone was pointing, wide-eyed to the hallway that led from the foyer.  From there a man in a suit entered the dining room, introducing himself as detective so-and-so and proceeding as polite as can be with his questions.  I responded to the best of my knowledge:

“Yes, I know her [it was Katie!] – no, she’s not a resident – she comes for lunch – yes, it’s quite likely she was planning to shower here today…”

“And what is your title, miss?”

“Um…resident?”

Back to making lunch, soon with Jane perched on her stool, asking questions and making comments, “Sounds like a vintage Catholic Worker day!” she said, and I somehow felt gratified.

Angie, a frequent visitor who always comes with a compendium of garbled requests, began banging on the door.  Initially turning her away until lunch at noon I conceded to finding her a sweater and t-shirt when she began unbuttoning her jacket and revealing her stark naked bosom beneath. She came back on hour later for lunch smelling heavily of excrement, which she was covered in from her waist to her toes.

Elizabeth, our new summer volunteer, had kindly stationed herself at the sink and was steadily washing dishes and filling in my gaps in serving as I ushered Angie into the bathroom with a change of clothes, wash rag and soap and responded to the other women’s requests for clothes, toiletries and attention.

As the lunch hours were winding down, women kept trickling in.  I temporarily left the kitchen in Ellen’s capable hands so that I could clean the bathroom after Angie had left the floor and toilet lid smeared with feces, keeping all others who wanted to use the sink or toilet at bay.  A community member began offering suggestions about how to manage the clothing room (which has somehow, unofficially, come under my jurisdiction) while I scurried back and forth from the broken-wheeled mop bucket, down the few stairs to the bathroom.  “What do you think?” she asked.  “I think I can’t respond to that right now,” I said, as politely as possible. 

Someone handed me the phone and I tried to explain to the woman on the other end that no, we do not have 501C3 status, or any other non-profit identification with the IRS but yes, we run on donations and are so non-profit that, in fact, none of us get paid money for working here.  Cathy returned with a report on the recovery of a 74 year old resident (who has lived her for several years and speaks only Mandarin, which no one else in the house understands) who had fallen on the stairs recently and needed hip surgery.  Martha returned from Vermont with a friend of the community who would be staying a few days.  Bev, another frequent and usually intoxicated visitor, returned after lunch and invited herself to more sandwiches because the ones outside were “too hot.”

A quarter after two I hung up my apron, packed a backpack with books and pens and headed outside where I could listen to the wind in the trees and be around people I could comfortably ignore and be ignored by.

The sky is darkening, wind picking up, setting the trees into a mournful sway; the dampness of the earth is seeping through my clothes, all this suggesting to me that perhaps it’s time to return.  After all, the clothing room is in dire need of organizing and there are heaps of overripe bananas yet to be mashed and frozen.

A House Divided?

It occurred to me, on Sunday, that while I had spent my day absorbed in preparing for, hosting and cleaning up after a memorial service at Maryhouse, the White Rose community and many other loved ones and strangers in Chicago were participating in a nonviolent uprising that swelled in response to the NATO summit.  I sat with the thought, neither critical nor condoning, while sitting on the sill of Teddy’s window, legs folded into the frame (his windowsill is wider than mine, and less crowded by plants and picture frames), watching a little window of sky that subtly made the dramatic shift from pale yellow to blazing pink without comment.

Two communities, offshoots from the trunk of one movement, sustained and shaped by the life and writings of the same woman (the venerable Ms. Day), at different times home and church and classroom to the same woman (the ephemeral Ms. Nee), yet to the untrained eye, almost opposite.  The White Rose, a half-dozen, highly educated, fair-skinned youths with the occasional overnight guest – dedicated and devoted to sustainable living and nonviolence not only in every action but in every word and expression as well.  Maryhouse, twenty-five (give or take, I still don’t have a sure count on how many people live here!) folks, a majority over fifty years old, of varying color, creed and acumen – a household that day after day admits dozens of women, offering showers, clothes, a balanced meal and company (not guaranteed to be cheerful, but ever-present nonetheless).

 At the former I would spend three hours in a meeting the results of which would be revisited, rehashed and revised the following week.  At the latter I spend three hours folding clothes that the following day will be stashed in bags, tossed on the floor and probably, eventually abandoned on park benches.  I often find both tasks more maddening than enlightening.  All the same, I consider the time well spent.  At the former, each day, we concerned ourselves with the issues of the world – war, torture, environment, oppression of all kinds – and sought to educate (ourselves and others), to create alternatives and to partake in nonviolent demonstrations, open the door to others that we might eat and talk and play and pray together.  At the latter we concern ourselves with individuals in our community and neighborhood – hungry, sick, lonely, weary in innumerable ways – cook lunches, wash dishes, offer clean clothes and showers, visit hospitals, celebrate and mourn. 

At times the two could not seem more different.  One might be tempted to compare: which is better? which more successful? which meets the greatest need?  These questions, I think, are alluring as forbidden fruit that promises the knowledge of good and evil upon ingestion.  The end result, as our first parents demonstrated, is not an answer that reveals truth, but a blade that cuts apart holy wholeness, introduces shame and accusation and ultimately separates the seeker from the Word of Truth, that is to say, Love.

“ ‘In the end, the only thing that matters is love,’ those are the last words I ever heard from her mouth,” a woman shares at the memorial for Rita Corbin held at Maryhouse on Sunday.  Hers was one of many stories remembering the life of this prolific artist whose woodcuts, since the 1950’s, have oft adorned the pages of the Catholic Worker newspaper and whose life infiltrated and enriched far more than just our readers.  The gathering elicited reflections that evoked both laughter and tears.  Rita’s now adult children played folk music.  We served coffee and punch and huge platters of fried rice and salad with Wasabi-citrus dressing that had been specially prepared at St. Joe’s for the occasion.  I alternately filled and washed plates, introduced the food and myself, listened to reminiscences from Rita’s brother and showed visitors to the bathroom.  All the while members of the White Rose, along with thousands of others, marched and sang and maintained a peaceful presence amidst an anxious crowd of activists and likely more anxious officers in full riot gear ready to make use of their training and tazers.   

A critic of one persuasion might consider Maryhouse mundane and trifling, while one of another might consider the White Rose naive and dramatic.  Neither assessment is accurate, nor is the assessment that their actions are so very different.  Both are engaged in attending to matters of life and of death (which one might argue are themselves part of one whole), both are engaged in practicing, to the best of their ability, the Works of Mercy.  These seemingly separate houses seek the same revolution, a revolution of the heart where “stranger” becomes “neighbor” and we learn to love our neighbor as our self; that self that is a divine vessel, bearing the very image of the God who is Love. 

http://wagingnonviolence.org/2012/05/catholic-workers-just-say-no-to-nato/#more-17160

Engage!

A few weeks into my stay at Maryhouse, a rumor began circulating that Ted and I were engaged.  Though untrue, this was not an unfounded rumor.  During a meeting of the community Ted made sure to let folks know that he would be in and out for the summer, saying, “Amy has two siblings getting married this summer—and, maybe possibly, we would get married this summer.”  The ladies of the house let out a cheer, “he said it out loud!” they cried.  I was not in the room.  Ensuing congratulations took me by surprise.  After a few days, I had an explanation ready on my tongue before someone could get out their full, “I hear you have news…”  Even Ted’s sister asked me if it was true that we were getting married this summer (I will admit, I had begun a half-joking/half-serious campaign over e-mail for a triple wedding of Nee siblings, combining Adam and Grace’s already planned nuptials with my potential).  One afternoon a woman who occasionally volunteers, whom I’d met only once called the house phone,

 “Amy, I hear that you are engaged.”

“[laughing] I am not, actually.”

“Really? Someone told me you are.”

“It’s been going around.”

“[Disappointed] Well, I won these theater tickets and I wanted to give them to you and Ted as an engagement present.”

“Oh, how kind!”

“[Resigned] I guess you can have them anyway.”

“Thanks!”

Gradually, after much laughter, blushing and explanation, people were getting used to the idea that Ted and I were actually not engaged.  But it was in the air now, on our minds, if everybody else was talking about it, shouldn’t we?  Were these blithe mentions of slipping a wedding into the midst of those already set by sibling jokes or plans?  On the last day of March Ted mustered his courage and called Momma Nee, intending to ask whether she and Pop would like more time with him before he considered asking for their blessing on our marriage.  He stood cute and sheepish in the middle of his room, sharing this plan with me, his hair grown out mad-professor style, wearing a faded red War Resisters League t-shirt and blue jeans my mom had originally bought for my dad but found were too small.  I leaned on the door frame silently taking it all in – his plan, him, our life together in this house – until he shooed me out of his room and I went to mine.  At first diverting myself with a novel, I couldn’t shake the nagging thought that this was a significant moment; life altering conversations were underway, epic commitments being considered!  So I took out an old journal and revisited the notes I’d made about Ted and the ever gradually dawning desire for the mingling of our lives including this reflection I’d jotted down during a silent retreat I had just before moving to NY:

... I feel that I do want to live a religious life, but not as “a religious” in the Catholic sense of the word.  I want to live a religious life – angled always toward loving relationship (attentive, appreciative, accepting, affectionate, allowing; with reverence and devotion, curiosity and mystery) with God and recognition of God in all things – as a Catholic Worker and (dare I write it?) married to Ted (who teaches me to see and to feel and to respond)…
…Dear God, what has come over me?  It is the end of the day, 10:52 pm.  I am in bed – ready to pray and sleep.  But I am suddenly burning with an (almost) irresistible urge to call Teddy and tell him that I do know now that yes, I want to marry him.  I don’t want to have to wait until I see him or even until the retreat is over… 

But I did wait, and in fact, had not told him yet, still wrestling with myself, trying to discern what is best and playing my cards close to the vest in the meantime.  I laid down in my room, just adjacent to his, wondering what words were being exchanged next door, and wrote: “ Most of the time I wish we were married already, but every once in a while I begin to think the notion of such a commitment, such a life, is outrageous.”

 An hour later I heard his door open.

“How did it go?”

“It was really nice.”

“What did you talk about?”

“Ehm, the Hunger Games, Georgia—I didn’t say anything about taking a trip there or about us.”

“Seriously?”

“The timing didn’t seem right.”

“Unbelievable.”

“Are you disappointed in me?”

“No, just wondering what’s going to happen with all this.  Can we go?”

We were going to stay the night at his parents, who were out of town, taking advantage of the opportunity to have some time alone and cook a meal for two instead of fifty.  It was a beautiful night, preparing food and sharing a meal together.  Building a fire to cuddle and sip wine beside.  Maybe it was the atmosphere, or the wine, or maybe I was just ready to open the conversation; in any case, I ever so innocently asked,

“Did I ever tell you I almost called and proposed to you?”

“What?!”

“While I was on silent retreat, the night I started sending you text messages.”

“Are you serious?”

“I am.  I hinted about it in a letter, but that’s the letter that got lost on Devon Ave. before it made it to a mailbox.”

“Unbelievable.”

The next morning was Palm Sunday.  As we were preparing for mass, Ted started getting messages from our friend Joanne (who knew we would be using the theater tickets that had been given earlier due to the misinformation that was were engaged) some of which he read aloud to me:

“Doesn’t using an engagement present make you contractually obligated to actually become engaged beforehand?”

“I’m working on it!”

“I call BS! Screw your courage to the sticking post!”

Walking home from mass, I asked Ted what he wanted with regards to all this engagement talk. 

“I hear what other people think, and I know what I think, but what are you thinking?  Do you want to have it be something dramatic, to surprise me?  Do you want it to be collaborative?  Do you want me to surprise you?”

“Well, I think something collaborative would be more in keeping with the relationship we have and want to have.”

“True.”

“So what does the engagement mean then, if it’s something we talk about in advance?  And what is the purpose really of being engaged.  Is it just a time to plan the wedding? An open door to start really asking seriously if we do want to be married?  A time to learn what that even means and prepare ourselves?”

We decided that if, hypothetically, we were engaged, we would want to spend the time between engagement and marriage talking to couples and to each other, and learning what this means, and who we are, and how we want to be in relationship.  By this time we are once again in his parents’ kitchen, between the island and the wide clear windows that face the backyard.

“So,” Ted says, “can I just ask you now?”

“Um—ask me what? What do you mean?  Do you see that black squirrel?”  Suddenly feeling shy, I couldn’t bear to look at his face.

“Amy, you’re going to have to look at me.”

“I can’t.” Is he being serious? Is this really what’s happening?  I felt capacity only for questions.

“Amy, I need eye contact for this,” gently taking my face in his hands, “Amy Elizabeth Martha Nee, will you marry me.”

“Mhm.” I intoned, leaning into him, hiding my face in his shoulder.

“Mhm? Mhm! What does that mean? Is that a maybe? A yes?!”

“Ha, yes, yes!”

“Okay now you ask me with my full name, if you know it.”

“Of course I know it! But is it Vern or Vernon?”

“Vern.”

“Vern Edward Walker, will you marry me?”

“Yes! Enthusiastically! Ecstatically! Clearly!”

And so it was, and so it is.  We are getting married this summer.

The Beginning