Tag: postaday2011

Beyond the Pyramids – Glimpses of Cairo

Published on by Marilyn17 Comments

Jet lagged bodies and eyes are suddenly awakened through the comfort of familiarity. Traffic that would send many in the west into fits of frustration over “inefficiency”, crowds of people, and the sun and pollution hanging heavy over the city of Cairo have instead sent us into a state of contentment in that which is familiar. “Ah – this city, we love this city” If we don’t say it audibly, we think it so loudly that others can hear.

Arriving in early afternoon is the perfect time to arrive. We settled into the Diocesan guest house and were ready for the rest of the day. Initial glimpses of the city show old and beautiful American University of Cairo buildings with windows smashed in, other buildings and restaurants burnt during the revolution, and a car a few feet away from our daughter’s building crisply torched, an empty shell remaining.  All is evidence of a city and country that are resilient and continue to hope and long for a better future, despite the obvious obstacles. I will never be a political commentator; but when a “trusted commentator” of the New York Times talks about Egypt and wonders if they are ready for democracy, I want to throw up from the imperialism that flavors their words. Already we have heard from Egyptians two things – that no one wishes Mubarak back and that there is still legitimate concern and awareness that the future is uncertain. But for all of us, the future is a hope, never a certainty.

In the midst of the drugged mind of jet lag, we looked over Annie’s rooftop at glimpses of the city to the sounds of the Call to Prayer, echoing from mosques throughout the area. These glimpses are best captured through the camera lens so here is Cairo – a city that is so much more than the pyramids and King Tut.

View of the City
Cairo Rooftop
Another view - captures the Coptic church toward the right
Building across the way
Coptic church - Evidence of Egypt's large Coptic Christian population
Ancient window on the rooftop - I wish roof tops could talk
Steaming chai at a coffee shop. A perfect way to end our first day!
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Once You Drink From the Nile, You are Destined to Return

Published on by Marilyn20 Comments

 

At our goodbye party in Egypt, fifteen years ago, we gave out tiny bottles filled with water from the Nile River. Written on the front of the bottle were the words of an Egyptian proverb:

Once you drink from the Nile, you are destined to return

Cairo is a city that gets into your blood, under your skin, becomes a part of your DNA and every other phrase you can imagine to describe the connection that is Cairo. For all it’s dirt and chaos, our family loves this city. I think it’s because we are like the city. We’re loud, we’re chaotic, and we’re complicated; we can’t be put in a box.

We arrived in Cairo in 1989, just a few months shy of my thirtieth birthday.We were fledglings, learning to walk, talk and live as a family. We were described as “that cute young couple with all those kids!” After seven years we were leaving to move to the United States. Amidst the chaos of five kids aged one to eleven we packed up a life in Cairo. We put seven years of memories, friendships, household goods, and stories (oh the stories!) into twenty-six suitcases. The chapter in the narrative of our life called “Cairo” had closed; there would only be epilogues but the chapter itself was edited and complete.

We had gone through our last everything. Our last felucca ride*, our last trip to Felfela restaurant, our last ride in taxis, and our last view of the city that had taken us in as that fledgling family and dealt with us kindly. It was a traumatic and necessary move, orchestrated by God and grudgingly accepted by the family.

The proverb has proved true for all of us at different points and times and today it proves itself once again. Five of us board a plane at New York’s JFK airport and fly non stop from New York to Cairo, joining our oldest for a Christmas celebration. The trip is a gift of grace. A lot of life has been lived since we left as a family. We are all older and our interactions more complex. Wrinkles light up our smiles and grey frosts the hair of me and my husband (well, not me-I take advantage of all the amazing products that guarantee my hair will look younger than my body!)

But despite being older and more complicated, minarets of mosques are awaiting our footsteps; fuul beans, hot from street restaurants are ready to be eaten; and favorite haunts are shouting at us to come relive our memories. We have drunk from the Nile and we are returning.

*A felucca is a large wooden sailboat. Felucca rides on the Nile are indescribably fun and relaxing – memorable experiences.

The Power of the Narrative

Published on by Marilyn25 Comments

It is the function of Art to renew our perception. What we are familiar with we cease to see. The writer shakes up the familiar scene, and as if by magic, we see a new meaning in it.~ Anais Nin

While living internationally, we rarely went a day without having a story to tell that demonstrated our clumsy negotiations in a country where we were guests. Whether it was wrong translations on birth certificates, getting completely lost in a city of millions, or using the wrong word when communicating, there was always a story. At parties a game favorite was Two Truths and a Lie. While many in the United States may have played this, the responses are totally different when you live overseas. Responses such as “My maid of honor was a Nigerian gentleman” “I had dinner with Yasser Arafat’s brother” “My appendix were taken out by a CIA operative” “I grew up with the Ambassador to Mongolia” and more are just a few of the interesting responses that are given. Contrast that to the first time I played this game in Massachusetts where the most exciting response was “I’ve been to Connecticut” (that was the lie…)

A few years ago my husband was talking to a friend from college years. This friend had come to the US from Iran for university and has since made his home here. He was relaying a story of his cousin coming to the US from Iran. She arrived in Michigan for a brief visit before moving on to Toronto. For three days, he said, they listened to her stories and laughed. At the end of three days, she turned to them and said “What are your stories? Tell me your stories?” My husband’s friend and his wife looked at her blankly. “We don’t have stories.” “How can you not have stories? Of course you have stories!” They explained to her that they really didn’t. Life was efficient and rarely brought surprises. They had no stories to tell. She was aghast.

How can you not have stories?

She left soon after and settled with her family in Toronto. A couple of years later another relative from Iran visited her in Toronto. For three days they listened to her stories. And then she turned to them, in the same way that they had turned to our friend and the same question was asked “Now tell me your stories!”. They were blank. They had no stories.

While I know that there are stories in this part of the world, I completely get the response of having no stories in comparison to our lives overseas. The best stories are ones that involve people. People are what make life infinitely interesting. In cultures that are more relationship oriented, there are more opportunities for interaction, whether positive or negative. When human interaction is limited by our high value of individualism and efficiency we can lose some of what makes a good story.

But I think it’s more than that. I think that the power of the narrative, the story, needs to be revived in our country. We hang ourselves on sound bites and 140 characters and we have lost the ability to concentrate on stories that are longer than a blog post. How often can the tweet of 140 characters make you feel and cry, rejoice and laugh, rage and empathize. Stories do. Narratives of life lived and our response to how it was lived. There is a power in stories – a power in the telling, and a power through the listening.

So bring on the stories – tell your story! Think about the life you’ve lived and what your story offers others.  I guarantee it will be worth the telling.

Advent Reflection – Raining Tears

Published on by Marilyn7 Comments

As often happens in life, one day there’s a party and the next there is grief. The other day there was a party and all felt sunny. One day later, the sky was the grey of winter and rain fell steadily. As I was walking to my local drug store I walked over cigarette butts, paper leaflets trapped in puddles, and wet leaves mixed together on the sidewalk, all evidence of life in a city. I was glad for the rain falling on my cheeks; it gave me grace to weep tears that I didn’t want seen in public but came on like a sudden summer storm. I felt like I was raining tears.

All around me I saw evidence of a world broken. It was in the glum, moodiness of passers-by. It was in the grocery cart pushed by the homeless woman, piled high with bottles and filthy blankets. It was in the impatient honking of a car, angry at the vehicle in front of him. Had the vehicle kept on moving, it would have hit two people in the cross walk – and then there would have been more brokenness.

The tears had come from looking at a set of 45 images that represented this past year. Almost every picture was evidence of sadness, loss of life, and a shattered world. As the tears flowed I asked the age-old question: Are you good, God? In the midst of all of this, are you good? It was raining tears as I asked the question.

And so I went back through the images. Could I find even a glimpse of redemption in any of these pictures? Could I see something that sparked hope? I resolved that when I got home I would look through the pictures again with the a different lens, a redemptive lens.

Instead of just seeing coffins, destruction, and crisis I saw beyond the images, to the sidelines or back stage. In the midst of death, was mourning – redemptive evidence of someone who loved. In the midst of buildings ripped from the ground from a tornado was a person – redemptive evidence of a life spared. In the middle of sadness was the redemptive and inexplicable joy that comes from human connection. One image showed Christians guarding Muslims as they prayed in Tahrir Square, ensuring no one was disrupted –  a redemptive image of compassion and care that could transcend different belief systems.

The tears continued to fall but they became redemptive tears renewing my vision and enabling me to see the marks and manifestation of God=breathed redemption.  

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The Book Giveaway!

Published on by Marilyn8 Comments

If you’re just tuning in this week then you aren’t yet aware of the book giveaway in celebration of a year of blogging!

Here are the rules:

  1. Comment on this post giving the title of your favorite post, perhaps a reason why it’s a favorite and suggestions for future posts…..or
  2. Invite someone to read Communicating Across Boundaries who you think would enjoy the blog.  Make sure they comment and let me know that you recommended the blog. If you choose this way to participate,here are some of the choices that readers have picked as their favorite posts:

A New Kind of Mommy Blog  – picked by Christi-Lynn Martin

Hookah Hypocrisy – picked by Cary Schulte

The Benediction – Picked by Wilma Brown

Chocolate Jesus – picked by Petra Riggins

Angels from the Rooftop – picked by Tiffany Kim

I will put the names of those who take part into a hat and randomly select three. Those three people will have their choice of one of the books I love and have talked about on this blog.

Here are the books you can choose from:

You have until Tuesday, December 20th to participate. I’ll send out a couple of reminders as a way to tell you how much I want you to take part!
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Hope in a City – Shikarpur, Sindh

Published on by Marilyn15 Comments

an old building architecture of Shikarpur.
Image via Wikipedia

Shikarpur is a city in the Sindh area of Pakistan that I have mentioned in earlier posts. It has figured prominently into my past; a place where best friends and favorite families lived and a place that was home for me during my high school years. It is also the place where I was based for flood relief in October a year ago.

While growing up, periodically someone would talk about the days when Shikarpur was a beautiful city with gardens, roses, and large homes gracing the streets. It was a banking city, a financial capital strategically located because of its accessibility from Central Asia and West Asia. History points to this being a city with culture, trade, architecture, and green space. Shikarpur was described as the capital of “merchants, money changers, and bankers”

When Pakistan gained independence from India and established itself as a separate Muslim nation, hundreds of thousands of Hindus were displaced and journeyed to India to begin a new life. Just as Hindus left, Muslims entered and Shikarpur continued to grow. I don’t know when Shikarpur began to lose its beauty and former glory. Part of the change came with partition and strained relations with India, but well before that time of transition and war, the city was not what it had been in the 1800’s. A time where horse-drawn Victorian carriages carried the wealthy to the Shahi Bagh gardens complete with a zoo that had cheetahs, lions and wild boar.

This was a Shikarpur I never knew. While walking through the bazaar, if you look up, you can see faint glimpses of the former glory in old, beautifully crafted windows. Then as your eyes shift and take in the surroundings at eye level, they will see tremendous poverty, crumbling buildings, trash and general disarray. When I reflect on Shikarpur I am saddened for what used to be a place of beauty – a place where gardens and lawns were valued and developed for people to enjoy.

What goes into the demise of a city? How does a place once known as a banking capital with lush gardens become a place that is valued by only those who live there? History is full of descriptions of cities that once were places where life was happening at economic and social levels, cities known for their beauty and culture. Now they are crumbled ruins, their value in what was, not what now is.

Even as the former glory has faded, there is hope and beauty in Shikarpur. One place where this hope is personified is in a small group of people who work in the Shikarpur Christian Hospital. Pakistanis from various ethnic groups, Americans, Canadians and at any given time various other nationalities, work side by side to provide care to women and children in the region. Though worthy, this hospital will never be highlighted in a news story but day after day the doors open to people who would otherwise have no care. Perhaps it seems but a small glimmer of hope compared to the renowned city that once was, but walk through the bazaar in Pakistan and women, anonymous in their burqas, will walk up to any one who looks foreign and say “Are you from the Christian hospital? That hospital saved my life!” or “When will the hospital be opening to deliver babies again? You have to open! You are the only place that cares”. 

While the glory days of Shikarpur would have been a delight to experience, this hospital and the work that is accomplished through the hospital are far greater in the economy of eternity. So despite dusty roads and an infrastructure that belongs more in the early 19th century than the 21st, there is hope. It is a hope often operated by a generator because of frequent power outages, but it shines brightly nonetheless, between a mosque and a Hindu temple off a dusty street full of ox carts, rickshaws and motor vehicles, in Shikarpur.

Blogger’s Note: This post does not do justice to the history and God-breathed work of Shikarpur Christian Hospital so stay tuned for another post that gives more information about this place of hope. For some real-life/in person stories – take a look at The Day the Chicken Cackled: Reflections of a Life in Pakistan by Bettie Rose Addleton. You will travel inside her homes and friendships in Shikarpur and other parts of Pakistan.

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“Yes Dr. Walker…Of Course I Floss!”

Published on by Marilyn10 Comments

If you polled a group of people and asked them if they lie to their dentist I think you would get a 100% response rate of “Yes!” The minute I walk into the dentist’s office my moral compass changes and anything is allowed.

“When was the last time you had a check up?”

“Oh, I think it was last year some time”

“Oh, really? We don’t have it on record”

Pause.

“OH…that’s funny! I could have sworn it was last year….maybe I went to that other dentist”  ….And then the dreaded question that you know will come:

“Now” pause “Do you floss regularly?”

“Yes Dr. Walker….Of course I floss” And then the dentist looks and knows I’m lying.

Silence. The silence holds all the condemnation that can possibly fit in a single room. As my brother once said “If dentists were priests or pastors, churches would be empty” Imagine the first thing a pastor or priest says to you every week “Did you sin?” And the minute you open your mouth, he/she knows you’re lying.

There is a fear and dread about going to the dentist held by women, men, and children world-wide. No matter how much you’ve brushed and flossed, it’s never going to be good enough! Plus there’s always something we are worried about. The dull ache coming from the wisdom tooth; the spot that bleeds every time we brush; the dread that we have to finally get that crown completed – the temporary one having lasted five years longer than was planned.

And then I think about my brothers’ statement and I wonder about the church “Is that how the church is perceived? As a place where nothing you do is good enough? Where there is a dread and fear? Where condemnation hangs heavy like the silence in a dentist’s office?” And I know that the Church, made of imperfect people, sometimes fails miserably.

I had a visit to my dentist last week. I have grudgingly begun to trust (dare I say even like?) this man. He is practical, clear. and laid back. He accepts me where I’m at and takes it from there, with the gentle challenge “Perhaps you could try this. When you’re ready we could talk about that…”  And I realize that had I stopped going my teeth would be hurting and I would not be healthy.  So can churches be given another chance as well?  To get it right, develop a relationship and gently challenge?

Many people feel like they’ve given the Church that chance, and the Church has failed them repeatedly. I know becaus I used to be one.

Like the dentist, I continued going back. I’m gradually learning and growing; slowly trusting this entity that Christ loves so deeply.

It’s not easy, but neither is going to the dentist and the outcome is ultimately more serious. My journey with the Church has not been easy, but I have learned to honor the struggle and trust the author of the journey.

Dr. Walker was good preparation for a much more important journey. 

You can read more on my journey with the church here.

Blogger’s Note: Remember the Book Giveaway! Invite your friends and family to read and comment or leave a comment yourself! All will be entered into a random drawing for the give away of three of my favorite books! 

It’s a Blog Party!

Published on by Marilyn30 Comments

It’s a blog party and you’re invited!  I’m celebrating the birth of this blog and over 50,000 views in less than a year. I’m celebrating 312 posts, 2,289 comments, 65 categories, 674 tags, and 533 followers! Most of all I’m celebrating writing and communicating with people through the medium of a blog, and I’m celebrating you, the reader, for being willing to read, give feedback, email encouragement and be a part of this process.

In honor of the celebration (besides the mandatory Proseco that I am committed to) I am giving away three books. But to get these books I ask for something in return….

I am inviting you to do one of two things:

  1. Comment on this post giving the title of your favorite post, perhaps a reason why it’s a favorite and suggestions for future posts…..or
  2. Invite someone to read Communicating Across Boundaries who you think would enjoy the blog.  Make sure they comment and let me know that you recommended the blog. If you choose this way to participate, here are some of my favorite posts that you may want to recommend – A Sun Dial and a Swiss Watch – The Story of a Relationship; Learning to Speak Coffee; Meet me at Terminal E and Hookah Hypocrisy.

I will put the names of those who take part into a hat and randomly select three. Those three people will have their choice of one of the books I love and have talked about on this blog.

Here are the books you can choose from:

You have until Tuesday, December 20th to participate. I’ll send out a couple reminders as a way to tell you how much I want you to participate!

Please join in the fun. No one wants to party alone so if no one participates I will cry myself to sleep on my wee pillow!

(Notice that Digging to America and The Day the Chicken Cackled are missing from the photograph. They are on loan to friends!)