Aaron's Blog
Thoughts from a Bus
Posted Jan. 17th, 2007
Recently I read a short description of the life of Mev Puleo (1963 – 1996), called a “Witness of Solidarity” in my book of daily reflections on saints, prophets and witnesses for our time. I love this book, because of the powerful impact it has to read about the myriad of ways that normal folks have lived in inspiring ways. The quote from Mev read as follows:
“When I was in my early teens, a thought took hold of me: Jesus didn’t die to save us from suffering –- he died to teach us how to suffer… Sometimes I actually mean it. I’d rather die young, having lived a life crammed with meaning, than to die old, even in security, but without meaning.”
One of the turning points in Mev’s life came at the age of 14, while on a tour bus on the way to the famous statue of Christ the Redeemer, which overlooks Rio de Janeiro. On one side of the bus, she could look out to see the opulent homes, hotels and beaches of the wealthy. Through the other window, she watched as children begged for coins in tattered rags on a hillside of ramshackle homes. “What does it mean to be a Christian –- a follower of the way of Jesus –- in a world of contradictions and conflicts,” asked Mev. “What does it mean to be on the way to Jesus when I view the world of poverty from an air conditioned tour bus?”
Reading about Mev’s struggle brought me back to an equally important moment in my young life, when I was 19 and traveling the world on Semester at Sea. I, too, was riding in a comfortable tour bus in Nairobi, Kenya. Looking out my window, I watched as a young boy sat by a ditch on the side of the road, brushing his teeth in the filthy drain water. For me, the image captured the collision of worlds that I was experiencing for the first time in my life -- health, wealth and prosperity versus poverty, disease and, at times, desolation.
After years of struggling with Mev’s questions, I know that there are no easy answers. Poverty, especially dire poverty, is always gripping, heart-rending and eye opening, and for those of us who have grown up with comfort and excess, I also believe it is convicting if we are truly honest with ourselves. Yet despite that, it is still so hard to know what to do in the face of these contradictions.
In 2001 I had the privilege of working for an organization that sponsored immersion trips across the U.S./Mexico border, through which privileged, upper middle-class Americans had the opportunity to spend several days living with a very poor Mexican family in a neighborhood built on an old garbage dump in Juarez. It was always a penetrating experience, but it was also just a momentary glimpse and in some ways easily forgotten. On one of these trips, I asked a mentor “how does one hold onto this experience after we return to the comfort of our homes?” His response still echoes in my heart: “I’m not sure it’s possible unless you choose to remain rooted among the poor.”
Six-years later I finally have my wish. And while we continue to live in relative comfort here in Kigali, we are also undoubtedly rooted among the poor. Not a day passes without thinking about the children walking outside our gate who will not have food to eat today, and about the mothers who are too poor to buy medicine for their sick children. The poor are ubiquitous in Africa, where being middle class means earning more than $1/day. Even in Kigali, where the standard of living is much higher than many other cities in Africa, there are countless families caught in what economist Jeffery Sachs calls “the poverty trap.” For these men, women and children, no amount of hard work will ever allow their families to find security, much less the comfort that we in the West practically consider a human right.
Mev Puleo ultimately got her wish, dying young but having lived a life crammed with meaning. She was diagnosed with a malignant brain tumor at the age of 31 and died 21 months later. As an adult, she became a writer and photojournalist, tirelessly working to be a bridge between the first and third world that had gripped her heart as a young person. As I sit at a similar place, between worlds and wondering what role I have to play in it all, I pray that I, too, can have the strength and the courage to hold the immense suffering in our world and in my new neighborhood –- that I can continue seeking to discover my place in it.
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