yom b'yom

On my way to write this I passed a protest—on my way to write this I walked out of my way to pass the protest my friend Alex texted me about. This one was unusually stationary; compact. A mass of people were stilly standing directly across from parliament, waiting. The state police, unable to run at a block of people, had made a perimeter around them that was clearly not rehearsed. They’re figuring it out! At one point a new van of state police pulled up and a few men and women separated, scattered—but they were quickly brought back in. You saw it being explained to them that the point, if this was going to mean anything, was to stand still. “A still small voice”. And then when the second van had unloaded the protesters began to whistle at the police in a way I had heard them whistle individually but never like this, collectively—like they were animals. They put up what we call the “a-ok” sign: three fingers and a circle with your index finger and thumb. Do it—or, well, I guess you probably can’t read Arabic, but it spells Allah’s name. A is a line; two double l’s, connected j’s; and the circle, the h. It’s perfection. The face of it. That’s where we get it from.

And today I think I learned a little bit what it means—faith restored. I didn’t write about Pastor Jack III, maybe I will, but really all you need to know is that he is the antithesis of the man I met today—conjure whatever pseudo-Christian paranoia and pseudo-humility you like, you’ll be right, throw in 9/11 and the fall of Islam and the triumphant rise of Christianity, covert this and that, authorities, and there you have him. I met Pastor Dave Brown this morning. Or rather, I showed up at the church at 11, but I did not see him till 2, because there were 48 sub-Saharan African immigrants waiting before me to see the Pastor. Many of them were sick, limbless, sad-looking as all Hell. They were scattered through the pews, talking to each other, but mostly just looking off—sometimes they looked towards the Pastor’s voice. The pastor had set up a sort of office in the back of the church, hidden behind two columns. (Who knew you were in Morocco?) I too heard him long before I saw him, speaking a fluent French in a painful American accent, speaking English with a twangy Southern sincerity. I’m not sure how, but I knew from the sound of him that he was smart, more importantly, good.

While I was waiting, a man approached me and asked me What’s your problem?—for the Pastor, he meant. I wasn’t sure I had one. And while I waited, I talked to Elizabeth from the Congo (not the Democratic Republic), who told me off the bat that Michael Jackson was not going to heaven because he changed the color of his skin. She is 39, and she can’t return to the Congo because they will kill her—seriously, they killed her father for some political involvement while she was here. She can’t get into Europe, of course. I have never had anyone directly, sincerely refer to me as the—not just a, but the—white man. I’m not sure if I like it—I did in the moment, though. I don’t think she meant it angrily or anything, that’s just who I was—she asked me if I could get her a job, because that’s what she asked the white man when she encountered him here. She thought it was hilarious that I came to Africa when everyone in Africa wants to come to America. She asked me, verbatim, do you know Jesus?—which is a harder question to answer than you think.

First thing Pastor David said to me was let’s get a sandwich. I had to wait a while longer after that; I watched him and his “team” of sub-Saharan Africans, who help him minister, put their arms around one another and pray. I don’t know how to describe what made this real, simple, moving versus the image it most likely conjures of something hokey, artificial—for one, no one was taking themselves too seriously. It was, and when it was over I was taken by the arm, by the Pastor’s wife, actually, to eat lunch.

I’ll skip the details of their work, though I need them, I think, for whatever work it is I am doing, exactly. They’re from Louisiana and Georgia, respectively; most of their family doesn’t like the work they do, but they love them anyway. They were in Burkina Faso for eight years, until the head of the Catholic Church here contacted them, needing someone to deal with the no longer avoidable problem of the sub-Saharan African immigrants. The Pastor “still acts like a pastor” now and then—but he moves around, preaches when he cans, but mostly moves from Moroccan city to Moroccan city setting up shop in the back of churches to see whomever it is will wait. How do I put this? This man and his wife, who only mentioned Jesus or God or anything of the sort once—once—he said, we are trying to do as Jesus did, respond to the misery around us, yes, he actually said misery, because it is misery, when he said this he said he hopes it doesn’t offend me, it’s just him and his thing, but it’s not the point of their work—they are the most Christian people I have ever met, never speaking of Christ. It’s so obvious but I cannot tell you how good it was to finally come across it—action. (cf Pastor Jack, who does not have the energy or resources, he says, for the immigrants because they scam him too often, I mean; they teach it there in Nigeria, based on Moses’ lie; who, Jack, apparently deprived anyone who knew to be illegal of communion).

Speaking of Jack, Pastor David did not stutter in saying that his—Jack’s—pretending that man-made borders are inviolable is an abomination. Abomination! I just really like that. The obvious—again—point that nothing man-made should be unquestionably revered; that it is sacred depending on what we invest in it only. That submitting (revering?) to state borders, e.g., if you have pledged yourself to god’s law is extremely cowardly, thus offensive—if you had to cross a border to save your family’s life, you’d do it, or should. (And even this, with your short buzzed white hair, was you acting the pastor, explaining yourself after the fact; you’re not meant to be a realist; telling your wife, next, to tell me about the hopeful things while you washed your hands). God’s law, after all, maybe—the law down here should accommodate to It--no?

And then here is the capper: after lunch, David and his wife took me back to the Church to watch a rehearsal of a play going on next Wednesday. It stars 8 sub-Saharan African immigrants—the team—reenacting the pilgrimage, journey, whatever, from sub-Saharan Africa to Europe—or rather to Morocco. You get stuck in Europe; you can’t go back to where you came: Morocco, that is, is limbo, purgatory. What is the difference again? But the play: again, maybe I am high, I hate to admit it, and I’m not high, thinking too clearly, clarity doesn’t add up, I don’t think, but I am feeling really pretty good is the point—but the play made every point about what theater can do that ever needed to be made. They were reenacting—or just acting out— their actual experiences. Each other’s experiences. The rape and robbery and abandoning in the desert. The dying of some, the making it of others. It’s absurd if you think about it. Every acting gesture they made earned them a little more power. Sense of humor—sense. They were owning that which really I don’t could be owned otherwise. Watching it I wanted to tell everybody. At one point, a man playing a guy without a passport faced with a border operator said “moi meme”—myself I am my passport. God gave it to me. So there’s your Christianity, sort of. But then look at Pastor David running up on stage and saying No! No! You need to convince us. Show us you really are your passport. Be less cocky; you’re scared. He was directing, man!

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