[This piece was composed last Friday and this is my third attempt to post it! My next news will be of my visit to Kirehe district, near the border with Tanzania in the south eastern corner of Rwanda.]
My translator, Bonheur, and I arrived rather later than expected for the first day of the workshop in Byumba. The pastor, Eugene, was waiting for us with the group of 14 out of the expected 15 women. As soon as we were seated he launched into the bible study. That hasn't happened in a workshop before.
On the flip chart paper taped to the wall, already headed by the textual reference to Exodus 3, 7-8, he drew two rectangles and labelled them Egypt and Canaan. In the box for Egypt he wrote some of the bad features of life – in ancient Egypt or in present day Rwanda: slavery, poverty, ignorance, violence, disease, conflict, drunkenness. In Canaan were milk, honey, peace, riches, joy, health and knowledge. Along the road, in a kind of pilgrim's progress, hunger, thirst, lack of leadership, fatigue and fear were to be overcome. At the very gate of the city was the temptation to be persuaded by the ten despairing spies not to take the final steps encouraged by the two truthful spies. (I borrowed Antoine's bible in English this morning and eventually found the story of the spies in Numbers 13 & 14.)
Most of my knowledge of the bible dates from my schooldays, when our agnostic headmistress, an ancient historian by training, would read to us at 'prayers' each morning from what she pointedly described as 'the history of the Jews'. British Quakers, in my experience, if not entirely hostile to the whole book or what it represents for them, show a marked preference for the New Testament over the Hebrew bible: love, not law. There's no question that the theology of Rwandan Yearly Meeting prioritises biblical authority, as taught by pastored evangelical Friends from the USA; my hackles rise in anticipation of negativity and narrowness. Yet nearly all the exposition I have heard here during three visits has been tender, moderate, community-building. Much of the story is comforting, taken as myth and metaphor.
At the final summing up I find myself coming back to the idea of daring to change. You are in charge of what use you make of ideas from this workshop, I say. Live your lives, in harmony with the natural order, as best you can. Canaan is here and now. Egypt is also here and now, it's true. There are choices, however, and change starts internally for each of you, in the country of your heart.
Eugene, the pastor, leaps to his feet. Than you for saying that, he says. The teaching I've planned for next month is going to be that Canaan, the promised land, can be already here.
This dear man was widowed last year and his four children are at school in Uganda. He is frank about being lonely and sometimes sad. But he loves living in Byumba and he loves his work. He will support and encourage the women. I hope to see them again.
This is one liberal Quaker who loves the Bible and actively prefers the Old Testament while absolutely not swallowing it whole. But if I had to choose one book out of the whole thing it wd I think be Job. And of course there's the Song of Solomon! inserted, I am sure, to take out of our mouths the bad taste of some prophets' misogyny... Thine, Margot
ReplyDeleteThis is the second day when I have failed with the first attempt to post and succeeded with the second-- tho the second attempt was IMMEDIATELY after the first one...
ReplyDeleteThe problem here seems to me not to be the pastor's message to the women in itself, nor in the bible as the source of the message, but in the explicit or implicit designation of authority in the bible. As the good pastor understands it, there may be nothing but genuine love and care for his flock, and his message may very well be a significant factor in helping them improve their lives. But in designating authority in the bible instead of trying to establish its locus in each individual, as the liberal side of the Society of Friends seems to me to do, he leaves them vulnerable to persuasion by others who similarly preach biblical authority but who interpret it very differently, and with entirely different purposes which may have little or nothing to do with the welfare of the flock.
ReplyDeleteThe good pastor's intent appears to be in the right direction in that his message appears to be urging the women to take responsibility to get out of "Egypt" and into "Canaan" but it needs the completing touch of transferring spiritual responsibility to the individual as well. That conceivably could come later as the women achieve enough of their immediate goals that they begin to have the luxury of extending these concepts to higher levels, but it isn't obvious to me that the teaching would take this direction. Preparation for such a transition would be a very welcome sign.