18 march 2005
God's Voice is Sometimes Smaller than You Think
Kris Berggren
Maybe I've been watching too much of the
television show Joan of Arcadia recently,
but it seems to me that I've been hearing
God's voice in children's words and deeds
these past few weeks. As Joan is learning,
sometimes the inside scoop comes from
paying attention to what's right in front of you.
I was interviewing a woman named Mary Jo for
a story on family volunteering. Her family had spent nine
years as Maryknoll missioners in a poor
barrio near Caracas, Venezuela, where the
family had taught and lived among the people
of the community. The hardest part of the
experience, said Mary Jo, was living daily
with the extreme poverty that was not a choice for
the people of the barrio. One day, she
recounted, a "really, really poor" woman
came begging, which she tried to discourage
so as not to play the bountiful North American.
She did, however, offer the woman some
water. As she sat and drank, the woman
observed some of the very few small toys that Mary
Jo's young daughters Maza and Sarah had
brought from home. "Your children
have a lot of toys," observed the woman.
"Maza picked a couple
up," related Mary Jo, "and gave
them to her and said, 'Why don't you give
them to your children?' After she left
I just started to cry. The girls came around
me and said, 'We know, Mom. It's hard.'"
Another
small girl, my three-year old god-daughter,
Siobhan, and I went for a walk in my neighborhood
the other day. She suddenly stopped cold,
did a one-eighty, and ran as fast as her
little legs could move back to a tree we'd just
passed, calling back in explanation, "I
have to hug that tree!" I saw
that this tree was encircled with a bright
orange line around the trunk, marking it
for removal due to the Dutch elm disease
that has recurred in the Twin Cities this
year. She spread her tiny arms as far as
she could around the tree. "Why did
you hug that tree?" I said. "Because
it was sick!" she answered brightly.
Mother Earth surely needs comforting, too,
just like us human mothers.
Yesterday as
I was cooking dinner, I heard my eminently
cheerful nine-year old daughter, Betsey,
crying in the next room. She'd just
been practicing a song she was going to
sing at church with her sister and brother,
The Cry of the Poor. I was delighted to
hear my kids making music together-especially
since the only way I'm useful in a choir
is as what I call "visual volume." I
supposed they had experienced some "creative
differences" in their music practice.
I asked her what was the matter: "Nothing." Ri-i-i-ight.
She'd seen a sad movie with a friend that
afternoon and had filled me in on the plot
involving the death of the protagonist's brother.
So I asked, "Are you remembering the
movie?" No. Colds have been going
around our house, so I guessed, "Are
you feeling okay?" Yes. Tears
streamed from her blue eyes. She cracked
a bit: "It's just something silly.
I can't do anything about it."
Now I was hooked. After a couple more rounds,
she relented. "It's about the people
in Iraq. I feel like I should be able to
stop it," she sobbed. My heart almost broke, too.
I have become almost cynical
about my own ability to effect change in
huge matters like the war in Iraq, so how
could I honestly answer this deep child's desire
to fix what's broken, to right the obvious,
terrible wrongs of war. My daughter's tears
and her earnest yearning reminded me that
it takes every one of us to do that which
we can. Some make grand statements and
bold gestures, like enthusiastically hugging
a sick tree, while others quietly pursue
the path of righteousness and compassion
in small ways, like sharing toys or comforting
someone who is sad. So I said, "It
isn't silly at all to care about what's
going on there. And you can do something."
She remembered that her class is encouraging
trick or treating for Unicef, an immediate
way she can take some action to benefit
other children. She could keep praying
for the families in Iraq, we decided. She
could write letters to elected officials,
I suggested. I went back to the kitchen
to finish dinner and the next thing I knew
she joined me at the counter and began
composing a letter to President Bush about
her concerns. She illustrated it with people
at war and in peace and decorated the letter
itself with brightly colored magic markers. "How
do you spell Pennsylvania?" she asked
as she addressed the envelope. We looked
up the ZIP code online to make sure it
would arrive at its destination promptly.
There is no time to waste. We mailed it today.
God's voice is sometimes smaller than you think.
Kris Berggrenis
the author of Strategies for Stay-at-Home Parents, published by
Meadowbrook Press. She is a columnist for the National Catholic Reporter, and
a freelance writer. This essay appeared in the National Catholic Reporter last
year. Kris lives in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and is the mom to three kids. |
