Monday, April 24, 2006

The Natural

Blood is pulsing in my ears: ram, ram, ram,

Trinity is at home plate and is hit by a wild pitch which is way too fast for Little League Minors, -you heard it fffffffft toward Trinity's face, 'luckily' hitting his hand instead. “Part of the bat” the umpire yells, after lifting Trinity from the ground, checking for broken bones "Strike One" They couldn't let him take a base. Tears on his face, he’s given a choice to sit out, for an unshameful out, or get back into the batter's box. He flexes his hand, crying, looks back at me. I am clutching the chain link backstop. I want to scoop him up, take him home.

He connects to my sad eyes, and, why? gets back into the batter's box and, instead of cowering like me, swings like hell at two more pitches. He gimps back to the dugout, half-triumphant, chin still trembling, as both sides of the stands cheer loudly, on their feet, screaming whistles for the courage of the smallest kid on the field, pint-sized hero of the moment. This one will go down in history.

After the game, I sit him down, and while rubbing his hand, whisper something into his ear, something he may remember someday, for a story only he is able to tell...

Monday, April 17, 2006

PULLED FROM THE RUBBLE

Over the weekend of April 7-9, I had the privilege of traveling to Seattle to participate in the “Film, Faith and Justice” forum, sponsored by The Other Journal. It was a transformational series of keynote presentations, panel discussions, and documentaries culled from the Human Rights Watch traveling film festival.

What moved me most was exploring the interplay between justice and forgiveness, and how they are distinguished from a reactive worldview of justice based on atonement and revenge. What began this exploration was a documentary entitled Pulled From the Rubble, by Margaret Loescher. Here is the official film description:

In August 2003, Gil Loescher went to Baghdad on a humanitarian research trip. He and his colleagues were in a meeting with the head of the United Nations in Iraq, Sergio Vieira de Mello, when a truck full of explosives was driven into the side of the building. Gil was the only survivor from the most devastated section of the building. All of the other people in the meeting died. Through poignantly honest narration, and observational scenes of high emotion, his daughter records the family’s recovery during the months after the bombing. Filming becomes her way of dealing with the suddenness of the family’s changed reality, and a way of re-visiting the haunting images of the bomb site—a place of both horror and hope.
Film’s website
http://www.pulledfromtherubble.com

One image buries itself into me, hidden there, a sacred stained glass image:

How after the explosion, shards of glass pierced deep into his flesh. Weeks passed, old skin sluffed to make way for the new. Shards of glass, burrowed closer to the surface, week by week, layer by layer, expelling the shards of glass, a sliver at a time, redeeming them from his body.

His daughter Margaret sees, through the camera’s smooth glass eye, an image

“…at once Hell and hope… a death place and a birth place.”