Easter

Thursday, after I did a whole bunch of sweaty-making sun salutations with my roommate, Sarah, and our guest from Grahamstown (originally from Chicago), Alicia, we lay in corpse pose for a good long while. I prayed. School had been overwhelming; I was too much in my head, tense and tired. Too many big questions. Not enough being with the people around me! I couldn't imagine enjoying Easter so far from home. Waaah waah wahh.

After a few minutes of stumbling prayer--God will you do this, God will you do that (ie fix the world), God why is this hard, God, this stinks and I stink (literally and figuratively)--I remembered that Holy Week was hard last year, too. In fact, life was hard last year. Why did I expect it to be any different? And why was I blaming the difficulty on my geographic location? My prayer and mood changed then--when I remembered my faith--and I just said something like, "Hey, I'm trusting you. I don't have to engineer new life. I can't. I'll let you do your thing. Oh and I trust you to show us our part in all of it." I was a bit cheeky, almost testing, but a Priest has told me God can take anything.

Then Sarah and I walked to school for our last Econ class on the ins and outs of pro-poor growth. Is it possible? Does it necessarily require redistributive policy? It's all much more complicated than I used to think, of course. No one has a prescription for engineering equitable growth the world over. That's another cause for prayer. Big time prayer. And then lots of hard hard work.

Friday, Human Rights Day, the three of us got up at 4:30 am and went to an interdenominational Good Friday service at the Durban Convention Center. About 1500 people prayed, sang, listened, and then walked in silence in the cold rain to the Civic Center, where we flowered a cross and rededicated ourselves to loving and serving our neighbor. It was uncomfortable and lovely.

Yesterday was not difficult at all. Easter Sunday was a gift. I'll tell you a little bit, but the pictures say it better. About 15 of my new friends gathered for a "bring and share." The food was amazing, the conversation and love flowed, and I was at home. At one point in the evening, Jean from Serbia said that everywhere he goes, the conversation is about what we struggle with and all that we love--war, the ocean, starvation, anorexia, our pets, global warming, food...and then Nombulelo from South Africa said the Easter message is there in that. We finished all our wine, ate more dessert, and kissed and hugged 5 times over when it was time to go.