Our hearts burned in Brasilia

 

By Steve Polston

 

          Bishop Mauricio José Araujo de Andrade (Diocese of Brasilia) is fortunate to have so many strong, young believers among his communicants.

 

          We met them when our group of seven from the Diocese of Indianapolis traveled July 19-29 to Casa Esperanca, a church camp north of Brasilia, capital of Brazil. It was our youth conference celebrating the three-way relationship between Bor, Indianapolis and Brasilia.

 

          When Mauricio’s young people spoke of their faith during our daily worship and Bible studies, they did so with such feeling and heart that it was hard not to get caught up in their deepening understanding and awareness of our encounter with Jesus.

 

          Perhaps the Brasilian youth were caught up in our Hoosier prayers, too.

 

          Two years ago the delegates to our diocesan convention voted to formalize a three-way relationship with the Diocese of Brasilia and the Dicoese of Bor; last year, delegations traveled to Indianapolis. A photo I took of Bor’s Bishop Nathaniel serving ice cream and strawberries on Monument Circle June 12, 2003 reminds me that we have Anglican brothers and sisters worldwide whose affection and companionship cuts under the politics, war, genocide and depravity enveloping so many of God’s children.

 

          Our companions from Bor, ultimately, were not given visas until very late in the trip planning; as late as July 20, attempts for airline tickets were being made, but flights were full for several weeks.

 

          Bishop Cate Waynick spoke of her keen disappointment that the Sudanese could not be with us in Brazil. We daily lighted a three-wick candle in our Eucharistic celebrations, and prayed for our beloved friends.

 

          Your Hoosiers attending represented Grace (Muncie), Christ Church (Madison), St. Timothy’s (Indianapolis), St. Stephen’s (Terre Haute), Trinity (Indianapolis) and St. Alban’s (Indianapolis).

 

          Very quickly our group was augmented by a rotating cast of Brazilians; some were taking classes or working or had other commitments and could not attend daily. A core of seven young people was together with the seven Americans every day; sometimes we were 14, sometimes we were joined by priests and Franciscan novitiates or other visitors, and our rank of voices swelled to more than 20.

 

          Bishops Cate and Mauricio led us every day in Bible study and worship and prayers. Directed exercises collected thoughts on challenges facing the Episcopal Church, youth and the world at large.

 

          Parties and hooplah abounded almost every evening, with the Brazilian youth playing guitars, synthesizers and drums or recorded music on boom boxes. Many of us received the requisite training in samba technique to become honorary Latin Americans.

 

          In a time of reflection one day, somebody mentioned that the language barriers (which were vast for some of us struggling to bridge the gap between Portuguese and English) seemed to lessen the closer our Christian bonds became. It was an apt observation, and a marvelous experience.

 

          Our American culture shock was at its greatest only on a couple of occasions and for the Brazilians, similar moments of insight were prompts for deeper understanding.

 

          Sometimes we Americans were making fun of a Brazilian concept of time that allowed a leeway of 10 to 15 minutes. And futbol (soccer) was as much of a holiness revival as it was a chance for national pride and companionship. In a skit one day, each group chose sports and religion as the means by which we could lampoon the other’s culture and society.

 

          Americans were seen as basketball loving, flag waving, race-car driving people whose average age in the Episcopal church was well into the dotage. Brazilians mimicked canes, poor eyesight and walkers.

 

          Brazilians were characterized as people who would delay the beginning of worship to finish a soccer game, lollygag their way into the sanctuary, leave worship to answer a cel fone and eat and dance at the pitch-in luncheon well into the afternoon.

 

          But the Brazilians asked an important question once the mime was over: is your church really as old as you say?

 

          It was a question that made us 20- and 30-somethings from central Indiana wonder, what is the future of our church and how will our ministries be transfigured at home? I believe we saw some evidence that in spite of our sense of the church sometimes being hidebound and traditional, even moribund, we have a post-conference warmth and generosity of spirit that makes us want to take on more responsibility in our own parishes.

 

          And we came away with a renewed sense of being Anglican.

 

          In Bible studies we listened with care and received instruction with good sense. Daily we centered ourselves in prayer. We taught each other new songs of praise, got caught up in the poetry and even danced in worship.

 

          One woman at the cathedral church in Brasilia told Bishop Mauricio on the occasion of our radical introduction of a guitar-accompanied fraction anthem that she just “couldn’t applaud in church; but it’s OK if others do.”  Indeed, we are a church of compromise.

 

          And one evening, when our sense of care for each other overwhelmed us we decided to sing Dona nobis pacem at Bishop Cate’s bungalow, she having been laid quite low by a quick illness. We found our only copy of the music and had a two-minute jam outside the chapel. After singing in procession for 100 yards, we had it down well enough to make a round of it.

 

          Music loving, care giving, compassionate, sensible, Bible believing, Eucharist-centered young people can be found in Brazil and Indiana. They are the yesterday of our church and its tomorrow.

 

          Our encounters with each other in Brasilia reminded me of the encounters with Jesus in Luke 24: 13-35: They said to one another, “Were not our hearts burning within us while He was speaking to us on the road, while He was explaining the Scriptures to us?”

 

          Our hearts surely burned on a Friday and Saturday when we visited a compound for the Landless, Brazil’s rural worker’s movement (learn more at www.mstbrazil.org). We saw the rights-struggle for land for people who have been living on the edge of society often in plastic tents and a squalor that is more than heartbreaking.

 

          But for the dream of proper homes, farms, work and dignified self-care, hundreds of thousands of people have left the danger of urban living behind and traded it for the maybe of a place to grow food, raise livestock and educate children. But they have to do it first by squatting on unused ranchland; the vast majority of rural land is unproductive and owned by just a small percentage of the population.

 

          Fires burn in the desert all over central Brazil; they still are creating farmland, such a shock to those of us who know Indiana was settled between agriculture and urban life more than 100 years ago. Smoke fills the air, reminding North Americans that the Earth has a vast expanse of unproductive land that could supply food and dignity for vast unmet need.

 

          The price of the dream of the Landless has been police-sponsored brutality aimed at the squatters.

 

          Bishop Mauricio names aid to the Landless a priority of his diocese’s mission to the country. Many in our group of young people marveled at the hospitality of the rural workers. Their food and laughter reminded me of the bounty shared in my own family, the only difference was that strangers speaking a strange tongue were holding close to other strangers—really close, close enough to feed them.