A foreigner
I am for you
Only a foreigner
I have my life in many halfs
But my love for you is whole
I was given 5 years to stay here and I think I live it the best I could
What a precious gift, actually a wonder to behold.
Here I learned how to be an adult, how to be in the academy, how to experience Christian institutions and their idiosincrasies
Here I learned how to gain and how to lose.
Here I stretched myself to places I didn’t even know I could go
Here I cried and I laughed
Here I first felt as a foreigner, than as a citizen, than as a stranger
5 incredible years of blessings and joys
Here I healed and was healed
I inflicted pain and was wounded
I made mistakes and when I knew it I asked for forgiveness
Here I was welcomed and deracinated
Made one of your own and alienated
Invited to stay and asked to leave
I am for you
Only a foreigner
I have my life in many halfs
But my love for you is whole
My songs in the lines I sang … were all finite
With the hopes to bless ourselves
It was as if I was always calling you to hold my hand
and explore places unknown to us
Shifting the furniture, making our known spaces a little unknown
creating possibilities for us to live together
and entering spaces we have never been
Like countries without borders
I took the task of liturgy as making it a foreign space
A space that we enter with care and wonder, fear and trembling
Because it is neither yours not mine, but God’s
Trying to love each other in ways we can only invent
Borrowing from one of my favorite poets, the Palestinian Mahmoud Darwish, I changed the word country by liturgy in his poem. It says:
And we have liturgies without borders,
like our idea of the unknown, narrow and wide – Liturgies whose maps
narrow to a gray tunnel as we walk in them
and cry out in their labyrinths: “And still we love you.” (Darwish)
Like a beaten up train, I continue my journey,
In my brief visit in this particular station called Louisville Presbyterian Theological Seminary
I was gifted with the presence of many people
I saw those who came and left
And those who will stay here forever
I saw people happy, perplexed, blessed,
In this station, perhaps as in many others, one stays depending on how one behaves
And I heard the whistle announcing my leaving before the departure time
It was time to replace the coal and move on
A foreigner
I am for you
Only a foreigner
I have my life in many halfs
But my love for you is whole
So many beautiful people in this place
People so wonderful that I wanted to make my nest near to them
And never leave
For I knew that to be next to them was to be well.
I learned to love Louisville
A beautiful land,
Delores Williams lives here
Fascinating professors at our seminary live here
Wonderful pastors around
Brilliant students
And a great number of people doing fascinating things everywhere
There is this fantastic Humana festival in the Spring
Cardinals basketball team
And a growing UofL soccer team with the promise of Andrew Farrell
It has the Hispanic/Latino Coalition and a great grass-roots movement
It has Thomas Merton and Gethsemani
And all an all it has Wendell Berry
A luminous gift I received in this land
I discovered him at Carmichael’s browsing books and there he was
“Citizenship papers” I picked it up and it was love at first sight
Wendell Berry
A Luminary to our times
And like a prophet, not well celebrated in his land
I will never forget when he said yes to come to my Sacraments and Globalization class
And he spoke of the land, theology, the Greek poets, and we all broke bread together
Louisville, a wonderful place.
Because of you! Because of you!
Oh, and there is also this thing with horses here right?
Here I found precious friends, colleagues and companions.
Among them, some became like brothers and sisters of my own blood
I was deeply loved and cared
And my life will never be the same
How can I thank you for this incredible party?
I am overwhelmed with your love and care
And my Brazilian heart will be forever thankful
As I leave, there is much for you to do here
A work yet to begin to make this seminary diverse
Beyond the black and white divide
And there is this Herculean work against mountaintop removal
Do not let them do it!
Can you hear it?
It is the whistle of the train telling me it is time to leave
I must depart
And from the window of my train I finish with another poem from
Mahoumed Darwish:
Close to the gardens of broken shadows,
We do what prisoners do,
And what the jobless do:
We cultivate hope
A foreigner
I am for you
Only a foreigner
I have my life in many halfs
But my love for you is whole
But my love for you is whole
Thank you for everything.
Philadelphia, here I go with great excitment!!
POEM BY BEAU
Pastor, Teacher, Friend…
(a poem for Claudio Carvalhaes, written by Beau Brown)
A pastor, a teacher, a friend, a confidant
You love people as much as you love God
And that’s rare to find in a place like this
Where politics take over, that’s risky business
You got a love for the Church that takes deep root
And the courage to listen and always speak truth
And what you taught us goes far beyond the classroom
But we did enjoy the Mexican wrestling costume
and the way you spoke about the Eucharist
made me understand there’s power in the ludicrous
the idea that through death comes power
and the idea that this life is not ours
it belongs to others, it belongs to Christ
and you modeled that for us, showed us what it looks like
so, Claudio, this is what you are
a pastor, a teacher, a friend, a shining star
Many prayers for you in your transition!
Querido Claudio.
Bela passagem. Apenas estrangeiros amam com gosto de saudade. E como dizia Drummond em seu poema “Memória”:
Amar o perdido
deixa confundido
este coração.
Nada pode o olvido
contra o sem sentido
apelo do Não.
As coisas tangíveis
tornam-se insensíveis
à palma da mão
Mas as coisas findas
muito mais que lindas,
essas ficarão.
– – – – – – – – – –
beijos
Not a stranger, not a foreigner; a friend and a brother
When you came to us, we were amazed at your boldness.
We first worshiped under the trees,
Curiously tasting the fruit of friendship and the sustaining bread of scripture.
We opened the chapel together, filling the font with water of remembrance and restoration,
Constantly speaking of God’s endless grace that welcomes us all.
Our hearts whispered, “Not a foreigner, a brother!”
What is language when we used no words to praise God apart from the universal music of love and acceptance?
Whether a prayer was said in silence or Portuguese, Spanish
Or English spoken through tears so as to be unintelligible, our hearts were knit together and God heard our cries.
Dear brother, we have shared love, compassion, empathy, prayer, music, celebration, accomplishment, growth; how could you be a stranger?
Why do you want to be a stranger or a foreigner when you have a place in our hearts?
You who encouraged and pushed me to be what I only dreamed of becoming, why do you strain the cords that bind us together by claiming to be a stranger!
I refuse to allow you to protect yourself from those who love you and claim you as brother and life-long friend.
Like it or not, we love you, dear brother , pastor, teacher, mentor who spoke to me of three lives just before I preached my mother’s funeral with your voice ringing in my ear and your prayers carrying me through.
NO! You are neither stranger nor foreigner! Damn it, you are my friend.
Powerfully exciting and scary at the same time to read your entry just as I embark on my first train ride. So glad to see you in Philly – welcome to my hometown – birthplace of my closest companion and playground of my youth. My station stop is just north of you – I will wave at the crossing!
Mi Hermano, Claudio,
You welcomed me to LPTS when I was also “reeling” from change and transition and the feeling of “foreignness” in my own land… and I will never be the same. When I felt like I was being “spit out” from the mouth of my own whale on the sands of Louisville,KY, friends showed me that I was being kneaded like yeast into a new loaf of bread. You were the FIRST to speak “peace” to me when my heart ached. Like Deb Trevino, who learned to “see with you” — you will always be a brother and friend to me. Dios te bendiga! Sue Hudson