I dreamed last night that I met Pope Francis. Well, not so much met as happened to be standing right there when he blew by, laughing and carrying, of all things, a part of a broken toilet that needed to be thrown away. I was supposed to be meeting up with a friend from grad school to attend a concert. And I was supposed to be meeting up with my family, too. But I couldn’t find either one, so I was standing at the back of a long, grand church and clerics were processing out, and suddenly there he was: the pope, wearing jeans and a blue t-shirt, covered with a black plastic hair cutting wrap and hurrying by with a big smile and a carefree laugh and an utter lack of concern about dignity.
And I woke up so happy.
Lately I haven’t felt like I could deal with the news, so I’ve been ignoring it. But I knew I couldn’t go on like that forever. All of us who thought, “At least it’ll be over after the election” were totally wrong. I’m beginning to realize we’re entering a time of ongoing struggle for identity in our country. Me and conflict don’t get on well. (Is that grammatically correct? Whatever. I’m supposed to be writing off the cuff this year.) Interpersonal conflict, internal conflict, philosophical and moral conflict—the situation in our country now involves every blessed one.
It’s hard to recognize how good my life is—despite my propensity for complaining—and how, in contrast, many people are suddenly facing situations I can’t even imagine. People who did everything right and are still being penalized for their ethnicity.
I’ve been growing more conscious in recent months of race and wrestling with how to get past the hurdles that separate us. I made a new friend last week who spent a long time talking with me about it, and who affirmed my ability to bridge those gaps, at least on a person to person level.
But since I came home from the composers’ forum last week, I have re-entered the news cycle and found my joy in the immense blessings of my life taking a beating. It feels insensitive to share my joy with my friends when so many people are suffering from upheaval and a fear I can’t begin to comprehend, because my life is so far removed from it.
How can I focus on how great my life is when Jewish community centers are getting systematic bomb threats? When so many people have to tiptoe through their days, knowing people are going to put the worst spin on everything they say or do because their skin is brown instead of white? (This is not made up, by the way, as much as the white community would like to brush it off. People I know and care about have told me about it personally. Just because we don’t have a common frame of reference to comprehend it doesn’t mean it’s not real.)
And then there’s this: at a basketball game on Saturday night, my five-year-old saw two men in uniforms and said, “Mommy, there are police officers.” “Would you like to go meet them?” I asked, and he said, “No. I’m afraid they’ll shoot me.” Of course, he’s also afraid of Truman the Tiger, so maybe I shouldn’t overreact to that comment. Still, what future are we preparing, if this is what our communal actions are teaching the next generation?
How does a Christian respond to the suffering of others? I share your sorrow, all of you out there stuck in situations dire and bleak and getting more so by the day. But I know I can’t possibly feel it as keenly as you do. Nor do I know what to do next. I have no faith at all in politics, and even at a personal level, how do we engage in productive dialogue when so many people only hurl fallacies, biases and out-of-context facts at each other across the great abyss?
Pope Francis’ presence in my dream—the joy, the humility, and above all the fact that he had clearly been fixing a toilet—a symbol of small and practical, un-flashy things—was a signal to me of hope. A reminder that my job isn’t to impact political systems but to be the hands and feet of Christ, person to person, and trust God to put me where I need to be.
Kathleen M. Basi 