In this Issue:

Convention 2006

Alaska's Bishop Mc Donald, keynotes 2006 Convention

Nominees for Diocesan Offices

Resolution Alert! Due in Diocesan Office by February 3

Other Stories

Ministry of Hospitality: St. Paul's Newport

Listening: King's message spans Americas, Panama's bishop declares

Haitian institute director killed in Port-au-Prince

Trinity Institute explores 'The anatomy of reconciliation' Jan. 30-Feb. 1

Commentaries

From the Bishop: Daddy, Why can't I go to Fun Town?

Reflection: Riding a bumpy camel

X-ercizing: Advent Lessons

Meeting God in Pascagoula, Mississippi

Diocesan Calendar

Past Issues

Reflection: Headlines that hit the heart

By Kay Collier-McLaughlin

“I don’t know if I’m in love or not,” the man said, “ but I sure am deeply in like.”

His words came back to me as I was reading a time line concerning the presidential election in Haiti, trying to figure out when headlines about this poor Caribbean nation first moved off the printed page and into my heart.

It’s always about people when headlines hit the heart.

The year was 1973. We heard the sounds before we ever saw the young musicians. Several Lexington families had decided to take their children to the opening Eucharist of the General Convention of the Episcopal Church at Freedom Hall in Louisville. Violin music was not what we expected to hear as we crossed the parking lot, and joined the crowd moving toward the hall. But there on the concrete apron of the convention center was an orchestra made up of Haitian youth, performing Bach. I bought a square wooden salad bowl at the Haitian booth in the Exhibit Hall that year. Each time I take it from my cabinet to use, I know that I can hear the echo of violins playing on an Indian summer afternoon. It is a personal reunion to visit the Haitian booth each General Conention — and to check on the latest news of the orchestra.

That was all long before the Diocese of Haiti became the Companion Diocese of the Diocese of Lexington. Photos and stories from pilgrimages now flood my heart as they fill my computer. We grieve when visits are curtailed because it is no longer safe to travel to Haiti. Bishop Jean Zache-Duracin visits our Diocesan Convention in 2003, and the “like” as well as the sadness deepen. It is our brothers and sisters who are dying in hurricanes and gang violence.

A few weeks ago, Bishop Duracin returned to the Diocese of Lexington for a parish fund raiser which would send funds to Haiti. Plans called for him to preach in the Diocese on Sunday morning.

It was not to be. Bishop Duracin would leave Lexington in the early hours of Sunday morning in order to arrive home to be among his people for Tuesday’s election. The airport would close on Sunday evening until after the election. It is not easy to be a Christian, or a citizen, in Haiti. Last month, the Director of the Bishop Tharp Institute of Business and Technology, built in partnership by Episcopal Relief and Development and the Diocese of Haiti, was killed.

During the Saturday evening fund-raising festivities, the Companion Diocese Commission presented the Bishop with a check for work in this poorest nation in the Western Hemisphere. He held it to his heart, as he told the crowd, “We thank you for loving the people of Haiti. The people of Haiti love you, too.” He sat quietly at the table as the evening’s events continued around him, holding the check in his hands. Sharing that piece of paper with first one and then another of his dinner companions. Around him, generous bidding continued for UK basketball tickets, luxury vacations and boxes at Keeneland. From the evening’s pleasure, more precious pieces of paper would be directed to work among the people of Haiti.

Headline alert. Eyes and ears at the ready, to catch anything that NPR, cable news, the Web and the newspaper have to say about the presidential election in Haiti. Some two million people have overwhelmed poll workers in this first election since the overthrow of President Aristide in early 2004. United Nations peace-keeping forces are struggling to contain gang violence and political unrest in Port-au-Prince.

Today’s Associated Press photo shows a small Haitian girl playing next to a U.N. armored vehicle in the Cité Soleil slum of Port-au-Prince. CNN shows a clip of gangs terrorizing citizens in other parts of the city. Images from my mind’s eye replay again — and again.

Slender white-shirted arms pull the bows of their instruments across the strings in disciplined precision, pouring music across a listening crowd. Small girls in red plaid uniforms smile a welcome to the visitors to their school. Against a backdrop of pain and poverty, a woman moves joyously into dance. A Bishop smiles, and holds the gift against his heart. “Thank you, thank you, for loving the people of Haiti. The people of Haiti love you, too.”

There are so many headlines, how can my heart bear the hit of connection that says “Yes, these also are my brothers and sisters?” And how can I bear it if I do not look beyond the mesmerizing drone of the nightly news and claim our kinship and their pain, even as Christ claims me?

Lord, give me courage to let the headlines hit my heart, and so expand my ability to deeply like that I may someday offer some small reflection of your great love in this wounded world. Amen.

Advocate Online Staff:

© 2005 The Episcopal Diocese of Lexington

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