New Orleans

I love New Orleans. One big reason I love New Orleans is because I love food and New Orleans is loaded with good food. I can begin the day with some great beignets in the French Quarter. For lunch I can stop at almost any street corner and take my pick from among po-boys, jambalya, gumbo, crawfish etouffie, or just plain red beans and rice. Dinner offers anything my pocketbook can afford including two of my favorite restaurants, Brennens and Broussards.

Music and New Orleans are all part of one wonderful orchestra. Jazz was born there. The Blues still fill the streets. Sunday black churches have music that lifts the soul. For my funeral I would be very happy to have my body accompanied by a traditional street funeral band. And if my Memorial Service were on a Sunday it would be great to have all the mourners go the Quarter for a Gospel Brunch.

But good memories of New Orleans go deeper than food and music. For many years my late brother Harold lived in New Orleans. Harold always inspired me (and he lives in me today) with his commitment to hard work, his unflinching care for the black Lutheran schools of the South and especially for those who taught in them. And on top of that, at the end of every one of his long days he knew that his specially designed refrigerator was stocked with some good cold tap beer for him and any who cared to joined him

Honesty requires that I also share the things that really bother me about New Orleans. It has one of the highest poverty rates of any city in America. Racism is still rampant and blacks are still denied entrance to restaurants, homes on favorite streets and equal opportunity in the work place or in the courtroom.

While I have gone to some very enriching conferences and conventions in New Orleans my mind also often goes to one New Orleans gathering that for me was a disaster. A major Christian Church body adopted a formal resolution that stated that anyone who refused to teach that the world was created in exactly six days of 24 hours each was to “be considered a heretic and not be tolerated within the Church of God.”

But I will try to forget about that this weekend when I head to New Orleans to join the some 100 members of my 8 siblings and our families. We will remember Mom and Dad, honor the memory of brother Harold and enjoy the food, the music, the Gospel and the family. And it will be good!

Peshawar, Islamabad, Rawalpindi, Abbottabad, Pakistan

Prior to visiting these cities of Pakistan in the mid 1988’s I doubt if I had even heard of them. Now each of them is firmly etched in my memory. In 1983 (and then again in 1984) I spent time in Pakistan teaching Parent and Teacher Effectiveness Training. It was a great and extremely rewarding experience. My classes included Christians, Muslims, Buddhists, Zoroastrians and persons of no faith. At least one was one of multiple wives. One who attended all of my workshops later publicly immolated himself in protest of the government. To a person they treated me with respect and extended hospitality beyond my wildest imagination. On my second trip I was invited to the area near the Khyber Pass and bordering Afghanistan.

But first I stopped in Islamabad and even then was amazed at the build-up of troops all around that city extending into the area right next to Abbottabad of later Bin Laden fame. My host was one of the greatest living saints I ever met, Sister Sheila from Ireland. It was she who startled me when I knocked on her hotel room in Rawalpindi and stepped in . “STOP!” she shouted. I recoiled. Then she was immediately in my arms with words of apologies. “You see, Mel”, she said, “ If I as a woman was noticed inviting a single man into my hotel room I could be killed for it.” After my apology she recanted, “What the h.., Mel. Come in. It’s worth the risk.”

She took me to the Bishops’ residence. He kindly lent us his driver and beat-up old Ford to take us over the camel-crowded passes to Peshawar. There I was to present certificates to a class of teachers to whom she had taught the Model I first taught her. But then a problem arose. This was a big event and the Head of the Education Department was to distribute the certificates, but was unable to attend. He asked if his wife could make the presentation for him and deliver a short address. The problem was that she, as a woman, was not permitted to speak to an audience that was not all women. I agreed to step out of the room until she was finished. But Sister Shelia did some negotiating and I was permitted to attend.

After the presentation I was taken to a bazaar where some beautiful embroidery was bought for me. Then I bought a type of turban/hat from a street vendor. I had gone about a block when a gentleman ran up to me from behind. I finally figured out that he wanted to know how much I paid. When he found out the price he explained (as I finally got it through an interpreter) that he just wanted to make sure that as a foreigner I had not been taken advantage of for that would be anti-Islam; but since I had been charged a fair price I was sent on my way.

My way took me to the Pakistan-Afghanistan border. Once again I viewed the tragedy of hundreds of thousands of refugees fleeing from the Afghanistan-Russian fighting. They, like millions of others through the ages. Now again, especially on the Syria-Jordan border, people are fleeing for their lives. They live in hot, dirty, dusty, little tents, scrounging for food and water, trying to keep hope alive.

,On this pleasant California evening I sit and reflect on my brothers and sisters in places with names like Peshawar, Islamabad. Rawalpindi and Abbottabad and I feel like my life is so different and so blessed. At the same time  regardless of the name of the place in which we live we  all yearn for the same things: someone who loves us, people who respect us regardless of our gender, religion or nationality and a place where we can lie down and sleep in peace.