‘Why God do like this?’
Why? she asks. Why God do like this? We are sitting over a cup of tea when she spills the unanswerable question. And she is not alone. Does God really see us? others ask me. I think somebody [pointing up] has forgotten us. Why our lives like this?
I have a few whys of my own to add: Why the police sweeps every day? Why the stopping of food distribution? Why are mothers with small children forced to sleep outdoors? Why do young men die each year attempting to cross and find a life of safety? Why not me? And how many of us are culpable? Before the facts of life in Calais, we all stand baffled. It is not for me, sitting here with an American passport and the ability to cross borders, to tell them why. All I know for certain is that each of them is precious, irreplaceable. All I can tell them is that they are seen, and they are loved. God is near to the broken-hearted. These words ring in my ears for the rest of the day. If that is true, then the space we tread here is holy ground.
And yet, it is not the questions that surprise me—it is the laughter. So many guests teach me how to choose radical joy in the face of sorrow. One mother of two arrives at the house after an arduous journey walking barefoot and carrying her children. Yet she simply smiles and said, “I have arms, I have legs, I have health - I am grateful to be able to make this journey, when so many other people cannot.”
The same women who ask these unanswerable questions also joke easily over a cup of chai, so quick to form a bond of sisterhood. Each day, we see them transcend their anxiety about the present/future and reach out in self-giving love. They cook their favorite foods and offer their best gifts to one another. They go on, even amidst impossible odds. They choose to believe in the existence of everything worth fighting for.
Mother Maria Skobtsova wrote that ‘in communing with the world in the person of each individual human being, we know that we are communing with the image of God…and, contemplating that image, we touch the Archetype — we commune with God….The way to God lies through love of other people and there is no other way….. About every poor, hungry and imprisoned person the Savior says ‘I’: “I was hungry and thirsty, I was sick and in prison.” To think that he puts an equal sign between himself and anyone in need…I always knew it, but now it has somehow penetrated to my sinews. It fills me with awe.’
I thought of these words as I walked upstairs the night one little boy returned from the hospital. His mother had put him to bed and now stood in the hallway in front of an icon of Christ, her forehead pressed against it, her lips moving in silent prayer. In an instant, it carried the weight of a mother’s love - her hard work and the heavy burden she carried, pressed up against the body of Christ in trust and supplication. I wished I could convey the pure dignity of this moment to all those who hear the word migrant, and are afraid.
Sometimes it seems all we do at Maria Skobtsova House is say hello and then prepare to say goodbye again. In between beautiful and chaotic moments is the constant knowledge that everyone is waiting here to leave. Now, as I write this, we are joining the long line of those who have said goodbye and walked out these doors to another life. I arrived at Maria Skobtsova House on something like a pilgrimage, wanting to touch the spirit of Mother Maria’s passion and life. I suppose, in a sense, I wanted to see if it were possible to live them out to the full. What I found is that I came to deeply understand her heart and began to worry less about the details. I’ve still never given my last shirt or my last crust of bread away. I’ve taken time away to rest. I own more than I like to admit. And yet I can say truly that I have experienced the mysticism of human communion that, in Mother Maria’s words, causes us to want to do battle for the sake of each other. In the unique personhood of each guest in the home, I touch a sacred part of God.
I have been taught not just how to give, but how to receive. I have been fed and cared for by all who pass through these doors. It is their generosity, more than mine, that embodies Mother Maria's words and life. They have been the ones to offer me their bread, not knowing where their next meal would come from; to offer to sleep two to a bed so that others might be warm. They are the true face of this house. And so I say goodbye to them knowing that I am leaving some of my very best teachers. I say goodbye knowing that whether or not we see each other again, they have given me a gift I can never repay. As my husband Ben and I bring our suitcases downstairs and turn towards the altar one last time, I press my forehead to the icons, making the sign of the cross as I have watched them do for three months. Pray for me, I ask each guest as we say goodbye. For I know you are very close to the heart of God.
Jenna Funkhouser