Xuân (right) with her friend Véronique
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The Menu of Isaiah 58
When I was ten years old, I wasn't worried about how the whole world was rolling along. I put all my energy into studying, having fun with other little girls, falling in love with the boy next door, growing up in my own neighbourhood. I belonged to a people, a history, a culture, a language, a family. That was quite enough for me.
And then, for several nights, I heard bombs falling not far from my home. The war had begun long ago, well before I was born, between the north and the south, between the communist regime and the pro-American one, between men and women who had different dreams for their country.
Then they suddenly announced on the radio that Saigon had fallen; the northern communists had taken the last city of the South, the capital. It was April 30th 1975. Vietnam was reunited, but at the cost of how many deaths?! As for my life, it was turned upside down, like so many others. I learned what it was like to be among the boat-people, to live in refugee camps, to apply for political asylum. I experienced uprooting, culture shock, the challenge of integration, looking for an identity, the will to find stability in a completely different setting. To tell you the truth, I couldn't go through it all a second time. But don't think that I've finished being reborn, God be praised. If you only knew how exciting it is!
My name is Xuân and I like rice. I haven't got used to cheese, or beer, or potatoes, even though I've been living with the Sisters of the Belgium-Netherlands Province for 13 years. Which means that my brain has been fed in the north, but my stomach remains genetically southern.
I like the fast in Isaiah 58, which offers a menu of freedom for the oppressed, solidarity with the starving, creativity starting from ruins and gaps in the wall. Nothing gives me more pleasure than recycling and collecting. Re-using and creating from scraps, leftovers, what people throw away, is proof of intelligence and says something about dignity.
To take a stand against our consumer society, I work at Nativitas, a canteen in the centre of Brussels, the capital of Europe. We specialise in "hand-me-downs": for two euros you can have a meal out of tins from the Food Bank or leftovers from the big restaurants; we have rooms full of clothes, shoes, and various items that people give us. We ourselves are a "ready-made" family of volunteers, working women and customers from every country, colour, political opinion, etc. The Holy Spirit is at ease there, for we don't always know where people come from or where they are going; wherever that may be, they make a lot of noise, because they are in pain. They suffer from alcohol, illegality and loneliness. They are full of suspicion because there has been disruption in their families, relationships, professional or social life. Many have no dreams to look forward to, and there's nothing worse! Running out of plans for the future is perhaps the greatest destitution you can know. It's certainly hard to make plans when you're tired and hungry; when you're dirty; when the years are going by and your papers are not always in order.
So we thought of making a space on Friday afternoons when we let sparks of possibility rise to the surface. For when we work together, anything reasonable is within our reach. Trusting, working in a team, knowing where you fit in, learning once more that acknowledging each other can bridge conflicts, if there is forgiveness and plenty of patience.
These moments of shared plans build up fellowship and hope. Through birthday-parties, poetry workshops, candles, chocolate truffles, courses in more than one language; round-table discussions where we listen and do not pass judgment; evening meals shared to raise funds for a trip to the farm or a barbecue in the country? at the heart of these events in the "sacred history" of Nativitas, God is present.
Indeed, God comes there every day, for he likes to be around where VIPs avoid going except at election-time. I'm often amazed when I recognise Him. The other day, He really tricked me. Muriel, our Jewish volunteer, who is heart and soul in her work, had her car towed away twice in a fortnight. She came back to the restaurant looking upset, because her financial problems are weighing on her just now. She is a psychologist, but doesn't earn much because she charges very low fees. Abdel suggested I pass the hat round. I told myself that considering the type of people who come to the canteen, it would be just a symbolic gesture of solidarity. Discreetly, I made my collection. I didn't count the takings, but tactfully put them all into an envelope with a friendly word, and went home. A few days later, Muriel told us she was stunned when she counted the money. She burst into tears, for it was the exact amount of the fine she had had to pay. I think the Lord must have multiplied the euro notes, as fines are heavy in Belgium. Besides paying the fine, you have to pay for the tow truck. Thinking as I do in Christian terms, I found myself exclaiming to my Jewish friend: "That was a page straight out of the Gospel!"
Today, as a religious educator soon to turn forty, I put all my vital energy into being reborn as a cousin, big sister, granddaughter, daughter, mother, according to the way Jesus of Nazareth looked at relationships. Whoever listens to my Father's will and carries it out is my own flesh and blood, he used to say. I am now part of a people so loved by God, the fringe-people, those who trail along in the wake of society. Being abandoned or having a short-circuit in love can produce different ways of forming relationships: there can be a thirst for affection, or there can be rejection. My spiritual ground remains the open heart of Jesus, from which flows the inexhaustible spring of his love for the Father and for us. I can't swim, but I dived into this bottomless torrent right from my noviceship, and I haven't yet drowned. On the contrary, the more I love with his love, the more of it I receive, and the more my capacity for love overflows. Loving Chantal is an act of courage. Loving her to the extent of trusting her with the responsibility of carrying out her plans is sheer madness. But as the Man from Nazareth used to say: "the servant is not greater than his master", so it's up to Him to deal with my madness.
Chantal suggested organising a barbecue at her home for anyone who wanted to spend a day in the country. So an Italian dinner was organised by all the volunteers, to raise the money needed for the barbecue. Madre di Dio, Chantal turned into a raging lioness, shouting, bossing, snapping at her team, including me, for the slightest thing. Until the very day of the barbecue, she kept growling that she was pulling out of the whole thing. I got her to admit that she had to choose one way or the other. As you see, I'm a mad rscj, but all the same a professional at my job, because I had foreseen plan A (with Chantal) and plan B (without Chantal). So, drawing on the great gentleness and tenderness of God, I insisted she should make her choice. You can guess the rest. Chantal came to do the washing up, finding fault with everything, and the evening was a success.
Supporting each other; dialogue; being with each other when we fall; picking each other up; cultivating the field of peace, of the positive, of fellowship; finding the door that leads to communion; these are some ingredients of Isaiah's menu in Chapter 58.
Finding the right door is an intuition which has led me to make street retreats since I came back from profession three years ago. How can I reach out to the other as Jesus reached out to his contemporaries, especially the outcasts of society? What kind of "being like Jesus" am I called to take on, so as to be in solidarity with the poorest in my day? And why have one week in the street and fifty-one weeks in shelter? Why pronounce a vow of poverty which gives me security until I die? As the true essence of a question is to provoke other questions and not to find an answer, I scatter other questions like Tom Thumb's pebbles, marking the way to my next street retreat.
Before reaching menopause, I would like to give birth one day to a desire I have long been carrying. I was born Vietnamese and I would like to serve the poor people of Vietnam for a while.
In 1996, I was able to participate in a "return to the sources" with young people from Vietnam and Marie-Gisèle, a Vietnamese rscj from France.
I'll never forget the little urchin of 6 or 7 whom the waiter slapped out of the way. He was begging at my table for the cake that had been unwrapped and left behind by a customer before me. The little boy's father implored the waiter: "It's been opened, give it to my son!" I saw how the hungry child longed for it, yet I didn't budge.
Through my work at Nativitas, I've come to understand that to give the child that abandoned cake or buy him another, is to treat him like a beggar, or worse, to keep him begging. Many Vietnamese, including the clergy, have become mental beggars in order to build their churches. They think the viêt-kiêu (Vietnamese from abroad) have an endless supply of money.
With the father, the child and others from our country, we would open a Vietnamese Nativitas, a missionary extension of the one in Brussels, seeking solidarity through gifts, free service, creativity with leftovers, an artistic-cultural space to which everyone could contribute; in brief, we would offer Isaiah's menu, served with Vietnamese sweet-and-sour sauce.
When I reach the end of my life, the world will keep rolling along, this way and that. But whichever way it turns, God will bless its humanity, with all its love and failings.
As for you, each of my sisters and brothers throughout the world, accept my Asian-style greeting, or a warm Western kiss, on this feast of Saint Sophie, who drinks to our good health.
Nguyen Xuân rscj
Province of Belgium- Netherlands
