The Sacred Steps

Today, I climbed the Sacred Steps in Rome.  In case you aren’t familiar with these steps, the Scala Santa are a set of steps supposedly from Pontius Pilate’s palace in Jerusalem; the same steps that Jesus walked up when he was brought before Pilate.  They were brought to Rome in the fourth century by Constantine’s mother, Helen.  Whether or not they are the actual steps Jesus climbed during His trial to be crucified is debatable.  What is certain, though, is Christians from all over the world make the pilgrimage to Rome to climb these steps.  Christians have been doing this for hundreds of years.

I’ve wanted to climb these steps for years.  I heard about these steps for the first time as a child.  My father told me about them and how he watched an elderly woman climb the 28 steps on her knees.  That is the only way you can climb them.  People climb them one step at a time, stopping to pray on each step.  I thought that sounded amazing.  I wondered at the dedication it would take to do that.  I wondered how it would feel climbing them.  Today, I found out.

I went very early in the morning.  As soon as I walked inside, I knew this church was unlike any of the other churches in Rome.  There were no tourists taking pictures, nobody was talking, and I saw no vendors.  The church was silent except for the whispered prayers of the people climbing the stairs.  I stood and stared at the steps for awhile.  I don’t know why.  I watched the people on the staircase.  Many of them held rosaries.  Some had their heads bowed; some had their hands lifted up.  At the top of the stairs was a depiction of Jesus.  I watched everyone moving slowly closer to Him, one step at a time.  I took a breath and knelt down on the first step.

The steps are covered in wood for protection.  The wood is very smooth and very shiny from the thousands and thousands of people who have pilgrimaged there.  My knees found the indentions in the wood made by all the people who had climbed before me.  It hurt.  I looked up and wondered what it must have been like for Jesus to climb up these steps.  Divine though He was, He was also human and He must have felt fear for what He knew was coming.

When I climbed the next step, I groaned inside.  The wood was hard and hurt my knees.  By the fourth step, I was using the rail to help pull me up to the next step.  I was not sure how I was going to make it all the way to the top.  The top: the end for me.  But for the Jesus the top was just another step.  I thought of how Pilate would try to release Jesus, but the people, the people He came for, would demand His death.  It must have hurt to hear them, to hear Pilate tell Him His people wanted Him killed.  He knew what He was doing.  

By the eleventh step, I was crawling up the steps on my hands and knees.  I was in agony.  I reached down and touched the gleaming wood with my hands.  It was polished from all the people who had done what I was doing.  I had wanted to be a part of that.  I wanted to join my Family in recognizing the sacrifice that saved us.  I wanted to show Jesus I was willing to endure the pain of watching His pain for my sake.  Climbing those steps, I watched His walk towards death with detail I had never before considered.

On the twenty-second step, which I had pulled myself onto with my hands, I looked up at the image of Jesus.  He was so close.  I remembered Stephen, the first martyr, seeing Jesus in Heaven.  I thought of James and John, the Sons of Thunder, who did drink from Jesus’ cup.  I remembered, also, the many beatings and humiliations Paul suffered.  I looked up again at Jesus.  I will stay by His side, too.  I reached for the rail and climbed another step closer.

At step twenty-seven, I stared at the last step.  The final one.  I had been aching for it.  But I found myself not wanting to leave.  I closed my eyes.  The joy and the pain.  His love for me and my love for Him.  Each time I learn a new way of experiencing that joy, that pain, I cling to it with wonder.  Like Peter, running to Jesus, even over water, hoping I don’t lose it in my everyday world.  He always lifts me up again, whenever I sink.  I remember that and I remember how.  I opened my eyes, and took the last step.

I looked behind me at my brothers and sisters still climbing.  It doesn’t matter if the steps are real.  It doesn’t matter if Jesus ever set foot on them.  The love, the dedication, the relationship is real.  I wanted to run up to each of them and share in the joy of that relationship.  I stood there at the top for a minute, watching the flow of people moving slowly up the stairs.  I didn’t climb because I thought the steps were real.  I climbed because I love Him.

Climbing the Scala Santa

October Newsletter Update

I am in my second month of volunteering with the refugees in Greece. Working in the Kara Tepe refugee camp has been a challenge.  Every day I learn another person’s story.  It is never a happy story.  I have heard how a Congolese man ran away from his country after he found his wife’s stabbed body in the marketplace after a political riot; I watched a man who did not know the English words act out his wife’s and daughter’s murders by the Taliban after I asked about his family, and I tried not to cry when a woman held out her trembling hands to me as an explanation to me why she could not come to English class; she was too scared to leave her house.  She hasn’t left her house since she arrived, three months ago. Her hands have not stopped shaking, either. I have never known that level of fear.

There is never anything I can say when their stories are finished.  I have no ability, no experience, to help me understand what they are suffering.  I can and do pray.  I ask God to give them peace and reassurance, to take away their pain, to help them start their lives again.  And I keep asking Him to use me to help.  There is little that can be done here.  As one person said, “This is not a home.  It is a glorified prison.  I want to be a person again.”  

How do you help someone become a person?  I have met an electrical engineer, a beautician, an English professor, a business owner, and many others during my time here.  All of them now just called “refugees’ and all of them just sitting and waiting for someone else to make a decision about their next step in life.  I don’t want to just help make the waiting easier.  I want to help them work again, earn a paycheck so they can provide for their families, help them feel like they are a positive part of society again.  I want them to feel their value as children of God.  And that starts with prayer.  I hope you will pray with me that the people here can move forward and find joy and self worth again.  I also ask that you pray for me, that God will show me how He wants me to help here and renews my spirit each day so I have to strength to do His will.  Thank you for all the support you have shown!

Reality

There is a small playground in Kara Tepe.  It has a couple of swings, a slide, and a see saw.  Mats of fake turf grass cover the cement ground.  A multicolored, wood slatted fence encloses it.  It’s a quiet place.  Not the usual way to describe a playground, I know.  But this playground possesses some sort of magic.  

Kara Tepe is an amazing refugee camp.  People are smiling here; they are taken care of here.  In Moria, the refugee camp just a couple miles away, there are not enough beds, not enough water, no medicine, and very little hope.  If the people there get to come to Kara Tepe, they have a container home, a clothes closet, three meals a day, and running water in the camp.  They get a living stipend of $90 a week.  They have a school for their children and a doctor’s office on site.  They can walk into town to sit at the harbor and drink a cappuccino.  They can go fishing and swimming at the beach.  NGOs in Kara Tepe provide entertainment to relieve the boredom and monotony.  Things here are “good”.

That’s the surface.  If you take a walk through the camp, that’s what you will see and that’s what every picture will show.  To really see how things are, go and sit under an olive tree and watch what happens inside and outside the magical boundary of that playground.  

Inside, mothers swing their children. They wave and greet you, “As Salaam Alaikum”.  “Wa Alaikum Salaam,” you reply.  Literally, “Peace be unto you”, “And unto you, peace.”  The kids smile while they swing.  They greet you in English, proud to be able to do so.  They will greet you over and over for as long as you can muster a response and some for even longer than that. You can see fathers walking back and forth in an awkwardly familiar rhythm.   As they pass close to the fence, the reason for both the awkwardness and the familiarity become obvious.  A toddler stands almost underfoot, held up by the dads’ hands holding his child’s hands. Walking practice, an apparently universal rite of parenthood.

Other kids sit on the fake grass and play with the various toys they have.  A doll, some marbles, six or seven playing cards, a paddle ball of which no one understands the point.  Older siblings lift younger brothers and sisters onto the see saw and “help it” go up and down.  The younger ones hardly make a sound as they grip the seat in apparent fear, but never seem to want to get off, either.  Everyone takes turns going down the slide. Sometimes, they will form a train to go down the slide.  It isn’t a big slide, so when they ambitiously attempt a four bodied train, their engine has her feet on the ground at the bottom of the slide while their caboose is almost hanging off the ladder.  Predictably, they don’t notice this.  They scoot down the slide and all jump up in excited victory, ready to attempt the challenge again.

Outside the playground, kids pass by in groups, some running, some not.  Four Congolese playing with a dog.  Two Arabic girls walking to class.  Some Syrian kids carrying empty bottles to the water fountain.  A lone Pakistani boy wanders past, hands in his pockets.  They call out greetings to you in Arabic and Farsi and French and Kurdi.

A few teenagers play soccer.  A bystander says something and a scuffle breaks out.  In less than thirty seconds, a group of ten teenagers are attacking each other with the sincere objective of causing as much damage as possible.  Security somehow materializes instantly and hauls the group away.  Two other kids fight over the soccer ball left behind.  

Over by the indoor amphitheater, you can hear women inside talking during a “women only” activity.  A volunteer guards the door, making sure only women go inside.  Several kids and preteens surround her, alternately begging and threatening to get inside.  After several failed attempts, a younger child picks up a handful of gravel rocks and begins to systematically hurl them with surprising force at the wall.  Another begins to kick furiously at the door.  Around the back side of the amphitheater, two older children climb the wall and sneak inside through a window.  They are chased down inside by other volunteers and have to be carried back outside.  In frustration and anger, these kids scream, kick, and spit at the volunteers before storming away. 

A little girl sits on a curb eating some potato chips.  Another child joins her.  He reaches for the chips and is refused.  As she holds them away, another child seizes the opportunity to reach out and grab the bag.  A volunteer runs over to restore order and return the chips.  He moves fast since the thief, aware of the impending loss of the chips, is stuffing his mouth as quickly as possible.  All three kids are between eight and ten years old.

I’ve sat and watched all this unfold many times.  The “survival of the fittest” mentality that is a must if you have to subsist on international handouts.  The instantaneous camaraderie of people from similar backgrounds that paints a clear picture of the cultural divides.  The wariness and distrust that explodes into violence at the slightest provocation.  The inability to express or even understand the resentment of boundaries and rules.  None of it surprising, all of it heartbreaking to witness.  

But the disparity of what happens inside the playground and all around outside it leaves me nonplussed.  Why the difference?  What happens to those fears and frustrations? What is it about walking through that fence that makes everything okay? 

Your reality isn’t permanent, but you do have to live with it.  I think most of us long for a different reality.  Certainly, every Christian longs for Paradise with Christ.  You hope for that day, you live for that day.  “My soul faints with longing for your salvation,” says David.  I think the refugees in Kara Tepe are longing for home.  Not just the place, but all the assurances that home brings.  The joy of being with your family, the sense of belonging somewhere, the right to choose what to do, the privilege of going out and enjoying what’s around you.  Like the movies, or the park, or…the playground.

I don’t know if it’s the potential of what life could be or the memory of what life used to be, but I think that playground represents both memory and hope for them.  And they won’t betray their memories and they won’t run out of hope.  So things are calmer inside the fence.  Because inside is the reality they hope for and while they are there, things are good.

I don’t go inside the playground.  None of the volunteers do.  We aren’t really needed inside.  But I sit outside and watch.  And ask God, “What’s next for these people?”

The Kara Tepe playground

Arrival

I’m on day five in Greece and almost too much has happened to process.  

I wrote “Arrival” for the heading of this piece and as I did, I thought about how there really was no “arrival” period at all.  I stepped off the plane onto Lesvos at 6:30 am Monday morning after a 24 hour journey with little sleep and sighed with relief.  Hah! Silly me, thinking my day could only be easier from there.

The coordinator for refugee camp volunteers picked me up and drove me to town for a quick coffee.  There is Greece.  And like she said in the movie, “There’s always time for a coffee!”  Then it was on to find a new phone, a hotel room, and off to volunteer registration at Kara Tepe.

We whisked through a camp tour where I quickly forgot how to get anywhere in the maze like setup and then I met the other volunteers, whose names my sleep deprived brain never registered.  Now to work.  Work that day happened to be English class with any refugees who wanted to come and practice.  Lots of young men wanted to practice.  I watched them practice introducing themselves in English.  As we talked, I learned a little more about them.

English would not be their second language.  It would be about their third or fourth.  One man had fled from Syria and come to Turkey.  He waited there a year before he had enough money to pay the smugglers to put him on a boat to Greece.  He had learned Turkish during that time.  At the camp, his neighbors were from Afghanistan and he learned Farsi talking with them.  Now he was learning English.  He hopes to get asylum in Holland.  He thinks he has family there.  I asked him how to say “Hello, how are you?” in Arabic. He told me. He shook his head and laughed at how badly I botched his language, then we tried again.  By comparison, his English pronunciation was amazing.

As I left English to head to the front gate, I realized I had no idea where I was.  Great.  Lost in a refugee camp on my first day.  I thought I might get lost in downtown Mytilene, but I am clearly more talented than I gave myself credit for.  As I wandered around, I saw a view of the Mediterranean and the faint outline of Turkey, where all these people had crossed over and hundreds had drowned on the way and never made it this far.  I walked past their container homes.  Some people sat outside their doors on the ground.  I knew the temperature inside was 115 degrees.  Outside wasn’t much better, but I saw lots of beds under trees.  It was too hot to sleep inside.  I passed women in hijabs carrying water jugs home.  At the water taps, I saw two Congolese women in tank tops also getting water.  I stared briefly at the contrast and wondered how hard it was for two completely different cultures to live side by side.  All the women smiled at me as I passed by.  Children ran everywhere.  I saw a woman cooking over a fire outside her container house.  Her firewood was paper she had taken from the volunteers’ announcement board.  I saw several Arabic men laying on the ground playing cards.  They did not look up as I walked by.  I saw my coordinator.  He told me I was not supposed to be walking around alone and I was in a restricted area.  Lovely.  Got lost and broke the rules on my first day.

We found the gate and I hailed a taxi to my hotel room.  I walked into my room at 7:00 p.m., burst into tears, fell onto my bed and wondered what I thought I was doing here.  You tell God you will go, you will do what He is asking and then you realize the enormity of the task.  What do I understand about having to leave home forever? About having to depend on others for every single thing?  Of how it feels to not know where I will be in 3 months?  Not even which country I will be in.  I cried myself to sleep.

Jet lag woke me up at 2:00 am.  I remembered how overwhelmed the day was and resumed crying immediately.  I opened my suitcase, still crying, found my Bible and sat on my bed and held it.  A Kodak moment you don’t actually want to see.  I turned on praise and worship music and asked God to please come closer.  Matt Maher’s “I Need You” played and I turned it into a plea for the next five minutes.  I begged Him not to leave me alone. I read Scripture and laid back down.

Every morning, I put on my volunteer ID and walked through the gate at Kara Tepe.  I passed out food and tried to control the mass of hands reaching out for “just one more” for the fifth time; I taught English to Afghani women and we laughed as I learned words in Farsi; during reading hour, a five year old with the brightest blue eyes curled his body into mine on our bean bag chair as I read him a Pokemon adventure neither he nor I understood a word of; during ladies night, I watched the women, in the safety of closed doors and windows, strip off their hijabs and coverings to dance their hearts out for two hours; I sweated in the 90 degree heat as we laid electric cable to put electricity in their homes; I prayed when a Congolese orphaned child spit on me in frustration and anger.  Every night I went home wondering how God is going to use me to reach these people.

And now it is Friday. The first week has finished.  I don’t know how God plans on using me here.  But one night, when I was feeling very alone, I heard piano music from the apartment across the street.  Someone was playing a Christian song.  I had not met one single other Christian all week long.  I went to the balcony and stood outside until the song was over.  I has asked God not to leave me alone and He was answering me.  I am not in no man’s land, like I thought.  This is God’s land and He IS here and He knows what He is doing.  I needed the reminder.  I’m ready now. 

Father, show me your people.