Around the World and Back

At this time last year I was winding down the School year with Sacred Heart's 2nd Grade Class. The end of the school year was hectic and stressful, and the children were very ready to enjoy their summer break (as they should be) and so was I!

At this time last year I was preparing to spend 18 days fasting in Geneva Switzerland to as the United Nations Compensation Commission to end their strangulating economic and shock therapy policies in Iraq. I count my 45,000 miles starting from when I got on the train to JFK airport on my way to Switzerland. It is approximately 3,944 miles between Camden and Geneva, and as anyone who might follow the intricacies of UN policies on Iraq may know, our battle for the economic future of Iraq was lost just before last Christmas when the UNCC voted for the economic restructuring plan and Iraq's financial future hit a wall almost as huge as the one they are building between us and the Rio Grande or between the Israeli's and the Palestinians. So 3,944 X 2 = 7,888 miles.

I spent the remainder of last summer, after getting back from Geneva in July, around the Camden House and babysitting for a wonderful family in Queen's Village - not many miles there.

The next significant event I attended was the Hearings of the Greensboro Truth and Community Reconciliation Project. There were three separate public hearings, each over a weekend and I attend the middle hearing concentrating on the events of November 3, 1979. Becoming familiar with Truth and Reconciliation Commissions and the work of the International Centre for Transitional Justice has changed the way I understand both truth, reconciliation and justice - its changed my life. This summer I am getting together with my friend Jonathan Wilson-Hargrove from the Rutba House down in Durham to teach a course at PaPa Fest on what we have learned from peripherally being a part of the Greensboro, NC Truth and Reconciliation Project. To learn more: www.GreensboroTRC.org. Camden, NJ to Greensboro, NC is 540 miles X 2 = 1,080 miles.

Then I decided late in the summer that instead of going back to School I would join Voices for Creative Nonviolence (Voices in the Wilderness) in Chicago for a bit of time because they had been and continue to be a wonderful inspiration to me and do work I believe in and support. So I moved out there temporarily. www.VCNV.org
Camden to Chicago 712 miles.

A week after I arrived in Chicago I traveled with my Voices coworkers to Washington D.C. to participate in yet another fast the at the IMF and World Bank Headquarters. This fast concentrated on very similar issues to the fast in Geneva only this happened around the annual fall meeting of the IMF and World Bank that happens every September in Washington D.C. We spent nearly two weeks fasting outside the offices.
Chicago to Washington 634 miles.

After two weeks we headed North to New York City to continue the fast while the UNCC met at UN headquarters. Washington D.C. to New York 237 miles.

From New York I headed back to Chicago 725 miles.

From Chicago I stayed a day before I pushed off to celebrate the life of William Stringfellow with my friends and coworkers from Word and World. This retreat was the labor of many, but especially a man I deeply admire and respect Bill Wylie-Kellerman whose own work also tells the tales of overcoming the powers and principalities of this world. Chicago to Minneapolis 412 miles X 2 = 824 miles.

Three days later I was on another plane across the ocean. For the past several years I have followed the trial of the Pitstop Ploughshares in Ireland as I was a wee activist and highly influenced and inspired by some of the folks involved in the Pitstop Ploughshares and even participated in some political events protesting the US military's use of Shannon Airport as a refueling station on their way to make war in Iraq. This was my third time to the Island over the years and it was always a welcome sight to my eyes to visit "the old sod" where half my ancestors carried the stories, struggles and delights of their lives over the ocean but never to be forgotten!
Chicago to Dublin 3,781 miles X 2 = 7,562.

From Dublin I traveled with Ciaron to speak at a University in Galway. We spent two wonderful days meeting activists from many walks of life who had found themselves settling into the quiet rhythms of this seaside city in Ireland. Galway to Dublin 134 miles X 2 = 268 miles.

From Dublin I headed back to Chicago just in time to travel down to the annual SOA protest in Ft. Benning, Georgia where I was graced by so many wonderful faces I hadn't seen in a while. There I stayed one night before heading back up to Chicago via my Father's place in Louisville, KY. Chicago to Ft. Benning 686 miles X 2 = 1,372.

I stayed a while in Chicago before visiting my family in North Carolina over Thanksgiving. Chicago to Asheville, NC 556 miles X 2 = 1,112 miles.

Then the news that our lad had used the breathes of his lungs and the heels of his feet to get himself across this vast country of ours all the way from Camden to California and then straight south. The news was he was home; he had raised $30,000 for the Heart of Camden and all our spirits! And he was speaking at a Friday night where Susan and Fr. Michael gave him a gold star and a toast to welcome him home. I couldn't miss it so there I was on another plane back to Camden during advent. Chicago to Camden 712 miles X 2 = 1,424.

Then it was back to work in Chicago where I stayed just long enough to kiss the face of an old friend from Iraq who came to visit us during the bitter cold days of winter in Chicago. My friend is from Baghdad and is studying at Cooper Union in New York attempting to finish up a master's degree in electrical engineering before heading back to put the pieces of his life back together and country back together after so many years of heartbreak and hardship. It was my great joy to see him before I left the winter storms of Chicago for the mild mountainous hills in Asheville, NC where my family gathered together to celebrate the birth of Jesus. Chicago to Asheville, NC 556 miles X 2 = 1,112 miles.

On eve before the New Year's Eve I landed back in Chicago and had four days to rest and celebrate. I rang in the New Year with two dear friends Jon and Gerald who graciously invited me to celebrate with them at their old friends home in Chicago. I gladly accepted the invitation and was not disappointed. Two days later I was off to yet another adventure. The Board of Directors for Word and World had a meeting at our friend Ched and Elaine's new community in Oak View, California two hours North of Los Angeles. Southern California was a nice retreat from Chicago's stinging cold and a wonderful time with new friends and old. Chicago to Oak View, CA 1,845 miles.

Straight from California I boarded a plane at LAX bound for Damascus where I was going to study Arabic for the next three months. Los Angeles to Damascus 7,687 miles.

While in Damascus I took a trip to see more of the countryside. Damascus to Lattakia 145 miles.

Lattakia a beautiful city along the coast Rich and I ate fish and hunted good honey. Lattakia to Aleppo 87 miles.

Aleppo, Syria's second largest city was beautiful with large green parks and lavish old marketplaces and a giant Frankish style Castle with moat in the center of the city. Aleppo to Damascus 193 miles.

Four days before Dan, my coworker from Voices and I left the Middle East we traveled to Jordan to say hello to our old friends at the Al Monzer Hotel. Here we were greeted with hugs, smiles and more than a few winks before we head back to Chicago. Damascus to Amman, Jordan 124 miles.

Amman, Jordan to Chicago 6,347 miles.

I stayed a month more in Chicago before heading out East again to pick up some Visa's in Washington D.C. and visit my Grandmother before she headed back to Iran. Chicago to Washington D.C. 634 miles X 2 = 1,268 miles.

Than I flew down to Greensboro, NC where I was helping our Word and World office until four days ago. Chicago to Greensboro, NC 613 miles.

Just before leaving Greensboro I met Rich in Boston for my first trip North of New York City. Greensboro to Boston 649 miles X 2 = 1,298 miles.

Greensboro back to Camden 540 miles.

**While in Greensboro I made two trips back to Camden and several trips to my Mother's house in Lenoir, NC (aprx. 2 hours from Greensboro) adding another 3,000 miles.

ALL TOLD: 48,097 miles. Which means you could travel from Tokyo to San Francisco to Camden to Dublin to Moscow to New Delhi back to Tokyo and then do it all again to equal the number of miles I crossed these last ten months!

As Chris said at Thursday Night's Dinner, "So Farah. You've been around the world and back . . . how was it?"

Love and Peace to you,
Farah Marie

A Puzzle, A Poem & A Nod to Bees

Tonight I am writing to you from my own bed in Camden, New Jersey. Well, to be precise it is my new old bed as the first time I ever slept in this particular bed was last night my first night back in Camden after 10 months and close to 45,000 miles of traveling. I somehow procured Chris and Cassie’s old love nest, which is truly the best room in the house during steamy summer months in Camden as it is the coolest. I write to you beneath a beautiful old quilt Cassie made my bed with that had a note on it upon my arrival that read “Welcome Home Farah! We missed you.” In a world full of tired, lonely and despairing people it is a beautiful and heart-warming delight to be remembered, to have your presence be recorded- if only by a brown magic marker and a piece of scrap paper. As I sit here I am stared at by three immense reads: Waiting for Godot, Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair (Neruda) and a picture of Michael Doyle’s face on his first day at work at Sacred Heart Parish. The picture comes from a booklet folks made to celebrate his 25th anniversary. The cover to the booklet reads, “It is better to light one candle than to curse the darkness.”

Hhhhmmmm. How true.

My final descent back to Camden happened earlier this week as my friend Richard and I drove up through the Appalachian Mountains in Western Virginia. We drove the whole length of Shenandoah National Park where we stopped at Bearface Mount to get a 360 degree view of the park just as the sun was setting over the dark green mountains that begun to look purple than grey before they turned black and we knew we better get to the car or risk camping out with the rattlers and bears. Once at the top of the Bearface Mount Richard continued reading the novel we had bought for the journey called the “Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime” by Mark Haddon. (By the way it was a brilliant and remarkable book and I recommend it to anyone who loves to read). Anyway, Richard and I got into a tiff after he tried to explain to me a math equation that was in the book and I just could not grasp it – neither I guess could many mathematicians and P.hD's. In fact the problem is so fun I should let you give it a try:

You are on a game show on television. On this game show the idea is to win a car as a prize. The game show host shows you three doors. He says that there is a car behind one of the doors and there are goats behind the other two doors. He asks you to pick a door. You pick a door but the door is not opened. Then the game show host opens one of the doors you didn’t pick to show a goat (because he knows what is behind the doors). Then he says that you have one final chance to change your mind before the doors are opened and you get a car or a goat. So he asks you if you want to change your mind and pick the other unopened door instead. What should you do?

Well?

I actually don’t want to spoil the fun so here is the answer in mathematical terms for all those of you out there who won’t understand it (like myself) and next time I write I will explain the answer. Try to figure it out, its fun to discover believe me!

Okay the answer:

Let the doors by called X, Y and Z.

Let Cx be the event that the car is behind door X and so on.

Let Hx be the event that the door host opens door X and so on.

Supposing that you choose door X, the possibility that you win a car if you switch your choice is given by the following formula:

P(Hz ^ Cy) + P(Hy ^ Cz)
= P(Cy) * P (Hz | Cy) + P(Cz)*P(Hy | Cz)
= (1/3 * 1) + (1/3 * 1) = 2/3

The answer is right there for you – do you see it?
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------


It was Pablo Neruda who inspired my love for poetry when I was in High School. My friend Angie told me in such a definitive way that Pablo Neruda conquered the words of love so completely that I could glimpse into love’s eyes. I despaired when I learned that the real heart of his poetry could not be translated, but it was this poem that captivated my love for him:

I Remember You As You Were

I remember you as you were in the last autumn.
You were the grey beret and the still heart.
In your eyes the flames of the twilight fought on.
And the leaves fell in the water of your soul.

Clasping my arms like a climbing plant
The leaves garnered your voice, that was slow and at peace.
Bonfire of awe in which my thirst was burning.
sweet blue hyacinth twisted over my soul.

I feel your eyes traveling, and the autumn is far off:
grey beret, voice of a bird, heart like a house
towards which my deep longings migrated
and my kisses fell, happy as embers.

Sky from a ship. Field from the hills:
Your memory is made of light, of smoke, of a still pond!
Beyond your eyes, farther on, the evenings were blazing.
Dry autumn leaves revolved in your soul.

I am not sure why I thought of this poem now, perhaps because I am in THAT sort of “in love” again after a long while of silence in those compartments in my soul. Its funny to relearn some of the steps of being in love, like how to be in love and still remember to brush your teeth and eat your breakfast and make it to mass on time. Or how to forgive someone who made a mistake with your emotions. How to forgive yourself and form new patterns. How not to be too distant or too needy. How to learn your lover’s love language and how to teach him/her yours. How to decipher the difficult roads between being male and being female, of course I am sure it is equally difficult if both of you are female or both male or both both – however you find love.

Can anyone write me and tell me what they think the difference between deep committed friendship and dating? Or marriage, not that I presume those two relationships are interchangeable. I have trouble finding the difference and I feel this is important for me to understand relationships as perhaps there isn’t much of a difference or perhaps there is a huge difference, maybe both or none are true what do you think?
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------


I like bees. I like the way they work, all the different kinds and how some hives are like feminist led eco-villages. I like honey as well, but not as much as I like bees. Some of Richard’s Uncle’s are bee farmers. In fact while Rich and I were traveling through Lattakia together in Western Syria along the coast we came across a store where a bee farmer sold his delicious and plentiful honey. We didn’t have enough time to visit the farm on our trip but rich went back with one of his Syrian friends and visited the farm and sent some jars of honey back to the states with our friend Amjad who stayed for three weeks in Philadelphia with Rich’s parents and volunteered at the Sacred Heart Free Clinic on Thursday afternoons. It is amazing the amount of work that goes into making, harvesting and storing honey – one of those special treats that goes into a lot of food and I often take for granted.


I have more to write about the journey home but not tonight. Maybe tomorrow.

Until then, love, peace and happiness be with you!

Farah Marie