By Ajung Sojwal
Bamboo poles stuffed with marinated pork stood cooking around the fireplace. A cooking method dying in a world where folks have no time to mind the bamboo poles that need turning ever so often over a controlled fire. My brother-in-law had woken early to prepare the delicacy in honor of my visit after four long years of covid travel restrictions. How does he even know when things are cooked inside the bamboo poles? How does anyone know what the right time is for anything? I thought of the months that became years waiting for the right time to travel with confidence. Finally, three vaccine boosters later I landed to see my parents. They walked a little slower, spoke a little slower and my sense of loss was palpable.
When I got home to NY and met with my spiritual director, she asked, “How was it to be back home in the land of your ancestors?” I thought about the endless hours of not doing anything in particular, talking about everything and nothing in particular, visits with relatives and friends, gathering from one feast to the next. I thought of the jokes we laughed at as if it was still 1988, us siblings and friends laughing about folks and situations beyond our understanding. This time around, we laughed at ourselves. We laughed about how we feel betrayed by our aging bodies, we laughed about our mistaken beliefs, we laughed about the quirkiness of every family member and all the while, we waited, waited for the right time to mourn for our oldest uncle who lay speechless on a hospital bed surrounded by our cousins. A week after I said my goodbyes at the airport, the call came to say our uncle was gone. Even death seemed to have waited in respect of the long overdue visit to the land of my ancestors. How was it to be back home in the land of my ancestors?
I looked at the fading pictures of uncles, aunts, grandmas, grandpas, cousins, family weddings, funerals and plain old boring days scanned unto my iPhone and there I saw, a great cloud of witnesses cheering me on as I prepare to start my new call as Priest-in-charge of yet another church. Like bamboo poles stuffed with everything I love, cooking over a slow and steady fire under the watchful eyes of one who cares, I realize, I’ve been turned at the right time from consuming fires by someone. In the land of my ancestors, where I tasted joy, where I tasted honor, where I tasted sadness, regret and disappointments, I feel a love that dares to trust everything cooking within me to turn out just fine. Surely, this is confidence—to know someone is always there minding the fire around me…trusting. With my ancestors I pray, let that fire be the Holy Spirit, let that someone be the Body of Christ with whom I too dare to trust.
Ajung Sojwal has been called as the next Priest-in-charge of All Saints Church, Palo Alto, CA. She takes charge of the church on March 1st, 2023.
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