In the previous episode, the missionary had found himself caught between two worlds, carrying Jack’s worries from a quiet Dutch village back into the heat and dust of Sudan. He had listened to fears at home and then sat by Sorro’s fire under the African moon, slowly realising that understanding people was not a matter of clever words, but of giving a little of one’s heart. By the end of that night, he was left with Sorro’s simple wisdom echoing inside him, and with the uneasy feeling that the journey ahead would ask more of him than sermons, travel, or language ever could.
It is not the first time we find ourselves together in a difficult spot. For years Ongwech and I have been conducting workshops together: with others we search for ways for further growth. Calling it consciousness-raising is perhaps a bit over the top. When people of goodwill become aware of why things go wrong between them, they might agree to embark on a new way; then some change may well come about. That is the general idea of these workshops. But it is a slow process, for new ways are not easy to find or follow. There are always those who profit from the existing order or disorder and want to keep things as they are. Then too, those people who want to take a new path may feel uncertain, rightly so, because success is not guaranteed. It all comes down to human effort.
It is no different in the Church. The participants in this workshop are a mixed bag: priests and laity, white and black, religious of various origins, tired and frustrated people, and others full of enthusiasm who want to get cracking. Tonight, Ongwech conducted the last session and made a fine job of it. Many matters that had been bottled up for years were voiced. The ingratitude for their dedication felt by missionaries was set off against the frustration of Africans who, even in their own country, had not been consulted by the western priests and religious before they set to work. The paternalism of the missionary was brought up, the alienation of the African priest from his own culture, the lay people who just go their own and African and European nuns who though living in way, one community are strangers to each other: all these matters were raised. And all this within this Catholic Church of ours, which we all feel so involved in and committed to. When all is said and done, that is why we are gathered here in this workshop. After the session was over, the discussion continued outside. The atmosphere was charged and painful.
Now Ongwech and I are talking about tomorrow morning’s session. Ongwech is relaxed, lying on his bed in our shared room. I sit on the side of mine, uneasy. I don’t thrive in crisis, and at times it seems as if Ongwech is trying to provoke them. He often points out to me that every crisis creates new opportunities. Now he is suggesting that I conduct the next session. Some of the priests and religious feel threatened after the last one, and Ongwech thinks they will more readily accept the leadership of a priest than that of a layman. ‘To them I’m “only” a layman’, he says with a smile.
How are we to get this group closer together again? I ask myself. I put that question to Ongwech too. ‘Not in the Dutch way’, he responds with a smile. I can hardly change my national heritage on the spot, and act as if I am African. ‘What’s wrong with our way?’ I ask. He turns over on his bed. Ongwech knows our kind; he has worked together with many Dutchmen, he visited our country, had Dutch teachers in school. ‘You see,’ he says, ‘you people think that honesty is the greatest virtue. One must always tell the truth. But you use truth as a weapon, and if someone takes offence you shrug your shoulders and say, “Well, that’s the truth, isn’t it?” As if that justifies hitting someone over the head with it.’ He says this with a wry grin on his face, which softens this ‘hard’ truth a little. ‘But surely, honesty is a virtue’, I object.
‘Oh, without a doubt, but not the greatest. Love is the greatest, according to the Bible’, answers Ongwech. I ask if he is suggesting I should let all truth go by the board. At times I get the impression truth is not always taken seriously in Africa. Ongwech reflects on this, then answers, ‘You must tell the truth, but not every truth must be told. And if you have to tell the truth, a little subtlety is better than a lot of force.’
This is another of those truths Ongwech has a knack of coming up with. When the two of us travel together by car, or when we share a room, he likes contrasting his thoughts with mine. Ongwech is a thinker, and he often thinks aloud. Long ago he was a devout student, scoring high marks at the junior seminary. One of his Dutch professors in the major seminary even thought he might make a good bishop later on. But the bishop never ordained Ongwech. As a philosophy student he was inclined to ask very awkward questions. He wondered if praying was a more spiritual occupation than tilling the soil or sleeping with a woman. Ongwech will not be the only African to wonder about this, but he is probably one of the few to ask his professor of philosophy. The professor had no clear-cut answer, for he did not till the soil, nor did he sleep with women. When one day there was a strike at the seminary and Ongwech was the students’ spokesman, he was marked as a troublemaker and the white bishop decided that Ongwech had no vocation.
It was one of these crises which creates new opportunities, if one is open to them. Ongwech left the seminary but really had no doubts about his vocation: one way or another he wanted to be a priest. He was still quite conscious of his roots and felt compassion for his country and its exploited people. He devoted his life to the consciousness-raising of the community. He fights for liberation from all that makes people less human. He does not see his own culture as something static, as something that cannot change, but at the same time he is critical of influences from the West. When we talk about inculturation, Ongwech will point out that foreign missionaries are part of a deculturation process. He knows the missionaries, has no hostile feelings against them, but he does point out regularly that we too have our limitations. He often does this in a devious way, by asking apparently quite innocent questions.
Once, at a funeral, a young missionary had great trouble saying the prayers in the tribal language. The missionary had to struggle to pronounce the words correctly, and in any case the prayers of the funeral ritual did not seem to fit the African context. After he was finished with his stumbling, the catechist and the elders prayed with great fervour. They did not need a book; their hearts were full of prayers. The missionary was sidelined, in spite of his cassock and stole. Ongwech asked me without guile, ‘Is the catechist less a priest for these people than the ordained missionary?’ We talked about it, and we came to the conclusion that there is a lot of priesthood in Africa and probably elsewhere in the world which is overlooked by the Church. And light-heartedly we wondered whether God perhaps secretly ordains men and women who are overlooked by the bishops. Luckily we cannot control God’s Spirit.
Ongwech can be very captivating when speaking about the Spirit of God at work in every human being if only we let him. He is a deeply religious man, but he thinks the foreign missionary tries to control even that Spirit. During one of our conversations about ‘unfathomable’ Africans and ‘unfathomable’ Europeans, he again came up with one of his simple and slyly stupid questions: ‘Wherever did you get the idea of writing prayer books or books on how people must love one another? Is it possible to lay down hard and fast rules for the human heart?’ I myself find these books helpful, but in formulating a response, I discover that his question is more incisive than simple and stupid. We do indeed often kill the creativity of the human heart. Ongwech’s reflections and prayers during our services often fit in with the reality of the world around us, and they come from deep inside him, not from a book. I have no answer for many of his simple questions but many of them are worth having, even without answers.
So, Ongwech has just told me that the ‘shoot-from-the-hip’ approach is not the right one for tomorrow morning. I tell him that I can hardly do as if I am an African, and that at times I find their endlessly beating about the bush almost corrupt. Ongwech smiles when I say my piece. It even gets him up from the bed, and he begins to search in his well-thumbed Bible. He always has that small Bible with him; he has undefined texts that have a special meaning for him. Does not everyone pick and choose from it? He glances through the book and says: ‘There are some words of Christ you missionaries do not preach or talk about, perhaps because you think Christ is also a bit corrupt. Perhaps he was more of an African than a Dutchman.’ Then, sitting in his shorts on the bed, he reads, ‘Remember, I am sending you out to be like sheep among wolves; you must be cunning then, as serpents, and yet as gentle as doves’. (Matthew 10.16). He looks at me with those twinkling eyes. I show a faint smile: yes, at times, we think that cunning is corrupt and yes, we Dutch are not particularly gentle characters. I do recognize some of that text in the African life. Ongwech has got some of it. I have always put it down to ‘the African in him’. For himself he says that it is also the Christian in him.
‘But now about tomorrow morning. What will be the best way for me to lead the group in dealing with all the tensions which surfaced at the last session? How should I tackle it?’ I want to map out a clear line of action. ‘Come on, Ongwech, let’s hear your suggestion.’
‘Must your line of action be a straight one?’ he wants to know. He says he does not know a clear way; some participants will be obstacles, others will function as bridges. ‘Just imagine,’ Ongwech continues, ‘We are in a jungle, the two of us and we want to get out of that jungle. I have the impression that you want a map or even want to draw one yourself. Are you tense because you don’t know the way?” Ongwech does not want to map out the way. He knows that people who walk together in the forest create a path as they are walking. He proposes that we conduct the session together, without a clearly-mapped road. ‘As we go along, we will find a way.’ Ongwech will be my guide tomorrow and that gives me the courage to set off again with the group.
As usual with Ongwech and me, it is late when we switch of the light and try to sleep. It does not take long for him to drop off. I am grateful that he is here with me. He is often my guide, in some ways my spiritual director. I remember our conversation about the funeral. I wonder if Ongwech was secretly ordained by God, when his bishop decided he had no vocation. For me he is a good shepherd, cunning and gentle.
