The Martyrs of Sudan
Today the church remembers the martyrs of Sudan.
I have met one, personally, a wonderful journalist in the Sudan, who told us his story one December, just before Christmas. I have never forgotten him; we are still friends on FaceBook. He spent mot of his youth running from those attacking his village. As a child, sometimes he would be separated from his family for months. Although a treaty has been signed, the persecution continues in South Sudan, as even heavily pregnant women have to run for the swamps, or the nearest border, when the lawless janjaweed attack. South Sudan has oil.
The Christian bishops, chiefs, commanders, clergy and people of Sudan declared, on May 16, 1983, that they would not abandon God as God had revealed himself to them under threat of Shariah Law imposed by the fundamentalist Islamic government in Khartoum. Until a peace treaty was signed on January 9, 2005, the Episcopal Church of the Province of the Sudan suffered from persecution and devastation through twenty-two years of civil war. Two and a half million people were killed, half of whom were members of this church. Many clergy and lay leaders were singled out because of their religious leadership in their communities. No buildings, including churches and schools, are left standing in an area the size of Alaska.
Four million people are internally displaced, and a million are scattered around Africa and beyond in the Sudanese Diaspora. Twenty-two of the twenty-four dioceses exist in exile in Uganda or Kenya, and the majority of the clergy are unpaid. Only 5% of the population of Southern Sudan was Christian in 1983. Today over 85% of that region of six million is now mostly Episcopalian or Roman Catholic. A faith rooted deeply in the mercy of God has renewed their spirits through out the years of strife and sorrow.
(From the Lectionary, Martyrs of Sudan, for May 16, 2018)
This is the prayer for the Martyrs of Sudan:
O God, steadfast in the midst of persecution, by your providence the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Church: As the martyrs of the Sudan refused to abandon Christ even in the face of torture and death, and so by their sacrifice brought forth a plentiful harvest, may we, too, be steadfast in our faith in Jesus Christ; who with you and the Holy Spirit lives and reigns, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
When Does Ramadan Start in 2018?
Ramadan for Non-Muslims, through the years on Here There and Everywhere
Checking my stats, I can see a sudden upswing on Friday, the day off in almost all Moslem countries. I haven’t posted in the last couple days, but it seems to me, it is just about time to be thinking about Ramadan starting.
When I was still living in the Middle East, I would write an annual entry explaining Ramadan to my non-Muslim readers. Even better, my Moslem friends and readers would add comments, correcting anything I had gotten wrong and adding more.
Bottom line – while for non-Muslims, it is easy to perceive the month-long fast as impossible deprivation, to the Moslems, it is a month of loving celebration, visiting with family, fabulous meals at the end of a long day of fasting, and an opportunity to devote one’s thought to God/Allah/Yahweh and to serve him in the holy tradition of fasting. Many times, overseas, I had Moslems serve me food during Ramadan; I would beg them not to, but they would tell me there was joy in serving food to others and not partaking themselves; they did it as an act of worship, a sacrifice. I could see their joy in their eyes and their visible pleasure in serving.
The traditional words of greeting to a Moslem during Ramadan are “Ramadan Mubarak” and “Ramadan Kareem.” The first is a wish that Ramadan be a blessing to the worshipper, the second a wish that Ramadan be generous, supply all the needs, spiritual and otherwise.
Ramadan Mubarak, my friends, and Ramadan Kareem.
En Route to Ft. Bragg, California
“Ft. Bragg . . . California?”
We get that a lot; most of our friends have heard of the Fort Bragg in North Carolina but most are not familiar with the Ft. Bragg just north of Mendocino on the northern California coast. We discovered it two or three years ago on one of our hiking and exploring trips, and fell in love. Some places just send out vibes, affinity vibes.
AdventureMan was talking this morning about Ft. Bragg, saying that if we lived there, we’d get tired of eating, even at the places we love, over and over again. It’s a drive to get just about anywhere from Ft. Bragg, maybe two or three hours north of San Francisco. But it’s lovely.
The drive from Bandon to Ft. Bragg is the most challenging drive of the trip.
The scenery is spectacular, the day is beautiful, sunny and windy. The drive as far as Crescent City is a piece of cake on Highway 101, alongside gorgeous scenery part of the way.
In Crescent City, we stopped for lunch at Fisherman’s Restaurant, which looked like a lot of fun. It was:
I had to have the Cali melt 🙂
They had a display case full of so many different kinds of pie!
But on we went. I had taken over driving, and later, we just laughed. As soon as I got on the road, highway 101 changed to a narrow forest lane, with twists and turns, and impatient large lumber trucks coming up quickly behind me and riding my bumper. I think I mentioned before that the rental Nissan Altima drives like a beached whale. It was awful.
I drove for three hours, and most of the time it continued awful, in different ways. Going through some small town, we kept getting behind a piece-of-junk car that had a bumper sticker that said something like “you know I have a sense of humor because I drive this car.” He was a horrible driver. No matter how I tried to avoid him, he kept ending up in front of me.
Finally, things evened out for a short while and I asked AdventureMan if he would drive. Just as he started driving, we got to California 1, an even narrower forested road with steep twists and turns. It didn’t look that bad on the map, it looked like a short stretch, but that was deceptive, it went on forever. By the time we came out again along the coast, AdventureMan needed to stop and stretch and take a breath – it was a stressful road.
Entering Ft. Bragg area
Kyllos in Lincoln City
En route to Bandon, we were driving through Lincoln City when AdventureMan suddenly said “It isn’t going to get any better than this!” and pulled suddenly into a park next to the Pacific Ocean. Across a big creek from the park was a restaurant, Kyllos, and all we had to do was to figure out how to get there on foot, which we did.
We got there just in time, and had a booth just overlooking where the river joined the sea.
The interior of Kyllos was warm and welcoming. There were many customers, but the buzz of conversation was low and muted.
The waiter appeared promptly with a menu full of really tempting items. I ordered the Dungeness Crab Louis, and AdventureMan ordered the Hazelnut Bleu Salmon Salad.
We had a lot of great meals on this trip, and we believe this was one of the best.
Back to Bandon, Oregon
We forget just how big this great United States is. We look at a map, and we think, “Oregon, piece of cake.”
Not so much.
This day we are bound for Bandon, Oregon. It’s been years since we have passed through, I don’t even know for sure how many years. The last time I can clearly remember is forty one years ago, our son was a baby, we travelled in a Volkswagon van turned into a camper. We had a little travel crib for our son, we slept in the way back with the seat folded down, and we had our famous cat, Big Nick.
When we got to Bandon, lo those many years ago, we bought a Dungeness Crab, had it cleaned, a loaf of French bread and a bottle of white wine. We found a motel, settled in, got our baby to bed and feasted on that crab. It is one of our most fun memories.
The route to Bandon is along the coast, but we are not always in sight of the ocean. There are some times we are, and those times are spectacular.
And my favorite of all, pouring rain and streaming sunshine and roaring waves all at once 🙂
We arrive in Bandon; I’ve reserved at a place we haven’t stayed and it is hard to tell from the online photos how this works. Our reception is less than warm. We walk in and the sole receptionist takes three phone calls before she acknowledges us and registers us. It’s annoying.
Our annoyance totally disappears when we get to our cabin. We discover it is easily accessible (not all are) and we can even take our bags in with some ease. Once in the door – oh Wow.
The cabin is old-timey, but squeaky clean, and with a view to die for. There is a part of me that could stay in this cabin forever.
This is the view from the balcony when we arrived.
AdventureMan walked the beach, came back, we stretched, walked around, napped a little, and then went to Tony’s Crab Shack for dinner. It doesn’t look familiar, but this may be where we bought our crab forty one years ago.
Tony’s Crab Shack is not a large place, like some counter seating, a booth and a couple small tables. The menu is surprisingly varied, and all up on the wall, with lots of beverages.
We ate something, I can’t even remember what, I probably had crab 🙂 and then we walked around Brandon downtown, which was almost entirely closed up except for a couple bars.
But I wanted to be back in our room for sunset.
The beach at Bandon is beautiful.
Bandon is one of my happy places.
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