Page 32 - Dark Matter:Women Witnessing Issue2
P. 32
THE MUSIC OF GRIEF
Cynthia Travis
“Our bodies are the texts that carry the memories and therefore remembering is no less than reincarnation.”
-‐ Katie Cannon (in The Body Keeps the Score by Bessel van der Kolk, MD)
In January 1999, I attended a peacebuilding course at Eastern Mennonite University in Harrisonburg,
Virginia. I was a fish out of water –a Jewish mediator come to learn about conflict transformation from
a group of innovative, intrepid churchgoers. Harrisonburg is a small town studded with contrasts. To
get there, one flies into Washington, DC and drives south and west through famous Civil War
battlefields. Once there, it is common to pull up at a stoplight alongside a horse and buggy driven by
Mennonites in top hats and tails, long dresses and lace caps. The folks that run the Conflict
Transformation Program there are modern pacifists with a history of volunteering in disaster relief and
what they call ‘accompaniment’ in places around the world where there is great suffering. After WWII,
they decided that there must be something they could do before disaster struck. Pro-‐active
peacebuilding was born.
My roommate Jean, and her husband had been missionaries in what was then called the Congo. We
both arrived late at night, weary from our long journeys, I from New Mexico she from Minnesota.
Explaining that she wanted to take a bath, Jean stepped into our shared bathroom to run the water. I
remember how the steam billowed up into the cold night air, and the thrumming of the water as it
poured into the old porcelain tub. The bathroom was accessed from a tiny, low-‐ceilinged hallway that
linked our two bedrooms. Across from the bathroom door was a cubby with a black plastic dial phone,
where I sat waiting for a call from my boyfriend. I felt awkward and trapped, intrigued in spite of
myself as Jean stood in the doorway, steam rising behind her, and began to speak. Her husband was a
church elder whose job included receiving war-‐weary local church dignitaries and listening to their
stories. Sometimes Jean served tea or sat quietly nearby. I remember the adrenalin surge of my dislike
of missionaries (still have it, but softer now) and my impatience with her gentle equanimity. Perhaps I
sensed something ominous taking shape. Too late, the story was pouring out of her, so I listened.
