Rümeysa Öztürk is a PhD student in Child Study and Human Development. at Tufts University. Before enrolling at Tufts, she received a Master’s degree from Columbia University’s Teacher’s College where she was a Fulbright Scholar. She was also a research assistant at Boston College.
Öztürk is a small, unassuming looking person. She is Muslim and wears a hijab when she is in public. On March 25, of this year, she left her apartment in Somerville, Massachusetts, to meet with her friends who planned to break their Ramadan fast together. In video footage that has since gone viral on the internet, is seen walking on the pavement looking at her phone, when a man wearing black clothes steps in front of her and grabs her hands. In the moments that follow, five other people surround her and she is quickly led away, into an unmarked van.
I watched the footage on the internet. It is an eerily experience. It is a strange feeling to see such an act taking place in such a familiar place. It’s about an hour’s drive from here. Somerville, MA. I recognized the street – or thought I did.
Back in 01, when Cary and I first met, I was perched in a third floor walk-up in Somerville. I use the word “perched” because the tenement was surrounded on three sides by trees, and being on the third floor, we looked sideways out into the whispering summer leaves. My roommate, Patrick, had an extensive record collection, so things were great, but they got a lot better when he moved out and Cary moved in. Actually, the first one to move in was Cary’s cat, and naturally, after he broke the trail, she was quickly to follow.
The point is, Cary and I know Somerville well – it is familiar and beloved terrain. So early last week, when Cary had to attend a professional conference in Somerville, I went along with her, to visit with old friends, swing by our old haunts. We drove east together on Route 2 in the late afternoon on Sunday and had dinner in town with some friends.
Monday, after I dropped Cary off at her conference, I just drove around for a while. I didn’t have to use my GPS. This was my old hood…
On a whim, at a corner Indian market. The night before, one of our friends had extolled the virtues of such markets – there are, apparently, several that cater, not only to the Indian population, but also the Middle Eastern and West African communities in his part of town. I loved such places too. I’d enjoyed them, first in New York city, and later in Boston. The jumbled shelves of such stores are stocked with all manner of merchandise laying in wait to mystify the curious – wandering through them can be great fun.
I found a parking spot without difficulty, but as I crossed the street with the bright morning sun in my eyes, I could not make out if the neon “open” sign in the window was on or off. It was still well before 9 am, so it was a long shot, but there did seem to be a light on inside.
I tried the door… but, alas, as I suspected, it was locked.
**
Parthians, Medes, Elamites, and residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia…
That’s a mouthful! These, according to the second chapter of the book of Acts, are some of different kinds of people who happened to be present when the miracle of Pentecost occurred. The list goes on. Gathered about within earshot were also people from:
Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya belonging to Cyrene, and visitors from Rome, both Jews and proselytes, Cretans and Arabs…
In addition to being a pronunciation minefield for the North American reader of scripture… this list is also surprisingly specific. Did you notice, for example, that the writer of Acts went out of his way to inform us that the visitors who came from Libya were actually from the part of Libya belonging to Cyrene? A generic list compiled after the fact would not bother to include such a seemingly inconsequential detail. This doesn’t sound like second hand news. It sounds like a list made by a journalist who was not just present, but also taking notes.
If so, this list of people is a fascinating window into the demographics of Jerusalem in the first century AD.
The Parthians, Medes, Elamites and residents of Mesopotamia are listed together because they all come from the regions east of Jerusalem – where you would find Iran and Iraq on a modern atlas.
Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia are to the north of Jerusalem where present day Turkey is on the map.
Egypt, you know, is south and to the west of Jerusalem, Libya is farther west on where the African continent ends at the Mediterranean sea, and Rome, of course, is on the Northern coast of the Mediterranean.
The list, in other words, contains people from all over the Mediterranean and the Ancient Near East.
This may not have been altogether surprising, because we know that during antiquity, the Mediterranean was a cultural mashup. The Greeks came barrelling through with Alexander the great. The Persian Empire pushed back. Then the Romans had their day. And military conquest was not the only way that cultures influenced each other. The trade winds, too, brought a lively commerce to all the countries surrounding the Mediterranean, and eastward into the Near East. One of the ways we know this, is through the writings of the Apostle Paul who hitchhiked with these traders as he made his way here and there visiting the early churches.
**
Marcelo Gomes Da Silva is an 11th grader in High School. On May 31st, he was driving his father’s car near his home in Milford, Massachusetts. He was on his way home from volleyball practice.
ICE agents stopped him.
They were looking for Marcelo’s father, but they took Marcello anyway.
Marcello, a small young man with a mop of curly hair and an easy smile, was taken to ICE facility in Burlington Mass where he put in a windowless holding cell. It was small, and the room was filled with other men. There were no beds. The floor was cement. He was kept there for five days.
**
The door was locked, but the lights were on, and an old Indian man inside, puttering around behind the counter, heard me try the door. He looked up and casually left off his task, came to the door, and unlatched the deadbolt.
He nodded to me as I came in, returned to his previous occupation without a word. Had I annoyed him – a stranger showing up at such an early hour? I certainly wasn’t his typical clientele. Was this American even going to buy anything?
These concerns quickly evaporated when I dove into the jumbled aisles. These stores do not play by the rules of American Grocery stores. Spices, liberated from their miniature bottles, are sold in 5 pound bags, or scooped from open barrels. A pyramid of raw, unshelled peanuts leans precariously. Twenty pound bags of basmati rice are stacked against the wall. Shelves festooned with a wild array of curry rues in gaudy colored jars. Unexpected concentrations of Ginger and Garlic, industrial sized bottles of Mango chutney. Tamarind drinks, Biryani powders, Coconut shavings. A glorious chaos to surprise and delight my sense of smell
I found a cute little bell, hanging among the 99 cent bamboo backscratchers dangle. The handle was a golden representation of Hanuman, the Monkey God. There were rainbow colored garlands of fake plastic flowers, and boxes of powder in stark primary colors. Candles galore. A tool for breaking open coconuts. These were all the items that support the Indian ladies doing Puja – the Hindu act of worship.
There was a young man there too, sitting behind a meat counter in the back of the store. He smiled at me as I wandered by. A sign above the counter said that the meat he sold was Halal – meat that has been slaughtered and blessed in such a way that it can be eaten by Muslim people.
I wandered over to the produce section, which was next to the front counter where the man who let me in was quietly going about his business. Most of the produce was familiar to me – carrot, leeks, cabbage. But there was one vegetable that was all spiney, and was about the size and shape of a lizard. It didn’t look very appetizing.
“That one is very good for you…” the man said.
“What is it?” I asked.
“I don’t know the English name for it,” he replied “perhaps there is no name. It is bitter, but it is good for you. People who have diabetes. It is good for them.”
The man was not as old as I thought. My first impression of him had been completely wrong. He seemed very pleased that I was there. He was eager to engage me in conversation.
“How do you prepare it?” I asked.
“Just fry it with some olive oil and onions.”
This got us going. As I was checking out, we had a long, fun conversation about the things that I had chosen to purchase. We had both spent some time in Singapore in the early 70’s. He, of course, had been a grown man at the time, and I was a child, so our experiences were different, but we both remembered how the parking lots would turn into wonderful open markets when the sun went down.
**
According to a number of local news sources, the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency has detained almost 1500 people in Massachusetts in the month of May.
In a press conference, Patricia Hyde, the Director for ICE in Boston, said that, of all 1,461 people arrested, 790 had records of what she called “significant criminality,” either in the U.S. or in their home countries. Hyde said that 277 of those arrested have been ordered removed from the country.
**
On Pentecost, we celebrate the moment when Christianity shifted from being a Jewish sect, to becoming a world religion. That is why all those people from different countries were there to witness the coming of the holy spirit.
When God, through the action of the Holy spirit, enters the disciples, they are given a miraculous ability.
When they speak, the people from every country can understand them.
The emphasis of this new religion is relationship. Language – the sculpting of air moving past our vocal chords – is how we understand each other – how we tell each other our stories.
God wants us to use our words.
To understand each other.
God wants us to be together.
God speaks one language.
God’s language brings a Hindu and a Muslim, despite generations of conflict, into partnership to open a store in America. It is God’s language that tells them open the store early for the delight of a curious Japanese American Christian.
God’s language is not the language of power.
It is not the dehumanizing language of division.
It is the language of love.
Amen.