BROKEN BODY TO BROKEN BODY
Brignoli, Lyn Burr
BROKEN BODY TO BROKEN BODY Learning the languages of faith Lyn Burr Brignoli There are doubtless many different languages in the world, and none is without meaning.... 1 Corinthians 14:10 one...
...body position of Jesus crucified...
...I later realized that Dragen identifies with Jesus' pain...
...I went home that night disturbed...
...I am instructing them "in the faith," a task I find enormously challenging...
...His mother told me that from time to time he doubles up in pain from one medical problem or another...
...The mother in me wanted to protect these children...
...Part of our ritual is to identify these figures of Jesus on the walls...
...When this happens, she holds him, and they pray for all the children in the world who are worse off than he is, the children who have nothing to eat...
...It's Jesus...
...Dragen, who has had thirty-seven operations in his six short years, who was born with his bladder outside his body, and whose one leg is two inches shorter than the other, has probably endured more physical pain than most of us can imagine...
...The refrain goes, "Thank you, thank you, Jesus in my heart...
...I feel as if I am engaging in a problem of translation—how to translate faith into a language each of these children can understand...
...Is that the cross...
...Yes, that's the cross...
...Dragen's favorite song is "Thank You, Jesus...
...1 Corinthians 14:10 one afternoon a week I teach two Down's syndrome children, Christina and Dragen, eleven-and six years old, respectively...
...After a while a deep chuckle came out of her belly, and she leaned over and kissed me...
...When we get to the part about the heart, Dragen grins, points to his chest, and pretends he is strumming a guitar...
...Dragen, when he looks at Jesus on the cross, puts his arms out straight and lowers his head, as if he is imitating the Lyn Burr Brignoli is a free-lance writer and poet who lives in Greenwich, Connecticut...
...What language do you speak with a child who can barely talk...
...In that moment suddenly everything in me wanted to get rid of these two crucifixes in this little room...
...We say, "Who's that...
...He looks at the cross and assumes the body posture with the contorted face, just for a second or two...
...Dragen has caught the look of agony on the ivory figure of Jesus, the contorted body and twisted face...
...One day Dragen said to me almost in a whisper, "I don't like the cross...
...Broken body to broken body, they are speaking together...
...I began to see that Jesus is "talking" to Dragen with his body...
...I don't know what is happening inside Christina's small head or her uncoordinated body when she lets her glasses slip down over her nose...
...The first time I put on the Taize song, "Jesus, Remember Me When You Come into Your Kingdom," Christina became very still, holding the microphone with one hand, listening as if she were hearing something I couldn't hear myself...
...one is quite magnificent—about eighteen inches high, carved ivory in a glass case...
...The cross is pretty terrible...
...This comment took my breath away...
...She kind of cocks her head to one side, and a peaceful, radiant look comes over her...
...Music is quite effective, I am discovering...
...Dragen is experiencing Jesus by way of his pain, and I, in my limited understanding, wanted to take that away from him...
...The children take turns holding the microphone...
...This music is her favorite part of our time together...
...Dragen loves to sing...
...Although Christina doesn't sing, she still likes to hold the microphone...
...I wanted to give them the sunshine Jesus, the "Jesus loves me, this I know" Jesus...
...Commonweal 2O September 10,1999...
...In the room there are two crucifixes...
...Dragen seems to be entering into the crucifixion...
...I couldn't say anything to him in that moment...
...I have a tape recorder that looks like a lunch box with a sing-along microphone that looks like a little ice cream cone...
...I didn't know what I was doing, because I didn't know what God was doing...
Vol. 126 • September 1999 • No. 15
