CREATIVE, SUPPORTIVE COMMUNITIES
ON BEING STRANDED: A REFLECTION ON THE 2003 BLACK OUT, AUGUST 14, 2003

by Glory E. Dharmaraj, Ph.D

The people... in darkness have seen a great light" Matthew 6: 16

There is a newly-forged community thrust upon you when you sit or walk in darkness. Those of us who walked as well as sat in darkness that night in New York City, the "2003 Black Out" as the media named it, felt and experienced community in the bone of our bones. A common crisis. Instant friends. New communities.

I work in the Church Center for the United Nations (CCUN) in New York City, across the street from the United Nations Building where ambassadors and their representatives daily attempt to forge a community of nations. For them, there are always challenges and opportunities. For us -- the workday commuters to New York City -- community-formation took place with quixotic ease on the afternoon of August 14. It depended on how far away your home was physically from the place of your work.

That evening, as I stepped out of the Church Center for the United Nations, I saw a United Methodist minister friend of mine who worked in the same building and whom I had not seen for some time. Outside, in the sea of faces, he and I walked and talked about creating interfaith communities. He giving me, from the top of his head, website addresses. I, diligently taking mental note of them and even memorizing them.

More seas of faces. More feet on the side walks. More shoulder to shoulder walking. A community desirous to engage with others. A common sharing. Then departure by foot, car or bus. Every departure that day left me with more understanding, more illumination, and more expansiveness. People bound by a common descending darkness are bound to share some common light also.

People sitting in physical darkness shared one another’s light, while waiting for the light to come. A long day’s journey into night is just one side of that evening. We shared more than flashlights and candle lights – we shared our inner lights.

Buddhists in certain countries float lights on rivers on occasion of memory and remembrance. On the day of the Black Out, the East River by the United Nations was flooded with the summer sky lit with brightness and casting candles of light on it.

A couple of centuries ago, Alfred Lord Tennyson, an English poet, wrote about flow of waters in a brook and the ebb and flow of time. A journey of a brook becomes a journey in darkness, unless dwellers by the brook float lights on it. Tennyson floated memories on his brook He made the brook utter its secret triumph over human fragility and mortality.

"Men (people) may come and men (people) may go,
But I go on forever"
( "The Brook.")

On the shores of the East River in New York City, new communities were born that evening, as people made decisions to walk home or make it out on the streets that night.

My walking companion said he would walk it to his home in the City. We spent a couple of more minutes talking about recent readings. A shared interest of common research. Family readings. A common walk. A summer evening.

At Grand Central, Bud decided to walk home. He asked me, "What are your plans?" I did not have plans. I thought to myself, "I will be home by 9 or 10 tonight. They would fix the problem by then."

EXPANDING COMMUNITY

I decided to walk back to my office a few blocks away to wait out. Another hand waved at me as I walked in the opposite direction. This time it was Mel, a friend just back from Iraq.

Handing out brochures on "The Children of Iraq" and "Afraid in Baghdad," Mel shared what he saw in Baghdad – medical emergency and anarchy of rule in some places. A man who had made several trips in the last decade to Iraq, Mel shared special insights in his recent trip. A Mennonite and an ecumenical Christian worker, Mel said that during his recent stay, he was "afraid" in Baghdad.

Mel seemed to be walking another walk. This black out transported him to other black outs in the world, specifically that of Iraq. Mel reminded me that in Iraq, people experience black outs daily. "At least now we can feel solidarity with the suffering people of the world." A show and tell moment. A physical walk transformed by the pain of one limb of God’s body in Baghdad. Therefore, a solidarity walk with the suffering millions, feeling the pain of "the Body of God, the world." A summer evening walk made sacramental by "connective knowing."

"THE POOR ARE ALWAYS WITH YOU"

Soon I bumped into a group of women from the Two-Thirds World. Mel decided to walk home. Looking at the crowd milling around, a woman exclaimed, "This is like the Two-Thirds World ." We talked about how the Two-Thirds World deals with black outs. The community widens. A common crisis. Problems still unsolved. Ability to cope with unknowability, and inability to solve problems instantly. A sudden eruption of the Two-Thirds World into the First World. A community walk with an unresolved problem. The poor are always with you. Black Outs too.

Darkness was descending. As I walked away from this group, in order to get into my office at the Church Center for the UN, trying to walk eight floors up, and shut myself in my office, I found out that the building managers had made a wise decision to keep the stranded workers in the building, on the first floor, in the chapel for the night. A chapel with many interfaith banners and a fixed mental cross. A chapel dedicated to Mrs. J. Fount Tillman from Lewisburg, Tennessee, a former President of the United Methodist Women’s Division in the early sixties.

CHAPEL OF THE CHURCH CENTER FOR THE UNITED NATIONS

A young woman waved at me. She is a science and technology person who works closely with a Non Governmental Organization with its focus on sustainable development for the world. After all, a major role of the Church Center for the United Nations is to facilitate the work of the Non Governmental Organizations and to build partnerships across the world to strengthen the civil societies.

This young woman was a Hindu by birth and practice. She and I set up an appointment for the next Monday in order to talk about sustainable development work in India. I was trying to gather raw material for United Methodist Mission Study on India/Pakistan in 2005. She said she would keep me in touch with Pakistan women who were working on this, also.

The sun was going down. The community was becoming interfaith at the door of the chapel at the Church Center for the United Nations. In Henry Nouwen’s words, the chapel was created in order "to create a friendly space where strangers can enter and discover themselves as created free; free to sing their own songs; speak their own languages; dance their own dances; and worship their own God."

I offered an invitation to the young woman to stay in the chapel, if she wanted, and offered her assurance that it was a safe place.

Swati. That was her name. A woman about 30, she was multilingual. She spoke in different languages as she was negotiating the crowd, and talking to the UN officials stranded in the area. A community of multilingual presence in action was evident that evening. The cacophony of New York City has a subterranean strength which mainstream New York may not be able to fully fathom at times. A strangeness. But it had the strength of a different kind.

The global encountering the local. The local allowing itself to drink in the global. Without the local, the global becomes rootless. Without the global, the local becomes roofless. Momentary bursts of cosmic lights in one’s subterranean depths. Darkness outside.

That summer evening, I found a new community. A new responsibility. Now Swati and I decided to try out the hotels for the night. Knocked at every hotel in the vicinity. Every hotel was full. Airline crews were sitting at the entrances of some hotels waiting. The crowd ebbed. We lingered. Hungry, we went in search of food. Long lines of people waiting for food. Swati entered an ethnic restaurant and refused to take "no" for an answer. She made the manager make some more snacks. He did. We ate. Youth refuse to accept "no." A community of inter-generation is a gift in crisis.

After eating, Swati pointed out the moon to me. It was almost red. Youth see the sky. I was more earth-bound and restrained.

Swati invited me to walk up to the India Mission to the UN. To while away the time, I accompanied her. Blinding lights of cars without the regulating trafficking lights completely blinded me. Swati held my hand. A younger woman holding an older woman’s hand and leading her through the very familiar roads which she could not negotiate in the blinding lights of the cars. People who walked in darkness saw a great light that night. I, too, in a single hand grip.

Community was being born as traffic was regulated by the walkers themselves. People held each other’s hands as they walked and negotiated the roads.

In the India Mission to the UN, we were welcomed. And as a group of women sat by the candle lights and the mission officials looked on us, pilgrims in New York City, Swati said, "Tomorrow, August 15, is India’s independence day." I exclaimed, " Today, August 14, is the Independence Day of Pakistan."

"Midnight children." Pakistan and India. To get through the night was the problem. A problem for nations as well as for individuals. Midnight children sitting in darkness over Kashmir. Will there be light?

By that time, Swati and I were becoming part of the midnight children of New York City. Utter darkness. Midnight children, New Yorkers, waiting to see the light.

Swati and I thanked the India Mission people and I reiterated to Swati that she had to make up her mind whether to spend the night at the Church Center for the UN or not. I said that I had made up my mind to do so. And I became a moralistic old woman at an instant. "You are a young woman. You should not be walking alone in darkness." She said that she would like to stick with me.

In a flash of Indian cultural style, before we left the India Mission, a woman began to ask each one’s marital status. Swati said that she was divorced only two weeks ago. Brushing aside her emotions, and putting up a brave front, Swati said that it was a smooth divorce.

Who cared that night whether one had a husband or not? What help is there even if you have a husband who cannot cross the closed bridge to pick you up. I became homesick at that thought. The waters of Hudson would flow on. But bridges would be closed until further notice.

"Men (people) may come and men (people) may go/I go on forever."

For me, in that instance, Tennyson’s brook became the Hudson River. In my mental eyes, I looked past the East River. Past the George Washington Bridge.

The Hudson. My husband would never be able to cross any bridge tonight. How close. Yet how far away in Shrub Oak, New York.

But, by "guess and galley," as Violet would say in the American Mid West, I got through to my husband over the phone.

I said, in a stoic, calm, monotone, lest he detect any nervousness in my voice, that all was well with me. The Church Center for the UN had every contingency plan well worked out. All that time, I knew that the basement and second floor restrooms were not working and men were looking at the "pit" to see whether there was any damage.

Assured, my husband wished me well and said, "You should look at every person’s face well and remember the faces you see before you go to bed in the chapel." I felt nervousness in his voice.

By that time, one of the men on security duty put up a show for us. Pretending that it was a candle night dinner, one of the Hispanic men acted as the head chef, serving us chips and soft drinks. A community of midsummer night entertainment at the entrance of the Church Center for the United Nations. I had never before seen those serious men in that role trying to entertain us. A creative, supportive community of security people turned clowns for the sake of us, stranded workers in the building.

One showed me a sofa inside where I could recline. One took the responsibility of offering to take me to the third floor with the only flashlight available at that time if I had to use the restroom. The Building Manager called me from home to say that he would be arriving by midnight to check the security details again.

The bureaucrat in me took over. I said that I would put in writing all the security details that had worked been out for us, and send them to the Women’s Division higher ups and others in authority.

Radio blared news. New coinage of words. "2003 Black Out. Shakespeare’s Hamlet would have said, "Words. Words. Words." The radio continued to blare, "They have not yet located the problems."

Walkers were walking home. Sleepers were coming up with innovative ways of laying their heads on makeshift beds.

By then, a small community of hospitality had emerged in the historic Church Center for the UN. A center of hospitality. I, who had talked about it to hundreds of United Methodist Women, am a recipient of the Center’s hospitality. A place that had served thousands of gallons of water and drinks to pilgrims and wayfarers on peace marches is serving me water and drinks.

I felt humble. Recipient of charity. Humbling experience. A community was born anew in me. The workers offering me the gift of water. I, receiving it. Drinking it. Storing it for the entire night to last. I began to see other lights in the darkness of that night. My darkness. Light peeping through. Sitting in darkness, I saw the light in others in a time of crisis.

By then, Swati had vanished. I was struggling to keep up my physical energy and mental energy. "When will I see my husband?," I wondered.

Swati was rushing in. Swati who was shouldering personal pain and loss so well. She shouted that India Mission was sending a car for some workers and there was room for two more people in the car and I should accompany her to her home. She had a bed for me.

On hearing this, a Muslim man stranded at the Church Center for the UN, with his wife who was working there, urged me to accept that invitation. People still waiting to spend the night in the chapel advised me to accept the offer.

I am just an acquaintance of Swati. I have seen her only a couple of times in the past. She, a Hindu, offering me, a Christian, a bed in the darkness of that night in her home in Queens. She called it "dharma," an ethical act, a code of conduct. I said yes.

Far in Queens, that night I was sharing room with Swati. Under the picture of a Hindu goddess of wisdom, Saraswati. Swati said, "Gloria, you are God-sent." All along I thought Swati was God sent to me. Swati unburdened some of her frustrations. Not her personal pain. I listened I listened in that dark. In that large bed, in the basement of a house.

I thought about Swati’s mother in a far away land. But young Swati, in her bilingual fluency, was trying to communicate her recent frustrations.

I calmed down Swati, as a mother would. Swati slept well that night. I lay still trying not to move lest I disturb her calm sleep, her even breathing.

I tried to figure out the intricate and colorful folds of the saree in the picture of Goddess Saraswati that night. A Hindu female god. A goddess of wisdom.

I was praying the whole night to God in Christ thanking him for the safety and community offered to me through a young woman, and praying that Swati should sleep well and have a happy life.

In the adjacent room, Swati’s books and documents were neatly organized. As soon as she woke up, she asked me, who was standing not far away from the picture of Saraswati, "Will the UN document be safe in the UN computers in this Black Out?" I assured her that everything that is saved will be safe. Goddess Saraswati must have been amused by my flat wisdom.

In her own warm hospitality, Swati asked me to take a shower. I said she should preserve the water for her, not even flush the toilet quite so often. Then I dashed out of her house with Swati running with me in her night gown to the nearest bus station. I thanked her.

I prayed a prayer I had not prayed before. That I should not have bowel movement that morning. Rushed through several bus stations and caught three buses, negotiated through some places where the gatherings never spoke English. Bus numbers Q17, Q66 and Q32. Men and women, traffic regulators and police -- each extended an arm to help me out in my long travel to Manhattan. A sea of recovered community of ordinary workers who cannot take an extra day of leave. A creative, supportive fellowship.

Communities of unknown men and women offering me coin changes in the public transportation, since I did not have a metro card. Light came to me through these unknown faces who could not speak English with me. I could not speak their language. But we communicated. Community-making God across linguistic boundaries of New York City. "Boundary-Breaking God," as Kosuke Koyama, a Japanese theologian, would say.

My only feeling was that I should not be "smelly" to those who were sitting next to me. Without a shower, with only yesterday’s dress on, do I smell? Don’t the homeless people feel this way everyday?

I arrived at Grand Central after two hours of bus journey from Queens. It was 9:00 a.m. But it was dark inside the Grand Central station. A woman lent me a flashlight so that I could see the dial numbers and make a phone call to my husband. I thanked her. She said, " I just happened to have a flashlight."

Dark, still, in the Grand Central. My husband offered to come and pick me up. By that time, my family had expanded far beyond my immediate family. His, too.

The traffic regulators  thanked them. Communities should have names. They should not be nameless. CREATIVE AND SUPPORTIVE are just adjectives to a noun. Names of the creative and supportive communities need to be inscribed within you. People in darkness have seen a great light. The light of naming. Naming is a gift of light.

Metro North Hudson Line train. The first train in service since the Black Out. On August 15, it left the Grand Central station at 9:20 a.m., and arrived at Peekskill about 12:45 p.m. Usually, it takes an hour.

A long day’s journey into mid noon. Most of the male commuters had their shirts neatly tucked in. Yesterday’s shirts and pants for today’s professionalism. Women had managed to have good hair. Fancy, I should even notice that. Wrinkles or not, we were a community.

A man in full suit with a crumpled handkerchief in his coat pocket, raised his hands, when he got off the train at his destination, as if to say, "I made it." The rest of us said, "You made it." Yes every one of us in that train made it.

The driver of the train now and then assured us, "You are going home, even though I have to stop the train when the signals fail."

Yes, I was going home. A great light shone upon me as I got off the train. A light not from above, but from within. The people in darkness have seen a great light.

A light of creative and supportive communities across race, class, gender, religious lines. I was the recipient of that great light in New York City on that day. I am also a recipient of the great light of God in Christ who continuously casts me into astonishingly new neighbors and enlarges my ever-widening horizons. "When one knows thee, then alien there is none, then no door is shut. Oh, grant me my prayer that I may never lose the bliss of the touch of the One in the play of the many." (Gitanjali, Rabindranath Tagore)..