Reflections on Christ (not really the point)

I met up with a couchsurfer from California last week to hike up the Sugarloaf. It was my second time hiking the short steep path, and we breathlessly talked about home, traveling, social change, Unitarian Universalism, and generally what we are doing with our lives. Well, I breathlessly talked. She ran up the hill with breaking a sweat and confessed that her friends call her a mountain goat. As I embarrassedly whined about being out of shape, she astutely remarked, "if you hiked up this hill every day, you would be in shape." So I've done so, 7 out of the last 8 days, at least.

Even more exciting though is what a just got back from! Like just now! Tabajaras is a favela between Botafogo and Copacabana. There is a community organization taking flight there where I will be teaching English three nights a week, and hopefully theater 1 or 2 days a week. Meeting the people there has been really juicy. I first visited just last night, and tonight I taught my first class...supposedly the advanced class, a conversation class, but really all the classes just seem to be for whoever happens to show up. Which is great fun. Then hanging out with kids in the street afterward is even more fun. 

Less fun, but rather exciting, in that pulse quickening sort of a way, is the amount of people with guns riding around on motorcycles. Tabajaras is what Dom refers to as a middle class favela--nothing like the image of shanty town poverty that I would conjure in my head...everyone has a cell phone, wears nice clothes, and many have a car or motorcycle. But there is a drug gang that pretty much keeps order in the place, and so there are plenty of young men with guns.

A great guy named Walter showed me all around today. Much more striking than the guns was the Church. It shines as a spotless blue and white castle amidst the haphazard catastrophe of brick and stucco that sprawls up and down the hill. It's Catholic, of course, and has quite a compelling feeling to it. I hope I might meet the priest.

Which brings me to my reflections on Christ. I've realized that before living in Rio, I had only 3 images in my mind of Christ:

-The baby Jesus, swaddled in the manger

-The close up of the handsome aryan with long wavy hair, looking peacefully into the distance

-The blood covered martyr, the Christ, on the cross

Really, I had no other images. Some vague notions perhaps of throwing moneylenders out of the temple, hanging out with prostitutes and riding a donkey into town, but all these lacked images. Rio has given me another image, the open-armed Christ always nearby, always inviting, welcoming, protecting. The Christ as the cross, as constantly present salvation, as, not son nor charming suitor nor dying martyr, but radiant father, offering his embrace regardless of where you are or what you are doing.

Unless, of course, it's a really cloudy day.