Soup for Syria

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Barbara Abdeni Massaad, Peace, prayers, refugees, Soup For Syria, soup supper, Syria, The Sophia Center for Spirituality

During the final siege of Aleppo, Syria, in December of 2016, I found myself more distressed than I can ever remember when watching the evening news. Seeing the faces of the children hiding in bombed out buildings as they waited for rescue was heartbreaking. I have rarely felt so helpless in the face of innocence and those faces stayed with me calling me to do something in addition to my prayers for peace.

Some weeks later I heard a report on the evening news about a woman who was working to quell the effects of the Aleppo disaster by making soup! Barbara Abdeni-Massaad, a photographer and writer of cookbooks was living in Beirut, Lebanon and had begun thinking about the Syrian refugees one frigid night in her apartment when she herself could not seem to get warm. By 2015 there were an estimated 1.1 million refugee families in Lebanon. “I couldn’t sleep, thinking about those refugee families in the Bekaa sleeping in their tents. How were they able to beat the winter cold? I couldn’t go on with my life and ignore theirs.” She began to visit the camps bringing soup and eventually, after engaging other soup makers to companion her and cooks from around the world to send her recipes, she wrote a cookbook called Soup for Syria: Recipes to Celebrate Our Shared Humanity, published by Interlink Books. One hundred percent of the proceeds from the books sold in the United States go to the United Nations High Commission on Refugees.

“That’s it!” I said to myself. “That’s what I can do!!” Having soup suppers has become one way in which people like me are able to contribute to the care of refugees in a small way. Barbara Abdeni-Massaad is quoted as saying to the refugees, “Had I been a barber, I would have cut your hair for free. I am not a barber but a photographer and a food writer so I will take photos and write about food to help your cause and send a message to the world.” And to us, she says, “Each kind gesture toward another in need is a step forward for humanity. Use what you know to help others.”

I’m not a barber, not a food writer or a photographer, but tonight under the auspices of The Sophia Center for Spirituality, I will take photos and serve soup to anyone who stops in at the First Congregational Church in Binghamton, New York. I and my co-workers will sell the book Soup for Syria: Recipes to Celebrate Our Shared Humanity and speak of the genesis of this project, hoping to generate interest for soup-making and similar gatherings. And I will finally feel that I have taken that tiny first step that is possible for me toward alleviating suffering in the world.

 

 

 

 

 

Holy Innocents

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Aleppo, Barbara Abdeni Massaad, children, Christianity, disease, holy innocents, Soup For Syria, starvation, Syria, The Sophia Center for Spirituality, violence, war

Today in Western Christianity (and tomorrow in the East) we celebrate the feast of The Holy Innocents. Herod the Great, an insecure king of Judea, was fearful of any threat to his throne. When astrologers from the East who had come to pay homage to the “newborn king” Jesus and eluded him upon their departure without giving up his whereabouts to Herod, the king became furious and ordered all boys under the age of two years to be killed. This slaughter puts one in mind of children in war-torn countries today who, though innocent in every way, die each day from violence, starvation or disease.

I have rarely, if ever, been as distressed about the plight of the world’s children as I have been in the past year seeing newsfeed of the children who are attempting to flee tyranny and danger. Especially moving to me are the pictures from Syria, recently and most dramatically, those from Aleppo. I carry the images with me everywhere, lamenting my inability to effect any tiny change to the situation.

Miraculously, I saw on the news some days ago, the story of a woman – a Lebanese American photographer and chef – who has been taking soup to a refugee camp on the Lebanese-Syrian border. Her name is Barbara Abdeni Massaad and over the past year she had created a project called Soup For Syria. Garnering recipes from 80 famous chefs for soups from different cultures, she wrote a 208-page book in less than one year which includes the recipes and wonderful food photography as well as photographs of the refugees. One of the celebrity chefs, Roden, “hopes the book helps to keep the plight of Syrian refugees in peoples’ minds and that it will raise funds to alleviate their awful living conditions until their future is settled.”  (www.theguardian.com)

The wonderful thing about this for me is knowing that the Interlink Publishing Group has pledged that 100% of the proceeds from the book sold in the United States will go to fund the food relief efforts of the United Nations High Command on Refugees for Syria. There is a movement to get people involved in this project, found on the website soupforsyria.com. My hope is to organize a soup supper in my town – maybe many! – where the price of admission is the cost of the book that will be available at the event. I read this morning that the book is temporarily out of stock because of the great demand – which makes me happy and gives me time to get organized. A reprint is underway and new orders will be ready to ship in February, so I need to get busy.

I know that my efforts will not change the face of the refugee crisis in the world. But I will at least add my small piece to the solution, knowing that some of the Holy Innocents in our world will be fed!

 

 

 

 

 

 

Neighbors

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abuse, Colombia, crises, mistreatment, refugees, slaves, St. Peter Claver, Syria, The Sophia Center for Spirituality, West Africa, Who is my neighbor

I didn’t get to see much world news during the past five days; the committee work in which I was engaged – as well as the 3-hour time difference 3,000 miles from home – was all-consuming of my time. In catching up last night upon my return home, my happiest moment was seeing all the Syrian and other refugees who had finally been able to board trains and arrive in Germany and to hear the plans of some European countries to welcome large numbers in the future. While only preliminary, this report offers hope to those in dire need.

Although a totally different situation (abhorrent to us now) in a very different time (the 1600s), the story of Peter Claver, the saint remembered today, struck a similar chord in me. It was not the response of countries to a dire need but only one missionary in what is today the South American country of Colombia who ministered to hundreds of slaves imported from West Africa for over 40 years. The conditions of their transit sounded similar as about one-third of the people died in transit, but these people continued to be treated as sub-human and Peter Claver became “the apostle of Cartagena” caring for their needs with food and medicines as well as assurance of their human dignity and God’s love. He also preached this message to all classes of society and “practiced what he preached” by lodging in slave quarters rather than accepting the hospitality of plantation owners. Peter Claver’s belief was concretized in his often repeated statement about missionary work that we must speak to them with our hands before we try to speak to them with our lips.

Today, as the world faces numerous crises of mistreatment and abuse of the poorest and rejected in societies around the world, we would be wise to remember the example of Peter Claver and reflect on a personal response to the perennial question: Who is my neighbor?

To the Ends of the Earth

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cardinals, communication, continents, Galilee, geography, global, Jerusalem, Jesus, Luke, Nazareth, Pope Francis, spread of Christianity, St. John Neumann, Syria, The Sophia Center for Spirituality, zeal

As some people my age, I have come “kicking and screaming” into the world of technology. Those who know me, however, are aware of my enthusiasm for the GeoMaster APP which has enabled me to learn the names and locations of places everywhere around the world. I now feel connected to people and events as never before because I know where they live and see where it’s all happening. In an organic way it has expanded the reach of my prayer as well.

This morning I found an incredible synchronicity as I began to prepare this reflection. It began (rather whimsically actually) with a line from Luke’s gospel that says Jesus left Nazareth and went to live at Capernaum by the sea. I had a fleeting image of him sitting in a beach chair watching the waves…but was brought back to my task as I continued to read chapter 4 which gave me a totally different picture. He went all around Galilee, it said, teaching and preaching the Kingdom and curing every disease and illness of the people. His fame spread to all of Syria and great crowds from Galilee, the Decapolis, Jerusalem, Judea and beyond the Jordan followed him. On a map these countries of the Middle East are among the smallest,  but we need to remember that Jesus traveled on foot and only occasionally by boat – small boats.

Next I read about the canonized saint of the Catholic Church whose feast is today. St. John Neumann, born in 1811 was an immigrant to the United States of America when he was 25 years old, coming from what today is known as the Czech Republic. He was a priest of the Redemptorist Order and, his biography states, did “missionary work” first in New York, then in Maryland, Virginia and Ohio, where he was popular with the German community. Named Bishop of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania he became a champion of education, drawing many religious communities of nuns and priests to teach in the schools and creating a system of diocesan schools that remains strong today. He died in 1860 and proclaimed a saint in 1977.

When I went to http://www.americancatholic.org to read about John Neumann, there was a headline on the website about Pope Francis having named a new group of cardinals. There are 15 eligible electors (those who will name the next pope) and 5 honorifics (cardinals who are too old to participate in a conclave but were named because of their long and outstanding service to the Church). The 15 come from 14 nations on every continent including Cape Verde, Tonga and Myanmar. There are 3 from Asia, 3 from Latin America, 2 from Africa and 2 from Oceania. This is an astounding shift and I am proud to say that I can locate all of those places on a world map!

What does all this mean for me today? It just points up the growth and spread of Christianity from a small band of followers of Jesus in a tiny territory over 2,000 years ago to over a billion believers scattered all over planet earth. The miracle of this all boils down to zeal and communication – gifts, talents and willingness exercised by good people not unlike you and me whose faith has continued the story and helped new chapters to be written. Today these include renewed relationships among Christians across the denominational spectrum as well as new connections with those of other religious and philosophical traditions around the world. I am grateful for that today and can only conjecture…where will it go from here?