Reflections on a Meaningful Life: Funeral Homily for Xavi Kiemde

Xavier Jean Kiemde, September 13, 2012

Written and delivered by Patty Stromen, Church of the Ascension, Minneapolis, MN

There are many ways that we describe what a meaningful life is. 

Some people say it is the length of life, some people say it is the possessions that we own, some people say it is the relationships that we form.

As Christians we have a very clear definition for a meaningful life, we believe our vocation, what gives greatest meaning to life, what we are born for, is to embrace God’s love and reflect it back to the world. That reflection of God’s love is at the heart of a meaningful life. To quote Fr. Greg Tolaas, “Let love meet love.”

Baby Xavier, baby Xavi,  during his life in the womb, and his brief time outside his mother’s womb, lived the most meaningful life any of us could ever hope for.  He experienced God’s love perfectly, and he reflected God’s love to each of us.

In the first reading from Isaiah, we are given an image of God never forgetting us, writing each of our names on the palms of God’s hand. 

We might hear this and think, could this really be true?  Could God really love me that deeply? God’s abiding love as described by Isaiah is more deeply embedded in each of us by witnessing Melissa and Francois’s love for  Xavi. 

From the moment he was conceived, when he was a twinkle in God’s eyes, he was loved deeply by Melissa and Francois.  When faced with impossible decisions, they chose to mirror God’s love for each of us, in their decision to honor, receive, and embrace Xavi’s life, however his life came to them.  Melissa and Francois celebrated the perfect conditions of love and warmth inside Melissa’s womb and parented Xavi before he was ever placed in their arms.

Could there be a clearer or deeper image of God’s love for each of us?

Lest we romanticize God’s love for us and our love for God, and lest we romanticize the challenges that you faced Melissa and Francois,  we are given the Gospel reading from Matthew that Fr. Michael just proclaimed.

I have to believe it isn’t by chance that we hear, “I give praise to you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, for although you have hidden these things from the wise and the learned you have revealed them to the childlike”, and yet only two verses further, 

Even with the pure and simple faith of a child, believing that our ever-loving God, along with all the angels and saints are welcoming Xavi home to heaven with a huge party, and hopefully each of us some day, we know it is almost impossible to say good-bye to this beautiful little boy.

So how do we do this?  

We place our good-bye to Xavi’s body in the midst of our belief that his spirit is soaring in God’s hands. We do it by believing, as the poem that Francois and Fabio read says, (which by the way is a poem that was memorized by Francois when he was a young boy in school): 

“Those who have died have never left, they are in the shades that become clearer, they are in the water that runs."

Xavi is in our hearts forever.

Xavi has led the most meaningful life any of us could ever hope for – he has, and will continue, to live perfectly in God’s love, and to reflect God’s love back to us.  

In thanksgiving for this most precious gift you have given us God, we give the precious gift of this beautiful baby boy back to you.  We trust you continue to love him and cradle him in your arms.

May we trust that you cradle us in your arms in the joys and the and the sorrows that today brings.

Like a little child, in his father’s arms, my soul will rest in you,
My soul will rest in you.
Like a little child, in his mother’s arms, my soul will rest in you,
My soul will rest in you.

Juxtaposition: Embrace

The above photographs were taken of Francois Kiemde and me during the past week. The first was shot on June 1, 2011, at Bethel College, at Francois' swearing-in-as-a-US-Citizen ceremony. Our friend, Alisa Blackwood Nelson was on hand to help document the day. The second was shot on Sunday, June 5, 2011, outside the Church of St. Philip in north Minneapolis. A reporter from the Star Tribune captured this moment just seconds after Fr. Dale Korogi officially declared my church of the past twelve years closed.

These images give me pause. They strike me as similar in subject matter, given that each features an embrace. In the former, I'm embracing Mr. Kiemde, in the latter, he's comforting me as our daughter reaches out to touch my arm. Both capture emotionally charged moments; one of joy, the other of incredible sorrow. Together, they feel like commentary to me on marriage. The way we support, envelop, wrap our arms around another and communicate presence, love.

I keep thinking of Sr. Mary Margaret's words to me so long ago in spiritual direction: When I fall in love, it will be an experience that challenges me to receive and be held in a new way. She talked about my future partner being someone who would nurture and support me in a manner that I had never known. Looking at this second picture: I see her words come true.

These images communicate the mutuality and gift of our marriage, our tenderness to one another. I'm grateful for the juxtaposition.

On "An Invitation to be Heard": Tuning into the Truth of Poetry. Story. Experience.

What does it mean to share stories? To read them aloud to one another? To record them, write them down in the first place? What does it mean to speak a personal narrative into the air? Why do people share tales? What experiences inspire reflection and acts of private and public disclosure? Love, heartache, loss, betrayal, birth, death, faith, miracles, desire? What happens when we share our tales, and really hear ourselves and one another speak?

In the coming weeks, I will have the privilege of helping facilitate "Listening Sessions" at the Church of St. Philip in North Minneapolis. As part of our Social Justice committee work, we have discerned a call to hold two evening sessions inviting people who have left the church to return and share their stories. We are creating space for former parishioners to gather and reflect. We are asking those who choose to come to respond to three simple questions:

• What called you to the St. Philip Community initially?
• Where are you now and what do you like about it?
• What would you like to share with us about the circumstances that have caused you to change churches or stay away?

As I prepare for these evenings, I'm tuning my heart, mind, spirit to these questions. I'm meditating on this action of being deeply attentive, validating, and acknowledging of all that I hear. I'm listening to my own inner voice, and how I react to circumstances and people throughout the day. I'm practicing the hard work it is to defer judgment, and simply receive information. I'm reading poetry.

Our goal in having these sessions is to do the work of story-telling: of truth-telling, sharing, hearing, acknowledging, and reconciling. Our goal is to tune in, not unlike the poet, to the heart of matters, to details, to the Divine at work and in our midst. As I ready myself, I'm re-reading poems. I'm struck time and again by Mary Oliver, Rainer Maria Rilke, William Stafford. Today, I tune to an old favorite by William Stafford, and realize that his poem holds lessons around why I am called to do any of this work of listening, sharing stories, responding. I invite each and everyone of you into this poem - into reading it as an act of prayer and meditation. And I ask that you please keep these "Listening Sessions" in your heart.

Thank you.
Enjoy!
Happy Contemplating!
Melissa

****

A Ritual to Read to Each Other
by William Stafford (1960)

If you don't know the kind of person I am
and I don't know the kind of person you are
a pattern that others made may prevail in the world
and following the wrong god home we may miss our star.

For there is many a small betrayal in the mind,
a shrug that lets the fragile sequence break
sending with shouts the horrible errors of childhood
storming out to play through the broken dyke.

And as elephants parade holding each elephant's tail,
but if one wanders the circus won't find the park.
I call it cruel and maybe the root of all cruelty
to know what occurs but not recognize the fact.

And so I appeal to a voice, to something shadowy,
a remote important region in all who talk:
though we could fool each other, we should consider--
lest the parade of our mutual life get lost in the dark.

For it is important that awake people be awake,
or a breaking line may discourage them back to sleep;
the signals we give --yes or no, or maybe--
should be clear: the darkness around us is deep.

On the Murder of Chris Dozier: Reflecting on the Lives of Former Students

Marcus White. Toua Xiong. Quincy DeShawn Smith. And now Christopher Dozier. All former North High Students I had the privilege of knowing and teaching. All killed in North Minneapolis.

***

I woke up Friday morning to an email from the Peace Foundation. A "Peace e-lert" is what the message was entitled, sent to inform those on the list-serve of recent news, events in and around North Minneapolis. In this case, the email contained information about an upcoming Vigil, sponsored by MADDADS and the Peace Foundation organizations, to honor the life of Christopher Dozier, who was murdered Monday, August 31st in North Minneapolis. The message states that Chris "was found shot to death in a car." It includes a photo of him holding a small child. It relays information about his life. It reads:

Chris, the father of two sons, Christopher Jr. (3) and Sincere (1), was an active member of St. Nebo Missionary Baptist Church and a graduate of North High School (2004). He also attended Dicker College in Louisville, Kentucky & Barber College (2006-2007). His family says that he was a loving son and brother—a true family man—who will be remembered for his big smile and his creative designs.

It offers details about the vigil itself, which is held in the location the violence occurred:

The PEACE Vigil will be held on Sunday, September 6th at 2:00 p.m. next to 1416 11th Ave North.

I read. I take a deep breathe. I sigh. I look closer at the picture. I scan my memory. I know this young man. I knew him as a teenager. I re-read the bio and process information: Class of 2004. I do the math. I place Mr. Dozier in my sophomore English Class at North High in 2001/ 2002. I see his broad smile, his lanky frame at 16. I scan my class list, and look for his attendance records. I imagine my clip chart with student data, and try to see his grades. I ask myself, "Was he a good student?"

And then I stop. And I take note of what I've just done, subconsciously. WAS HE A GOOD STUDENT?

I ask myself, "What does it matter if he was a good student or not?" As I pause, I wonder what else is really trying to get constructed in my brain.

If Chris was a good student, then he was a good kid.

If he was a good kid, then he was a good human being.

If he was a good human being, then he would not have died.

He would not have deserved to die.

This is what happens in my brain -- in a split second! I am sick as I do this simple interrogation of my own psyche, begging to know what is behind my question, "Was he a good student?" What if he was a rotten student? What if I kicked him out of class for being disruptive? What if he skipped sophomore English on a daily basis? What if he bombed out on assignments? What if I gleaned gang graffiti on his notebook? Who cares? Would that have one little bit of bearing on whether or not his death was tragic, and whether or not mourning him was an important action? Would it change the fact that he was a human being who was loved by and loved others?

Whew. It makes me sort of ill writing this. Who deserves to die? Who deserves to be shot to death in their car? Who deserves to live? Who gets to decide any of this? Who gets to judge?

***

I see Chris. I recall his jovial demeanor, and replay scenes of him poking his head into my room between class periods. He smiles. He goofs. He comes into the classroom corner where the props for drama activities are held. He grabs a sword. I see him pretending to be Bottom, in Shakespeare's "A Midsummer Night's Dream" and prancing around with this plastic prop that makes silly sound effects with each wielding gesture. I remember being annoyed with that sword and the ongoing pranking of Chris and his peers. I see this former student performing his assigned scene from the Shakespeare comedy before his classmates. We laugh. We are entertained. In the scene, Chris' character fakes his own death. I am stopped again replaying this scene in my mind's eye.

***

In Julie Landsman's book, "Growing Up White: A Veteran Teacher Reflects on Racism" she addresses her own inherently held racist tendencies. In the book, she takes an inventory of moments when she's realized her white privilege is at work, and how her own responses to students of color as "victims" has played a possible part in perpetuating the disparities in education. She describes a moment in class at Sheridan Middle School in Northeast Minneapolis when she's doing a residency and asks the students to write a letter. When one little girl with brown skin submits what she has written to her mother in jail, Julie is aghast. She records her deep sorrow and dismay over the situation of the little girl. She holds the circumstances of the child's incarcerated parent as the largest factor determining her success. Julie reflects on how her notions of the little girl are shaped by this single fact, and notes how later, she realizes she overlooked the child's present and loving grandmother, the girl's vocabulary and well-constructed prose. Julie recognizes she has reduced this child to a single detail and that this is part of the problem we all have as humans who seem to focus on reductionary facts that perpetuate inequity and victimhood. As the author of the book, she models the work we are all called to do: getting conscious of how our thoughts and attitudes shape our interactions and subsequent relational outcomes.

***

I think about Chris. I see Marcus White. I recall the last time Toua Xiong and I had an interaction. And I hold Quincy DeShawn Smith's death in my mind. Each of these young men were once my students. Each of them had families and home lives and work lives that shaped who they were, and spoke volumes about their characters. Each of them were loved by someone - many - and in turn loved beyond themselves. Each of them were North Side residents at one point, whose lives also came to a brief halt in North Minneapolis.

What is the sum of each of their lives? How do we hold and measure the hearts and minds and spirits of young men murdered in North MInneapolis? How do we hold and measure our own hearts and minds and spirits? What value do we place on life? Those of our children here, and those of our children there? How do I reflect honestly about the violence in North Minneapolis? How does it relate to violence anywhere in the world? How do I celebrate fully the life and love and potential there, as well as in my own St. Paul home? What is my job as a former teacher from North High, who still prays and volunteers and works in and around the homes and streets, businesses and schools of North Minneapolis? What am I called to pay attention to? What are you called to stop and take note of?

***

As I mark this fourth tragic death, I consciously work, like my friend Julie Landsman, to mark the fullness of these young men's four lives. I invite you to do the same.

In peace,

Melissa

Quincy DeShawn Smith's Death: Prayers

The following was written as a prayer request and sent via email on December 13, 2008, while I was traveling in East Africa. I post it here now as I pay tribute to the lives of former students who have been killed in North Minneapolis. The information and picture copied below my words were sent via the Peace Foundation's "Peace e-lert" list-serve.

***

Friends,

I am here in Uganda, reading emails, and have learned of this news about a former student of mine dying from the use of a police taser.

Please pray for Quincy. For his family. For the police. For all his friends. For the teachers and students he worked with. For the community of North Minneapolis - and beyond, that mourns this tragedy.

***

Quincy DeShawn Smith, 24, was killed this Tuesday after a struggle with the police in which he was tased. Quincy, once a North High School star football player, was also known as 'Q the Blacksmith,' a beloved DJ on KMOJ radio for almost two years. Although he had thousands of caring fans, none loved him more than the children he worked to nurture throughout the community.

As a teacher's assistant at Harvest Prep in North Minneapolis, students and teachers remember him as a tremendous role model with a caring heart and loving smile. Quincy will be greatly missed by his family and friends, as well as the entire community. He touched everyone.

(Vigil: 3:00pm @ 1000 block of Knox Ave. N)

On the Death of Toua Xiong

Originally written as an email to my friends and family, the following was published in Insight News and picked up by other bloggers. I post it here now as I honor former North High students who have been murdered.

On the Death of Toua Xiong

August 8, 2006

I don't watch the news. I listen to MPR. I don't watch television news though, unless it's focused on global or national events. These local reports depress me.

So tonight, I am clicking the channel to find something as I wind down, and happen to hear the words "Arrest of a 20 year old in the murder of a North Minneapolis Pizza Delivery boy."

Next thing I know: a photo of Toua Xiong, the most sweet, innocent boy I may have ever taught at Minneapolis North Community High School, is being flashed up on the screen. He was the Pizza Hut delivery person killed on Sunday night.

And my god! This is the second former student of mine murdered --in what? A month? That I knew!! That is dead. Innocent young person. Marcus White. Now Toua Xiong.

And breathing is hard, you know.....?

This kid was so quiet. So sweet. Mid-height. Thin. So thin. So squeaky, squirmy, sitting next to this pack of Hmong boys in the back of my classroom with all their notebooks filled with car drawings; he was always drawing pictures and asking questions....Quiet questions. Needing to be near my elbow when he whispered them.

....When we were doing that Midsummer Night's Dream Unit, he played Mustardseed, or some such precious, few-lined character...And to ensure he got a good grade, submitted all of these drawings of the characters as he had envisioned them....

And then when I lead the Teen Group at St. Phillips - he delivered our pizza one random Monday night. I remember this whole awkward struggle I had leaving him a tip....(I didn't add right, and he returned to the church basement to have me recalculate the amount I'd written in...I was so embarrassed...)

And now he's dead.

I just ask for your thoughts. Prayers...We need peace. We need to be in relationship...

I suppose I need to ask some question...But I'm tired..And so angry.....And so sad...

So: please pose them out there....and have kind thoughts.....And hold this......It's not okay to have this happen.

Melissa

On the Murder of Marcus White

The following was originally composed as an email and sent to friends and family upon learning about the murder of former student, Marcus White. I post it here now, paying tribute to the four young men I taught at North High who have been killed in North Minneapolis.

Sunday, June 16, 2006

Friends, I am devastated. And writing as a way through this...as prayer...request for prayer and community...

I have logged onto my email from my friend Suzann's home in Pleasant View, Utah. (After a morning of watching CNN, learning more of the sitaution in Lebanon and the war being waged there with Israel, the Hezbollah, Hamas, and calling for the world's response... That news, followed by the "Secret State"report depicting the assissinations of three people who worked to cross the border of North Korea in the name of freedom, democracy, education...)

And now this. The Peace Foundation e-lert informing me of the latest Vigil: for Marcus White, 19 year old young man who was shot and killed Friday.

Marcus White, former student of mine at North High, with this beautiful smile and desire to always have the "right answers" when it came to class work...I amseeing him ask about his mid-term, Spring Semester, when he had to memorize and perform a scene from Mid-Summer Night's Dream. He was either Lysander or Demetrius, one of the young lovers.....One of the
Young LOVERS!!?!

.....The last time I saw him, I was walking into the Visitation Sisters' house on Girard, and he shouted a "Hey Ms. Borgmann" from across the street, just kitty-corner from the North High football field...When was that?.....

And I have photos of him on my hard drive at home - wearing a Peace Games T-shirt and a funny crown on his head...We were in the Sculpture Garden at the Walker...there for the Peace Games...Teens Rock the Mic poets were performing.. and our friends from South Africa....

My God!

I'm in shock. Sad. Devastated.....

I didn't know if this was one and same "Marcus-White-my-student" - until I found this Star
Tribune Article, and looked up his age....

I just wrote Michelle and Sondra at the Peace Foundation to confirm this, but now I know this is
true...

What's going on in our world? Where are we pointing our eyes, our hearts, our minds? What are we focusing on? How are we called into this? How do I sit here, north of Ogden, and do anything?

Sas, (my dear girlfriend from Sacred Heart and Norfolk Catholic, whose home with Brook, her husband, and son Ben - that I'm at now) ---She and I were up late last night, discussing so many of the issues present on the planet...(You know, those delicious deep,
philopophical, spiritual conversations I relish..) And we are asking ourselves what we are up to...

What are our gifts?
What does God, Creator, Love call us to do?
We are ear deep in stories, reflecting on the
tragedies and celebrations of our lives, and we both know how lucky we are really...how privileged we are...and considering what that means...
What are we called to do or be?

You know me, I just want to love...get married and have some kids and love them the best I can....Do my part to be an agent of change, a radical force of Love on the planet, working to impact evolution, helping create a space of healing and peace...in my own home...

But wow...

I tried for years in my classroom at North to do these things.....through my work with these beautiful poets and emerging teaching artists...

And Sas, here, with her beautiful son Benjamin, who she and Brook conceived and carried through 9-11....

..................
What am I saying? What am I writing? I don't know...But....there is a little blond boy downstairs who giggles and kisses and plays with trains and who came onto the earth (with perhaps the
miraculous help of St. Therese: "She's the one who held me when I was trying to be a baby" --said the almost 3-year old Ben, pointing at a statue of the saint, who his mom prayed to during the time they were working to conceive him.....)

IS this too much information? Too much processing? I don't know, but I must cling to these stories, this little boy's voice and smile and image (he's now saying: "Ms. Melissa, do want to see me crabwalk?" aha!)

And I hold this moment, this child - as that representing Love...of the greater goodness, the more powerful Life and Spirit orce that permeates our hearts...casts out the darkness and sorrow....

Hopefully...yes...Ben doesn't replace Marcus White. But he gives me hope....

As does the Peace Foundation. As does Prayer. As does knowing each and every one of you. As does this act of processing via email...

With love and blessings to each of you...
From Pleasant View, Utah,
Melissa B.

__________________________________

startribune.com

Minneapolis' latest victim of violence had worked on peace games
Terry Collins and David Chanen, Star Tribune

Around this time a year ago, Marcus White persuaded
PEACE Games organizers not to end a semifinal game on
a north Minneapolis basketball court after police
found a gun.

"I've worked hard to make this happen," White pleaded
during the anti-crime event. "Please let us finish
what we started. We need something positive."

On Thursday, the 19-year-old from Minneapolis was shot
and killed near a busy intersection in broad daylight,
becoming the city's 34th homicide victim this year.

Nobody had been arrested Friday. Police believe the
shooting was gang-related, and Capt. Rich Stanek said
that White had a "gang association."

But White's relatives who gathered at a vigil Friday
night! rejected that idea, and his cousin Steven
Smith said White had a college scholarship for the
fall.

A crowd of about 100 people converged at the corner of
W. Broadway and Dupont Avenue N., near the shooting
scene, singing gospel songs that reached into the
neighborhood over a loud speaker.

Another vigil is planned for 4 p.m. Sunday at the
site. As soon as Monday, Council Member Don Samuels
said, he intends to conduct his Fifth Ward business
from a tent in a parking lot on Broadway -- directly
across from where White was shot in the busy business
district that city leaders have vowed to revitalize.

Police were already working to address the crime
problem in the area with plans to open a safety center
there next week. Staff will include a Minneapolis
police crime prevention specialist and a West Broadway
Business Association representative, said mayoral
spokesman Jeremy Hanson.

"This will be a hub for the Police Department," he
said. "Once! it opens, the city will work with
community and neighborhood ! groups to figure how the
center can best fulfill everybody's needs."

Interim Police Chief Tim Dolan said Friday that
although there are beat officers assigned to the area,
additional officers will be on patrol in the wake of
the homicide.

He joined family and friends of White who gathered
earlier Friday around a makeshift memorial at W.
Broadway and Dupont.

Dolan also said there were gang members who were
"making a show" at the scene Friday.

The scene was a far cry from the one where White
worked a year ago as a youth worker for the inaugural
youth-oriented PEACE Games.

"He said, 'All we want to do is show you that we can
do this without anybody getting shot. Please,' " said
former coordinator Jimmy Stanback, who hired White.

Stanback said he'd known White since he was a kid and
last spoke to him Wednesday on W. Broadway. White
asked him about this year's PEACE Games, which begin
July 28.

"All I'm thinking about now i! s how he was trying to
prevent violence," Stanback said. "And now he's a
victim to violence."

An argument apparently led to Thursday's shooting,
Stanek said.

Moments before, White and two other people were in a
car. White and the woman were shot outside the car, he
said. Her injuries aren't life threatening.

The shooter fled on foot, Stanek said, adding that
police received several tips from those at the scene
who are "sick and tired" of the violence. In March,
Stanek stood over the body of Melvin Paul, 28, who
also was killed in broad daylight in his car about 20
feet from where White lay.

"We still need the community to come forward with
information to keep this a safe place and curtail the
violence," Stanek said.

The Rev. Jerry McAfee organized Friday night's vigil
and called on the community to trust in God and be
more spiritually focused as the way to prevent further
violence.

White's mother showed up briefly and! came forward
when McAfee identified her, but then she passed ! out.
A relative took her away in a car.

The minister called on the community to stand behind
White's family.

"If you're not going to be with this family for the
long haul, I'd rather you leave now," he said. People
applauded.

Staff writer Myron P. Medcalf contributed to this
report.

tcollins@startribune.com • 612-673-1790
dchanen@startribune.com • 612-673-4465