In each of our understanding of our faith, we must all find a language, a way to hear and interpret poems that will help us learn to tell the story of our own salvation.

The Rev. James Hal Cone died last Saturday, April 28. He wrote several books that inspired me and helped me to understand my own story.

On November 4, 1970, I was a teen-ager in the Philippines, struggling to understand if there was a loving God in the hopelessness of poverty in a country under the grip of foreign, colonial powers. I was with a group that went to the countryside, assisting in giving primary health care,  farmers injured by farming implements, sprains, doing acupuncture, treating snake bites, colds.  On that day, I was surprised to assist in a birth, and when I caught that warm, slippery, struggling child in my arms, I cried over what future lay ahead for him. Later that evening, the group gathered to pray and being a nonbeliever, I declined to join them. When Father Ed, the priest, distributed the wafers at communion, I was surprised when all of them turned around, surrounded me where I was at the corner of the room, each had broken a piece of their wafer, offered them to me and each said, “this is Christ, broken for you.”

Later, while a student at TST I discovered books written by James Cone. In The Cross and the Lynching Tree, is an often  quoted statement, “The real scandal of the gospel is this: humanity’s salvation is revealed in the cross of the condemned criminal Jesus, and humanity’s salvation is available only through our solidarity with the crucified people in our midst.”