The Chaos Within - Being HIV+

Celebrate Life

Be an HIV+ Church!

We have begun our education/awareness programme for the Churches in Pune. First up was St. Crispin's. The response was overwhelming. Especially as there were over 300 students fromSt. Crispin's girls home in attendance.

The second presentation will be at St. Mary's Church on the 5th of March. It is a middle-class parish. God's hour is eight o'clock every Sunday morning. It is a recovering Anglican church. The English Hymnal was considered gospel until very recently. Tradition is next to Godliness.

St. Mary's supports the DISHA Nutrition Centre with dry rations- rice and dhal. Contributions from members of the congregation. There is also a very close connection between St. Mary's and Deep Griha, as it is the church that Rev. & Dr. Onawale, the founders of Deep Griha, attend. Quite a few of our young local volunteers have come from St. Mary's.

The pastorate committee of St. Mary's church was a little bemused with the poster we sent them for the church notice board. Celebrate Life, yes... ok... but how can a church be HIV+? Objections were raised. The congregation would react to being identified as an HIV+ church. It implies that the church is comprised of people who are HIV+. This is not acceptable.

Now what we meant was... an HIV+ church is a church that is:
a) positive about educating its youth and congregation on HIV/AIDS.
b) positive about raising awareness of HIV/AIDS related issues in its wider community.
c) positive about reaching out to people living with and affected by HIV/AIDS.

The poster had to be modified - 'The Church and HIV/AIDS'

As one of the more astute congregants of St. Mary's pointed out to me, "It is important to make sure we do not alienate anyone before the presentation."

I do accept the argument. I also accept that to ask a church or college or school to be HIV+ can be provocative without the necessary explanation. However, it is meant to be provocative. The slogan 'Be HIV+' is meant to make people think about what it could mean. At the very least, to make a person think about HIV/AIDS, to give an individual access to a little window that will lead her outside of his/her carefully constructed yet often fragile-as-fuck weltanshuang.

I have also realised that when we speak of those living with and affected by HIV/AIDS, we speak of more than an individual, a family, a community, a nation, we speak of humanity. Whether humanity is conscious of it or not, we all live with and are affected by HIV/AIDS. We don't need to be working at the grassroots or policy level... HIV/AIDS is as ubiquitous as the God of St. Mary's church. The omnipresence of HIV/AIDS is palpable if you read the UNAIDS report on the pandemic, but more so, when you realise how indiscriminately it has ravaged humanity.

If the conspiracy theories were true about ultra right wing scientists in the west creating the virus to eradicate homosexuals and people of African origin, then they fucked up. The entity is omnipotent. It can be contained but it cannot be eradicated. It has no conscience. It does not choose white black green purple or yellow. It is insatiable.

For years the church had a theory... it wasn't conspiracy, just conviction. HIV was the curse of their God on humanity. It was... and for many is, a condition of the fallen world. It is a result of humanity's sin. Its is the modern equivalent of sulfuric rain and salt pillars.

My friend Patricia Sawo, the Pentecostal pastor from Kenya, preached this. The association of HIV/AIDS with sin and sex was unquestionable... She received a blood transfusion during an operation and contracted HIV.

She thanks her God for this.

Why?

She has joined the battle on the side of life.



Ground control to Major Tom... you have God's perch, do you see his work?

Major Tom to ground control... I see it. Its beautiful... Good bye.