Last winter, I was shopping at the Bethlehem farmer’s market when a pile of vibrant oranges came into view. “Abu Surrah!” the vendor called out, so I asked him what this Arabic phrase means. He pointed to the indentation on the side of an orange. “Abu Surrah means the ‘father of the bellybutton,’” he explained. “All of us are linked to the same bellybutton of Adam.” I smiled. Now, whenever I hold a navel orange in my hands, I am reminded that we belong to one another.
There’s a word that I meditate on to remind myself of the work we must engage in if we hope to live together: disarm.
At first glance, this verb seems to be about undoing more than doing. But just as we must till the soil before we plant, to disarm is about creating the space to let God into our histories. Today, disarm seems to be everywhere in Catholic discourse.
