My brother Rufie

20.07.2009

A moving tribute by John Halley to his brother Columban missionary Rufus who was shot and killed in 2007 in the Philippines in a bungled kidnap attempt.

This is the seventh time that I have tried writing. Perhaps if I had been able to cry when they were putting Rufie into the earth then I would be able to write this more easily. But then my feelings were bottled up, I couldn't produce a single tear. They are still bottled up now, but I'm going to write what comes into my head.

My first vivid memory of Rufie is set in the kitchen of our home in Ireland when I was six years old. He had a packet of cookies and offered me one. I said, "Thanks, can I take two?" This made him angry that he snatched back the cookies and shouted at me, "Now you won't have any!" I bawled with shame and fury but he didn't care.

Walking out of the kitchen, he went to his car and drove off, taking the cookies with him. I can still see his black Morris Minor, through the blur of tears, receding in the distance. Later that evening, we met again in the kitchen and I said, "Could I please have a cookie? I promise I'll only take one," and he said, "Sure, take two." I was reformed and so all was forgiven. Right or wrong, Rufus was always my inspiration.

Voice of reason

Fifteen years later he was renouncing such a 'medieval' approach to correction. In those days we were both in England, I doing my PhD in engineering and he studying Islam in Birmingham. Meanwhile I had scandalised my family by becoming an evangelical Christian at university. What I kept secret was that in London I had gone further and become involved with an extreme faction of evangelical Christianity, a cult interested only in proselytising and which insisted everyone else was going to hell.

Under pressure I agreed with them that all Catholics must go to hell, including Rufus and the rest of my family. However I couldn't believe it very seriously, since I continued to confide all my secrets to Rufus and never to them, until one day I told him all about it. I said that as this cult had been hammering at my defences they had somehow gained a handle on me.

I remember Rufie said only this, "A handle? Now that's not a good thing, when somebody has a handle on you, and wants to use it." Though I remain an evangelical Christian, from that moment I never let any grasping organization get a handle on my soul.

Brotherly differences

Rufus had a different style to me. While I was always impressed with fancy things like glory and martyrdom (I'm still like that, a sucker for the epic picture) Rufie was more practical and preferred funny things. He was forever finding spiritual significance in boring everyday events. He introduced me to the story of Charles de Foucauld, the Frenchman who left Western society to live the life of the unseen Christ in a small village in Muslim North Africa. De Foucauld was killed by gunfire during the First World War. It is still a bit hazy as to why he was killed, or by whom. Though de Foucauld was considered a failure in his lifetime, dying without any 'converts', he left a big impression on those he met.

Today the Little Brothers and Little Sisters of Charles de Foucauld are among the most vibrant orders in the Catholic Church, taking monastic vows but living alongside ordinary people. My brother was very excited at the thought of nuns and monks doing proper jobs in factories and sharing serious poverty. That was far too gritty for me. Over the years, Rufie continued to grow closer to the ideas of Charles de Foucauld and I continued to hide from them.

Visions of Glory

But when we talked he didn't entirely deny me the epic splendour that I craved. One such moment was the evening he told me of his decision to work in Lanao del Sur. He would be in Marawi, "the Islamic City of Marawi." He said his life would henceforth be dangerous. I was full of excitement. After all I was young and young people like risky adventures.

When he shared with me his vision of dialogue with Islam my enthusiasm grew. I had always had a romantic love of the religion of Mohammed, without ever having met a single Muslim. Maybe I read the Arabian Nights too much when I was young. Finally, he told me about the spirituality of the Sufis, about Ibn El-Arabi who had so inspired the young Saladin and about Rabi'ah al Adawiyya who is said to have run through the streets of Baghdad wielding a firebrand and a bucket of water and threatening to burn and drown Hell with these words:

Lord if I love you out of fear of hell, throw me into Hell.

And if I should love you in hope of Paradise, deny me Paradise.

And so he went to Marawi. His gift for being as enthusiastic about everyday things and ordinary people's preoccupations would make just as much of an impression as his love for Islamic philosophy and mysticism, probably more.

Missing Rufie

What I miss most is his laughter. There is a kind of humour that thrives between close friends and which is utterly unique to that friendship. As the friendship develops, so the dialogue grows with it and also the humour. Eventually you find new things which only that one person will understand and laugh at. Rufus began this process with his humorous view of world events and personalities, and as we talked I began to develop a similar capacity.

Between us there evolved an alternative history, a joke history of the world. Whenever we met or wrote letters to each other, we updated this history, adding new chapters and new jokes all the time. We spent many happy hours in this way. Even now, I will often wake up in the still dark hours of the morning inspired by some new connection. I know that only Rufus will get the joke. But Rufus is gone.

Finding peace

That Rufus was murdered is hard, and the hardest part is not knowing why he died, or who really wanted him dead. You could call his death "martyrdom" but there is nothing epic or glorious in it now. Sometimes, like in the 'failed kidnap attempt' theory, it seems like a sort of glorified accident. But if it really was like that, then my brother shared the death of so many in Mindanao with whom he shared his life. And so I, and others, have been compelled to share the indignity suffered by countless others in this world: to lose a dear one to injustice, to stupidity, to ignorance.

As with the death of Charles de Foucauld, many times I have been tempted to believe that the sacrifice was pointless. I hear the call for justice and see it swallowed whole by conspiracies of silence and fear. And this is a bitter pill for me to swallow. "Be still before the Lord and wait patiently for him" (Psalm 37).

Where are those seeds of his work? Bless those robust, cheerful souls who see evidence sprouting all around them like a runaway garden! I haven't been so lucky. But perhaps it is not the Plan for all of us to see the same things. And I have found some little things that start to wash away my bitterness. For example, the work of Charles de Foucauld no longer seems dull and, though it is not my vocation, I do not run from his ideas any more. Instead they stir in me a longing like the Song of Songs does.

Something else happened too. For many years before his death I had found churchgoing difficult. I was so trapped in self-righteousness that the company of other churchgoers was virtually unbearable to me. Then one day I found myself in church again, and as I looked around I realised that I was no longer irritated by people. That was shortly after my brother's death and so I see it as his parting gift to me. I believe that God will complete Rufus' work, and that those of us who are willing to wait and pray may see some of it. But if this experience of mine is any guide, God's work may be so quiet that we will see very little. Until one strange day we notice that the fear, the hatred, the darkness have moved on. No bells, no music, just gone.

First published in the Columban Philippine Mission magazine Misyon, July/August 2007. Reprinted with permission.