the embrace of suffering and joy

one of the things i´ve been most blown away by here has been the salvadorans ability to to suffer, to feel pain, and at the same time have such joy hope faith. suffering here isn´t something you just get through, trap in a box, stuff in the back of your closet, and move on in life. they come back to it and they share it. i keep thinking of one of my first days here and we were visiting all of the praxis sites. the last one we went to one this day was Mariona. At Mariona there is this woman named Oti. She was secretary to Archbishop Romero (whoah!) and also worked with Sister Silvia, one of the four church women who were killed by a death squad in 1981. So she´s telling us this story, about her life, working with Romero, about Silivia and there comes apart when she just starts crying and needs her friend Lolo to finish the story. Can you imagine going back to that pain, to share it, to still cry and be unable to finish a story after more than 20 years yet still tell it? there is something in that ability to come back to and to share hardship and I think it is that, particularly viewing suffering as transformational as part of life as ... something not to be forgotten .. and this leads to the sharing, to be real with others, to be able to say that i am not perfect, i don´t have all my shit together, i´m real and i hurt ... and to know in response that that hurt and imperfection will accepted (not tried to fix, gloss over) but accepted and shared, carried together. wow. hard. but what a way to live!

i cry a lot here. sob is really more like it. so hard that i have a headache even still the next day. i cry for the kids in my class -- for their hard situations, especially at home. i cry for myself. as i am learning to deal with conflict. as i am learning to embrace myself (and even take out that box in the back of my closet). somedays i am more angry and hurt at myself for my imperfections, screw ups, letting others down than others. some days i can love my self with all of those imperfections.

there is a quote that says " if you have come to help me you are wasting your time. if you have come because your liberation is bound up with mine, let us work together "

it is true, MY LIBERATION IS BOUND UP WITH YOURS ... with the girls in my class, with the families in calle real, with the other us students i am studying with... and with yours, each one of you who is reading this. i feel that here as i hurt for me because i am hurting for my girls, my students, my little ones. and we have different things chaining us, but they are different chains bound together. and so together we embrace both the sorrow and the joy and learn to be together. learn to love. learn to be imperfect.