crucified

so this is my second post today, bu tnot really cause the other one i really wrote about 4 days ago but couldn't post it until today. so hold on and get ready for the real one :)

so maybe because it's lent, rather especially because it's lent, I've been thinking of Christ: life, death, resurrection. i had my interview for exec with iv last wednesday and one of the questions was to talk about Christ (the uniqueness of Christ, but I started just by talking about him)... and for the first time this knowledge of God's gift: his love his word his son incarnate and with us, it is more than something i just know in my head. i am inspired by christ's life of radical love: love that went against norms traditions rules. love of the unlovable. love that because of evil in the world was killed, murdered. we never say that. that Christ was murdered, it's a bloody violent word that implicates us more than "killed." But he was murdered. and that great love of Christ broke the boundaries even of death.

i applied to be a retreat leader for the agape retreat and one of the questions was about something that has struck, something that is going on in my faith right now. i reflected on this exact thing: christ's life murder resurrection. i just wanted to share it with you all :)

Currently I am studying abroad in El Salvador at La Casa de la Solidaridad. The heart of this program is accompanying salvadorans, those who do not belong to the rich “14 families” upper class. Being here, walking with these people who do not have in a country where those who do not have are the majority, in a country whose people are still feeling the aftermath of a vicious 12 year civil war, my faith has been challenged, stretched, grown. Through these people, these communities I have been welcomed into with open arms, I know and I feel and I understand the death and resurrection of Christ in a new way, a more real and tangible way.
Life. Death. Resurrection. When I first got here, it was the death and resurrection that were the easiest to see. The hope of the martyrs, Romero alive in the people, the faith and the hope that shines from these people who have suffered (who have died in so many ways). But I think too how important Christ’s life before his death was. His call to love, his “Let the children come to me,” his affirming the dignity of the poor lepers woman – the outcasts. In constant contact with the death and resurrection of Christ in the people here, I am constantly called back to the life of Christ.
Twice a week I go to Calle Real, a community of 43 families all of whom relocated to Calle Real during the Civil War. I teach English, I play and I laugh and I joke with the kids. And I be. My presence there is much more about being present there, about coming back week after week, about listening than about anything that I do, that I bring such as the English class. I have seen and lived the life, death and resurrection of Christ with these people. Some stories: One of the kids in my afternoon class is named William. William is 6 years old with a smile as big the sun, and as toothy as anything: his little baby teeth are tiny, so tiny that there are gaps of gum between them. And his eyes sparkle. William is a ball of energy. The 10 or so kids in my class will be sitting, drawing or reading and William will jump up, do several wind-sprints back and forth across the room and then sit down next to me again. A few weeks ago we talked about the treasures in our lives; William said our English class was one of his treasures. We connected right away, this little six year old and I. And so last week I was very excited when we were going to go to his house for lunch. We got there while William and his sister Marina were still at school, and the woman who had cooked lunch introduced herself as Trieza and apologized for the smallness of her house and of her table. She was nervous as we set the chairs around the table and put the plates and food out. One of my class mates also at Calle Real with me asked if she was William’s mother? Aunt? No. No. And tears: Trieza started to cry. From the other end of the table I got up and held her and she told us how William’s dad was in the US, how his mom went to the market one day and never came back. “I am his mother now,” she said several times.
Maybe this story is very obviously connected to Christ, to his life death and resurrection. Maybe it is a stretch. For me the connection is so real and so elusive that it is hard to put into words why, upon writing about Christ, this story of William and his mother instantly came to mind. Maybe it is because, as Christ did in his life, Trieza has reached out to William and loved him, who would have been an outcast and an orphan, so big. Maybe it is the suffering and grief she feels for the loss of William’s mom, a loss I imagine she feels for herself and for William, and in this suffering and grief I can see and feel how Mary and the disciples must have felt at the death (the disappearance) of Christ. Maybe it is in the faith and the love Trieza shows in adopting William as her own, the faith and trust she shows in sharing her grief and life with me, maybe it is the fact that she still smiles, that she had us over for lunch, she who is already giving so much, giving more or maybe all of these things that fit themselves together like puzzle pieces to show me Christ’s resurrection. Maybe, too, it is the hugs and the smiles and the trust and the friendship I have with William, and the hugs smiles and trust shared between his mother and me that have been an invitation to me, that I, too, am a part of this story of life death and resurrection.
I am a part of this story and so contemplating now Christ’s crucifixion makes me cry. I feel it in my heart, just the horror of it. And I see Christ’s face, the pain, and I see William; I think of the martyrs here; I think of El Mozote, the site of the largest massacre during the war; I see myself; all of us on the cross. At the same time, I know that the US, my country, was financing the government, the murders of Romero, the martyrs, the people of El Mozote, the oppressors of William’s family. And I am guilty. I am on the cross and I am crucifying Christ and William and Romero and myself at the same time. Somehow, through the grace of God, the love of Christ, the faith of his people here in El Salvador, I am welcomed with open hearts. I am forgiven before I knew to ask pardon and loved before “I am sorry” has ever left my lips. In coming here, and walking with the “outcasts” of Calle Real, as Christ did in his life, I am being resurrected when I didn’t even know I was dead.
This story is what I would share in AGAPE…and I don’t know the end yet as it is still being written. The story of Christ of his life and death and resurrection and that his story continues: that it is being lived here in El Salvador, that being here, I have been picked up and rung as a bell with the realization that I too am part of this. That it is real. This realization of how real it is scary and life-giving. And it comes with a challenge: if I am a part of this story, if I know the outcasts whom Christ loves, if I am one of them, if my faith is that real, how must I live? Everything is the same but everything is different. I am learning to be me, the me God created me to be, the one who is devastated by Christ’s death, his death on the cross and his death today in the little ones. I am being resurrected and now all are questions. All are questions, questions I would rather have than any answer, because as I question and as we live I can see the live flame of Christ and of faith that I want so bad to be ignited in me. Christ is dead. Christ is risen. Christ is come again.