nearly a month back. i still think of my kids every day. william my mischievous energetic 6 year old, marina his impish monkey-loving sister, blanca from my morning class so so lista and dying to learn, i could list all of their names, something little about each of them but that wouldn't be enough.
i have post cards to send to them but haven't been able to do it yet. somehow sending something, the acknowledgment of ... what? that i'm not there any more? that i'm not there any more.
and while at times this breaks my heart, not knowing when i will see these little ones again and that whenever i do it will not be quite the same ever again, that we will never have 1.5 hr twice a week to learn english and play games and laugh and tease and be again. so while at times this breaks my heart, i am also so happy to be back. to come home every day to my little room and breathe in the wood, to talk to beatrice one of the guards in spanish, to be at morning mass with the sisters, to be working at a peace camp, in the jes res, in a psych lab. to have breakfast with em each morning, to be able to easily call and just chat with my family whenever. there are times that i feel so alive i can hardly contain it and that somehow amidst all the mess in my life and in the world around me, that somehow everything is just...right. and then at other times i feel as though i am keeping busy busy busy (even when i don't have to be some where i collapse into my bed and either fall asleep or watch gilmore girls...) so as to not have to think about reflect upon process digest the fact that i went that i came back. and that somehow, everything has to change although everything is the same.
el salvador was hard and difficult and horrible and horrifying. it made me rage it made my sob it made me afraid and at the same time to be able to rage, sob, fear -- there was a freedom in that. it was a journey that amidst the horror, and in all honesty probably party because of it, that was beautiful. to be confronted with the people, my community, in calle real and just the themness of them. to be confronted with myself, with God, with my faith, with my other casa students. to be confronted with and then united with all of these. to live so intense. to live so intentionally. to live so vulnerably. to live in solidarity (oh buzz word...breaking it down a bit: to live in togetherness, in community, each bringing all they are to the table, treating each other as equals...something like that...). to live integrated.
i don't live like that here. the question is how do i live or rather as i am not just the sum of my actions, the question is how do i be here? after living such a life for 4 months.
there are certain things that are hard to talk about being back. my faith and view of God, Jesus, the Holy Spirit for one--all of these were deeply and fundamentally changed by my time with a people who know and live in and live through such pain and hardship with such love and grace and so little bitterness. all of these were deeply and fundamentally changed by my time with casa by the support and encouragement and value we saw and placed in each other. all of these were deeply and fundamentally changed by my time with myself. Above all, God is love and if he is love, we live in him love him know him see him whatever in relationship with one anther. People. forget religion. I am talking about PEOPLE and as we relate with each other, acting out of love and compassion... well understanding and ideas of God in such intense relationships must change.
heretic. probably. blasphemy. very likely. or maybe not? maybe...truth? maybe a setting free of my caged god? An understanding that there is more than I could ever know or ever understand or ever hold on to and being so relieved. So relieved that it almost seems too good to be true. and... yes, fear. and feelings of being alone in this. that no one believes what i believe. that if i mention it or bring it up i will be shot down, maybe even with the words i started this paragraph with. so let me say them first. that my value as a person may be viewed as equivalent to the "rightness" of my theology. and that's crap. because the truth of the matter is none of us really know. no one, gracias a dios, has a complete full knowledge of God or how small he would be.
We have to walk together, lean on one another. to remember, as Father Mark says, "It is a wonderful thing to make a lot of mistakes." To not be afraid of getting it wrong. to risk. to love big. to make outrageous claims and try to follow through. grace is not earned nor is love deserved but both are gifted and the gift has nothing to do with the "rightness" of the faith of the recipient and everything to do with God's love and maybe even our own capacity to love. And in love and relationships it is messy and it isn't pretty and nothing is completely known. but the grace is to take that chance to be wrong. to put my heart on the line.
do you notice the tone as i write...toned down over the past few paragraphs...but one of impatience, defensive. and that needs to go. maybe i'm wrong maybe i'm heading somewhere with this... and the same with who ever i talk to whether or not they agree with me. and didn't i just say it's all about the love ("all you need is love, love") and if in my head things are adversarial even before a conversation begins, thats just me doing in advance what i'm so nervous is going to happen to me. so if i talk with you and God comes up, maybe help me to breath at the beginning of the conversation? i can't do this alone.
Nothing is more practical than finding God,
that is, than falling in love
in a quite absolute, final way.
What you are in love with,
what seizes your imagination,
will affect everything.
It will decide what will get you
out of bed in the morning,
what you will do with your evenings,
how you spend your weekends,
what you read, who you know,
what breaks your heart,
and what amazes you with joy and gratitude.
Fall in love; stay in love,
and it will decide everything.
-Pedro Arupe
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