"don't worry, don't worry"

i am reading again about the history of the civil war in el salvador (how funny is it that when i say "the War" i mean the civil war in ES. oh man).

i'm reading again how, over 12 years the US gave 6 billion dollars to the military run government. how we trained the came to be the most lethal death squads. how we provided weapons and military advisors and helicoptors. i'm reading (reading instead of hearing 1st hand accounts) of finding mutilated bodies by the road side, of refugees crossing the river into Honduras. About El Mozote and the sole survivor of that massacre (who died several years ago, but whose daughter I met at El Mozote last spring).

I am rereading the notes I took from my interview with one of the women in Calle Real -- how she had to leave her home in the country, pregnant, leaving with only her cow to come to the city so she wouldn't be killed.

about the 4 church women

and the 6 Jesuit martyrs --whose anniversary it is November 16

about Romero.

I think about my students, some of whom I've gotten to talk with over the past month

i think of my students whom i will have next fall.

and all of this comes together in my thesis. I am writing this week the Context, an introduction to El Salvador.

and i feel this horror about the actions of my country in the past, some consolation when i remember my friends and how i was received while i was there, some hope and excitement and nervousness about going back.

speaking with my students, my kids from last semester has been really grounding -- not to get lost in the horror of the past or the immensity if my project but to stay focused on them, my kids, my kids who (as i said in a recent talk I gave) stole my heart the first day i met them and have yet to give it back. and i'd just as soon they keep it. i talked with 2 of them yesterday and they told me they were learning the days in the week in english class. and so i quizzed them a little bit. they very proud to show off what they knew and anxious to look it up in their notebook when they forgot.

blood and roses, cats and thorns i wrote before about the same differentness of returning to Georgetown. and it is. more than i ever thought.

to live in the hope of the martyrs -- the hope of the dead, the murdered. to live in the violence of love. i see images of fire -cleansing and deadly. to live in this tension: "...but how good is God that pain and joy are not the sole property of el salvador."

i wrote this in high school. it reminds me ... LIVE NOW
February 16, 2005

Some day soon, and that day is quickly coming
A miracle will happen
A miracle of life laughter love

What is that miracle?
It will be more of what you have
More of the joy you hold in your heart

Be ready to overflow
Embrace life, and all that comes
Never turn away

Don’t sort the good from the bad
But rejoice fully in your heart for that time
And then embrace the next and the next

Don’t hold on, live, flow, breath, rejoice
Everything will come in time
Don’t worry, don’t worry

Stop regretting,
Don’t place all your hopes on what is to come
You are now, so live it

And then, each day the miracle will grow
Your heart will overflow with joy
You are living, loving, laughing

And nothing can go wrong
There will be sorrows and some pain
But they will, in the end, merely

Make your joy and triumphs more sweet
Your love more tender
And your laughter real

Rejoice and be glad
Embrace the universe
Hold it close to your heart and never let go