Think of yourself and say

Think of Others
by Mahmoud Darwish

As you prepare your breakfast – think of others.
Don’t forget to feed the pigeons.
As you conduct your wars – think of others.
Don’t forget those who want peace.
As you pay your water bill – think of others.
Think of those who only have clouds to drink from.
As you go home, your own home – think of others – don’t forget those who live in tents.
As you sleep and count the planets, think of others – there are people who have no place to sleep.
As you liberate yourself with metaphors think of others – those who have lost their right to speak.
And as you think of distant others – think of yourself and say “I wish I were a candle in the darkness.”

This is a busy week, with packing and preparations for moving once again. A week from today I'll hop on a MegaBus with a one-way ticket to Detroit. Lutheran Volunteer Corps orientation is in the Twin Cities this year, so I have an extra week in town, but it'll be pretty full.

I gave a presentation at my mom's church last night, preceded by making up four pounds of beans and almost 40 tortillas. It was stressful in a couple moments (like when my metal comal didn't cook the tortillas evenly and ended up burning several of them). But now this morning I've woken up with a familiar feeling in my fingertips from all the flipping and accidentally touching the griddle and clothes smelling like corn masa. These simple, pleasant sensations, along with the fact that I can justify wearing a sweater on this wonderfully cool August (August!) morning, means that I've been able to find moments of calm in the midst of the whirlwind of moving again.

Mahmoud Darwish's poem is fairly new to me, but it has been a helpful reminder not to let the mundane, daily elements of my life become too routine without acknowledging that there is something extraordinary in them. And that many things that should be a given in a human life are not for many, many people. Sometimes I'm tempted by the sexiness of thinking of myself and wondering how I can be a huge, burning fire - all on my own. But poetry and religious traditions the world over wouldn't have wisdom on the importance of even a single candle against the darkness if there wasn't something to it.

Memorial Days

The reality about Salvadoran history is that it is impossible to recognize every massacre. There are just too many. If you then add assassinations of one, two, or three people, it is astounding. Oftentimes, these murders-not-massacres were of faith leaders, lay or clergy, who were responsible for bringing the Good News of liberation, a God who is LOVE, and Jesus as brother and worker to their brothers and sisters.

One such leader was Padre Rutilio Grande. Padre Tilo was a Jesuit priest who studied just about everywhere in the world (or at least throughout the Americas and Europe). In the early 1970s he came to Aguilares, a town just west of Suchitoto, to serve as the priest. His solidarity with poor people and his rejection of government oppression made him a persona non grata for the Salvadoran government. On March 12, 1977, he was assassinated along with Manuel Solorzano (72 years old) and Nelson Rutilio Lemus (16 years old).

His life and his death were both hugely influential in the conversion of the newly-appointed Archbishop of San Salvador, Oscar Romero, from a safe, conservative choice for the institutional church to a clear, consistent voice for nonviolence and human dignity. Grande and Romero were friends and colleagues in life and Grande's murder became a turning point for Romero.

Guillermo Cuellar, a musician who worked alongside Romero as a youth leader, used words from one of Grande's homilies for the entrance hymn of the Misa Salvadoreña:

Vamos todos al banquete, a la mesa de la creación
Cada cual con su taburete tiene un puesto y una misión

Wonderfully translated by Bill Dexheimer Pharris and Bret Hesla (don't we have gems in the Twin Cities!) the refrain says:

Let us go now to the banquet, to the feast of the universe
The table's set and the place is waiting,
Come everyone with your gifts to share

Matthew and nunca, nunca mas

I don't believe that God opened my bible to any certain page this morning when I decided to sit down and read a bit. I'd finished what has become my morning ritual of breakfast and coffee on the roof, listening to the sounds of Suchitoto coming to life and watching the color change against the trees, buildings, and distant rolling hills. I didn't have to be at work until 7:45-ish and I'd showered last night (that's the real reason I had extra time), so I figured I'd sit down with either the bible or my crossword puzzle book. This time, the bible won. (Full disclosure: usually it goes the other way.)

For whatever reason, after flipping through a couple of non-starters (the Exodus and Hosea included), I landed in the Passion section of Matthew. I am leaving Suchitoto this afternoon to spend the evening and night at the Universidad Centroamericana for the vigil commemorating the massacre of six Jesuits and two of their colleagues. There is much to be said just about this particular event in history. I will leave this to your own research, only to say that they were massacred by the Salvadoran military – by US-trained officers – on the night of November 15/16, 1989, on the grounds of the University where they lived. Brutal doesn't even begin to describe the manner of their assassination. Because they were in many ways the intellectual core of the church-based liberation and peace movements, the soldiers removed their brains and strew them across the garden outside their dormitories. It is this level of violence that we commemorate tonight – and to which we say “never again,” though we know that that is an unachievable reality. In any case, we recommit ourselves to the struggle that this might one day be true.

I don't know that I've ever read any of the Passion narratives outside of Holy Week before, so doing so in the fall, a good six months away from last Easter and this, seemed appropriate. It wasn't until I actually got into the thing that I started to realize just how appropriate it was for this day – this time in which we are celebrating the lives of massacred people all over the country, with Día de los Difuntos, the Copapayo massacre, and now the Jesuits. There are plenty of possible parallels to draw between the two stories, but more than anything, several new things just jumped to my eye.

Matthew 26:40 – Since our last spirituality night, we've been talking recently about all of the different ways that a seemingly small comment or gesture can be a profound word of “I love you.” Even while we were at Peggy's discussing this last Sunday, Alex's campo brother called him to check on how he was doing and to make sure he was going to be able to catch the bus home. When Alex sat back down from the call, Peggy very gently interjected, “That was Chomingo saying I love you.”

I read Jesus' words in this verse as an I love you. So much is lost when you only have text, so I'd always read and heard these words as a rebuke before. But think about it. “Can you not keep watch with me for one hour?” Jesus might have a better idea than the others how precarious things will be after his death, and the fact that they wipe out quickly – certainly understandable given what seems to have been an intense period in their ministry together! - is not promising. It is out of concern, not anger, that I hear Jesus underlining that (more or less) “you have to be able to do this.” “I love you.” I love you and I'm about to be not here in the same way that you are used to me being here and it scares me to think that you aren't ready. And I love you. [I feel I should follow this by saying that it does really freak me out to put words into the mouths of biblical characters. But here I am, doing it anyway.]

26:50 – Only ten verses later. Judas kisses Jesus and Jesus says to him, “Do what you came for, friend.” FRIEND. He just coined the phrase “the kiss of death” and Jesus calls him friend. There is, as I see it, a profound understanding there of Judas's helplessness in all of it. I think about the kids here who end up in gangs because...they have no other options. Because they are threatened (or more likely their families are) and so they have to join. Or because a person has to eat and unemployment hovers around 70% here. Or because they simply live in an area that already belongs to a particular gang and in order to be protected in their own neighborhood, they must belong.

I think about the sixteen kids (all but one between 18 and 22 – aka, between Ella's and my ages) burned to death in the fire that raged through the juvenile prison this week, and the 22 more in hospitals, many with burns so bad that they will definitely die as well. They were all put there under the new anti-gang law passed this summer. The gangs here do terrible things, usually to people who have done nothing to call their attention. Not that one can ever earn the violence that is rained down by the gangs. But the kids in that prison – so many of the people in El Salvador's crowded-three-times-past-capacity prisons – were not the folks calling the shots. All too often, those are the same people who own the private security firms, whose pockets thicken when ordinary people feel so much fear that they hire guards.

I think about those guys and the fact that they were in prison, like so many of their (my) brothers and sisters around the world, because of actions that they had only a small part in actually taking on. And I hear Jesus call them “friend.” Clothed in tattoos in a country where that only means one thing, to the extent that my “pollito” (little chicken – it's actually a hummingbird) tattoo catches attention and interest from all sides, I hear an understanding in Jesus's voice that rejects completely what they have done, but sees the utter lack of choice (or at least seeming lack, which is just as crushing) that these guys faced, embraces them, returns a kiss of death with a kiss of life and peace, and says “I love you.”

So this week we celebrate the Jesuits. We will say the presente after the names of Ignacio Ellacuría, Segundo Montes, Celina Ramos, Elba Ramos, Ignacio Martín Baró, Amando López, Joaquín López y López, and Juan Ramon Moreno. We will also say, maybe silently, presente in the names of Antonio Cartagena, Juan Carlos Romero, Gerardo Enrique Alvarado, and the rest of the young men who died in the fire. We will celebrate the lives and grieve the deaths of children of God put to death by violence and poverty. And we will offer our small but resolute nunca mas.

Que VIVA!

Yesterday was the Festival de Maíz here in Suchitoto. It is the annual harvest fest that celebrates the pueblo itself (Suchi) as well as the agricultural communities in the surrounding area, of which there are more than 70. It was so much fun! Relatedly, I ate SO much corn-based food - atol de elote (a corn drink - this one wasn't the best I'd had, it's usually more cinnamony), tortas (as sort of fried cornbread), elote asado (roasted corn - though here the corn is different in this part of the year - more chewy/less poppy), riguas (corn pancakes - though not like the ones at Maria's), tamales. All so tasty. (Except the atol, which was just alright.) Also, there was a cow raffle!



The day started out with a procession before mass from one of the barrios to the church. I was on the fence about going, but I am really glad that I did. There wasn't much of a program ahead of it, but each of the zones of communities had a queen and king representing the area with some form of artistic/cultural expression. There were about seven pairs of 'royalty' along with kids with environment-related school project, women with baskets of harvested food, etc.

Throughout the procession, we sang and there were occasional chants of "que viva los campesinos," "que viva la Madre Tierra," "que viva Suchitoto." I have to admit, it was pretty cool hearing the nun who leads the interminable pre-mass rosary sessions (and usually holds up mass by 10-15 minutes) shouting "que viva la Madre Tierra, que nos da nuestra vida!" ("Long live Mother Earth who gives us life!")

The one that struck me most, though, was "que viva la iglesia catolica!" My first reaction was, "eh, I feel no real need to wish the long life of an institution that tells so many that they/we are less-than." But then I got to thinking about the real meaning of the phrase "que viva" - it is used for both people/things that are currently living and those that have already died. It expresses a desire for life and THIS I can get behind in the case of the Catholic church - and church institutions in general.

This week marks one year since the ELCA voted to allow pastors to be in committed same-gender relationships and, well, pastors. There are still many open wounds all around. Those who feel they lost the vote in many cases also feel like they are losing their church and this is no small matter. (As many times as I hear "good riddance" and "their loss," I can't help but cringe and be reminded that it is our loss, too, when people and congregations choose to leave.) And at the same time, the pain of many years and several votes to keep things as they were doesn't just go away with a vote and a year, either. So there is healing to be done on all sides (to the extent that there are ever really sides to these things.)

In the midst of the pain - and the immense joy - I consider this to be a move toward being a more living church, more fully alive in proclaiming a gospel of liberation and reconciliation. Maybe even something God could be proud of? I think the Catholic church today has many, many opportunities to take similar steps. I hope that in the face of these new (and sometimes scary) opportunities, the institutional church opts to truly be a living body. It could take its examples from within its own history - from all of the history of the church, but especially from recent liberation movements in all parts of the world. And so, que viva la iglesia catolica. (And the Lutheran one, as well. We certainly have plenty of ground to cover ahead of us.) That we might live into the promises we try to give voice to.

Yesterday wasn't all inspirational revelations and corn-eating, though. The saddest news from the day: as today wears on without a phone call, it is becoming ever clearer that I did not win the cow.

Loads of Lutherans

This morning I got up early and took that 5:15am bus to the capital for a march against violence. It was planned in conjunction with the 24th anniversary of the Lutheran bishopric here in El Salvador. It was a pretty cool experience, all told. I arrived in the city at about 6:30 and took a cab to a hotel where a delegation is staying. (I'd met a couple from this delegation over my first few days in Suchitoto and they invited me.)

I marched along with three ELCA bishops (from the New York, Sierra-Pacific, and Southwest California synods), Bishop Gomez, the Catholic bishop, an elderly bishop (whose specific identity we haven't figured out), and the bishop of Bavaria. I also got a chance to meet Lutheran World Relief's representative in Central America (a former Holy Trinity member - Lutherans basically all know each other).

As we marched, we sang and chanted "No a la violencia; si a la vida!" (No to violence; yes to life.) It seems like a theme that all could get behind, but we know that isn't true. When I got in on Monday, there was no bus service, because the bus owners had ordered a strike. The gangs in the area had submitted a threatening letter demanding a higher renta - the money that the gangs exact from the bus drivers/owners/ayudantes as a form of "protection" (ie, you pay what we demand, we don't kill you). I don't have the statistics from El Salvador, but already by my second or third week in Guatemala, almost 40 drivers, dozens of ayudantes, and a couple of owners had been killed by the gangs there.

There is NO obvious, good option for the drivers. The bus service was back on the next day, indicating that they decided to go with the demand. But how do you feed a family when every day the vast majority of your earnings go toward the renta? And when your bus could get shot up any day as an act of retribution, intimidation, or as a lesson to other drivers? I can't claim to get how this all works. But it does strike me as capitalism at its purest - that system that we spent the 80s killing people down here to plant seeds of.

(Excuse the cynicism, but I am hot, sticky, and at an utter loss of any context through which to understand this dynamic. BUT the march this morning was wonderful. I am back to not having a camera cord, but once I find one I can use, there will be photos of the thing!)

"...for me it is good to be near God"

Well. I had clearly never read Psalm 73 before I got today's GodPause.
3 For I was envious of the arrogant; I saw the prosperity of the wicked.

4 For they have no pain; their bodies are sound and sleek.

5 They are not in trouble as others are; they are not plagued like other people.

These early verses work well with a conversation I was having with myself on the way to the Mennonite Bake Shop this morning. (For anyone coming to Xela - this is a must, especially if you like whole wheat bread, granola, good yogurt, donuts, etc.)

On my way there, I saw a wallet on the ground, clearly emptied out and thrown. A few steps farther, I saw the torn up remains of the photos of two children. This was the part that made me sad - the loss of the money was, certainly, a difficulty for the former owner of the wallet. But it is not common to have photos here, especially of family. So these photos of kids (a son and daughter? niece and nephew? grandchildren? godchildren?) were very likely among relatively few. One of those losses bigger than the monetary loss.

Then a few blocks past this, there was a little corner with a slightly more secluded space where clearly many people had pooped over the last few hours. I've realized in the last few weeks that I can also now often tell the difference between urine on the ground - human or dog. (It's not so scientific - generally the dudes here pee on the wall, not directly on the ground. It's more of a height thing.) For some reason I feel less weird about stepping in dog pee.

Another reality of life here is that people tend to be really friendly on the streets. I've noticed this less as "out of the ordinary" than have my fellow students from places like LA and New York. Herein lies my point in all of this: None of the things that I have seen is peculiarly, intrinsically Guatemalan - they happen everywhere.

I think this is one aspect of what makes it so easy to feel at home here. But it also causes a great dissonance between my experience and that of most Guatemalans. I am pretty clearly the among the arrogant mentioned in the psalm. That's not an uncommon reality when I read or listen to biblical readings, but rarely is it so clearly spelled out in ways that describe the mundane parts of my life. My body works well and has not been marred by malnutrition, violence, or lack of medical care. I have access to all the food I could ever want, such that I do sometimes feel like my eyes will bulge out of my head after a good meal. Even as I travel here, I know in the back of my mind that I can rely on my nationality to protect me from most physical crime, given the history of enormous violence in this part of the world on the part of my country. Cultural imports here from the US are unquestioned and taken at face value as being positive. (Example: One of my housemates teaches health classes to kids - sex ed to 5th and 6th graders, food classes to 1st graders. With the younger ones, they play "Good food/Bad food" - the kids ALWAYS label McDonald's as "good food" because it comes from a restaurant.)

11 And they say, "How can God know? Is there knowledge in the Most High?"

We are pretty comfortable not knowing - or assuming that most folks don't know the things that make us uncomfortable. Most in the US don't know about the School of the Americas, the history of US intervention here, or the currently rampant impunity in the face of human rights atrocities. (More people die in Guatemala each day now than during the 36-year civil war - and only 2% of the crimes are ever even investigated.) And this is comforting in moments when we choose inaction - at least our neighbors will never know.


Last week I took a walk to Parque Central in the evening with two other women from the Casa. We met two grown men - both fairly drunk, but still functional - who talked with us about philosophy and poetry. When people ask what I studied in school and I tell them "religion," it usually sets off a great stream of philosophical questions that I am supposed to have the answer to. I'm not usually especially impressive in this situation and that is at least doubled in Spanish. So when one man asked what he should do (very generally, open-endedly), the only thing that came to mind that fit my language skills was to tell him to keep hope. He sort of sighed and said that he knew that that was important. Then he paused and asked, "But for how long?"

Base Christian Communities

This past weekend we split into groups of two to four and traveled to Base Christian Communities throughout the country.  My group, Annika, Nathan, Sam, and I, went to San Jose las Flores, a town of about 2000 on the border between El Salvador and Honduras.  In 1981, the community as it was then was the site of a horrible massacre in which 800 people were killed by the Salvadoran army, with the help of the Honduran army amassed right across the Rio Sumpul (this is known as the Rio Sumpul massacre, if that name sounds familiar).  

We had the chance to meet with leaders of the town directive, women involved in the various community business projects for women, men involved in the fruit and vegetable cooperative, and former combatants in the armed conflict.  

San Jose las Flores, as it is now, was established in 1986, mostly by families who had not lived there prior to the massacre (though there are certainly exceptions to this).  It is easy to understand why, as one of our friends told us, "we receive absolutely no support from the government."  It is a town with a community-run restaurant, bank, pharmacy, cooperative, ecotourism business (just getting off the ground), bakery, and clothing workshop.  Children in the community are not allowed to work in community projects while they are of school age, as the investment in their education is seen by the community as well worth the wait.  In a country like El Salvador, where the president signed the Central American Free Trade Agreement literally sight unseen out of a desire to appear open to all new and exciting waves of capitalism, it is pretty clear why this community gets no support.  (The more I learn about the historical and current relationship between the US and El Salvador, the more I understand my own input into situations like this.  It is not uplifting.  But at the same time, there is so much going on here that is uplifting, just on smaller scales, that I believe Sister Peggy and all the others when they say that that people here live in hope.)

Our guides (sort of) for the weekend were two students of 17 and 18 years.  They showed us around town, took us through the the fields of the cooperative and to a community soccer game, and led us on a hike before we left on Sunday morning.  However, on that hike (or rather, from my time on the hike), I learned that there are plants that burn people with sensitive skin.  As a result, Ani and I have lovely boils on our skin, she on her arms (both) and I on my left leg.  Mine is small potatoes compared to hers, but it still stings and makes me not love whatever plant inflicted it.  (From what I've found, I think it was rue, but I am not sure if rue actually grows in Central America.)  All of that said, the trip up the mini-mountain to see the cross dedicated to the victims of a different massacre and the view of las Flores that it provides was well worth the burn.  

Major things that stuck out for me from the weekend: 

-No one who lived in las Flores, who we talked to, could imagine themselves living anywhere else.  Often they would ask how we like it and, when we said very much and returned the question, they could speak volumes of how much they love the town and and offered that they would never leave of their own volition.  

-Our initial assignment in going was to meet with one of the Spanish nuns who lives in the town and the priest to learn about this being a BCC.  As it turned out, however, we never got a chance to meet with anyone directly employed by the church.  In reality, though, it was just as well that we didn't.  While I'm sure they would have had plenty of wonderful things to add and enriched our experience, without them, we were able to see the ways that people truly integrate their faith into their everyday lives in ways that compel them to think of the community in the same "breath" as thinking of God.  I think it was a better introduction to the reality of life in a BCC because we saw the lives of the people who didn't have to be involved in church or religious activities, but still acted in whatever ways best contributed to the common good as this flowed out of their faith.  It was impressive and inspiring.  

-The words from a man whose guerilla name was Julio (again, this is for safety, as people here still get assassinated): "The most important thing is God.  Second, solidarity among the people.  And third, our organization; our struggle.  But first God."

Chichicastenango

The group spent the weekend in a town called Chichicastenango, or Qiche´, about two and a half hours outside of Xela. (As a note, many towns here have multiple names, one Mayan and one Aztec-derived. If it ends in a -tenango, it is the Aztec title for ¨place of the...¨)

We left on Friday and just got back about an hour ago. Our main purposes in going were to visit a sewing cooperative and see the main Catholic church in town. The cooperative was founded during the mid-80s by a Methodist pastor and a group of women whose husbands had been killed as a part of the war. Many of them (the husbands) died when, in 1982, the local Methodist church was locked and bombed with 40-plus people inside. (To note, this was not at all uncommon during ¨la guerra.¨ The notion of the church as sanctuary was completely off the table. A good film, which my class watched last week, was La Hija del Puma. Very heavy movie, not for kids, I would say. But incredibly powerful.)

After this, many of the women needed to find a way to make a living and raise their families. This was combined with the fact that the war was vastly disproportionately focused on indigenous communities to point the women toward a sewing cooperative that produces traditional indigenous woven and sewn crafts. Scarves, shirts, bags, dolls, blankets, wall art, you name it, they make it and make it beautifully. As a cooperative, all of them women contribute and each is assisted in different forms by the money made. (Their crafts, and those of the men´s tailor project associated with them, can be found in the US through Ten Thousand Villages, for those interested.)

This morning was the Catholic church. It was built during the colonial period directly on the site of a sacred Maya area. The intention of squashing the culture by taking this particular piece of sacred land did not directly work out, however. (Obviously in other ways, this idea was incredibly successful. I´m simply talking about this church in Chichicastenango.) The two traditions have been blended in remarkable ways since then. This particular church is one of the only places in Central America where marimbas, an instrument usually identified with ¨pagan¨Mayan traditions, are used in services and the accompaniment for the different parts of the mass. Preaching is also done, by a native speaker, in both Qiche´and Spanish. It was quite impressive to walk through a group of traditional Mayan elders to enter the church only to see similarly-dressed people sitting up next to the altar.

The other amazing (and overhwhelming) thing that happens in Chichi on Sundays is the market. Good heavens, the market. It is, for you Minnesotans, more visually stimulating than the State Fair and, while it takes up less ground, easily packs in as many people. I intentionally left my money at our hotel, because I knew there would be just too many fantastic things available. (I was right.)

I feel like I should say something about Chichicastenango itself, as it is such a lovely town. We had such a good time, despite our limited time there. We found great people to talk to, wonderful restaurants and cafes. We tried to go dancing to marimba music, but it had been canceled unexpectedly. All in all, really a wonderful place.

The ride back was relatively uneventful with one exception. (Mom, you can skip this part; Darlene, you can delete it before showing grandma and grandpa...) Since we were traveling through mountains, the roads were not always terribly wide or actually buffered by anything. I never felt like we were in danger, but about half-way through the trip back here to Xela, we saw a group of people congregated around one of the edges. As it turns out, a car had run over the edge and plumeted into the canyon.

This isn´t to scare, but it really made me (and all of us) reflect a bit on the brevity and fragility of life. I know that to think about that when confronted by the likely death of someone is more than cliche, but it is true nonetheless. So I remain thankful to have the opportunity to take part in a journey like this, in safe hands, and really see so much of a place that I would not otherwise have had the chance to know. I pray for families and loved ones of the people who went over.


This is not much of a note to end on, and I´ve meant to say this anyway: May I just say that the people I´m in this group with are some of the most fascinating, genuine, wonderful people. I feel like we´ve known each other for more than just two weeks, yet we continue to learn so many things about each other. It´s great!