Encounters to Remember Pt. II

I looked at the calendar today.

I have one month left. In fact less than one month left here in El Salvador. I have a ticket waiting for me on May 11^th to return to Minneapolis. I am at this moment standing with my whole body here in this country and still a great deal of my heart and mind back in the States or throughout the rest of the world as I try and often fall short of staying in touch with friends and family that mean the world to me.

And how do I communicate all that has passed? What do I do when the experiences I am having here became normalized, seemingly less profound? How do I continue to share my experience with those that I care about without simply sharing a laundry list of events, listing the dates and the significance?

But to share nothing seems worse. And so has the heat of the semester passes and I venture into the last month of my time here, I am going to try and express where I have been in the past few weeks as life has begun to move a little more quickly...

“Ex-COPPES”

One night in March, we had a social event where we invited an artisan cooperative to sell their crafts. We had made jewelry before with this cooperative, and I had bought many gifts for friends from the woman teaching us her craft. Specifically, I had bought several of the same necklace. On the necklace was an image of a fist with a shackle around the wrist. Above the wrist flew a dove, and in the midst of a sunset, that dove was breaking through the chain attached to that shackle. On the back of the necklace was written, “Ex-COPPES”, which I learned was a self-organized committee of political prisoners formed during the civil war here in El Salvador.

Nearly a month after that initial purchase, at this social event in March, I found myself chatting again with the woman who had sold me the necklaces. She introduced me to her husband, one of the two members of the cooperative that were political prisoners during the civil war and who had painted those necklaces. Instead of participating in much of the social event, I stood talking to this man and his wife. We talked about his experience of being tortured in jail during the war, the formation of this committee of prisoners, and the symbolism within the image of the dove and shackle on the necklaces he had painted. We talked about the struggles that started and fueled the war, how those struggles have changed in their reality today, and what it means to him to have solidarity with North Americans. Today him and his wife have many children and work together with those children sustaining their cooperative, they are living and fighting with the memory of the traumas of the war and the hopes and fears of their lives today.

“Divina Providencia”

The week before the anniversary of the martyrdom of Archbishop Oscar Romero, we visited Divina Providencia. Divina Providencia is the location of the chapel in which Romero said his last homily before he was assassinated. We sat in the pews listening to the story of his assassination. We stood behind the altar looking out over the chapel, seeing the last scene that Romero saw in this world before he died. We stopped briefly in the spot where he fell near the altar after having been shot, in the spot where he died. We were asked to think of one word in our reflection of the life of Romero, my word was “calling”. We were invited to place our hand on the altar and take a moment recalling that one word.

“Romero Vigil”

The Saturday before the anniversary of the martyrdom of Romero, we attended the Romero vigil with thousands of other Salvadorans. All of the students of the Casa along with the Salvadoran scholarship students in the Romero program traveled together to the vigil. We chanted together and sang songs. We marched from a large roundabout three miles from downtown to the Cathedral for an outdoor mass. As the sun went down, the moon shown bright and the candles that each person held created an orange glow under the white light of the moon. All around us Salvadorans were reminding us that in that moon, closer that night to the earth than it had been in almost two decades, was the presence of their beloved martyr, their Saint Romero.

"Anniversary of the Martyrdom of Romero"

On March 24^th, the anniversary of the martyrdom of Romero, a few students and I woke up early to make it to the 7AM mass at Divina Providencia to celebrate the anniversary. We stood in the back when there was no more space left in the pews. We listened to recitations of quotes from Romero’s homilies and we listened to testimonies about the visit of Obama to El Salvador the two days before the anniversary. We listened to commentaries about the U.S. relations with El Salvador. We felt the tension that exists today. What are my country’s intentions with this small nation? What does Obama say here to the reporters that he may not say in our country? To follow a Liberation Theology, we have learned to think critically about structural sin and historical context. We have become accustomed to hearing commentaries about the political reality in many of the masses here, the U.S. influence being among the most common topics. After mass I united with the two families from Mariona that we are also there. As I looked around the crowd for them I suddenly felt people tickling me. It was the husband and wife from Mariona, they had found me. We then drove back from Divina Providencia in a taxi just in time for our 10:15 class. At that class we had a guest speaker, Juan, Archbishop Romero’s personal taxista before he died. Juan shared stories about Romero’s moments of great fear as well as Romero’s favorite jokes and favorite type of pupusas.

"Silent Retreat"

The following weekend, we were invited as a program to participate in a three-day silent retreat at Centro Loyola. Loosely structured, with the greatest time devoted to space for reflection, the retreat allowed me to step back and look at where I have come from and where it is my heart is leading. In reflecting on my life, on my calling, on my vocation, on my relationship with God, I was filled with a great calm. I was filled with a great comfort. It was a time to rest in gratitude for all that had been and for the great gift of life that I have left to live. In that great calm, I finally felt empowered to confront deeper struggles that I had been carrying with me. I needed that calm to return to the fear and pain that I hold still in my muscle memory, that I held as I looked to the future. I took time to listen, to sit with God, to let prayer come to me. My prayer, each time with a different ending and accompanied by one deep breath in and another deep breath out, began with the same repetition, “Lifting my pain. Resisting my fear…”

And here I am today, a sum of these experiences and so many more. Sometimes overwhelmed, other times calm and content. But each day living, with flaws and aspirations, falling into humility and rising again through the love of others.

I looked at the calendar today.

I have one month left here to be present. I have one month here to live in that love.