SMC Valle Nuevo Delegation (Day #3)

July 13, 2010 (reflecting back on June 21) Our agenda: El Arbol de Dios, Centro Romero, La Divina Providencia, and our appointment with the Deputy Consular at the US embassy.

I am not really sure what order we made each of these stops now almost a month later. This morning I am reading Henri Nouwen's journal ¡Gracias! and am reminded of something I heard when I first arrived in Latin America...it goes something like this: "Those who come to Latin America for a month, sometimes write a book on their experiences. Those who come for 5-10 years sometimes write only an article. Those who come to live for longer have a difficult time forming even a paragraph about the life they learned to live there." That is not to discount the books written by those who have had only a short stay in Latin America - the outsiders perspective is an important one. It just is something I carry in my mind whenever I try to write about my life - 13 years of which was lived out in Central America. Nouwen writes of Latin America: "impressive wealth and degrading poverty, splendid flowers and dusty broken roads, loving people and cruel torturers, smiling children and soldiers who kill. It is here that we have to hunt for God's treasure." This is a true but extremely limited portrait of Latin America - in Costa Rica, for example, there are no soldiers. Poverty, yes, though it is well hidden from the eye of the tourists...but here I am to write about my time in El Salvador. The story of Fernando Llort is such a story of hope. It has been a great privilege to meet him two years in a row - he has such a familiar quality about him - like a long lost uncle who has the capacity to embrace his audience with the glimmer in his eye. This year, I brought home a print of some one of his musings.

I translated it to read for our kid's week celebration this past Sunday at Church of the Sojourners:

We still hope & wait ...
We still ask...
We still sing...
We still dream...
that the birds, the flowers, and our loved ones will return;

We still hope & wait to be able to plant some day: love, tenderness, and the faith of some winter roses.

We still hope & wait that from our womb will be born a double enlightenment: Flower of a Mixed Race and Fruit of Good News.

A rose of dark complexion shows up on the brush of the One who painted the Dawn.

We still wait and hope for justice and peace.

Give us peace and corn, bread that will be enough for everyone, a home, temple, and school, a faith that is lighted by our united hands, by your starlit eyes, under the influence of your love.

Give us a hope that lights the paths of justice and peace in all the world.

May we learn from the campesino (farmer) his virtues.

We still wait and hope that the dryness of our hearts will be converted into a flowery and fragrant garden that transforms our people into fertile ground.

We still wait and hope that God will be be born once again in our land, preparing his crib in our hearts and that the new race will be born.
Over the mountains peace was announced...
We still wait & hope for the voice of the turtle dove in our land; that dove of mine that makes nests in the holes of the rock, in the cracks of the precipice
Let me see your form, let me hear your voice, let me see your face because your words are very sweet and your appearance is gracious. You bring down that mysterious rose to announce that in our bitter moments we are never alone, you are the sign and substance of our new race, you are connection, tie, and home.
We still wait and hope for you to burn the bitterness of our sweat turned to tears.
May the milk of hope be our sustenance.
One day, I will get up early and I will walk out to the field to see if what we planted has begun to flower, to see if the joy has returned as a flowering rose in spring and to see if the cornfields are full: There you will demonstrate your love to me, and I will demonstrate mine!

Don Fernando told us the story this year of the time he saw a boy scraping a copinol seed on the ground - revealing the white center. He had an epiphany at that time that the white center could be a canvas for art. These seeds are now found in the artisan markets, and I brought back some formed into crosses with symbols of El Salvador to give to our children here at church. This story of the copinol seed is how "La Semilla de Dios" got it's name - (The Seed of God) the art workshop that was started in La Palma and has now been replicated in numerous villages throughout El Salvador.

In 2009 when Jim Fitz asked don Fernando why he decided to give his art to the people, he said, "Because God told me to do it." His faith is so evident in his countenance. He did study theology, after all. I was excited to recognize his art in the staff of Romero in Divina Providencia - both last year and this year, and this year the staff had been turned, so I got a new view.

Speaking of Divina Providencia, the hospice center where Romero lived and served until he was assassinated there in 1980, as he performed mass for the people, this was a place that impacted me greatly on my first visit. There was something about the blood stained clothes, the quotes on the wall. What they represented of a life lived out in solidarity with the poor - that made this place holy ground. This year, I entered Romero's house only briefly - long enough to discover the new view of his staff, and then sat and waited for my fellow delegates as I continued to read Ivonne's book. The chapel was filled with new feeling in the posters marking the 30th anniversary of Romero's martyrdom. He is referred to as Saint Romero by some of the people in El Salvador. He truly was an inspiration, spiritual guide, and Christ figure to the people there.

(...to be continued...)