On the way

I'm in SeaTac Airport on the way home to Suchitoto from home in Bellevue.  The retreat week was a huge gift - time to slow down and pay attention, to enjoy silence and eagles crooning, to pray and meditate, to pick blueberries in the Mercer Slough, to delight in Alexandra Kovats' insights into our Sisters of St. Joseph of Peace Constitutions (that might sound like a dull subject, but our Constitutions are amazing, a real gift of the spirit.  And then the fun of talking again at the end.  Yesterday, the day after the end of retreat week, we had our annual picnic at St. Mary-on-the-Lake, trees and flowers and people all at their best:

A good northwest summer day - gray, with occasional gleams of sun, a few sprinkles of rain, but nothing serious, temperature somewhere between 65 and 72.

And now I head south and east, back to the rainy season, tropical heat in the Central American season of winter, the corn growing, back to my other home in another world.

Reading the signs

This morning I was peacefully praying in the patio, sitting under the lemon tree.  I came to a moment of clarity and peace in an area that's been a challenge to me and my moment was punctuated by a kind of thump - ah, I thought, a falling lemon, a greeting from Spirit, how wonderful - and continued my prayer.

A little later, as I was sweeping leaves, I saw that what had fallen was indeed a lemon - but a rotten lemon, and it had fallen squishily right in front of the chair I'd been sitting in.  Punctuation indeed!  Perhaps it was fortunate that by this time I couldn't remember exactly what brilliant insight or spiritual awakening had been greeted by a rotten lemon.

It reminds me, though, to read signs lightly.  I do believe we are all connected, the lemon tree and my prayer and the Spirit and the drunk man having a loud conversation in the street outside - but I also believe those connections are deep and strange and subtle, beyond my reading.  Taking that falling lemon as applause - or as disapprobation - is harmless as long as I take it lightly and remember to rejoice in the unimaginable life of the lemon tree which has nothing and everything to do with me.

Sweet retreat

Lately our mission groups have stayed in retreat houses during the week, a choice that gives us an unbeatable combination of good food, quiet (except for the critters, see below), beautiful surroundings, and simple lodgings. Our eye surgery group, like the February General Medical Mission volunteers, stayed at the Casa de Retiro Santisima Trinidad - the Holy Trinity Retreat House - in Candelaria, about 20 minutes away from our work place, the Hospital Nacional de Cojutepeque.

Santisima Trinidad is run by the Carmelite Sisters of Saint Teresa, the same community that runs the Hospital Divina Providencia, the cancer hospice in San Salvador where Monseñor Romero lived and died. They're a lively and friendly group of Sisters and we've enjoyed getting to know Sisters Mari, Paty, Francesca and Amparo.

Santisima Trinidad is set on the hills above Lake Ilopango, and the chapel and dining room look out on the lake. The gardens are full of flowers, especially at this season-changing time of the year. And the beautiful fountain - it's the trinitarian fountain of St. John of the Cross - is home to toads with some of the deepest, loudest, and most demanding calls I've ever heard. There was also a nightly dog chorus...but after the first night, we mostly slept through it all.

Indeed, a sweet retreat, and a perfect home for our mission team.

A week well spent

Sometimes in the last few weeks it looked as if our cataract surgery week would never happen. We hadn't registered as many patients as usual in San Rafael Cedros in February and half of the patients we registered didn't go to Hospital Cojutepeque for the required pre-surgery tests. One of our surgeons was unable to get the required Apostille (look it up on the internet!) for his license and curriculum vitae in time, and he couldn't come. The other surgeon mistakenly sent in last year's license, duly Apostilled, and I didn't even notice until the Medical Board called me. The paperwork for our franquisia (permission to import medications and supplies) was delayed in the Archdiocese because of a staffing change until too late. In the last couple of days before the mission team arrived on May 14th, it felt like a recipe for disaster.

Instead, it's been a wonderful and inspiring week, and a reminder to me that trust and patience are such necessary elements in this work. The hospital found us enough additional patients to keep our team busy each day of the week. The customs officers at the airport very kindly helped us find a way around the franquisia problem. And while we brought only one ophthalmologist, the amazing Dr. Tony Piscano (the Medical Board kindly said he could work as long as he had his current license with him), Dra. Ana Vilma de Burgos, a local ophthalmologist and our sponsor for SEE, International, worked with him for three of our five days. Our team performed 40 surgeries on 33 patients (we had a number who required more than one surgery). Our patients came away smiling, delighted with their new vision.

Our mission team had three Salvadoran members this time: Silvia Pleitez, a Salvadoran doctor now studying for a medical license in the U.S., has been on most of our mission trips; Rosy Melara, a recently retired scrub nurse, volunteered her time for the week; and Rosa Aguiar, a community organizer from Comasagua, joined us as patient coordinator for the third time. Here's Rosa wheeling a patient in for his post-op check.

I'm grateful to the Sisters and friends who responded to my urgent calls for prayer for this mission: as you can tell, they were abundantly answered. Thanks be to God!

Prayer partner

When I'm here in the Northwest, I have a room at St. Mary-on-the-Lake, well stocked with my fall-winter-spring clothes and a lot of books and pictures. In the mornings I pray, looking out at my prayer partner, a beautiful western red cedar that sits just outside my room's big window. There's something about the red cedar's combination of strength and gracefulness that makes me rejoice.

I think my prayer partner was watching out for me yesterday. I've been having some tests to figure out the cause for shortness of breath and wheezing I've been experiencing over the past few months, beyond my ordinary level of asthma. Yesterday I was in Swedish Hospital in Seattle for a bronchoscopy under general anesthesia. Came home about 1 pm, had a good afternoon nap, got up still a bit wobbly, and managed to trip, probably over my own feet, and hit my head on the edge of the sink counter, tearing a triangular flap on the top of my head. Like all head wounds it bled dramatically. Luckily Sister Eleanor was just down the hall, and took me down to the ER of Overlake Hospital in Bellevue - where I managed a twofer, getting my head stitched up and a breathing treatment at the same time (lungs feeling tormented, I don't doubt). Could have been much worse. But 10 hours in two hospitals - more than enough for one day!

So this morning I looked out again at my tree waving its gentle green branches in my direction. And I said to the tree, primero Dios, God first. And the tree whispered primero Dios back to me. Glad to have breath and to give breath back.

In the midst of danger

In looking through the photos taken during our missions this year I came across this amazing image, a photograph by Mitch Costin of a dove nesting in razor wire.

Razor wire is used all over San Salvador to keep out thieves, and perhaps the dove chose that spot because she would be protected from raptors. There she sits, making a nest in the midst of danger, in the midst of wires that say "keep away," that say "mine, not yours." In the midst of all this danger she is creating new life.

An image of peace creating justice.

Gracias

A good retreat always leaves me full of thanks, and this one was no exception. I walked and prayed and journaled and wept my way through the week with Dean Brackley's The Call to Discernment in Troubled Times: New Perspectives on the Transformative Wisdom of Ignatius of Loyola, especially helpful to me because Dean teaches here at the UCA (Universidad de Centro America) and uses his Salvadoran experience throughout. The computer stayed at the Centro Arte para la Paz, and I allowed myself to visit for 1/2 hour each day to check e-mails and post a photo. I was a bit surprised to find how little I missed all those check-ins on e-mail and news. Taking long, slow walks each day, taking photos of the patio (here's an early evening photo), sitting for an hour with the day's gospel, even being present to the occasional interruptions - which always proved to be just the experience I needed - brought me closer to God and closer to El Salvador. Now the challenge is to live out of that inner rhythm, even when the laptop is at hand with all its distractions.

Gracias.

The view from our house

On this in-house retreat I've spent a lot of time in the patio and on our upper deck. The deck is now used only for drying clothes, but it has great potential for a dry-season sitting spot in the evenings. Here's a view from the deck over the nearby housetops and trees.

On the way to the mill

These two women, on the way to the mill with their corn to grind, kindly let me take their photo this morning. I met them on the way back as I walked home, now ready to make the day's tortillas. May they walk with me on prayer as I continue my retreat today!

Lemonade

Thunder in the night.
The lemon tree rains lemons.
I drink lemonade.

A moment from this morning's walk

I'm walking toward the church, in the distant background. A typical Suchitoto street.

On retreat

This 4th of July, Independence Day, I begin a week of retreat at home. I'm taking the computer and other electronic toys to the Centro Arte para la Paz, unplugging the TV, and settling in for a time of quiet and contemplation. I'm planning on practicing my dependence on God and my interdependence with all creation. I hope to witness creation in the patio, like this glorious butterfly who landed on our ficus one morning after a heavy rain, and stayed there a long time to dry out and get photographed. I hope to witness the presence of the Holy Spirit.

If I blog this week, it will probably be with photographs as a witness of the holiness of creation. I will be mindful of you, my friends, my family, my CSJP community in the prayers of this week. ¡Que Dios nos bendiga con paz y justicia! May God bless us with peace and justice.

A place overlooking the valley

I drove Leslie and Christy and Antonia from CIS up to Comasagua today so we could all be part of Mercedes' burial. We got to the town near the end of Mass, con cuerpo presente, with the body present and flowers upon flowers upon flowers. Then, in a group of about 300 people (I'm guessing) we walked slowly and a long way, perhaps a mile, to the community cemetery. There on the edge, in a beautiful spot overlooking the valley and the next ridge, the grave had been dug. No astroturf carpet here. People who loved Mercedes talked about the gift she had been to her family and friends and community, and people who loved her lowered her coffin into the ground, and people who loved her shoveled the dirt on top, and we all cried. Then women brought the flowers and stuck them into the earth on top of her grave, so many that they could hardly fit, but they did and made a glorious garden and the whole hillside was full of her friends, another kind of garden.

Mercedes and her husband Salvador have three children - Andrea, who looks just like her mother, and Ernesto, and the youngest, 10 years old, Ileana. I gave Salvador a copy of the photo of Mercedes from the Romero 30th anniversary celebration (it's in my last post) and he said - that's just what she's looking like in heaven.

It's impossible to escape the thought that in the United States Mercedes would probably not have died, would probably have gotten much quicker attention to her heart condition, would probably not have suffered a stroke. She tried to get seen in the local health clinic, but without success, and the hospital she went to, while the best in the country, doesn't have enough diagnostic equipment to test all patients quickly. She shouldn't have died at 46, but she did. People die every day here from ignored diseases or lack of medication or inadequate treatment. It's a justice issue Mercedes cared about.

I've gone in one short week from a baptism to a burial, from a joyful beginning to a sorrowful ending. But there is also joy, though it's harder to unwrap, in celebrating a life lived with courage, determination, joy and justice - the life and legacy of Mercedes Arias of Comasagua.

Adios, Mercedes

Mercedes Arias died today. I can't give you medical language on it, but apparently her heart attack led to a blood clot invading her brain, and then to bleeding into the brain. We will be saying a formal farewell tomorrow in Comasagua.

This is my favorite photo of Mercedes, taken at the 30th anniversary celebration of the death of Monseñor Romero, just a few weeks ago. Mercedes was only 15 when he died, but she has been one of the many Salvadorans who have lived his legacy. She was a quiet, determined and very effective woman, a great organizer, a strong voice for justice in her beloved community of Comasagua. She will be terribly missed by her husband, her children, her co-workers at the Centro de Intercambio y Solidaridad (CIS), her many friends, her town.

Go gently into God's hands, Mercedes. May your work of justice continue through all of us who loved you.

Mercedes

Please pray for Mercedes Arias, whose photo is here. Mercedes did a magnificent job of coordinating our clinics in her town of Comasagua in 2009 and has continued to be a good friend and great contact for me and for PazSalud. I learned today that she had a heart attack and tonight is in Hospital Rosales, the national hospital in the center of San Salvador. I'm told that she has begun to stabilize. I hope to visit her tomorrow and hope even more that soon I'll be able to visit her again in her beloved Comasagua.

Haiti

Tonight, with great sadness, we watched coverage of the devastation in Port-au-Prince and joined our prayers with those all over the world for the people of Haiti, who have suffered so much already and now are in such terrible chaos and need. May the help that's being sent with so much good will arrive in time to save those who can be saved.

Joy and sorrow, sorrow and joy

It's late Advent, just a few days before Christmas. Sheila McShane, CSJP Associate, is visiting from Santo Tomas La Union in Guatemala, where she directs a health clinic that for many years has been a project of the Catholic Diocese of Helena, Montana. Today Sheila heard sad news: a little girl of ten from Santo Tomas has been in hospital receiving treatments for leukemia, but in the process her heart stopped, and today she died. Hard to receive the news of the death of a child at this time of waiting and hopefulness. Hard to receive that news at any time. Just before we learned of Manuela's death, we had shared a long time of silent prayer, holding her in the light, where now she dwells.

As I think of this loss, I also think of the joy this Christmas brings for my friends Alex and Ani, delighting in the first Christmas of their beautiful son and my godson Alejandro. Ani almost died bringing Alejandro into the world, but she is recovering well, as you can see in this family photo.

Joy and sorrow mark the great passages of our lives. May Alejandro grow and flourish. May Manuela rest in God's peace.

Welcome Alejandro Emanuel

I am very happy to say that Ani Paula yesterday gave birth to her and Alex's son, Alejandro Emanuel, via a Caesarian section. Since Ani Paula's pregnancy was high-risk (she has kidney disease) she has been in the hospital for about a month, and it's been a hard wait for Alex and all their family. Today the news is wonderful: Alejandro Emanuel weighs 6.5 pounds and is whole and healthy. Ani Paula is recovering well from the C-section and will be released once her doctors determine that her vital functions are all good.

Thanks to all of you who have been holding Alex and Ani Paula in prayer!

Prayers for Paula and Alex

Paula and Alex Alvarenga are in need of your prayers. Paula is about 7 months pregnant with their first child, and will be going into the hospital tomorrow because of high blood pressure and - I think - gestational diabetes. I've been asked to be their son's godmother, madrina, so this is also my family. Please pray for Paula to be well and for a safe delivery.

The O Antiphons

December 17th takes the church from Advent patience into heightened expectancy with the beginning of the O Antiphons. Each day, before the reading of the Gospel and before the Magnificat at Evening Prayer, a different antiphon is sung or said, and in this last week before Christmas, they are exalted: O Wisdom! O Key of David! O Root of Jesse! O Radiant Dawn! Today during our Word and Communion Service Sister Beth read the first O Antiphon: "O Wisdom, O holy Word of God, you govern all creation with your strong yet tender care. Come and show your people the way to salvation."

Heightened expectancy indeed! Today all the Seattle schools, public and private, were closed because of an expectation of snow, but no snow fell, and the temperature hovered comfortably at 38. Snow to the north of us in Everett; snow to the south of us in Tacoma; and dry streets in Seattle. My own sense of expectancy is ridiculously heightened by the near approach of December 27th, 10 days away, when I fly to El Salvador. O Wisdom, be my guide!