Along the road

Usually when I drive to San Martin and beyond I’m going as fast as I can and not paying much attention to what’s around me.  Often I’m listening to podcasts and thinking about, oh any great number of things.  Today I was moved to go much more slowly and to pay attention, and because of that attention it was an amazing drive both ways.  

Driving by in my air-conditioned bubble, and there were all the people getting about their ordinary daily lives, living along the street – making bricks, taking corn to the mill, working on the drainage ditches, waiting for the bus, getting breakfast at one of the little ramshackle pupuserias, herding cattle,  carrying children and running after children, going to the fields.  

It was like driving along beside one of the Books of Hours that shows people at work in their daily lives, like driving along a Brueghel painting.  All those ordinary, holy lives being lived in plain view, all involved with the sweat of their hands and the weight of the earth.  I see them every time I drive this road, which is lots, but today, today I saw them and am humbled by them, and I know how much I am going to miss them.  And how beautiful and solid are these lives lived in deep connection with earth and water and families.  Looking from here, our lives feel transient, transparent, shadowy and concerned with shadows.

I know this is only a part of the story.  I know that people live under great stress here, the stress of not having enough money to pay for education or needed medications, the stress of having some of the little they do have extorted from them, the sheer stress of physical labor in this heat.  And yet how beautiful they are, how full of the goodness of God.

(thanks to Mitch Costin for the photos)

In Santo Tomas la Union

This week Maria del Carmen and I are guests of CSJP Associate Sheila McShane, who runs the Clinica Maxeña (that's pronounced mashenya, more or less, and is the Quiche version of Thomas) in Santo Tomas la Union, Suchitepequez, Guatemala.  It's been great to connect with Sheila (working away on her laptop here, in the common dining room) and to see the good work this clinic has been doing for almost fifty years now. 

The Clinica Maxeña is a mission of the Diocese of Helena, Montana and Sheila has been part of it almost from the beginning, though she had to leave for many years during Guatemala's Civil War. Along with Father Kevin, who joined the mission this year, and BVM Sisters Mary and Anna (alas, I don't have their last names!) Sheila forms a small North American community in this very Quiche Mayan community.  Unlike Suchitoto, this is a town where you don't see any foreigners outside the Clinica group and visitors like Maria del Carmen and me. 

Today I toured a very beautiful and very special part of the Clinica Maxeña, the natural medicine garden.  There were some familiar plants - oregano, mint, marigold - but others that seemed fantastic, like this plant with long leaf blades and tiny flowers along the sides of the blades.  It's good for taming parasites, I was told.

Another plant with broad, flat leaves thrust up a group of delicate bell flowers (I didn't learn its purpose):

and the trees hosted their own communities of parasites and collaborators, including a white orchid in bloom:

It's no surprise that the garden was full of butterflies of many different colors, sizes and shapes.  Here's one that was kind enough to pause for a photo:

Indeed, an enchanted garden.  I hope those who work with the traditional medicines made from these plants will be able to keep the knowledge and interest alive among the people of Santo Tomas.

Occupy Seattle

I've been back in the northwest U.S. for a busy week, mostly spent in Eugene, OR selling Salvadoran crafts in the PeaceHealth hospitals and talking to former and potential members of our mission teams. This weekend I'm back in the Seattle area, just in time to join CSJP Sisters and Associates at Occupy Seattle in the Westlake Park. I've read so much about Occupy Wall Street and the companion Occupy movements that it felt very good to be able to be part of one, though briefly.

We found a lively and cheerful group - people of all ages and several races - occupying Westlake Park. No tents in evidence - I think these may have moved to City Hall Park. A group of drummers made the time vibrant and some wildly assorted dancers kept the beat. We were enough of a distinctive group, with our Community Seeking Justice and Peace placards, to get noticed and photographed a fair bit - one man was quite surprised to hear that nuns still existed. And we do: seeking justice and peace.

Don't Pay the Rent!

I've been wondering about a poster that recently appeared, draped modestly over the front of El Salvador's famous "La Chulona" statue on Boulevard Constitucion (La Chulona is a statue of Justice, portrayed as a beautiful naked woman carrying a sword and scales. There's also an El Chulón elsewhere, but that's another story). The image of this wild-eyed man saying "I'm not paying the rent" was a puzzle until I read Tim's El Salvador Blog, and realized that this is an initiative to get people to refuse to pay extorsion money (known here as la renta). I won't retell the story, but recommend you follow this link to Tim's telling.

It's a beautiful grassroots movement, and it's what is most necessary for a change from the violent conditions of today - may Don Ramon's face and this slogan be the beginning of a new day in El Salvador.