happy day ´o the dead to you

throughout latin america, there are a variety of ways to celebrate all souls day, or "dia de los muertos" ("day of the dead"), as it is referred to in guatemala.

essentially, it is a day to remember ancestors and loved ones who have passed on. cemeteries transform into a huge festival/family reunion.

flower vendors offer piles of assorted blooms in vibrant hues, to be placed in the cubbies and stone vases that adorn loved ones´resting places.

food vendors offer elote asado (grilled corn on the cob with lime and salt, my personal fav); fiambre - an elaborate salad piled high with vegetables, boiled eggs, cold meats; sweet glazed donut holes, pupusas (a borrowed traditional salvadoran stable - grilled cheese stuffed corn tortillas, with pickled cabbage and tomato salsa), ice cream in bell-trimmed carts, and a myriad more.

children beg for balloons from the balloon vendors, while adults whisper prayers and private conversations to names on mausoleums, or mounds of earth. gravesites are sprinkled with flower petals and long, fragrant pine needles, and the favorite foods of the deceased arranged and shared in an annual family picnic.

in the community of santiago sacatepuquez, there is an additional tradition, for which they are well-known, in these parts anyway: the flying and display of elaborate, hand- made kites.

the symbolism of kite-flying is easy to grasp: the kites commune in the heavens with the spirits of ancestors and loved ones who have passed.

here are some pics:

hundreds of kites in various sizes sport intricate tissue paper designs, mimicking the traditional patterns in woven guatemalan cloth.

a variety of youth and community associations also gather together to make large and xtra-large a kites with social statements: about rebuilding and peace after war, caring for the natural creation, faith in god, uniting as a community to overcome current-day exploitation by mines, multi-national corps, and Spanish Conquest-descended plantation owners.

ready for take-off:

then there´s the big-daddies. these kites are display only. and require careful, complicated and athletic assembly by teams of 20 young men.

first, there is the unfolding of the enormous kite:

then comes the assembly of huge bamboo "logs" to make a frame the kite is fastened to :

then comes the lifting, with rope and pulley system:

and if all goes right, you´ve got an upright impressive masterpiece. if it doesn´t, you hear the bamboo crack, and watch the 20 young men scramble to lower the kite before it fully buckles, and then haul in the replacement bamboo, tape and ropes. and give ér a second try.

and eventually, with several teams of ambitious folks, you get a decked-out cemetery that looks like this:

and that´s how you celebrate nov 1st.

cheers.

Back from the Mountains

amidst the self-centered melodrama i have been mostly littering here, some lovely times with the people and natural beauty of guatemala have attempted to re-ground me.

here are some pics from a mini-stint to the mountainous department of San Marcos serving as a helper for the logistics of the CASAS group that headed out there with our "green" prof to hear from communities about their experiences with mining companies, family migration to mexico and the u.s., their experience of hurrican stan in 2005, and the rebuilding efforts since then to preserve and protect the beauty that is both the nature and the social and cultural richness of their communities.

our first stop was the community of comitancillo, where prof adrienne and her family lived working with a community development agency there for five years inthe 90s. the org and community are thriving, working in new organic agricultural techniques, creative cooking-nutrition classes, and organizing against the goldcorp mining company that wreaks havoc on their and neighboring communities - with diseases from mining contamination in the rivers and soil, cracked home walls from the explosions and huge dump trucks carrying rock and debris, loss of water sources and biodiversity, displacement of their homes, ancestrial burial grounds, and lives to other locations for the mine´s expansion, not to mention the depressing eyesore an enormous open-pit mine leaves behind.

we then traveled on to La Vega del Volcan. fellow mcc-er Nate has his placement working there and other tiny communities in the tucked-away mountain slopes of San Marcos, working with Caritas, a Catholic relief and development agency.

in La Vega and other communities in San Marcos, they are primarily working in food security and economic development, or in lay terms, in methods to increase nutrient-rich food production (in this case trout and mushrooms) and cultivating income-generating, environmentally-friendly projects in a community cooperative - where the community comes together to bring their products to market, and shares part of the economic benefit for community goals/projects and eventually to start a little cooperative store. (The extra trout and mushrooms, as well as roses).

the communities of San Marcos make it hard not to idealize rural communities and rural life in Guatemala. we stayed in La Vega, a community only accessible by 4x4 pickup, horse or foot, high up in the western highland mountains.

GREEN. is the first of two initial impressions. everything is so green. and there was water everywhere - little streams and rivers, clean, cold.

LOVE. is the second. people so warm, humble and hospitable. full of energy and hope to make their community the best it can be. filled with a faith that is pure. the bible passages of valleys and mountains, and god´s daily provision, his love and concern for the poor, all come alive in a place and people who´s lives and stories mirror exactly this.

and so we listened. to a first community story via a tour over boulders and nature-rerouted rivers. 2005. hurricane stan. the hurricane sent constant heavy rain for days. the mountaintops gave way, and avalanches of huge boulders, entire trees, mud and water rushed down, killing some, sending the rest to seek safety, and later to assess the damage that once was their community.

in a community already isolated by nature´s terrain, in "normal" times malnutrition and scare resources are a reality that come from being hours by foot from the nearest main road, reliant on what the mountainous slopes can provide in harvest time. hurricanes, heavy rains, drought - a year´s food supply is washed away in minutes, along with homes, farming tools, animals, and in some cases loved ones.

we stayed with families in this green paradise. trying to imagine what it must have been like to see the mountain slopes give way. where would you go? the community is in a basin - about a hundred simple brick, wood or tin homes with mud floors, completely surrounded by mountains. if one slope gave way, you would have to rush to the other, and hope it that it didn´t.

the community spoke of thier hope - of their reforestation projects and environmental preservation efforts - planting small trees on the slopes the most vulnerable to future mudslides. they recognized that their home was set in a natural paradise, one of the few that are rapidly disappearing from their country and the planet. a huge verdant lung that they desire to care for, so it can continue providing oxygen for life, and tranquility for the soul - not just for their community and animals, but the city dwellers and visitors normally residing in their concrete jungles.

they proudly showed us their fish tanks where they were raising trout that would provide their families much-needed protein and also a source of incomes, sold down the next mountain ridge in restaurants in mexico.

they talked about what it takes to make ends meet - about generations of seasonal migration to mexico as whole families during coffee season to earn enough cash to make it until their own little harvest of corn and beans.

and how when that was no longer enough, told of the sons, mothers, daughters, fathers, who carried the hope of their entire families -- a family-appointed pilgrim, risking pooled savings and the boarder-crossing perils of muggings, rapes, raging rivers, dry expanses of desert, carrying hope of finding a job as a dishwasher, a day laborer, a custodian-- so that they could send money back that could buy food staples, pay for a sister´s elementary education, rebuild a lost home.

and they showed us proudly to their community school, where they collectively pay a handful of teachers to make the trek in each week to teach elementary through middle school classes.

we feasted on fresh trout in the afternoon, and in the evening, the community arranged a party and bonfire for us - each one presenting him or herself, welcoming us, blessing us, a community band came and played their guitars and trumpets for us, we ate steamed "elote" (fresh corn on the cob) and hotdogs and "smores" fixings we had brought in our packs.

in the morning , we set out early. our contracted pickup didn´t come - the one that was supposed to take us to the top of the mountain ridge, where we would then hike the 2-3 hours out towards the main road. so we added another couple hours in the ascent.

(still climbing up. - note starting place, the community below...) but as tiring as the 5 hour-ish hike was, it was breathtaking.

i couldn´t how many climates we passed through - starting at 4000+ meters of cold damp air, and and then steadily warming as we descended on the windy mountain ridge paths and through the shades of green - first were the pines, potato farms and sheep at the highest altitude, giving way to cloud forests and mountain flowers as we descended a bit, which opened into some surprising tall grasses and small corn plots, which later opened to air like a warm, wet blanket and tropical flowers and foliage.

(we found some rain, and then some temp shelter. )

it was a good douse of beauty for my tired soul. the love, hope and well-determined and holistic priorities of a humble people with healthy relationships to god. family. a united community. their green garden plots. the mountains. streams. animals.

what could i say, but thank you.

Waiting for Godot

Who reads this, I wonder to myself. As a friend of once bloggers who then fell off the face of the earth, I know the trend pretty much goes that once someone stops posting regularly, the few who were once reading dwindle to none.

But since there is still one hard core person out there, asking for an update, here it goes.

The update is that I still don´t have an update. Let´s call this Waiting for Godot, my-life style. I would like to tell you I have been waiting with grace and confident faith and all of that. That would be a lie. There have been moments like that. But there has also been fed-up frustration with not knowing, and what seem like countless scenarios where I focus my last energies and final shreads of sanity promising myself that the next blessed meeting will result in an answer. And nothing.

So I don´t bother to write you. Because who wants to hear that scenario over and over? I can hardly stand to write it. I want to give you an actual answer. I want to give myself an actual answer.

Blek. Moving on.

The last two days I have been able to take my mind off of some of this in part attending the 3rd Social Forum of the Americas, which is held ever two years in a different country in the American continents, and conveniently this time around it not only is being held in Guatemala, but in Guatemala City where I live, and a mere 15 min down the street from my apt by bus in low traffic.

Here´s the link:
http://www.forosocialamericas.org/index.php.en

It has been a good time to listen, to think, to see people from all over the Americas - Bolivia, Brazil, Peru, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Mexico and more - all working to make the world a more just place to live for all. I have been particularly interested in attending the forums and talks related to indigenous communities and rural communities. Went to a talk on how some Mayan communities are using the traditional methods of Community Consultations to vote collectively on big issues facing their communities - like the impacts mining would bring.

See ¨Sipakapa no se vende (Sipakapa not for Sale)¨ video links on Utube (I think there are several that make up the whole video, here is one chunk):

http://es.youtube.com/watch?v=6-hmX942t14

Some representatives from the communities from the video shared with us this experience and how they are using the tool to exercise indigenous rights claimed to be present in international policies (however, rarely followed) to have a say in what sorts of damaging industries are set up in their backyard.

I also attended a debate on bio-fuels. Essentially exploring the question of if it is the salvation we have been looking for to keep up with our ridiculous consuming of fossil fuels and consumerism in general, or if its risks and bad consequenses outweigh the good.

I was once sold on the bio-fule idea. It sounds so earthy and sustainable. But turns out that it has a range of bad consequenses that the poor and the rural dweller have to again take the bullet for, and it doesn´t ask the northern countries (US, Canada; europe) to also take some responsibility and change our lifestyles of luxuary. Maybe one day I´ll write more on agro-fuels, but I´ll leave it there fore now and maybe you will be curious enough to do some research on it.


Also went to a talk last night on the US presidential elections and what potential impacts the two possible administrations would have on Latin America. Interesting stuff.

And just got done watching a few indigenous videos - from Brazil, Guatemala, Mexico - taking a variety of themes like the forced work (de facto slavary) of Gold mining/destruction of natural habitat and native peoples (Brazil), Repression of the teachers strike in Oaxaca and women´s roles in popular movements (Mexico), manipulation of political parties/oppression of coffee plantations/loss of indigenous identity in youngest generation (Guatemala), a video of the dying "ice-harvester¨ vocation of a man in the ice-capped mountains of Ecuador who chisles big blocks of ice from the mountains, wraps them painstakingly with dried grasses to insulate them, and loads them onto his donkíes for the decent to then deliver them to cafes in the valley town who use it in their drinks claiming its health and superior taste to commercially-produced ice. And with that, I will abruptly finish.

So there´s AN update, even if it isn´t THE update. :)

lest everything i write seem a downer. i should say that three days ago i had a great day. random things seemed to be coming together.

potential helper people came out of the woodwork offering to help in busy times coming up in a few months when i´m not around anymore.

had good conversations with fellow co-workers, which helped to give those spaces for clarifying that i care about them and the program and rebuilt our relationships after the big news.

watched merging ideas come together - suggestions or ideas that had been tossed around and considered from one source coming together with independant ideas from another - for ways to better the program in the future (i dig it when that happens).

and had a meeting with an anthropologist friend who wanted to share his plan to start a foundation that will blend holisitc community development programs with indigenous social and cultural preservation - through community-based museums (rather than having all the "artifacts" go to the "big city" out of indigenous communities) and preservation of sites and spaces significant to indigenous communties, recording of oral traditions, etc.

i was inspired - by this guatemalan wanting to use his training and his understanding of the injustices in his country in this way.

i was blessed - by the timing God´s mercy to give me this glimpse of the vision and passion he has instilled in others, especially when i am in such a low spot, and can´t even imagine having to figure out something to cook for dinner, let alone how i should change the world.

i was encouraged - by david´s inquring as to whether i would be interested in helping the foundation get started. again, a good salve to this extended period of feeling worthless and ill-equipped for the work and opportunities god has given me here.

i left making no promises. i summarized my shortcoming in my current job to clarify what i shouldn´t do. told david i could not commit to anything now besides this kind of talking through ideas. that my first prioroty is waiting for meetings with mcc and semilla to see if there is a way to salvage the second year and a half of my contract. david said ok, i´ll wait.

if nothing else, it could be a way to calm my mind´s worry that in days i will be out of a vocation and a plan. i can´t necessarily say that david´s foundation is the next step. that mcc won´t work out. but my level of anxiety over leaving guatemala has been fairly crippling. before this meeting, i had made up my mind that if my contract is cancelled, i´ll stay in guatemala til the savings run out. this may have only just been a celestial tranquilizer to keep me from freaking out. and even if that´s all, i´ll take it.

Getting right to the point...

Today we made the formal announcement that I am resigning from the Director position in the CASAS program effective the end of August.

My whole self has been so, so tired for months now. The discussions started in February.

And now, while hoping to be experiencing some relief at getting the message out, instead I feel like a traitor. One teacher just passed by my office to say goodbye before the weekend – half jokingly he said “You don´t want to see us anymore, huh?”

And those I worked with the most closely every day in the logistics of groups? – I feel like I owe a further explanation, but I am tongue -tied. Do they question all the trust they put in me? Will they be more closed off with me from here on out? Have I only added one more wound and difficult transition to the long line of director turnover that the program has suffered? I was supposed to come to help make things better. I now say that in leaving I hope to make things better. I feel like in going or in staying I have made things worse.

My Spanish failed to properly convey what I hoped today - I intended to say that I want to serve well. That unfortunately, my gifts don´t fit the role of director. I therefore fear to continue, because I want what is best for the program, the staff, the students. And that personally, seeing myself fail at properly filling the role has been devestating when all I want is the best for staff, students, the program. That in the end it took all I had to give just to do a few things right and well, and that isn´t enough. ThatI believe in CASAS and hope that MCC and SEMILLA are able to identify a non-leadership role that may be a better fit.

At one time, this decision seemed not only like the only one, but also a good one. Now I still feel like it is the only one, but today when the Seminary Rector wanted to pray for me admist the department staff – for my health, for peace in my heart, for whatever comes next, I could hardly stand there. Can we just pray for the program?, I tried to ask. I just felt like such a traitor. Poor Shannon and her hard job. Is that what this is? If that´s it, suck it up!, keep going.

Perhaps it is just my pride that is hurt. Perhaps I want to frame this in a selfless act of courage. That I am thinking of the program only. Leave guilt free.

What next? I don´t know.

I look at my life, my cheery yellow kitchen and green living room, the faces of my community and coworkers, of Karen, Lucy, Ishi and the teachers, of Willi, and Doñas Juana, Ernestina and Eudelia, at the colorful Guatemalan bills as I exchange them for fresh pineapples, avacados, bananas, tomatoes.

I feel the morning kisses of greeting on the cheek, the damp, cool air of faithful afternoon rains in rainy season, taste the comfortable familiarity of black beans, tamalitos with chipilin and loroco wrapped in a banana leaf. The routine of filtering water, hanging clothes to dry, taking my feet or buses anywhere I go.

I am now becoming a spectator to it all – watching myself go about the daily things. In a strange limbo of : Do I start disconnecting now? Or will something work out that I can stay, but fit in a different role?

There is a song by my one of my cuz Jo´s favorites, Sara Groves. I think Lorraine digs her too. For those who understand biblical references to the Israelites, this may make more sense. It was a good entering song when I first was moving here and the metaphor worked cleanly (i.e. Egypt/Past = Old life in Michigan/fam/friends; Future= Guatemala).

But now ´home´ isn´t such a cleanly explained concept. Now Egypt and the Promised Land are all mixed up - roles, countries, communities, languages, identities...

Here it is...

I don't want to leave here I don't want to stay
It feels like pinching to me, either way
And the places I long for the most
Are the places where I've been
They are calling out to me
Like a long lost friend

It's not about losing faith
It's not about trust
It's all about comfortable
When you move so much
And the place I was wasn't perfect
But I had found a way to live
And it wasn't milk or honey
But then neither is this

chorus:
I've been painting pictures of Egypt
I've been leaving out what it lacks
The future feels so hard
And I wanna go back

But the places that used to fit me
Cannot hold the things I've learned
And those roads were closed off to me
While my back was turned

The past is so tangible I know it by heart
Familiar things are never easy to discard
I was dying for some freedom
But now I hesitate to go
I am caught between the Promise
And the things I know

chorus

If it comes to quick
I may not appreciate it
Is that the reason behind all this time and sand?
And if it comes to quick
I may not recognize it
Is that the reason behind all this time and sand?

meet my new roommate

sometimes with weeks like these, you head out for dinner and find yourself taking a new kitty home.

meet my new roommate.

matt (my bro) will appreciate this one.

my neighbor nate (fellow mccer, but admittedly not a cat admirer) saw her in action last night and christened her "spazma."

i will not accept that!

but i will have to accept that i am now one of those people who posts pics of their pet as if they were a newborn human infant.

i think her name is shiloh. a name that popped into my head as nate was leaving.

so i just checked the meaning and it is:

shiloh -

"resting place;"

a word with similar meaning to the hebrew shalom -meaning "(holistic) peace."

yep. that's sounds like the message that must be being sent.

while we´re waiting

just killing time til i have more news.


here are some pics from a via crucis (stations of the cross) activity that we participated in with the emu students yesterday.


for the non-catholics among you, the stations of the cross corrospond to various "steps" that christ took in the passion leading up to resurrection day, including judgement of pontious pilot, when jesus stumbles, when he is helped to carry the cross, etc.

various orgs and schools participate in the via crucis activity headed up by centro atencion al migrante, a catholic migrant-support and advocacy org with branches in guatemala, honduras and the mexian/us border. in their version of the via crucis, each org is to relate the "station"/with the situation of the migrant.



the seminary, and consequently the students, were assigned "jesus is crucified," and so were to relate that to the migrant´s experience.

we came up with a photo drama - each student would show a photo, read the caption on the back, and hand it over to be stapled to the cross.

• "Jesus is crucified when social injustice forces families to separate in migration."
• "Jesus is crucified when social injustice forces families to separate in deporation."

• "Jesus is crucified when we build physical boarders."
• "Jesus is crucified when we construct boarders of discrimination."

• "Jesus is cruficified when other countries create economies that rely on the migrant´s labor, without providing a legal means to contribute it."
• "Jesus is crucified when other countries want to enjoy our (read by Guatemalan) music and food, but don't us ourselves within their country."

• "Jesus is crucified when the migrant risks his/her life in searching for a better life."
• "Jesus is crucified when the migrant dies trying."

Other students held posters with facts:

• On Guatemalan deportations in 2007 (27,000 - twice that of 2006) and the loss of family income that provides to poor families in Guatemala who had been receiving remitances from their migrant loved ones at an average of $300 per month.

• On the impact of unjust trade policies - like US-instigated CAFTA that actually further contribute to migration, as local farmers leave their farms when they cannot compete with cheap, US-subsidized import crops, like the Guatemalan staple, corn.

• On the number of migrants, 460, who died last year in the intent.

Here are some highlights of the activities:



Watching some of the other Stations...

Setting Up the SEMILLA/EMU station...

note: for the spanish savvy, yes it should read juzga - judges.

And, action...

yep, i`m here

hi. i`m here.

i just wanted to break the silence to thank all of you who have been praying and sending me little messages of encouragement at the nudging of my cuz.

don`t have much news yet, but i should know somthing more this week.

i will just say for now, that there has been at least one potential miracle/piece of the answer in some of this.

yes, i am being purposefully vague! sorry if that is frustrating. i should have both more answers and more freedom to share them soon.

thanks for being such a support.

-sm

confession

i feel like i have to quit.

too tired, too stressed, too behind all the time, too inadequete for the levels of responsibility, compassion, wisdom I would need to have to do my job well.

every day ends with the same exhausted body - a pattern of work, bed, work. which wouldn´t be so hard to live with if at the end of each day i didn´t still have lists of "to do" hardly dented. people waiting for answers, documents, meetings. students, staff, our board. tomorrow we start staff evals. god help me. i am no where near prepared to start those. and i have no motivation to carry me through the night to fininsh the preparations. again, all i can think of is bed.

today a new student asked me about how it was making friends here. i tried not to laugh, and to give an answer that wasn´t as stark as "who has time for friends." it´s not that i feel a lack of friends. in that sense, i am blessed to be an introvert and don´t require much in that regard.

but time to think, to feel, to feel like a human being again. this i miss.

i am crumbling.

i feel like i have to quit.

i will do my best not to.

but please don´t disown me if i do.

May God bless you with tears...

This world is screwed up.

And I am at war with myself.

My job is to know. To know the story behind the story - of the way the world was, of the way it is, at least as it relates to the context of Guatemala. It is a story riddled with pain, injustices, savvy cover-ups and glaring hypocrisy. If this is what learning brings, I am not sure I can take anymore of it.

I vacillate between weeping helplessness, at times teetering dangerously near cynicism, to a stoic delivery of the facts: "and over here is where Bishop Gerardi was assassinated in his parish home by smashing his head in with 18 blows of a brick two days after releasing the Recovery of Historical Memory Project report, a 1500 page testimonial account of civilian massacres and killings suffered at the hands of the state duing the 36 year internal conflict."

Last night with a group of students I showed Discovering Dominga, a video I should have watched by now, one of many that the program owns and that we show to student groups. It is a video tracing the former life of a young woman, now known as Denise, but formerly as Dominga.

Dominga was a young girl in Rabinal, one of the 400+ indigenous Mayan communities massacred by the Guatemalan army during the years of La Violencia, ("The Violence") . As her parents, aunts, uncles, neighbors were being snatched up by the army, later tortured and killed, she fled with her baby sister on her back. High into the mountains, for days without food, trying to keep her baby sister alive by squeezing berry juice in her mouth. But she couldn´t.

Dominga was eventually found by a group of nuns at at orphanage, and sent to live with a new family in the U.S. Years later, a mother now of two young boys, married to a white-bred Mid-west Iowan, she is overtaken by memories, the desire to know her Mayan people, remaining relatives, to ask and learn what happened, to find the remains of her parents, and give them a proper burial.

She travels to Guatemala several times, and you watch her identity be thrown into a state of crisis. She has forgotten Achi, her native language. But she remembers he mother, the way she smelled the cloth in the market. She remembers how to wrap a corte around her waist and make beautiful round tortillas. She remembers fishing with her father - the way he cast out the net and the would bring home buckets of silver fish.

Scenes cut to she and her husband researching the cause of the 36 year civil war in Guatemala. They find that Guatemala had a peaceful, democratically elected government in place. They learn that the US CIA staged a coup and put in a military government. That the generals who lead the massacres, kidnappings, tortures and extra-judicial killings were US School of the America trained.

They begin to share this and Dominga´s double-life with their church. Parishioners where understandable horrified - why didn´t we know that our government what implicated in this?



My mind cut back to Iraq, to Israel and Palastine, to Colombia. Will we say the same in 20 years? We didn´t know that we were so involved in the killing of innocent people. In placing dictators in power. How could this have happened? And how could we have supported it?

Her heart breaks and you watch it happen. No, does not break. Is crushed. You see scenes of her limp body draped over the ground, weathered hands of stranger-relatives caressing her hair, lighting a fire and candles near her on the soil of her people, praying ancient prayers of mourning for the dead. How could this have happened to innocent people? My parents? Who am I?


The content of my work, the context of this place, I fear for the two extremes of what is could bring. I fear on the one hand that it may destroy me like Dominga, smashing my heart to pieces, with the more I learn cutting me off more from places and people who once were home, leaving me limp in mourning and despair, unsure of my place, certain of only the ache inside. Or on the other hand, harden and harden me, make me a talking head of facts and figures, unaffected by the legless man who begs as I cross the passarela, the bones of the slaughtered lying on forensic scientists tables as I translate the facts of a community´s massacre. I need both composure and a soft heart. I want to feel, but I am afraid.

Yesterday, a Presbyterian minister, who is also indigenous Mayan explained to our group the essence of his Mayan spirituality, which for him is compatible with his faith in Christ. Hearing him, I think it sounds more Christian than Christianity. He had a beautiful way of speaking -using metaphores, pictures, our Christian-ese would call it parables. At one point it took him repeating himself twice for me to understand and do my best to retain the beauty if his words while transfering them into English.

"Spirituality is to feel, it is to experience. It is not just to know. Look at this waterfall. You can see that is it beautiful. You can sand at the edge and say, that is beautiful. And that would be true. But get in. Let it cascade over your body. Now you truly know what beautiful it, for you have experienced it."

"The first step in Spirituality, knowing God, is letting yourself be marvelled by life and what is around you. The trees, the animals, the birds. Be marvelled."

"Then you cultivate it. Spirituality is not magic, it is not planting corn and then there is a harvest of corn. You plant, you nurture, you weed, you fertilize, you water, the sun comes, and then there is a harvest, fruit is born. So it is with Spirituality. "

"And if you cultivate this, it is like spending much time in the sun, in the light. So that when it becomes dark, you are not afraid or destroyed by it. You make it through the dark because you have the memory of the light, you have guarded the light in you for the dark times."

So this group of students just left today, and on their way out, one of their team leaders gave me a copy of a poem he had read, through tears the other day, as we left the Guatemala city garbage dump, with images of people scavenging through mounds of refuse, for bits to recycle and sell, salvage, repair. Afterwards, I asked him for a copy of it.

A Franciscan Benediction

May God bless you with discomfort
At easy answers, half truths, and superficial relationships
So that you may live deep within your heart.

May God bless you with anger
At injustice, oppression, and exploitation of people,
So that you may work for justice, freedom, and peace.

May God bless you with tears
To shed for those who suffer pain, rejection, hunger and war,
So that you may reach out your hand to comfort them and
To turn their pain into joy.

And may God bless you with enough foolishness
To believe that you can make a difference in the world,
So that you can do what others claim cannot be done
To bring justice and kindness to all our children and the poor.
Amen.


And as he left, I offered him my job.