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.
Wednesday, January 23, 2008
Sunday, January 20, 2008
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?
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.
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