It's Sunday morning. I slept for the first time last night...only woke up three times! (I'm guessing it really is the medication.) There was no hot water this morning, so I skipped the shower. Heck, my pants can almost walk by themselves anyway... why put a clean body in them to get in the way!
Father, I pray for this country. There is so much poverty here. There is so much oppression and pain. But where I want to pray for this country, it makes me want to pray for the U.S. even more. In the U.S. we have a poverty of spirit... we are often the oppressors... we are numb to life and try not to feel pain. It takes so much to satisfy...We search for fulfillment... through our jobs, relationships... our stuff... and yet we already have so much. Maybe the secret of being full really is being empty. (Food taste better when you are hungry. Sleep is better when you are tired.)
As I write this I'm sitting in the chapel. The doors are open and it overlooks a small town called, "Nueva Esparanza" (New Hope) which is the town just down the hill from Montana De Luz. Nueva Esparanza was built after the hurricane and it is (I guess) supposed to be a sign of what the government can do if it "really puts its mind to something."
If you couldn't see some of the detail, or if we didn't have to drive through the town to get to Montana, you might mistake it as quaint... all nestled in the mountains. But even from here you can see the small houses... houses that probably anywhere in the U.S. would be considered slum. You can see the roads (and I use that term loosely). Every now and then you see people walking or gathering. The town is filled with real people, with real hopes and real dreams and real struggles.
But I sit up here separate. I am removed from it all.
On a mountain. Sitting in a chapel... protected. I have light, shelter, an appearance of protection from the "creepy crawlers." I have privilege on the mountain.
I fear this is an analogy for much of my life. I sit in safety... objectively looking a the rest of the world. Protected by my wealth... my position... my status. Now, I know that emotionally this is not true. I know emotionally I enter into people's pain all the time. (But even writing that betrays or justifies.) But much of my life is a life removed.
I think a lot of us have this tendency to see God this way. Kind of up in heaven... in the safety and protection of heaven... looking down on the pain of earth. God is the one with all the money, all the resources... all the power....but maybe the problems are just too many.
Or maybe God doesn’t really care.
I think we tend to see God looking at us like I look down on this town: we are just one big mass of people... problems... and the need is so great and it is just overwhelming.
Contrast this with Vicki, the project director. She can't walk through Montana without having kids hanging off of her. She drives her truck through town; she can't go 100 feet without getting ambushed by people yelling, "Buenos Dias, Vicki!" or her stopping to say "hi." She knows most people's names and even their families. She speaks Spanish fluently. She is a part of their lives. She has entered into their world. Today is the first Sunday of Advent: and I begin, once again, to reflect on the truth of the incarnation: the Word became flesh and lived among us.
If the gospel is anything to me, it is this truth: God does not sit removed. But He lives among us. He has learned our language... He has entered into our world.
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