Part II

Okay, so the library internet was super slow earlier- hence this being Part II of my entry today--

I feel like life has been super packed lately, in a really good way, so this entry might be a bit fragmented, as I try to fit as much as I can into it. Probably this has something to do with the fact that we're all packing up and heading back to our respective homes for the holidays soon-- Kaitlyn is already in Guatemala with her family visiting her sister who is doing Peace Corps there!

A few momentous occasions for Casa Nacho have been some kitchen appliance purchases: a blender and a toaster oven! We were decently pretty under our food budget this month and since we have been searching thrift stores for these things since our arrival, so we decided to buy them with our left over money. The blender is red, too, which is a festive bonus :)

Just tonight, Jeff and I made a DELICIOUS soup (a variation of a butternut squash soup recipe shared with me by my brother) and used the new blender and squash-peeler-utensil, both of which greatly facilitated the creation of this wonderful soup. Then, as we were doing dishes, we discovered a cabinet we had never noticed! And it contained really wonderful ceramic mixing bowls! Great night!

Tonight aside, it was a packed weekend. Friday evening began with the Homeless Persons Memorial that Primavera put together. There are memorials like these held all across the country, around the winter solstice, the longest night of the year that a person might be sleeping outside.

It was a really beautiful event, held at the county plot of the local cemetery, and included reflections on migrant deaths, and a compilation of blessings by all different faiths, amongst other things. Perhaps the most touching for me though, were the memories that were shared about people that died on the streets just in this past year. Despite the airplanes creating unwelcome raucous above, the memorial was very poignant and as I walked throughout the graves to place my carnation, I felt very full and very blessed.

One of the Shelter Managers at the Men's Shelter wrote this poem in memory:

No more waking over and over during the night.

Rest, Now, Rest.

No more getting to the labor hall at 2:00am, hoping for a day's work at 5:00am

Rest, Now, Rest.

No more standing in long lines for a sack lunch or a night in a bed and a shower.

Rest, Now, Rest.

Just no more wanting a better life.

Now you can rest my friend, now rest.

Just no more, rest, now, rest.

As touching as the event was, I struggled with the fact that even though some of the men I work with were there, I couldn't go and speak with them... because of confidentiality, I am not supposed to initiate contact. And so in those same moments that I felt my soul touched my all that was being said and all those who were being remembered, I also felt very torn and personally fragmented.

That fragmentation was incredibly juxtaposed by my Saturday- we went to Nogales, Sonora (aka Mexico) for a Posada. As I understand it, this is a Christmas tradition here, in memory of Mary and Joseph going in search of a place to have Jesus and to bring attention to the many doors that are being shut on people today. At the Posada we took part in, there were multiple stops (though we were late and missed the first two) at which different migrants shared their stories, and we ended at the Comedor which is part of the Kino Border Initiative.

The program reads, "Today, the same thing is happening: people who denounce impunity, the injustices and acts of corruption, those who demand honesty from their political leaders and question their excesses, are then threatened, followed and murdered. At this Posada, let us remember all those persons who have had to abandon their countries, homes, friends, and even their families, language and culture so that they could outrun the threats, or because they think and act differently from those who hold power or because they bravely denounce abuses and corruption. Let us silently think about the thousands of citizens - men, women, children- who have been killed as a result of these injustices."

Not only was a glad to be able to take part in this event, but I was especially excited to get to see my good friend Erin, who I studied abroad with in El Salvador and who is living at working at the Kino Border Initiative. Whenever I am with someone I studied abroad with at Casa, I know that the magic I remember from that semester was real, because I see and feel it in my friends. I haven't had a chance to speak with Erin too much about her experiences at the border, so I can only speak to what I witnessed and not necessarily what her experiences have been, but what I saw was community. I saw her laughing and dancing, truly entering in, as much as one can, into people's realities. And in those moments, I felt my own being filled by that community.

The Posada closed with this song (and my attempt at a translation with Jeff's aid):

AFUERA (outside)

Somos toda una familia, deportada sin piedad, arrancados de raices, y arrojados como mal

We are all a family, deported without mercy, torn from our roots, and cast away as bad

ADENTRO (inside)

Pa que regresen amig@s, ya no tenemos lugar, y nuestro pinche gobierno, nada va a solucionar

For returning friends, we no longer have space, and nothing is going to fix our damn government

AFUERA

Nos sentimos inseguros, ya ni de aqui ni de alla, vivimos todo despojo, por favor, tengan piedad

We feel unsafe, we're not from from here nor there, our lives have been stripped away (?), please have mercy

ADENTRO

Pa que se fueron al Norte, de aqui nadie los corrio, ya la verdad es que ahorra, la situacion ya empeoro

For those who went north from here, no one ran after them (??), and the truth is that now, the situation has already worsened

AFUERA

Mexican@s de mi tierra, miembros de comunidad, juntos hoy trabajaremos, por justicia y dignidad

Mexicans of my land, members of community, together today we will work, for justice and dignity

ADENTRO

Bienvenid@s, son, herman@s, Dios en ustedes esta, su presencia entre nostras, mil bendiciones traera

Welcome, you are my brothers and sisters, God is in you all, your presence here with us, will bring us a thousand blessings

TOD@S (all)

Vamos junt@s como pueblo, como pueblo, como herman@s a sembrar, la justicia en la frontera, la frontera, el respeto, amor y paz

We go together like a people, like a people, like brothers and sisters to plant justice on the border, the border, respect love and peace

Fotografia

Christmas lights in Winterhaven! We went twice this past week, once for a 5k fun run (after Jen and Kaitlyn did half-marathon, yay housies!) and then again on Wednesday night after dinner at Casa Mariposa.

Jeff's family sent us a real live wreath! It smells so good- so good we wanted it inside, not on the door, where we can enjoy it even more :)

Blessed is the season which engages the whole world in a conspiracy of love.
-- Hamilton Wright Mabie

A jumble of thoughts

I hope you come to find that which gives life a deep meaning for you...something worth living for, maybe even worth dying for...something that energizes you, enthuses you, enables you to keep moving ahead. I can't tell you what it might be -- that's for you to find, to choose, to love. I can just encourage you to start looking, and support you in the search.

This quote is an excerpt from a letter written by Ita Ford, one of the four churchwomen martyred in El Salvador on December 2, 1980. I suppose this reflection is a bit late, given that it's December 15... but I've been sitting with those words this month, unable to quite articulate what I'm thinking... here is my jumbled attempt--

For our spirituality night (that fell closer to the anniversary of the deaths of Ita Ford, Jean Donovan, Maura Clarke, and Dorothy Kazel) we watched the documentary Roses in December, which focuses on Jean Donovan. I'd seen this documentary before, read Ita's letter before, and commemorated this anniversary before. For some reason though, this time it felt different.

I feel humbled remembering their lives, and find myself amidst countless questions. What am I doing in Tucson? What am I doing in this moment? My job right now is case manager-- and is perhaps equal parts fulfilling, frustrating, and overwhelming. Who am I to tell people what to do? Who am I even to suggest things? So many of the men and women I am working with have experienced so much more than I have.

My supervisor and another volunteer/staff-ish person are reading John McKnight's "The Careless Society: Community and its Counterfeits" (chances of me adequately explaining his argument- slim. click the link to check it out), which articulates well the ways in which professionalized services (ie health care, case management, counseling, etc) can detract from communities. Professionalized services often times do the opposite of empower... they shuffle people along from appointment to appointment, supply them with medications, and give them schedules. They supposedly prepare people to become more self sufficient. In reality though, they treat people as the problem and ignore the environment. I cannot tell you how many of the men and women I work with are on medication, or have a history of self medication (aka drug/alcohol abuse)... my thought is this- maybe the problem is not so much each person, but rather their lifestyle and environment. Living in a shelter with 99 other men and without community is an overwhelming reality. Day after day they put one foot in front of another, working to get their basic needs covered, but are seldom reminded or given the time and space to acknowledge that they are more than those needs.

We're only in the middle of the book, and so perhaps it's most appropriate that at this point it has left me with many more questions than answers. Or rather, that the only answer I can see -- that people should not be reduced to basic needs and that people need genuine community -- is not easily navigated.

A few weeks ago (? - I often lose track of time here) I found myself in the park by our house, speaking with someone who is both a participant and a neighbor, and I feel overwhelmed and inadequate, but also grateful that she is sharing her story with me, and I find small but genuine hope our conversation. For all of my uncertainty about my job here, that moment felt right.

I feel like I am only at the beginning of understanding so many things... and I encounter so many pieces throughout my days. My clues are these: joy I feel sharing a meal with my housemates after a long day, dance parties with our friends, the vulnerability and tears of participants and friends... moments of liberation.

Perhaps it does not so much matter what I am doing in Tucson, but that the people I have encountered and the reality of the desert and the border are teaching me so much.

I went to the doctor, I went to the mountains, I looked to the children, I drank from the fountain. There's more than one answer to these questions, pointing me in crooked line.
The less I seek my source for some definitive- the closer I am to fine. [Indigo Girls]

{Wall in Tucson}

Sometimes I feel like I live in a painting

Today, as I was biking home from visiting SAMHC (a crisis center for people in Tucson-- I've been slowly but surely visiting other agencies in the city to familiarize myself with what resources are available, for my own education and so I don't feel too absurd referring people to places I've never seen myself), I had the pleasure of feeling dwarfed by the Catalina Mountains to my north and the Tucson Mountains to the west.

I think one of my favorite moments in life, is when I happen to be biking down Speedway (the road our house/street is off of) right around sunset as I was today, with a beautiful view of the silhouetted Tucson Mountains. The intersection itself is far from picturesque, there are dusty empty lots to the north and south of this point, and telephone lines/electrical wires galore... but the mountains and the sunset make it all not matter as much.

It reminds me a lot of Annie Dillard, in her book "Holy The Firm":

That they bear their own unimaginable masses and weathers aloft, holding them up in the sky for anyone to see plain, makes them, as Chesterton said of the Eucharist, only the more mysterious by their very visibility and the absence of secrecy. They are the western rim of the real, if not considerably beyond it. If the Greeks at looked at Mount Baker all day, their large and honest art would have broken, and they would have gone fishing, as these people do. And as perhaps I one day shall.

And so sometimes I feel like I live in a painting, and I pinch myself but it's real.

Below are some pictures from my life recently--

The Weepies came to Tucson! The Monday before Thanksgiving Jen, Kaitlyn, Meredith and I went to go see them at Plush-- they were fabulous, and well worth not getting a full nights sleep.

This is a picture of the Rocky Mountains taken from my plane ride back from CT to AZ. I was surprised with a trip home for Thanksgiving :)

Tucson decorates for Christmas. Did I mention it's weird to see Christmas trees when it's 75 and sunny outside?

Oh TUson! Need I say more?

On Saturday Jeff and I went to a farmer's market, where we prepared a worm compost bin learned all about growing garlic and sampled some local foods- like sunchokes (apparently you can eat the root of some sunflowers)! When we got home we were inspired to finally plant some of the seeds Jeff had gotten from the Food Bank awhile ago, hopefully at least some of them will sprout...

A poem I've liked recently

(photo of some of the mountains surrounding Tucson from the plane!)

"Bone" by Mary Oliver

Understand, I am always trying to figure out

what the soul is,

and where hidden,

and what shape

and so, last week,

when I found on the beach

the ear bone

of a pilot whale that may have died

hundreds of years ago, I thought

maybe I was close

to discovering something

for the ear bone

is the portion that lasts longest

in any of us, man or whale; shaped

like a squat spoon

with a pink scoop where

once, in the lively swimmer's head,

it joined its two sisters

in the house of hearing,

it was only

two inches long

and thought: the soul

might be like this

so hard, so necessary

yet almost nothing.

Beside me

the gray sea

was opening and shutting its wave-doors,

unfolding over and over

its time-ridiculing roar;

I looked but I couldn't see anything

through its dark-knit glare;

yet don't we all know, the golden sand

is there at the bottom,

though our eyes have never seen it,

nor can our hands ever catch it

lest we would sift it down

into fractions, and facts

certainties

and what the soul is, also

I believe I will never quite know.

Though I play at the edges of knowing,

truly I know

our part is not knowing,

but looking, and touching, and loving,

which is the way I walked on,

softly,

through the pale-pink morning light.

from Why I Wake Early (2004)