Gratitudes in Nicaragua

by James Meinert
June 2005
Nicaragua

dear mark,

thank you. for sharing mostly. but for inspiring and allowing yourself to be inspired. i finished your book. i thanked mev also. for the same things. i have a confession. i used the breathing excercises you taught me. not to be in the present moment, but to escape it. maybe i was cheating. but i read your book on a bus packed with nicaraguans and like all book lovers, i couldn’t put it down. but after each paragraph i had to put it down, lest i created a scene as i broke down into tears. so i used the breathing excercises. to escape my emotions for a minute or two, only to return to them. and so you were there with me. as i was reading. thank you for that also. i fell asleep doing gratitudes on my rosary last night. i thanked mev again. both for what i was doing and for being the inspiration for the very act and the chance to be doing it here where i am. so thankyou for being honest. it was like a glimpse into those journals you keep, when all of us long in a sense to read each others only to be truly connected to someone when we find it so hard to simply be honest when conversing. i’ve started reading peace is every step. nhat hanh continues to be an inspiration to myself and megan, and we do quick meditations together sometimes. so thankyou, and i hope to see you at karen house in the fall, but if not, i’m sure our paths will cross.

Peace be upon you,
James Meinert

James Meinert is a senior at Saint Louis University. In the summer of 2005 he was one of the Mev Puleo Scholars studying and working in Nicaragua. He took Social Justice in the Fall of 2004.