Wednesday 2 February 2011
Dr. Chmiel,
And you opened your inbox to find an email from a former student you haven’t heard from in quite a while! Yes, how are you? I am currently sitting in a not so modest community JVC house here in El Paso, TX. I have found myself committed to a ‘year of service’ (whatever that means) at a Catholic Parish working in the pastoral center. These last few months have been incredibly life giving, especially being out from under the suffocation of required term papers! I have found a wonderful community, people that make me think and a real space for healing and laughter.
Anyway, this summer I found myself with my family in ‘comfortable’ suburbia and dealing with some not-so-fun life stuff. Needing an out, I picked up The Book of Mev (yet again) and too stumbled across your blog. Turned out to be exactly what I needed. And I wanted to express my gratitude (as many before me have and many after me surely will) for your openness and willingness to share so much of yourself. THANK YOU. Yes. This book and your other writings always seem to open me up to my own mystery. And they help to remind me of what I found in El Salvador and Nicaragua, and that sense of urgency I knew/know. And words of gratitude I could compose for a good while. However, I think instead I would like to share a piece I wrote last night. Take it as my thank you for sharing yourself and Mev with me and with the world.
la paz
laura mcdowell
social justice-fall 2008
(Just a bit of context, I go over to Juarez once a week to accompany in a small clinic. There is a group of mothers and their children that live in Juarez that come to do therapy and community building. The sisters who do this ministry are incredible. They started this ministry a few years back and continue to go, despite the violence. Their commitment is a crazy inspiration.)
Absurdity/1
“So what is it you do in Juarez”, a question commonly posed to me. “Well, I go with the Sisters of Charity who run a clinic for children with special needs”, is usually my rote response. This seems to be an acceptable answer that avoids raised eyebrows, and then allows for an approving nod or two, and a return to the previous conversation.
But what if I was to fiddle in more specifics? “Well, today, I crossed that border, you know, the one you always hear about on the news. The one that separates the ‘land of milk and honey’ and ‘the den of drug dealing thieves’. The one that keeps us safe from ‘those illegals’. The one that, just on the other side is daily sprinkled with more murders, violence, red blood sacrificed. Yes, I crossed that border today…to color.”
What absurdity is this? I cross over this human erected border, separating first from third, and head towards this humble little clinic. And Tylee greets me with a box of crayons, half of which have been chewed, tasted or thrown at a sibling’s head. ‘Quieres colorear conmigo?’ Sure, I’d love to color with you!
‘Ey, ey, oye! Que color es este?’ It’s a color by numbers. Classic. Red, Green, Brown, Yellow, Blue and Tan. Neither Tracy nor I have the slightest idea how to translate, ‘tan’ into Spanish. ‘Es como cafe, pero mas clara’, seems to suffice for the moment at hand. ‘ORACION’! someone yells. Time to gather to pray in thanks giving for our daily bread and Virgin Mother’s protection. But the color by numbers has not yet been finished. Bien apurada he hurries to finish this task of the utmost importance.
‘Aqui viene Monce!’ She has made her way over in the rolling seat that allows her to move freely around the room. Her walk is more of a bounce than anything. “Quieres colorear con nosotros y nosotras’? I ask. She has no verbal cues to offer, nor many non verbal ones at that. But her little red-gloved hand seems to want to partake in this time honored child ritual. ‘Agarrelo bien Monce’. Grab onto it Monce. And she does. I hold out a coloring book for her and she draws a few lines as I move the book up and down, below her tan crayon. And her smile beams.
Her smile beams, as does Brian’s. Though Brian’s is less of a beam and more of a shocking flood of stadium lights used to light a football field. His face is nothing but pure joy and laughter. Brian too joins us to color, ready to wow us with his knowledge of colors in English. ‘Rojo significa red’. Ay pos si, es cierto. Que listo eres! I affirm him.
And then I stop. And I look around. And I am surrounded by seven children, all coloring. Some content with their purple penguins. Some looking for verbal affirmation of their ability to color outside the lines.
‘Pati, what color should this cat be’?, I inquire. ‘Em…’ Her little finger taps her bottom lip three times as she contemplates such a pivotal question. ‘Verde’. Green. Color the cat green. Green? What absurdity is this? This little girl, who can barely color inside the lines herself, requests a green cat. And yet I know that if I attempt any other conventional color, the world will quickly come to a crashing halt, per three year old ‘no…NOOOO’!
As I begin to color the cat green, Pati is eager to help me. And the cat begins to take on her new shade of life. She becomes green, as does her ball, and the basket, and the night sky. The lines tell Pati that there is a cat, and a ball and a basket. There are in fact separate identifiable objects. And when I point out the lines, and remind her that only the cat was supposed to be green, her big eyes smile at me with mischief flooding them, and she speedily scribbles over the entirety of the picture, even beyond the borders that encapsulate the cat.
What absurdity is this, to cross this border to color? To affirm coloring outside the lines? To color the cat green? Perhaps an absurdity of the utpmost importance. As adults, we seem to color by number. We want to know exactly what ‘rojo’, ‘amarillo’ and ‘azul’ mean. Then we know which crayon to grab, and can carefully trace each section so as to produce a picture pleasing in the eyes of superior beholders. This is safe. Comfortable. Secure. And who would not want to strive for this? I do my piece, color my section, and respect the lines placed by those who have come before me. After all, they must understand something I don’t.
But Pati understands something they don’t. She has not yet learned the convention of coloring inside the lines. She is a ball of sass and prophetic pigtails. Just as her teasing eyes eradicate the cat, so too do my eyes split this line between Juarez and the “land of promise”. We walk, so concerned with protecting our borders. Keeping languages, cultural norms, traditions and colors within their respective lines. God forbid these lines, these borders, be challenged.
Pati’s green cat reminds me of the absurdity of convention. What if we considered making the penguins purple? What if we considered the scandal of particularity. Christ becoming human, changing water into wine, and social boundaries to dust. What does this boundary, engulfed in desert dust harm/hinder/help/hold? What are we so afraid of? How can we forget the innocence in and of Juarez in Tylee, Pati and Brian? How can we ignore our call towards solidarity and the common good?
I go to Juarez, and color outside the lines. And by this very act beg those around me to at the very least consider the absurdity of this fence separating beaming smiles. The absurdity of not putting my personal safety before and above accompanying my sisters and tias. The absurdity of a green cat.
What absurdity it is to risk my life for crayons.
Yet, what a scandal it would be if I did not.
