September, 2007

Saturday 29 September 2007

Mark,

I am COMPLETELY Riveted BY YOUR BOOK ON MEV. I think it should be printed by Random House and become a best-seller. There is so much in the book that I am learning and of course, she must have been something else.

The other thing that I am learning from the book is the extent and the exact nature of what the suppression of liberation theology has meant. There might not have been an Iraq war if the Church had kept it on the table, etc. Nor a continuing Palestine disaster.

Love,

Lynda

Lynda Brayer was born in South Africa, worked for many years as an Israeli lawyer for Palestinians, and is moving into the Forest Park Southeast neighborhood soon!

Tuesday 25 September 2007

by Margaret K. Nuzzolese

Mark,

As I said the book has had an incredible impact on my life, so it has really been a gift to hear back from you. “Something you feel will take it’s own form”… I really thought you would write back. I felt like I would really meet you. I feel like I have a bit. Now I will just have to visit the Midwest, to experience the wonder and awe, and to take you up on the meal and conversation!

What a chapter you shared with me. When I saw the title of your email, my heart leaped through the roof—I think if you sent 30 chapters more, I would still read them all. And the picture is gorgeous. What a beautiful woman. I hope that that one of your former students had such a fulfilled life as it sounds like Mev did. And still, I am moved by your words, in the constant, frustrating and tiring search to see God’s face. James [Meinert] and I just spent about an hour and a half talking about whether or not God gets upset, makes mistakes, and whether or not God can learn from us humans. Who even knows for sure?? I hugged him for you. The second he walked in the door and listened to me delight endlessly in the joy that was hearing back from you.

A “for instance or two” of your awesome vulnerability… the honesty with which you described Mev’s dying and what it was like in all of the ugliness. While I recall vividly the slow deaths of my grandparents, I can’t imagine experiencing the same with my most intimate companion. I can’t imagine it was easy to recount those moments. The sickness, the decay, the words the conversations when she could barely talk any more. Your very last moment with her when you read her the Song of Songs. Your thoughts at the funeral. And then in the joyous times – to be blunt, that you’d miss her playfulness in sex! Or in your arguments, through the counseling as you traced your families’ histories. The nicknames… that you would call her “your loveliness!” I don’t think it gets much rawer than that. Just so real, all of it. I am amazed that you could remember it all. Then again, I wonder how one could forget.

The Book… your lives, really… have touched my life so profoundly. Sometimes here when I get down or discouraged, I actually just pick up the Book and read a bit. We now have your fall syllabus in the house so I am looking forward to reviewing that.

Thank you so much for writing back, Mark. I hope you are filled with peace and love in these days.

Margaret

Tuesday 25 September 2007

Saint Augustine wrote: “Hope has two beautiful daughters. Their names are anger and courage: anger at the way things are, and courage to see that they do not remain the way they are.” Ida B. Wells is a American incarnation of hope, because, during the 1890s, she was indignant that Americans could preach one thing and do the exact opposite, namely, pride itself on being “the land of the free and home of the brave” while lynching thousands of its own citizens, overwhelmingly, blacks in the South. But she also had the courage to write, speak out, raise her voice, and trouble the consciences of her fellow citizens at such an on-going crime against humanity.

Just at the time last week when more media attention was given to the Jena 6, my Social Justice classes were finishing Wells’s collection, Southern Horrors and Other Writings. Stephanie Bergeman had this personal response to Ida B. Wells…

“As a woman, Ida B. Wells definitely inspires me. Even in 2007, I sometimes feel that there are certain things I want to accomplish that might not be possible because I am a woman. Wells, however, demands me to stop and think. If she, a woman, a black woman, in the 1800’s could become a teacher, reporter, co-owner of a newspaper, and a member of various elite all female groups, than I, a white woman who is healthy, young, and in the 21st century can too stand up and pursue my dreams. We all have our obstacles and Ida B. Wells had more than most of us can ever conceptualize, understand, define, or experience. I admire her courage, persistence, and dedication. She looked at and felt fear and uncertainty every day and yet kept on speaking and writing in what she believed, even with her life on the line. Her struggle was from multiple sides. She had to overcome the perceptions of the African-American community, Southern whites, Northern whites, and in general from both women and men. She let each side’s hit make her stronger, more persistent and even more determined.”

by Nina Diamond

Q. How long has it been since you read a story of passion, love, struggle, and truth that stood alone as an absorbing Tale, but also entwined itself into your own days – relevant and moving? How long since you felt inspired by honest heroism?

A. I thought so. With muscle and delicacy, Mark Chmiel has written the Real Thing. Hurry up and read it. When this story shadows you, too, you’ll be grateful for the company.

– Nina is working on a screenplay based on The Book of Mev.

by James Meinert

I read The Book of Mev while riding public busses in rural Nicaragua. I was in Nicaragua to immerse myself into the life of a third world country, and found myself equally moved by immersing myself into the life of Mev and her relationship with the author Mark Chmiel. This book is an unusally honest tale of Love between two Catholic social justice activists and the Love of one photojournalists for the people of Brazil, Haiti, and anwhere where people hunger. It is a tale of the struggle to open one’s eyes to the reality of the world and the reality of human relationships. I cried and laughed out loud. For anyone searching for some truth and understanding, take the time to read Mark’s book, it will truly move you.

–James is back in Nicaragua working with International Jesuit Volunteer Corps in Managua.

by Maria Montanaro

Thanks, Mark, for writing this beautiful testimony of your lovely, sainted wife. I was priviledged to have Mev in my life when we taught together at Viz. I traveled with her as we took students to Mexico. Mev inspired so many of us, she was a remarkable gift from God, full of spirit and energy, she was luminous. I will cherish this book, just as I cherish my photos she took, the books and articles she wrote, her video and the letters and articles I saved over the years from her, as she went out to witness for peace and justice in our world. Thanks Mark for keeping her memory alive and sharing it with us. This book is a beautiful reflection of her life and her work. It will inspire others and forever comfort those of us who knew Mev.

by Cab Yau

This book is so full of nicknames the only way to describe it is to give it one. This book is loverly. Loverly in that it is full of sweetness and joy. Lover-ly in that it is about love, being in love, allowing yourself to love -the world. It’ll break your heart, but you’ll be better for it. Read it.

–Cab and her husband Tim are expecting their first child in November.

by Cristina Airaghi

We read in the (Biblical) Book of Wisdom, Chapter 7: “For in her is a spirit intelligent, holy, unique, manifold, subtle, agile, lucid, unstained, certain, sharp, irresistible, beneficent, loving to all, steadfast, dependable, kindly, firm, pure; For she is fairer than the sun and surpasses every constellation of the stars. For she is the refulgence of eternal light, the spotless mirror of the power of God, the image of divine goodness.”

Mark Chmiel’s breath-taking and heart-breaking poetry and prose highlight the beauty and sacredness of this truly amazing women who is indeed an image of divine goodness!

-Cristina is a campus minister at the University of San Francisco. She graduated from SLU in 2001.

by Lubna Alam

The Book of Mev is the heart-wrenching, inspirational, funny, sad, and thought-provoking story of a young woman committed to social justice. After reading this book, I was absolutely inspired by Mev and her example, thoughts, and work. It reminded me of how important it is for all of us to remember the suffering and oppressed in our midst and around the world and to DO something about it.

But The Book of Mev ” is much more than just inspirational, it is also a touching love story. Through photographs, letters, and journal entries we see two young vibrant people meet and fall in love. It is sweet yet also incredibly touching and sad.

I never knew Mev Puleo, but reading this book gave me a glimpse into what she was like, her thoughts, her hopes, and her work for others.

Read this book, for it will energize and inspire you. It will make you think, it will make you thankful for the ones you love around you.

Lubna graduated from SLU in 2003, Michigan Law School in 2006, and is currently practicing law in Washington, D.C.

by Danielle Charles

I usually don’t write reviews, because I think that people should experience a book for themselves, and I’m always afraid that I won’t do the book “justice” if I write something! What moves me may not move you, or I may miss something or say the wrong thing. But I have been challenged by this book to come out of my own comfort zone and speak.

I knew Mev before she was a liberation theologian. We went to school together-she was my “big sister” in high school. And we did all those things that high school girls would do: went to parties, shopping at the mall, talked on the phone, fell in and out of love 100 times a day…

But even then, there was something different. We also prayed together, we talked a lot about God and what He could be calling us to be, and how would or could we respond to that call.

In The Book of Mev, Mark Chimel has, more than anything else, captured that spirit of Mev-a woman who was just as on fire for God as for a great movie! It would have been very easy to write a book about a wonderful woman who did a great work in the short amount of time we were blessed to have her among us on the earth. Yet Mark delves deep under the surface, to show the beauty and the struggles, the joys and the pains, the breakthroughs and the frustrations, of living, loving, and journeying with this woman. And, lest we begin to think that it really is just a love story between two people, Mark effectively places their personal story in the midst of the world’s struggles.

This book is an invitation to enter into the lives of two people as they try to “Find God in all things”–the good and the not so good. But more importantly, this book is an invitation to embrace God in yourself-and to listen for the voice that is calling you to respond. We are not all called to be liberation theologians-but we are all indeed called. Maybe in reading Mev’s journey, you will find the strength and courage to travel the road before you.

Danielle is Campus Minister at McKendree College in Illinois.

by Mary Beth Duffey

Mark Chmiel’s The Book of Mev echoes the themes of the scriptural Book of Ruth: “Wherever you go, I will go. Your people will be my people and your God my God.” But here the pact is between a young man and a young woman, who move from “spiritual flirting” at Maryknoll to a deepening awareness of their love for each other and for the marginalized people of the world. From Cambridge to San Francisco to St. Louis, Mark and Mev discover their vocations separately and together in that “people/God experience” that recalls the Book of Ruth.

Mev Puelo’s photography of faces from Haiti, El Salvador and Chiapas is a visual meditation for Mark Chmiel’s story. It is the story of falling in “love at first laugh” but also the unflinching chronicle of a young woman’s struggle with cancer.

In The Book of Mev, Mark Chmiel crafts a work of literary art, a work of spiritual and very earthy love.

Mary Beth is professor of English at Mount Mary College in Milwaukee.

by Rev. Jim Flynn
St. Mary’s Church
Park City, UT

I found THE BOOK OF MEV a profound testimony of the dedication of a young woman to the cause of justice and peace. Mark’s detailing of her deep concern for the poorest of our neighbors is so very engaging. I began reading this on a long plane ride, and it kept me so engaged that I didn’t want to fall asleep. I recommend it not just as a well written story of love (for the lowliest of “others” and for Mark) but as an opportunity challenging every reader to deepen one’s own concern for justice and peace.

Sunday 16 September 2007

My friend Kelsey Tinkum forwaded to me the following reflection written by her good friend Chris Luther….

I read two books during my time in silence: Mountains Beyond Mountains and The Book of Mev. Mountains was a very good book about a doctor named Paul Farmer who worked tirelessly for the poor in Haiti and eventually elsewhere in the world. Mev is a book written by Mark Chmiel about his wife Mev Puleo and their relationship and life’s work. Mev died in her early 30′s from the same type of brain tumor that took my mom’s life, but not before living a rich life of working with and for the poor as a photojournalist and activist. Words can’t describe how moving the book was for me.

[About] Mev’s cancer:Lots of tears, lots of understanding, lots of memories. My Mom lasted four months after diagnosis. She had exactly the same cancer in exactly the same place in the brain. But her symptoms appeared more slowly than those of Mev. And her decline was much faster. There was no talk of beating the cancer, of living a high quality of life for as long as possible. I prayed that the end would come quickly, that Mom’s suffering would end. I was so alone those four months. So alone. I had help from a few people, but I held my Mom through seizures and bed wetting by myself all too often. I sat alone with her in her bedroom or hospital room all too often. We didn’t have dozens of people helping and supporting like Mark did. I was so happy for him as I was reading. The support they had from Mev’s parents. I didn’t have any of that. They were too afraid, ashamed to come, except for one short visit where my Grandma practically ran out of the bedroom after just a few minutes. I had a caregiver who did a lot of the messy work, but I had to be responsible for everything by myself. So alone.

It’s both inspiring and difficult to read the lives of extraordinary people. Difficult because it’s very hard for me to let God have control of my gifts and talents, to let him determine how they are to be used, to accept that I will probably never have a book written about me. Not that I want honors and accolades. Far from it. I want to make a difference, and unlike God, I can’t see what’s around the next corner. I don’t easily trust that my life, lived simply and according to God’s loving will for me, matters to others. I hope to grow in this area.

Sunday 16 September 2007

Hello,

My name is Elizabeth Looney. You don’t know me, exactly, but I saw your name through a mutual friend (Collette Hellenkamp), and wanted to let you know that I really enjoyed The Book of Mev.

I worked on staff last year in El Salvador with the Casa de la Solidaridad study abroad program (which is how I know Collette,) and especially enjoyed reading the book while I was there in that context.

I’ve been thinking these past few days about how I found Mev’s story inspiring, and what I came up with was this:

I liked the balance Mev struck between being an extroverted go-getter, and being humble. In my mind, the two were always mutually exclusive of one another. I found it hard to reconcile those two qualities in a single personality, as if being humble meant being quiet all the time!

On the back of The Struggle is One in Mev’s photo her hair is sort of all over the place, her smile is earnest, and it looks as if that (being recognition) was really one of the last things she thought about that day. To me, especially as a woman, that is humble.

Yet you wrote in your memoir that Mev could often be found “among the movers and the shakers” — like the Pope, and Gustavo Gutierrez, for example!– which tells me that she not afraid to use her voice. She went after things, put herself out there and was heard.

On reflection, I thought it really beautiful how she embodied those two assets: humility and extroversion. Her example solves a dilemma I had about how to be in the world (or at least shows it is possible). To draw from a Maryanne Williamson poem, it gives me permission to do the same.

As I’m sure many people have, I found Mev’s story really inspiring, and the courage I imagine it must have taken to publish it. In short, I just wanted to say thanks.

Sincerely,

Elizabeth Looney

Elizabeth graduated from the University of San Francisco in 2006 and is now pursuing an M.A. program in Community Social Psychology at the University of Massachusetts.

The following is a writing practice done by one of my current students, Kristin Swanson, who has been a regular presence at Karen House this year. The topic I gave to the class that day was “People I stood by during tough times” and this is what came to Kristin…

I walked into the church that day and felt completely out of place. As if I had stumbled in on some secret meeting where I wasn’t allowed. I gripped Megan’s hand one last time as we both seemed to part, going in opposite directions- her towards Jenny and me towards the photos. I was trying to catch a glimpse of who this man way. All around me people were hugging and whispering and putting their hands to their lips and furrowing their brows- a facial gesture I’ve found is almost synonymous with death. My heart was aching- I felt tears burning in my eyes but felt almost embarrassed to cry. “You have no right,” I thought. “You did not know this man.”

I looked at the photographs of Dan and saw familiar faces looking back at me. Faces that were too young for me to remember, but were familiar all the same. I saw Tony, Julie, Jenny, Annjie, even Teka- but they weren’t the faces of my Tony, Julie, Jenny, Annjie, or Teka; and it was strange. Megan came up behind me and I turned, almost instinctively hugging her. As we embraced she started crying and I could feel her grief inside me. I felt every person’s grief inside that church- it was screaming and hot and terrifying- but I didn’t try to push it away, I couldn’t. It was all I could give, my heart. And I allowed it to be filled by emotions that weren’t my own that day, so maybe, just maybe, it would make it better, a little easier for someone.

Saturday 15 Septemberr 2007

The following two communications are from my friend Megan James, who worked with a Christian Peacemaker Team in Colombia this July. The first piece is an email she sent me from Colombia, and the second is a short reflection on a “Project of Life.”

Dear Mark,

I feel like I am at a funeral, and in a sense I guess I am. While I am learning so much, my emotions are upside down. Sometimes when people are telling their stories of how they were kidnapped and tortured or how their family member was killed, I am too hollow to cry. Other times, when communities are explaining that they organize so their children will not be touched by violence as they have been, I have to fight back my tears.

While the situation in Colombia grows grave everyday, between the seemingly constant fumigations, threats from paramilitaries and guerrillas, broken agreements by the government, and Uribe’s multi-national interested legislation, I am nevertheless amazed at the hope of the people. Although they are afraid, many people, it seems, believe if they shoulder their fear together, they can overcome it. It is the people’s hope and strength that I have fallen in love with. Theologically speaking, these people are truly working for the option for the poor and the Kingdom of God at the most basic level.

A professor in college once told me to do what made me feel homesick. (In other words, to do something that really moves me.) At this point, I am not sure how I am going to return to that states; I feel homesick here.

Just a few thoughts I wanted to share with you in particular.

Hope all is well!
Megan

We Will Build a Project of Life
Megan James
July 25, 2007

You cannot help in this country to feel your breath is taken away; like someone has stolen the life out of you as you hear how many lives have been stolen by violence. It is one experience to read the statistics, but it is another to meet them. One story is like so many others. Yet each story is different: a different person. And that is the saddest aspect in Colombia: too many people share a similar story. In another light, however, it is the common thread that binds people in solidarity.

Paolo Acúna in the city of Barrancabermeja formed as a community of displaced people. After being forced off their land, people traveled to Barrancabermeja and tried to rebuild using what materials they could find on the outskirts of town. Unfortunately, the paramilitary began to take over the homes in Paolo Acúna and forcing people to displace again. When the community protested, the paramilitary sought to kill the community organizers and their supporters like Hector Alverez. Hector’s son was not an activist in the process; he was just the closest person to Hector. And when the paramilitary could not catch Hector, they killed his son instead. Hector’s story is not unique.

Out of the tragic bond of violence grows an inconsolable resistance. Communities like Ciudadela Educativa and organizations like Organización Femenina Popular (OFP) use those memories of violence to propel them forward. As another community of displaced people, Ciudadela Educativa has not only resisted occupation by various guerrilla and paramilitary groups, but has also initiated various successful educational, economic, and community building projects. While the adults in the community are not formally educated, they have made their children’s education their priority. As a displaced community, it boasts a cutting-edge high school. The school is modern in design and plans to acquire technology for the classrooms. One leader of Ciudadela Educativa explained that it is because almost everyone in the community has been touched by violence that they place such a high priority on their children. She said, “Most of our work is for our kids, so they don’t have to go through the same things we have.”

The OFP’s motto “We do not bear or raise children for war,” not only stems from the memories of violence but is also kept alive and passed on through generations by their initiatives. The OFP provides youth and adult programming, affordable meals and medical and legal services among others. In short, they teach how to fight violence with creative ideas and love. Although this path is not easy, with 184 acts of violence directed at the organization since 2001 (including three assassinations), the OFP has won the support of the communities it serves, churches, and national and international organizations. It is in this space of solidarity that a member of the OFP declares, “We cannot give up and give in to the project of death. Instead, we will build a project of life.” Amen.

Megan James took Social Justice at SLU in spring 2003; she is in her second year of a Master’s in Theological Studies at Weston Jesuit School of Theology in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Saturday 15 September 2007

by Kathryn Jonas

Kathryn studied with me this past summer in Social Justice at SLU and she is now studying in China for the next year. She recently sent this reflection from her notebook………………

As we leave the city of Urumqi for Turpan, I thought I would write about a few things that stood out to me and have been a source of frustration.

One thing is the beggars. They’re not like the ones you encounter in St. Louis asking for a few bucks for a bite to eat. They’re severely crippled and deformed. Men and women lay on mats in the middle of the squares. Their feet are mangled, ankles swollen, toes curled, foot turned in and up unnaturally. Men without hands or hands that are limp and useless.

Worse are the children. A boy in the underpass, no older than twelve, his head too large, his eyes misshaped, ears not even, his whole face disfigured, a cup in his hand holding a few jiao (a jiao is like a Chinese dime). In the middle of the side walk a mat. A small boy, maybe ten, undernourished, his body covered in angry scars. Burns. Raw pink skin along his arms, his bare chest, his face. On his hairless head a large red pussing sore. Flies hovering. I was literally sick to my stomach. I held back from the group to try and gain my composure. His face was so empty. He had a dazed stare, was he even conscious? Why does no one help him? Who let’s children just lay in the streets?

And what do I do about it. Give him a couple jiao and walk away? Take him to a doctor or a shelter in this city I don’t know? Take him with me? Should I have stopped and tried to talk to him, even though he likely speaks Uigar (Uigar is a minority group in Urumqi with their own Arabic language) and I don’t think he was even aware enough to speak. Shoulda woulda coulda and now all I feel is guilt and disgust.

One other thing really stood out to me. The Uigar people are Muslim. Walking in the streets I came across many women with only their eyes peaking out from full head veils, bodies fully covered. It was my first time in an environment where that is expected of women. Each one I passed made me feel uncomfortable. I look at them and I see my mother behind that veil, my sister, my friends, myself. It’s such a mesh of emotions each time. Anger, contempt, frustration, horror, confusion, fear, and—unexpectedly—I also had a sense of shame. That somehow in my shorts and T-shirt I was offending these people. A sense that I belong under a veil—that I’ve step out of place. Frustration, though, is the most prominent feeling. I do work to promote international women’s rights, but what can I do to help right now, the women I see at the market. She’s talking to me, try to sell me scarves, and all I can do is stare at the way her light green veil flutters over her chin as her lips move. I want to tear it off. I want to grab her hand and run away with her. Take her to a safe place and show her that she can live freely without hiding behind a veil. Is that wrong of me? Am I offending her values, her religion? But what does it matter? All I say is “bu yao” (I don’t want any) and walk away.

Saturday 15 September 2007

by Margaret Nuzzolese

Dear Marko (definitely my favourite of the nicknames),

“I knew it was coming, I just kept putting it off.”

I´ve been trying to collect my thoughts and feelings to express to you for about 7 weeks now. Although, my lack of “right words” will hardly demonstrate that. My name is Margaret Nuzzolese and I am currently living in Nicaragua with Jesuit Volunteers International. I finished The Book of Mev, and well, since your email address is in the back, I just had to email you. James Meinert, who I would certainly nominated as The Book of Mev‘s Best Advertiser, recommended that I read it, and after hearing anecdotes about your class, and spending lots of time with the SLU women presently on the trip, I have finally stirred up the humility to just write you…

I think your book is absolutely extraordinary. Extra, beyond all things, ordinary. I think it is a most fascinating account of such an authentic and holy love. A passionate, self-giving love that so many in this world DREAM about experiencing. I was amazed by your sheer vulnerability to express some of the most personal stories of your life. Moments of such life-giving joy, and heart-wrenching sorrow. Mev and Mark, inside and out. What a gift it was to meet you and Mev through your story and to be so inspired. By love and by faith. By such passion for social justice, for speaking out, and speaking from within. By your sense of community, what was shared and what continues to be shared. Truly, Mark, your book and thus, this part of your life, have grasped my heart in a way that no other book has.

It could have to do with my place in life right now. After time in El Salvador, I now live in Nicaragua. I spent all of Tuesday morning connected to Mev, taking the SLU ladies around my work site. I’ve been hearing sensational stories of St. Louis and Karen House. I’ve been encouraged to read some Living Buddha, Living Christ. I studied at Boston College and just loved hearing about the adventures in Cambridge. I’m not a photo journalist, I don’t know what Jon Sobrino would tell me, but I completely identified. I can’t really put my finger on why. For me, it was just totally about love. And I’m just a really big fan of that!

So I want to thank you. For letting me, and so many others, into your lives in this gorgeous way. From the collection of Mev’s journal, to your love letters, and deepest most honest thoughts, to the readings of what was going on elsewhere, much of which has deepened my motivation to learn more of the Elsewhere in the Worlds. The quotes, the dialogues, the faces. Thank you for everything you went through, which I imagine included moments of great pain and sadness, to write The Book of Mev. To recall those conversations, those memories and to share them as a testimony. A tremendous testimony to the marvels of Mev Puleo, to you, to you both as a couple, to the struggle that IS one, and to God, really. What a blessed experience it has been, having this Book be a part of my life.

I hope you are still very much in love with your life.

In amazement and admiration,

Margaret

http://margienuzz.blogspot.com/

Sunday 9 September 2007

Leah took Social Justiced in summer 2007.

“to savor the present moment, instead of getting fixated on one of my colossal mistakes in the past or being allured by some fantasy in the future.” (p21)
And “what I’ve done today was significant…I most want to be present to the moment. The most important time is now.” (p95)

One of the reasons I love the Latin American Culture is because they are so focused on the present time. I feel that our culture in America is focused on the future, how we are going to be successful. As I think it is sometimes important to keep the future in mind, I feel it is ease to forget what is going on around us. What is happening right now?

Interview with Gustavo (p31-34)

This entire interview puts my thoughts into words. Gustavo explains ‘innocent suffering’ as one who suffers a situation that she doesn’t deserve. There are many cases of innocent suffering in the world and that is what I want to help change. I want to abolish innocent suffering. As that may be an idealistic view, I think it is still important to get rid of some of the innocent suffering. He talks about consumerism and how we are a country constantly trying to get skinnier while other countries are trying to fatter. It’s ironic that people can live their lives with exact opposite intentions. It’s not fair. I like how Gustavo want the solidarity of the people in America. With solidarity, we can all help change the world together. It’s a high expectation, but we need to start small and grow.

“So few North American professors and programs seemed to have any awareness of the plight of world’s majority of poor people.” (p54)

This lines sticks with me because it is complete bull shit that we are the richest country and we live rich. We make people poorer so we can get richer. Honestly, I have been unaware to many of the injustices and the amount of poor people in the world until I went to El Salvador and then took this class. I always knew there was poor, but I never knew to what extent. As a culture, most North Americans are ignorant to the poor in the world. It is important for our teachers to tell us. We shouldn’t have to take a social justice class to learn about the suffering in the world. Our media should tell us, our teachers should tell us, it should be known by all. We are lucky that we have the opportunity to change the world without worrying about our lives. We need to use this opportunity and help those who are less fortunate than us.

“Ultimately, I believe we are most daunted by the mystery, the question, the possibility: “It could be us.” Through my own photography I strive to bridge the distant worlds of our small globe. I contemplate the mystery: It is us.”

It is easy to forget about the poor and the people who are constantly suffering, but when I realize that these people are equal to me, it makes me wonder why I am not in their situation. It is so unfair. It sometimes makes me angry. That’s why I think we, as a country, need to do something to fix this. Everyone should get an equal chance. How is it that some people struggle to survive and other people have everything given to them? I feel that if it was blood family that was suffering, people would be more willing to help them out, but to me, these people are our family. I don’t understand why more people don’t want to help these people.

“Mev had once emphasized the heroism of these nobodies struggling to build the Kingdom of God against great odds.” (p96)

This is how I felt in El Salvador. I met people in Ellacuria trying to fight the government to not mine next to their town. I felt the people in Ellacuria had no chance to change the minds of the government, but they still tried their hardest. It’s people like that who I can see the heroism in. They have so little but they are still so hopeful and struggle to build up their Kingdom.

“There is a word in Buddhism that means ‘wishlessness’ or ‘aimlessness.’ The idea is that you do not put something in front of you and run after it, because everything is already here, in yourself. While we practice walking meditation, we do not try to arrive anywhere. We only make peaceful, happy steps. If we keep thinking of the future, of what we want to realize, we will lose our steps…Don’t just do something, sit there” (p99)

As talked about in class, it is easy to pass by the beauty. It is important to recognize what is around us whether it is the trees and sun or it is the people around us. It kind of goes along with living in the present. We should enjoy what we have around us. This can help keep a positive attitude and build energy to change the world.

“There’s a poverty in every human life.
When we’re aware of our limits, we’re more open to change and conversion.
If our limits are at the individual level, like alcoholism or alienation, our awareness can provoke a change so that we can grow beyond this.
Here in Brazil, our limits are very much at the social level—hunger, homelessness. We struggle to become aware and change these things, but sometimes after engaging in a long social struggle, we realize that nothing grew inside of us. Maybe in the US your limits are more at the personal level. But sometimes when you are struggling individually, you realize that you have to address the social dimension to arrive at the personal dimension.
Without integration of the personal and the social, we won’t be full persons.
We may start at different points, but we arrive together.
The struggle is one.” (p139)

I don’t really know what to say about this. It has so much meaning, but also confuses me. I have never heard anyone consider the different kinds of poverty. If we all have poverty, than we can all struggle abolish our poverties together. I love the last line, the struggle is one. We need to work together as a human race to get rid of our poverties.

“People were saying that it was a sin to wear make-up and short skirts, yet so many people around us were illiterate, dying without medical care, dying of hunger! No one said this was a sin!—Toinha Lima Barros” (p141)

What kind of world to we live in where the length of a skirt is more important than the dying. I remember when we had rules for length of skirts in high school and in grade school we could not wear make-up. I am not saying we should get rid of these rules in my grade school or high school, I just don’t understand why we aren’t worrying about the people who don’t even have a choice to wear make-up or decided what length skirt they wear. Many people are dying everyday because they are malnourished and we are worrying about the make-up our children wear. It makes no sense to me.

When Mev asks Ann Manganaro “Having worked among the poor and homeless in St. Louis, what differences do you see in the work in the U.S. and El Salvador?”

When reading this, I felt Ann took my the words from my mouth. I experienced the exact same feelings in El Salvador. My two words I use to describe the people in El Salvador are the hopefulness and their sense of community. She also uses both. The people want a change. They are currently trying to change their lives for the better while helping out those around them. I was uplifted when I felt this. I never wanted to help them more. I sometimes wish my mom could understand this because if she could, maybe she would be OK with me working with the poor in El Salvador.

“With her help, I finally decided that stacking up the pillows from our couch and whacking them with a big long piece of wood would help me express my anger. Kit made a great sound—SMACK!”(p260-261)

I smiled when I read this line. When I was young, my mom taught my brother and I to do this exact same thing. It is a nonviolent way to be violent and it feels so good.

The Book of Mev was definitely my favorite book we read in this class. However, when writing this paper, I realized how pissed off I became when I wrote. I just don’t understand how people are suffering all around us but most people don’t even care even when they do hear the stories. How can we live like this being so greedy? All we want is more wealth. I even feel greedy. I have everything I could ever want. The way I deal with it is that I am getting a great education so I can help change the lives of others and furthermore change the world. This class has deepened my inspirations for El Salvador.
Before I went to El Salvador, I wanted to be a nurse in oncology. I have been on the Relay For Life committee the past 3 years and I feel that cancer is cruel and unfair. Reading the last part of this book really touched me. It is so hard to see what Mev and Mark had to go through. This is another case of ‘innocent suffering.’ No one deserves cancer. As I have become more passionate about a different type of ‘innocent suffering,’ I am still very zealous of cancer patients and what they have to go through.

Sunday 9 September 2007

Matthew Mourning sent me this email last April while he was finishing up Social Justice. This evening we chatted on the phone and he is having an intense, eye-opening time in graduate school in New Orleans.

Dear Dr. Chmiel:

I struggle to find words to talk of how profoundly The Book of Mev has affected me. In truth, I had not read it–save for the parts discussed in class–until just about an hour ago when I turned the last page, mere hours after I first checked it out from the library.

I wanted to thank you for letting me in on the gift that Mev was, is, to you. Never before has something so deeply personal been shared with me. I honestly feel the pain of her loss so nearly; her story has made me contemplate deeply about the future direction of my own life, my own mission.

I feel stupid, fatalistic, and undedicated now when I suggest that my dream trip to Rio’s favelas is doomed to my pocketbook’s backburner.

I now feel limited, discriminatory, myopic when my heart overflows for American poverty only. Ah, yes, contingency.

I feel a foolish and passive dreamer with my tireless cause for America’s cities, and particularly St. Louis, for which I have not displayed even a comparative shrivel of the fortitude, perseverance, and drive that Mev did with all of her undertakings.

Worst of all, I feel a depression setting on for all the missed opportunities in my life to have loved myself, to have challenged myself, to have pushed myself. Of course, Mev’s story should not leave one solely depressed, but her strength (and yours) seem an impossible standard to live up to for someone who has lived as sheltered and as pessimistic a life as I.

There is no true purpose of this correspondence. It is logic-less. It is just the flow of a mind dizzy and weary. I just feel so shiftless right now, swept up in the upcoming transition in my life–and The Book of Mev helped me put things into perspective.

There is so much more to say about this beautiful work. I feel as if, having read it, we’re lifelong friends–thus the random and spontaneous email. The suffering and the hope in it seem so palpable to me for some reason. Maybe we shall save further discussion for some Coffee Cartel chats. I sure hope so. Thanks for inviting me into yours and Mev’s life.

Sincerely,

Matthew Mourning