Last week was Semana Santa - Holy Week. Holy Week is a pretty big deal in Central America. Many people have the entire week off (MCM was closed all week), and the big cities empty - well, become not so full - as people head to the beaches or their home towns.
Another volunteer who works with MCM, who's from El Salvador, invited me to go spend time with her family in San Salvador. I really love El Salvador, and was excited about the chance to get away for a few days, so i gladly accepted.
Over the weekend i read a book called "Walk With Jesus: Stations of the Cross," by Henri Nouwen with illustrations by Sr. Helen David. Sr. Helen's illustrations present the stations of the cross through the world's poor and oppressed (one of the illustrations was of the U.S. churchwomen killed in El Salvador in 1980; another was of a young Salvadoran whose husband had been murdered; others were of Nicaraguans and Guatemalans, other Latin Americans, and other poor, oppressed, and lonely people throughout the world). For each illustration, Nouwen offers a short reflection, then closes the book with a final prayer.
As our bus neared the El Salvador-Honduras border on Easter Sunday, i sat reading the final few stations, then Nouwen's closing prayer. As Nouwen prayed over the experience he and Sr. Helen had just offered - that of entering into Jesus' suffering through today's poor, oppressed, and forgotten - i found myself resonating deeply with his words. Part of his prayer read:
"My fears, dear Lord, of opening my eyes to my suffering world are deeply rooted in my own anxious heart. I am not sure that I, myself, am truly loved and safely held, and so I keep my distance from other people's fear-filled lives. But again you say: 'Do not be afraid to let me look at your wounded heart, to embrace you, to heal you, to comfort and console you . . . because I love you with a love that knows no bounds and poses no conditions.'
"Thank you, Lord, for speaking to me. I do so desire to let you heal my wounded heart and, from there, to reach out to others close by and far away."
Nouwen's prayer speaks volumes to my own experience over the last eight months here in Tegucigalpa. My desire is to share love, inspire hope, and build community with my poor neighbors in Nueva Suyapa. Yet so often i feel disappointed - i am too tired to spend time with my host family, too bitter to challenge prejudices, too proud to befriend those around me. Behind all of these shortcomings is a false self-image that causes me to build walls between me and others. "I am not sure that I, myself, am truly loved and safely held, and so I keep my distance from other people's fear-filled lives." I do not allow God's healing to work inside of me, and i become stuck in a place where i cannot "reach out to others close by and far away."
I forget that i, as a human being, am beautiful - am "fearfully and wonderfully made" (Ps. 139:14). It's only in recognizing my own self-worth that i can recognize the worth and dignity of others. It's only in accepting God's embrace that i can embrace others. It's only in loving myself that i can show love to my neighbor. Otherwise, i will only live in fear, mistrust, and hatred.
Sentimentality comes easily, even from a place of brokenness, but it does not last. Love is much harder - impossible apart from the healing work of God's unconditional love - but it always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres (I Cor. 13:7). I feel i must move from a place of sentimentality to a place of love, which must be received from God as a gift. It's the gift offered to us on Good Friday. The love of God that is strong enough to conquer death on Easter is strong enough to embrace me, love me, heal me. It cannot, once received, but be shared.
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