Night Psalm- Thomas Merton
Be still
Listen to the stones of the wall.
Be silent, they try
to speak your
Name.
Listen
to the living walls.
Who are you?
Who
are you? Whose
silence are you?
Who (be quiet)
Are you (as these stones
are quiet). Do not
Think of what you are
still less of
what you may one day be.
Rather
be what you are (but who?) be
the unthinkable one
you do not know.
O be still, while
you are still alive,
and all things live around you
speaking (I do not hear)
to your own being,
speaking by the Unknown
that is in you and in themselves.
I will try, like them
to be my own silence:
And this is difficult. The whole
world is secretly on fire. The stones
burn, even the stones
they burn me. How can a man be still or
listen to all things burning? How can he dare
to sit with them when
all their silence
is on fire?
(Paletas, ice pops, made from fresh fruits, you never get enough.)
(My fettish for pickled products continues.....)
Self-control: Usually used in reference to eating, sexual desires, greed, and things that it seems that we as humans should control about our nature. We always resolve to fix our bad habits, eat less, set down limits, etc. What is the inspiration for self-control?
Lately, I have been thinking of the concept of self-control as it relates to hope. Reading The Shack, the recent popular book by William Young, brought up some interesting thoughts through the main character´s conversations with Jesus. Jesus brings up how humans are always thinking about the future and what will be or worring about the past, but never really living in the moment. Humans spend so much time worrying that they forget to live. Sound familiar?
Recently at the orphanage we have been struggling with a variety of development issues. We have a huge disconnect between the U.S. office and the real struggles of Nueva Esperanza, Honduras. Despite huge staff turn-over and lack of funds, the real issues appear to be peeling back the layers of people´s hearts and the value they assign to each other as fellow human sufferers. It seems that we can be so blind as people that we forget to just sit and listen. Just sit, take in the silence of the walls and understand the burning that is around you. Just sit with the wounds and remember that you too know what pain and loss feels like. We forget what a gift it is to hope for someone, right now for whatever the day will bring. We forget the real power that people have to change their present situations, attitudes, and habits. We give people hope just by believing that each person is valuable. This is how we can be self-controled in hoping for someone, teaching our minds to be focused on the present, neither judging the past actions nor the future capabilities of people.
Recently, on a bus ride a Honduran who had lived in the States for 4 years told me about his immigration experience. He had crossed illegally and had scraped together a job and housing in Maryland. However, he painfully spoke of the huge sacrifice it was to miss his family and his culture, especially through the winters. He seemed enchanted with learning english, but understood the brutal realities and risks of immigration.
At one point, he asked me why it was so easy to get a visa to come to Honduras, but not the States. The realities of economic and political relationships between the two countries seemed all too real in this moment. Instead of making a hopeful statement about Obama changing immigration, I decided to sit with this burning. I told him that this really is an unjust situation and even to his embarrassment, I apoligized for it. So much of the time it can be easy to see this huge immigration problem and just despair for immigrants. However, living in hope, which isn´t easy because it calls us to be self-controlled in our thinking, allows us to keep moving foward right now (taking what actions we can) and let the future be what it will. It seems that being self-controlled in hope allows us to not guess about the future, but to really make a change in the moment. And these are the real changes that are possible.
Though my Honduran friend had been through a tough experience, he now had a job, was living with his family, and was continuing to greet people with a smile. It was clear he had gained inner strength through those years. And who is to judge what his future will bring...
I love this quote, and everyone who knows me well has heard it at some point;
Do not think that love, in order to be genuine, must be extraordinary. What we must do is love without getting tired. -Mother Teresa
This love that is unexhaustable teaches us to hope. We don´t decide to love kids in a couple of days when they behave better, or decide to help the poor tomorrow because we will have more compassion then. No, we choose hope today because we know that it is based in present action and is based in unexhuastable love.
Hope also holds on in the present to the possibilites and does not let the unpredictability of the future reign. It is difficult at times when you see the patterns of oppression, of destruction, of backwards development, and of habits to keep focusing on the hope that is before you. But the fact is, each day is new. Each day is hopeful. Each day brings unknown changes that weren´t known to soothsayers, fortune tellers and the future-minded.
I´ve been really learning experientially about hope here. There are many days when the girls I am teaching refuse to come to clases, working to finish the 3rd grade at the ages of 16 and 18 years old. In the developed world, many people wonder what future hope these girls have with a 3rd grade education. However, they have a passion to clean, to cook, and to do crafts. Though these activities may not be highly paid, it does not mean they are not valueable and provide hope for these girls. The fact is we as humans do not know what tomorrow brings. We can only plan, and worry, and dream for the future, while the present is being lived out.
It has been the same thing to hope for nearly all the kids here, as the HIV/AIDS so strongly affects their lives. But we don´t look toward the future and say, oh they probably won´t live long. Instead we hold on to the present, disciplining them, educating them, and feeding them each day, employing the present hope we have for them. Here in Honduras, this concept of self-controlled hope has hit me hard. People just don´t seem to plan as much for the future, buying the food and things they need each day or as the money is available. In many ways, it has taught me to live more in each day and rejoice in the seasons of the earth as we eat the fruits that are ripe and available at specific times. For example, we hoped for mango season but we thoroghly enjoyed the watermelon season. Living in hope implies living right now.
I have two months to go here in Nueva Esperanza. Its so tempting to plan for August, where I will live, what I will do, and how it will all happen. However, there is so much hope being enacted around me. There is so much listening I still have yet to do; there are so many hugs to give, books to read or be read to me, and games to play. I am still here. I am here to Hope.
May you also learn to hope, for the here and now, remembering that you are an agent of hope in this very moment.
Two good books about immigration experiences:
Enrique´s Journey- Sonia Nazario
Across a Hundred Mountains- Reyna Grande
