Waiting and Hoping
This past weekend I attended mass at the University of Central America (UCA) where Fr. Dean Brackley S.J. celebrated the first Sunday of Advent. He came to El Salvador (from the Bronx) in 1991 to help replace the six Jesuits who were massacred on Nov. 16, 1989 by the US sponsored Salvadoran military during this country’s civil war. As Dean eloquently expressed in his homily, the season of Advent invites us to prepare, wait and hope. It’s interesting though, because in the Spanish language, the same word is used for waiting and hoping- esperar. This gives a new feeling to what English speakers may think of as waiting- waiting in line, waiting for the bus, waiting for your loved one to call, whatever it might be. When you are waiting for something you are hoping for something as well.
Advent specifically calls us to wait for the coming of Jesus. There were a number of aspects of waiting that Dean emphasized. First , we are not waiting for the "baby" Jesus. Rather, the baby Jesus already came. But, we remember that initial coming so that we can recognize the existence of Jesus in our present day reality, and so that we recognize the fulfillment of the Reign of God on earth when Jesus comes again.
Next, we can’t wait complacently with our arms crossed, but rather we do positive works which actively construct that Reign of God as we wait. When we wait /hope complacently without positive action, we fall asleep. Concretely, Dean mentioned the "anti-hope" of consumerism which encourages us to believe that Christmas is already here in November and even October- we just have to buy enough stuff to be able to feel it. We must counteract this false conception of Advent and Christmas with our efforts to make the world more just, which is the most crucial part of our hope for Jesus.
Never has it been clearer that our world is unjust and that we need Jesus’ presence to guide us. We are living a time of extreme crisis and upheaval which often leaves us exasperated and grasping to find hope. Perhaps we would like to think of our present financial crisis as just a little pothole on our expressway to higher paychecks and living standards, but this is simply not the case. The reality is that our present global system has created so many parallel crises that if we do not drastically change our way of life (especially the rich) the world will no longer be able to support the human species within 50-60 years. The financial crisis is the easiest to recognize right now- that we cannot continue to consume off of our debts and make profits based on money that doesn’t exist. We are also now achieving greater consciousness about the intensifying ecological crisis- that our rampant consumption and waste of fossil fuels, plastics, paper and water is propelling us toward a forever altered and imperiled climate, landscape and existence.
Harder to perceive are the crises of social polarization and of the legitimacy of our nation states in which the rich continue to get richer (immune from the impacts of the financial crisis because of their proximity to the national purse strings) while the poor get poorer, and the vast majority of governments cannot assure that their citizens live with dignity. Even in the US, there is no longer job security, the right to a house, education or health care, not to mention "normal" countries in such as El Salvador, a place where it should be almost impossible to have hope. One of the founders of liberation theology, Leonardo Boff, calls this juxtaposition of crises a "crisis of humanity" because our emphasis on market freedom has stripped human beings of the sense of community and cooperation which is essential to our existence.
Dean mentioned a recently released regional report by the United Nations Development Program for Latin America whose statistics are not exactly glowing. Latin America has the highest rate of homicides amongst youth (15-24 years old) which is twice as high as the rate of the region in second place (Africa). El Salvador’s homicide rate amongst youth is triple the average rate in Latin America. In fact, El Salvador is now the second most violent country in the world, behind only Iraq. It has more homicides per 100,000 people (68) than Sudan, Colombia and even Afghanistan. On thanksgiving the other week, I remember asking my buddy Eduardo what he was thankful for, and he said to be alive, no small feat for a 27 year old Salvadoran male. It should not be forgotten that in the past 30 years or so in El Salvador, and in the past 5 years in Iraq, there have perhaps not been two bigger recipients of US intervention and "aid". But perhaps the most flooring statistic for me was that in El Salvador (a "middle-income" country), 75% of children do not finish 5th grade. To make a long story short, Dean called us to address our last task of Advent: personal, national and global conversion.
Sometimes I realize that I spend so much time thinking about, talking about and trying to work for "global conversion" that I let my personal conversion fall by the wayside. Thankfully, God, through our fellow human beings, is able to remind us of the things that we need to work on. Right before this mass, I had met with one of our VMs who is stationed in Managua, Laura Hopps. We discussed many things, but ultimately she told me that the struggle for social justice begins within each of one of us. If we don’t take that time each day to reflect, meditate, center ourselves to the state of being where we can actually understand what is being called of us, we will never be able to fulfill our call.
Lately, I have been able to spend a lot of time at my parish, Maria Madre de los Pobres (Mary Mother of the Poor) in La Chacra, one of the most marginalized areas of San Salvador. These people, ignored by the Salvadoran government, excluded by the global economy and surviving day by day, have given me the tools and the examples to conceptualize this idea of holistic conversion which begins at the most personal level.
My grandpa, Charles Burridge, just began sponsoring two children to go to school through the parish "Godparent" program. Carlos Cruz Escobar just graduated at the top of his fourth grade class and even achieved the award for the best reader in the grade. His younger brother Leonardo has been having more trouble in his studies, but will move on to second grade next year. Their father, Alberto has severe kidney failure and has been unable to work for two years. Once a week he goes to the public hospital for a 16 hour dialysis session, and the rest of the week he is unable to go to the bathroom, and suffers chronic pain and weakness. His doctor says that if there was a place in the house where he could be alone to do the dialysis daily, he would be in much better shape and could even possibly work part time, but the house is tiny- two bedrooms, an outdoor kitchen and a living space, all shared among 5 people. The mother Blanca, is the sole provider for the family, working minimum wage on the cleaning staff of one of the huge, nauseating , plastic malls in the southwestern outskirts of San Salvador close to the US Embassy, where the Salvadoran upper class (and the Embassy personnel) go Christmas shopping, drink lattes, look at the latest Maseratis, and could well spend $155 on a family dinner- the same amount that Blanca brings home a month to keep her family alive.
So to say the least, my Grandpa’s willingness to help was a blessing for the family, and their presence for him has also been a blessing. The other day, I went with Zoila from the parish Sponsorship program to visit them and bring them a letter that my Grandpa had written expressing his encouragement to the family, and especially to the boys in their studies, as well as his gratitude for being able to be a part of the family as the "Godfather". After Carlos read the letter out loud, Alberto could not stop thanking us for the marvelous gift that had been brought to his family, and that "primero Dios" (God first) they would be able to get ahead thanks to this help. Carlos wants to meet my Grandpa sometime, but if nothing else they will be able to see one another in photos and they will be able to communicate through me- a responsibility that I cherish. My work in El Salvador has always demanded that I be a type of bridge between peoples, and sometimes that is difficult because a bridge tends to not be on either side completely, but without the bridge, there is no getting across the abyss. Hopefully building these bridges of communication, empowerment and accompaniment in which the poor teach us what is really important, will bring us to places where we can create this other type of world that we are called to work for.
Carlos and Leonardo’s dream is to be able to help other kids in the future. My Grandpa’s dream is that they be able to fulfill their dreams whether he is around to see them through school or not. My dream is that we don’t lose the hope we need to make all of our dreams a reality. The personal relationships which lead us to internal conversion are the essential first step. So in this Christmas season, as clichéd as these reminders may have become, we cannot forget what we are really hoping for on December 25.