pics…

Step into my “office”… out in Guerrero

a sunset view from our roof

Liberation Theology…

This week at school, I offered a presentation (in Spanish, of course!) on Liberation Theology, which has been an important movement in Latin America over the last 40 years or so. Here is a PDF version of the original presentation in Spanish. Below is a rough English translation that offers a brief overview of the movement.

1. A Short History: Colonialism and a Theology of Liberation

For the better part of its history, across the world, the Church has participated in forms of oppression. This is lamentable, but it is a simple fact of history. The history of Latin America in general and Mexico in particular represents a special case, because the Catholic Church and the official powers of Spain and Portugal were interconnected. This connection, between church and state, supported a particularly harsh oppression of the indigenous peoples of “New Spain.” This oppression was supported by official church theology. The religious hierarchy in Spain told the colonists that the indigenous people were first of all people, people who needed to be baptized into the Catholic faith. But after being baptized, if they died from harsh treatment, it really wasn’t that important. While the church declared that the souls of the indigenous people were important, their bodies were not. The church taught that the people needed only a place in heaven; life here on earth was not that important. If people were suffering here, all the better for the afterlife in heaven with God. With this kind of teaching, the church concentrated solely on the death of Jesus – his life and social teaching were virtually ignored. As a result of these things, the church supported the status quo in Latin America for centuries. Many times, the church has been very powerful and wealthy. In reality, it has often been an enemy of the people, the poor.

During the 1960’s, however, things began to change. A few priests, leaders in the church, and writers began to use Marxist analysis in their thoughts, sermons and theological writings. With a renewed understanding of the importance of social location (i.e. socioeconomic status, etc.), they studied the Bible, the teaching of the church, and history itself with new eyes. They perceived that the God of Scripture is not the God of the rich, but of the poor. This was the birth of liberation theology. According to Phillip Berryman, some Catholic bishops “denounced ‘institutional violence’ and named it as a ‘situation of sin…’ They called for ‘rapid, vigorous and profound changes’” in their societies. Many times, those who do not like the liberationist movement say that it is only a form of Marxism, but this is not accurate. It is a movement that has used many resources in order to demonstrate the close relationship between liberation – social, political and economic – and the kingdom of God. The question of location is extremely important because this movement has challenged the idea that all important theology has been articulated from seats of power, such as Europe and the United States. Liberation theology believes that the poor also have the power to “do” theology. The Bible has much to offer on this point.

 

2. The Bible and the Theme of Liberation

One essential concept for liberation theology is that “God has a preferential option for the poor.” Usually for us, this does not seem just; we believe that God is impartial. However, many times, an “impartial” God merely supports an unjust status quo. Here are three scriptural examples (drawn from a vast wealth of texts) that demonstrate God’s commitment to the poor:

 

“Ah, you who make iniquitous decrees, who write oppressive statutes, to turn aside the needy from justice and to rob the poor of my people of their right, that widows may be your spoil, and that you may make the orphans your prey!” (Is. 10:1-2)

“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor” (Luke 4:18-19).

“Listen, my beloved brothers and sisters. Has not God chosen the poor in the world to be rich in faith and to be heirs of the kingdom that he has promised to those who love him? But you have dishonored the poor” (James 2:5-6).

These examples demonstrate God’s option in favor of the poor, against the rich and powerful. Liberation theology simply asks that the church listen to these texts! The true people of God are the poor, the marginalized, the weak, the sick.

We find another example of the way in which liberation theology reads Scripture in the story of the Exodus. Liberation theology understands this story to one of injustice, of power, of land and slavery, of the struggle for economic justice, of freedom and liberation from oppression. This point here is that God wants to liberate God’s people from slavery and poverty:

Then the LORD said, “I have observed the misery of my people who are in Egypt; I have heard their cry on account of their taskmasters. Indeed, I know their sufferings, and I have come down to deliver them from the Egyptians, and to bring them up out of that land to a good and broad land, a land flowing with milk and honey…” (Exodus 3:7-8).

If the church wants to work with God, it must work with and for the poor, against poverty, with all its power. Because God is God of the poor, the church must also be the church of the poor. This is the essence of liberation. According to Gustavo Gutierrez, a father of the movement, “A profound relationship exists between the kingdom of God and the elimination of poverty and oppression. The kingdom has come in order to suppress injustice.” When the church does not incarnate the reign of God, it is not really the church – it is at least not the true church. In general, then, liberation theologians read both the Bible and their real-life situations with the eyes of the poor, embracing God’s preferential option for the poor.

3. The Labor of Liberation Theology

During the last 40 years, liberation theology has improved the lives of thousands of people across Latin America. In the form of local churches, liberation theology has offered the poor a place to organize and fight for their rights against the rich and powerful. While the adversaries of this movement claim that it is merely a religious form of Marxism, the reality is much more complicated. It is true that many liberationist priests have political tendencies to the left, but hardly any have become guerrillas. Rather, these priests have chosen to fight with their words and their deeds (but not with weapons). I believe that it is better to think of this movement as a reform movement within the Catholic church. Officially, there are many reasons why the hierarchy has not supported liberation theology. Pope Benedict XVI, for example, has been a strong adversary of the movement for many years. Obviously, the church has much to lose in terms of power, wealth and status if it really were to become the church of the poor. And many priests and bishops would suffer. But these are the costs, liberationists hold, of fidelity to Scripture and, ultimately, to God.

I do not really know the current state of liberation theology here in Mexico at the moment. Often, it is strongest in areas that are the most poor; there are many more adherents in regions such as Chiapas and Oaxaca than in Zacatecas. Hopefully, I will be interviewing a priest here in Zacatecas to learn his thoughts and reflections on liberation theology.

I would like to conclude with a very brief outline of a liberationist priest here in Mexico, Bishop Samuel Ruiz Garcia, from Chiapas. He became bishop in 1960, and after arriving in Chiapas he began to observe the structural injustices that wreaked havoc on many thousands of lives. Ruiz studied and learned the indigenous languages (a step few priests take), and he invited the largely indigenous population to come and tell him what they wanted their church to be. Over a thousand people took him up on his invitation, and at a conference they told him that they wanted indigenous priests, recognition of their right to their land, education and health care. Obviously, the rich and powerful landowners in Chiapas grew to hate Ruiz, because he supported the rights of the indigenous. In 1994, when the Zapatista movement took shape, the Zapatistas would only accept Ruiz as a mediator with the government. With 40 years of fighting for the rights of the indigenous people in Chiapas, Ruiz is a living example of the power of liberation theology to change people’s daily lives, on the ground.

a few pictures from tana’s trip

these are from tana’s recent trip to the state of Guerrero…

this was our ride up into the mountains – 15 of us and lots of produce in the back for 4.5 hrs

the river around Rancho Viejo in the Sierra Madre

after almost 2 weeks on the road, we earned a break on the beach

the “highway” up through the mountains

Day 26-27

 Day 26-7

June 16-17, 2007

Chalchihuites (Zac., Mexico) – This weekend, I took a weekend excursion with about 8 other students and two of the teachers from Fenix out to a small pueblo about 2 hours from Zacatecas, called Chalchihuites.  It is the birthplace of the school’s founder and head teacher, Don Arturo Dorado Diaz.  He is a quite a character; a really friendly, outgoing, intelligent guy who takes “Second Language Acquisition Theory” very seriously.  He’s very patient with all of our “horrible Spanish,” and he is extremely good-humored.  Anyway, we took this brief twenty-four hour trip to get a taste of pueblo life in Mexico, and it is not surprisingly quite different from the city.  In this case it is a bit too cliché to talk about going back in time or something like that, but it really is a different life.  Most of the people work the land or for one of the mining companies.  Our group of Americans stood out, so we got lots of comments – some very friendly, some not as much.  Either way, we were definitely part of the weekend entertainment. 

Saturday afternoon, we visited an archeological site only about 2 miles outside the center of town.  This hilltop served as an ancient astronomical observatory, where early Aztecs measures the paths of planets, stars, and the seasons of the earth using very advanced methods of calculation and observation.  Carved on one of the walls is a thousand-year-old outline of a woman holding a serpent.  While the site was quite different from last weekend’s visit to La Quemada, for some reason it conjured some of the same feelings in me.  Standing in the wind, surveying the surrounding mountains and valleys, seeing a rain storm blowing across the sky from miles away, it all felt a little magical somehow.  It was really an interesting place. 

Later, thanks to our 7 year-old guide, Manuel, we saw the town’s elementary school, the two iglesias (churches), the open-air Sunday market, and an old-school bar with swinging doors like in an old Western movie, but without any seats inside (so we went somewhere else).  We got our dinner at a carniceria (meat store), and we enjoyed the very gracious hospitality of Don Arturo and his son.  Around 8pm, they got the grill going, and for the rest of the night the scent of fresh meat and onions filled the air.  We sat around his porch, enjoying some of Mexico’s fine beverage selection, watching our dinner cook and talking about life, philosophy, theology, ethics, language and all the rest.  It was a wonderful night, one of the best I’ve had here, and without doubt we enjoyed the best tacos I’ve had in Mexico. 

Earlier, I said that most people here work the land or the mines.  This isn’t really quite accurate.  Really, more Chalchihuitans live in California than in Chalchihuites.  This town, like the rest of the state of Zacatecas, runs in very large part on the dollars that are sent back every day from the US.  Don’t worry, this is not turning into some kind of political blog, but the migration of people from Mexico to the US touches everyone down here, and I cannot help but raise the questions…  What kinds of economic push/pull factors play into the decision to look for work in El Norte?  Why do we have jobs in the US that we American citizens simply will not do?  What kinds of hidden costs do we consumers pay for our relatively cheap stuff?  How dangerous, how low-paying, how back-breaking are these kinds of jobs?  Why wouldn’t people who work these kinds of jobs deserve the chance to become American citizens?  And aren’t Christians called to welcome the stranger in their midst, no matter how they got there?  The Bible knows nothing of an “illegal” stranger…  Isn’t this the word that the Church has to offer, that all are welcome at this table our Lord has prepared for us?

a picture update

Corpus Christi

There is something about being an observer from a different cultural world that, it seems to me, highlights the contrasts and contradictions of a place.  Of course, our lives back home are filled with different contradictions, but we tend not to notice; what we experience as daily life in the US would seem to others a study in contrasts.  It is no different here. 

 

About ten days ago, I was walking Avenue Hidalgo – the “main street” of Zacatecas, when I realized that it was clearly not an ordinary day, at least as far the Church is concerned.  The street was blocked off in portions, and several hundred people were out in their Sunday best, holding flowers, singing, and marching together towards the main cathedral.  I had no idea really what was going on, but after reading a few signs, I realized that it was Corpus Christi, a day dedicated to the celebration of the Body of Christ.  I later learned that on this day people all around this city and around the world build altars outside their homes to commemorate and celebrate the glorious mystery of Holy Communion.  The city is filled with the light of candles, the colors of banners unfurled, the smoky smells of burning incense and the sounds of liturgy.  Of course, to see the Blessed Sacrament going by on the back of an old pickup truck is itself a bit dissonant.

 

The contrast that I wish to relay, however, has to do with the route of the religious procession.  Every Thursday, city youth associated with a particular political party gather for raucous music, rallying behind their cause.  The sounds of hard-core and punk (all, of course, in Spanish) were blasting out from a city plaza within sight of the Cathedral, at the very moment that the Catholic celebration was going by.  Corpus Christi and the Partido del Trabajo (“Labor Party”).  The Body of Christ and the Body of the Worker.  Side by side, seemingly in conflict, dissonant sounds ringing in my head, nuns and goths sharing the same stretch of sidewalk, if only for a moment.  Must these overlapping images compete for this space, or is there a way to harmonize these sounds? 

 

In a nation where historically the Church has represented power, wealth and prestige, this is a difficult task to say the least.  Left-wing politics and the mostly conservative tendencies of Catholicism in Mexico don’t mix often, or well.  But I know that they have in the past, and that in small pockets they do to this day.  Must our concern for the Body of the Laborer be different from our concern for the Body of Christ?  Sweat pours down like drops of blood.  Hands that bring forth food from this red earth and give to those in need.  Backs that break from lifetimes spent sowing and reaping, from reaching out to those who have been ignored, oppressed, and humiliated.  Eyes that wearily greet the dawn after another night spent with nowhere to lay their heads; feet that struggle under the weight of another mile yet to go.

 

Could it be that the best way to adore the Blessed Sacrament of the Body of Christ on this holy day is to somehow end up right here, on this patch of sidewalk somewhere both sacred and profane, listening to the intonations of ancient liturgy in one ear and the urgent pleas for social justice here and now in the other?  Could it be that this intersection of Hidalgo and La Plazuela de la Caja is exactly where God wants us to be?  This was not my choice, rather this moment came to me unexpected, unasked for, and God knows I am still learning how to receive it.  I pray that we all might find the strength to stand in the tension of this space, and learn what it means to celebrate Corpus Christi, the Body of Christ.

More Pics…

hanging out with a giant version of the revolutionary Pancho Villa

i think this light blue beetle is same color as the one my uncle Walt had in the 80’s

a view of a typical city street; my language school is down on the right

a view from tana’s office

a typical view from “La Bufa”

a view from the street

in one of the many little plazas

enjoying a “home-cooked” meal on our rooftop…

Day 20

Day 20

June 10, 2007

On Friday, Tana and I experienced a tradition unique to Zacatecas known as (something like) la callejoneada.  From the word for “street” – calle – la callejoneada is a roaming street party that people have to celebrate birthdays or other fun occasions.  It all starts with the band, which is typical for this occasion: four trumpets, two short trombones (I don’t know what to call them, they were shaped like trombones but instead of using a slide they had fingerpieces like a trumpet), a bass drummer and a snare drummer.  Many times, a donkey is also involved.  Not in the band, but for carrying the drink of choice that comes from this region, mezcal.  It’s a pretty serious version of tequila that has more alcohol.  It tastes somewhere between paint thinner and gasoline if you ask me, but I’m pretty sure people don’t drink it for its fine flavor…  While the donkey carries the mezcal, everyone gets little tiny cups on strings around their necks, and then its time to hit the streets.

We met up with everyone (the occasion was one of Tana’s co-worker’s birthday) at one of the beautiful city parks around 8 or so, waited for people to arrive and for the band to warm up.  After everyone was ready, the band started leading us on our route around the centro, with us dancing in line behind them!  Sort of like a conga line, but less cheesy and a lot more fun.  The bass drum set off car alarms as we went!  Because it was Friday night, there were lots and lots of people out, and they all stopped to watch, and join in a little bit, as we went by.  We waved to people on their rooftops and hotel-room balconies, we greeted people in their doorways, and we stopped in about three different plazas along the way.  It’s a great way to make people smile, and to be reminded that life is good, that we are in a wonderful place with good people, and that we could learn something in the States about what it means to have a good time. 

~

Yesterday the students at Fenix (my language school) took a field trip to a place called “La Quemada.”  It’s the mountain-top site of an ancient city.  Towards the end of the first millennium after Christ, Nahuatl tribes dominated the semi-arid highlands of central Mexico.  This mountain-city rises steeply from the valley floor; it doesn’t take a military mind to figure out that whomever controls this mountain probably controls all of the valley below.  Only priests and warriors (and their families) would have lived in the city itself, the rest of the pueblo (people; town) would have been farmers and laborers, living precipitously at the edge of death, paying their tribute to the gods and their leaders for protection.  There is not that much left of the ruins themselves, a few rooms here and there, a wall for protection, and a pyramid-like structure that was the temple.  But the views were incredible.  And there is something about place.  What does it mean to walk in the footsteps of peasants and priests a thousand years after their blood and bones have found their final resting place?  What does it mean to stand still and look at the surrounding mountains, though not in fear of invading soldiers, or drought, or flood?

~

I have enjoyed the history and culture classes at Fenix in the afternoons.  The other day, Don Arturo spent a long time disabusing us of the notion that Mexico is an old country.  Of course, civilizations have existed in what is today called Mexico for millennia, but all of their accomplishments were effectively destroyed the day Cortez set foot in what he called Vera Cruz.  Ironically, the history of colonialism in Mexico began in a place the Spanish named “The True Cross.”  Of course, indigenous culture lives on to this day, and it thrives in many places, but there is no escaping the brute fact that Mexico is a colonial nation.  A full eighty percent of the current population is mestizo/a (having a bloodline with both European and indigenous ancestry), living witnesses of the rape of indigenous peoples by the colonial powers-that-be.  Mexico is young; it has not yet celebrated its 200^th birthday, and it has endured many revolutions, civil wars, constitutions.  The way Don Arturo explained it, Mexicans have struggled with both personal and social identity as a result of their mestizajo heritage, which has made the incredibly complex process of building a modern nation-state quite difficult.

As I said, here there is no hiding a dark colonial history; it haunts the architecture, the people, the places.  In the US, we like to forget that we too are a colonial nation, founded not only on noble dreams of freedom and justice for all, but also on the near-genocide of indigenous peoples, the theft of their land, and the enslavement of millions to produce a thriving economy.  As I sit drinking my coffee here in Zacatecas (coffee which was most likely produced unsustainably and unjustly, abusing the sweaty labor of another human being), I am left to wonder at the incredible price we are still paying for the decisions of our great-great-great grandfathers – decisions that we all continue to make over and over again.

~

Today is el domingo 10º ordinario, a Sunday in ordinary time.  Pentecost is behind us, the coming of the Spirit fills our memory, and we have celebrated the Triune life of God.  Hoy (today), we turn our eyes to the long stretch of ordinary time ahead.  It is a season in which we are called to remember, and to give.  To give others the gifts we have been given.  To learn to trust that we in the church have all the time in the world, because time itself is God’s, not ours.  Although I didn’t understand everything at Mass today, the day resounded with the words that God is with us even and especially in the ordinary.  Dios ha visitado a su pueblo.  Will we learn to wait with patience the coming again of our Lord?

Day 13

Day 13

June 3, 2007

The local newspaper in Zacatecas is called El Sol de Zacatecas, and apparently it’s not exactly known for its prescient reporting or high standards of journalism.  According to my sources, the reporters basically sit around a café all day talking to each other, drinking coffee and smoking cigars, waiting to run into foreigners to interview them about something.  Once, they interviewed Rachel – the executive director of CDM – and got the story all wrong.  For the rest of the news, they just go online.  I saw firsthand the effort that goes into producing the local paper when I looked last week at Thurday’s and Friday’s daily papers sitting side-by-side.  I couldn’t believe it, but both days had the same exact picture in the middle of the front page (Friday’s was cropped a little bit)!  The picture?  It was a handful of local politicians sitting around a conference table – not exactly the kind of material that you need to see twice. 

 

Every Thursday night, the language school (Fenix) puts on Café Social, which means that the students and professors go out for something to eat and drink as a way to practice conversational Spanish and to get to know one another outside the classroom.  Almost always, we go to a restaurant right in the center of the city (el centro) called Cazadores, which means “hunters.”  Now I am no vegetarian, nor do I have any problem in principle with a restaurant that bears such a name.  But there was something not quite right about Cazadores (beyond the fact that their chicken was not very good)…  It took me a little while to figure out…  It’s a nice location…  The waiters were very friendly…  Oh yeah, on the restaurant walls are large, framed pictures.  Of course, the pictures are of various kinds of animals.  But a quick glance around confirmed that they are all of endangered species!  I kid you not.  A bald eagle here, a poison-dart frog from the rainforest there, wolves, lions, and various other fauna, almost all of whom face the danger of extinction precisely because of hunting, or because of loss of habitat due to human activity.  I assume they don’t serve up any of these animals, but it certainly didn’t help the taste of my chicken.

 

Nuestra caridad nace de la eucaristia.  Our love (charity, caritas) is born of the eucharist.  This is the banner that greets us this morning, on this Trinity Sunday, as we join in the celebration of the Mass at la catedral de Zacatecas.  Again, parts of it are very easy to follow and understand, and parts are very difficult.  It is hard to feel like I am actually participating, though of course it’s not really about my feelings.  It’s like watching people in a sacred space that I really have no claim upon – doubly because I am not Catholic and I do not fully understand the language they are using.  But I am certainly drawn there nonetheless, and grateful to spend time among the people of God, straining to make out the mumbled prayers, learning slowly when to sit, stand, kneel, and cross myself.  I wish that we could partake of the eucharist here, but alas, what else is there to do but pray for the unity of the church, and to be grateful.  To see the host raised up is to see the body of Christ, broken for us.  Thanks be to God.  Te alabamos, Señor.

Pics… (click on a picture for a full-size image)