What Eases My Heart

Next week is Semana Santa or Holy Week and we close our operation.  Why?  Two fold: 

1.    To “force” our staff to take one week of their annual month vacation (Nicaragua labor laws require a month’s vacation) in order to play, visit family, or rest; and
2.    Slowly the country shuts down and not much can get done anyway.

So here is my reflection on what this week means for me.

Superficially it is a week of rest for me, a week to spend time with family, a week to sweat unmercifully – Semana Santa is one of the hottest weeks in the year, and a week to shake off some of the burdens that have been building in the first quarter of the year.

Mural: Universidad Martin Lutero, Managua

Deeper, though, it is the time when I look at the man, Jesus.  I grew up Christian, much of my life revolved around the church, I believe greatly in the historical figure…but my beliefs have deepened and my understanding of that man has grown living in Nicaragua.

All my adult life, I have been committed to the poor.  In the States we started and ran shelters.  We worked with the hopeless, the beaten, the abused, the least of us.  I felt the grace of the one we called Jesus and the love he had for the least of us, but my anger grew and grew.

Artist: Jose Ignacio Fletes Cruz

Here in Nicaragua, I live in a country that revolted against those who would hurt the least of us.  I live in a country that has tried to maintain…though frequently has failed…a passion for the poor and I began to really understand the man, Jesus.  

•    The one who was crucified, an execution meted out only for the enemies of the State (Rome). 
•    The one who had such a following of people who loved him because of his passion, his warmth, his daring, his courage.
•    The one who was NOTHING like the Sunday school drawings of a white man with a passive smile and no gumption in his heart.
 
And more and more that Jesus was easier follow…not the Paul version of the man…but the gospel versions of him. 
 

Artist: Jose Ignacio Fletes Cruz

When I get scared when funds are low…I remember the lilies in the fields and I let go and buck up.
 
When my worst nightmare of mass graves surface…I remember the man on the cross and brave the cruelties that abound.
 
When my deepest fear of not being able to protect the ones I love raises its nasty head…that is when the resurrection eases my heart.
 
For you see, though I talk about the man, I also believe deeply in the resurrection.  We have a dear friend, a Druid, who told me once “you use the resurrection as a crutch.”  And he was...and is right.
 

Artist: Jose Ignacio Fletes Cruz

I NEED the resurrection to help me face each day.  I NEED to know this is not all there is…for those I love and those who come to the clinic.  If you have had a nice life with limited pains and sufferings and you think this is it…then good for you, but there are too many who have had horrible lives, suffering you and I cannot imagine, pain that goes too deep…they need something more…and so do I.
 
I may be wrong.  I don’t care.
 
I will work to ease the lives of those suffering but I cannot and will not do it in my limited life time…and neither will you.
 
Resurrection is my crutch…but that means I can still move.  I can - at the very least - still move. -Kathleen