Photo Gallery: Best of the Centro Historico

More pictures, as promised... These are from the week we stayed downtown, in the Centro Historico. Hope you enjoy them as much as we enjoyed exploring!

Best of the Centro Historico

Photo Gallery: Best of Tepoztlan

Hola faithful readers! In response to a couple of requests for more photos, I'm going to try uploading some albums and then linking to them from the blog. I have roughly 8 hundred bazillion pictures, so I'm trying to pick the best (and stay within Google's storage limit). The first gallery is from a month ago, but we'll go from there. Please let me know if the link doesn't work, or if y'all have any other requests!

Que tengan buen fin de semana!

Best of Tepoztlan

My Roommate

Tomorrow my roommate-in-Cuernavaca leaves for home. He’s leaving a day earlier than everyone else because of some screwy scheduling by an airline that is not United. Tonight he said his goodbyes by making us all bananas foster – a dessert I’ve had only once before, with equally fond memories of friendship and laughter.

Anyway, after dessert David (en espanol pronounced Dahv-EED, which is how I pronounce it every time I write it here) gave each of us a little goodbye, and I even got a hat out of the deal! The hat was from a mission trip he’d taken a youth group on in New Orleans. I was moved, but, as usual, had no decent reply ready. Which is where a blog comes in handy. What I write here doesn’t say everything – it isn’t possible – it does amount of my feeble attempt to say something about what my time with David has meant to me.

While this is, obviously, sort of a public thank you to one person, I hope it gives everybody else a window into a major slice of my experience these last three weeks. It is but one example of the people you meet for only a brief moment in time but who impact you in ways far beyond your expectations.

***

I have to be honest. When my roommate first arrived in Cuernavaca, I was skeptical. Here I am, the classic introvert, sitting in my new room taking a few minutes to adjust to my new surroundings, when I hear this guy coming up the stairs, talking nonstop to our host and dragging the biggest suitcase you’ve ever seen (or heard coming up the stairs, for that matter). Dude comes in and immediately tells me his life story and all I can do is inwardly shake my head in wonder at how these two opposite personalities have been placed together for two weeks. O Lord, You have got the weirdest sense of humor.

Within ten minutes David had told me his call story and then asked me about mine. My call story?! I’d been wandering around Mexico for two weeks; my call story seemed like something from another life. Deer-in-the-headlights, anyone? I babbled something for five minutes straight and I can’t remember anything coherent that I said. But what I do remember is that every time I looked over to this new roommate of mine, he was listening intently, no matter how incoherent I was being. By the end of the night, I knew I liked this guy. By the end of the week I wasn’t just laughing (though, gracias a Dios, I was still doing that) I was thanking God we had been placed together.

Here’s the first thing I liked about rooming with David: He’s got a great sense of humor. As y’all reading this probably already know, that’s pretty much the first requirement for being my friend: you gotta be able to laugh easy. And David definitely laughs easy. (Need I mention huaraches?!) My personal favorite story in this strain occurred when I learned David's least favorite song ever and then immediately realized I had it on my computer. Within minutes of his telling me the story of why he hated it, the gentle 70s sounds of Seals and Crofts' "Summer Breeze" were gently wafting out of my little laptop. (As Chris put it, "That is almost exactly the kind of thing that Matt and his roommate would do to each other in college. I mean, it really falls into the long Matt Keadle tradition of roommate torture...") We had a lot of laughter in that little upstairs room, and I don’t know how I would have gotten through those two weeks in Cuernavaca without it.

Here’s the second thing I liked about rooming with David: He’s a great pastor. It was truly a gift to learn under his shadow these last few weeks. As thrown off as I was by the sudden call for call stories, I was struck by the way David put practicing hospitality near the core of his calling as a pastor. And then I heard story after story from David about his life’s work and his many experiences, and many of those stories will stick with me as I prepare for the next steps in my own vocational journey. But most of all, I learned from his example. So often in our visits to Mexican homes or charlas (chats) with local residents or Bible studies with local groups (see especially the blog post Altavista from August 19 or The Face of God from August 23) lots of us – mostly myself – would be left speechless by the power of the experience. But after this brief moment of quiet, David nearly always had a well-formed affirmative word to say. I still remember how moved I was when he told Elena her house, physically made only of thick concrete and corrugated metal was “strong, very strong.” He said it in English but you knew she got the message, both in its physical and metaphorical truth. And then in the Bible study I was totally reduced to nothing, but all of a sudden here comes David’s voice using the words of the New Testament to affirm what these people were doing in this little Bible study. Here was the voice of the pastor, speaking loud and clear and speaking a blessing in a place the other religious leaders had abandoned (the current church leadership in Cuernavaca is opposed to these small-group Bible studies), and as he spoke the people nodded in agreement and I thought this, this is what the pastor can do, amid all that is wrong with the world, this is what the pastor can do, this is a role for the pastor. We joke about me having a future internship with David, but in truth I’ve already had one. As ridiculous as it sounds, for these few weeks, I had a mentor.

Here’s the third thing I liked about rooming with David, which is personal and only works because of the strange twists of fate God uses to change us: David has got exactly the right personality to draw me out of myself quickly. Those of you who know me well know how hard this can be, how hard it can be to draw me out, the introvert who is often so very guarded and cautious around new people (as Hannah put it once, "It took Matt awhile to decide if he wanted to be friends with us...") How can I put this better? Here is one example: David and I were both here in this program in part to learn Spanish, and as part of the program we were placed in a homestay so we could practice. My approach to this practicing is to go into my head, think of some Spanish vocab, conjugate the verbs, rearrange the nouns and adjectives, then try to construct a sentence and see if our host will understand. David’s approach is to gesticulate wildly, acting out what he’s trying say as if he were a mime, speaking mostly English but very clear English, and throwing in Spanish words whenever he can think of them (at least, David, this is what it seems like to me). And here’s the thing: what David did to communicate almost always seemed to work! So by the end of the week, here I am, certainly using what Spanish I know but also when I can’t think of a word throwing in a little miming action, like driving an invisible steering wheel for the verb to drive… I have to be careful, because I really am trying to learn Spanish carefully and systematically during this long year abroad, but I think David’s influence has drawn me out of my shell a bit, made me a bit braver about trying to communicate with people even if I don't have the language figured out perfectly just yet. It's made me a bit more willing, despite all of my inner self-doubts and worries, to just give it a try and go for it.

Anyway, these kinds of experiences like this immersive language program are supposed to be “transformative,” right? Well, I can tell you this much right now: the first way in which I was transformed on this particular trip was through the time I spent with David.

Gracias, David.

Tarea 8/22 - Translation

In response to several requests for a translation, including one from "From Michigan with Love," an anonymous poster (ahem, Adam) who has managed to blitz my comments section in the last few days (thanks dude - I am laughing out loud, both at your comments and at the Cards' chances for catching up). The following is my Tarea (Homework) from last week, which was, of course, originally done in Spanish. It's much more fun in Spanish - these are uber-simple sentences, people. Scroll down to the earlier post to see what it would look like en Espanol. (But even in Spanish, no one seemed to get No. 9...)

Question: How is your love for God?

Responses:

1. My love for God is like the love of a Cub for his mother.

2. My love for God is like the love of a guitar for its guitarist.

3. My love for God is like the love of a color for its painter.

4. My love for God is like the love of a citizen for his country.

5. My love for God is like the love of a ball for its player.

6. My love for God is like the love of corn for its farmer.

7. My love for God is like the love of chocolate for coffee.

8. My love for God is like the love of a drunk for a cantina (bar).

9. My love for God is like the love of a mosquito for a man.

10. My love for God is not like the love of God for me.

Movimiento

The more things change, the more they stay the same.

I am back in D.F. (i.e. Mexico City), and for a few days Chris and I were back together. Chris came with my class on our weekend excursions to Plaza San Jacinto and the Zocalo downtown, and she joined us for all of our meals. It was great to have her as part of the group: I certainly felt more complete, and I think she enjoyed being able to interact with a friendly group of people after living in a big house by herself for two weeks. (Plus, she got to show off some of her knowledge of Mexican history on our tours – my wife is so cool. ☺)

But now Chris has left for a hotel downtown, where she’ll stay for a few days with other Fulbright grantees as a sort of orientation to the program, etc. So now I am all alone in a big house by myself. The more things change, the more they stay the same.

But of course, it’s not really that bad. My companeros are staying in the house right next door, which is where we share meals, etc. For the last three days we have had full days of language classes. On the positive side, my beginner class has learned lots of new forms and tenses at a faster pace than before, but on the negative side we’re no longer in homestays with Mexican families, so we’re not practicing as much Spanish in real situations as much as we were the last two weeks. I am really looking forward to being done with these particular classes, just so I can get out of the little compound of the Lutheran Center, because it’s starting to make me claustrophobic: y’all know how I need my exploring time…

One item of note from the weekend: On Sunday evening we went to a worship service at San Pedro Martir, a progressive Roman Catholic church just south of here (to anticipate your question, Lutheran churches are hard to come by in Mexico…). San Pedro Martir is, like most iglesias barrios (neighborhood churches) here, set within a low-walled courtyard. There is a small older building, probably hundreds of years old (such a thing is quite possible in Mexico, where it seems like most of the old churches are older than the United States), and then there is a newer building, also small and very simple but with walls almost entirely of glass, so that the service seems to be almost outdoors.

Inside the sanctuary of San Pedro off to one side there is a sort of wax-figure of San Pedro Martir – Saint Peter the Martyr. I don’t know much about this particular San Pedro’s martyrdom, other than that he was killed by an axe to the head. I know this because in the wax-figure statue, the axe is still there, in his head. San Pedro’s eyes are still open, and he is holding a Bible…he looks pretty much like a normal saint, except for the, um, axe-in-the-head. Kim, our leader at the Lutheran Center, finds it amazing that his eyes continue to remain so serene-looking, despite the fact that he has had an axe in his head for decades.

San Pedro Martir is also very welcoming of visitors, including the many visitors Kim brings there as part of the Lutheran Center programs. As part of their warm welcome, they will typically invite the visitors to sing a song for the congregation. Yep. If your visiting group feels the need to be a choir for the day, San Pedro is the place to go. Following a group reflection on a related Bible story the previous evening, our group opted to sing "Pescador de Hombres," known in English as "You Have Come Down to the Lakeshore." (It’s in the ELW hymnal in both English and Spanish.) At some point someone got the impression that I was a musician, and so I was asked to accompany the group with my guitar. (I hadn’t played in a month, so I tried to dampen expectations, but of course one of the reasons I took guitar lessons was for just this sort of occasion, so…) David, my roommate in Cuernavaca, also plays the guitar, so we worked out the chords (which were written in a different notation in our Spanish songbooks – who knew chords had to be translated too?) and practiced for the half-hour or so before it was time to leave.

When it came time to perform, our song went over well, but the best part was that, once they realized what song it was, the whole congregation joined in, singing a song they knew by heart. It reminds me of what Zach told me about Pete Seeger, that he didn’t do concerts to hear himself sing, he did them to hear the audience sing along together. It was a communal event, truly.

So I am glad I brought my guitar. You never know when you're going to need it...

Gracias, Senora Roselia.

Gracias, Senora Roselia. Gracias for welcoming us into your casa, giving us so many comforts of home at a time when we were so far from home - homes both near and far. Every morning and afternoon and evening you served us the most delicious comida, prepared with care and served with pride. You had unbelievable patience with my fledgling Spanish and helped me learn in conversation. As we prepared to say goodbye this morning I saw your eyes grow watery, though we have only been here for two weeks. This morning we gave you small gifts of thanks, and to our surprise you had gifts for us! This has been the greatest surprise of Mexico: Arriving with expectations and having them obliterated with unpredictable, unbelievable gifts.

Por su hospitalidad, Senora Roselia, gracias.

The Face of God

On Saturday my language class and I go to Mexico City. Nobody here calls it Mexico City, or even la Ciudad de Mexico; instead the monster of MEX is known invariably as either simply Mexico (pronounced Me-hee-ko) or as the initials D.F. (which is pronounced Day-Effay and stands for the Distrito Federal, in the same way that D.C. stands for the District of Columbia). So, to summarize: On Saturday we go to D.F.

More importantly, on Saturday, Chris and I get to live together again. (I’m reminded of a Box Tops song: “Gimme a ticket for an aeroplane…ain’t got time to take a fast train…lonely days are gone, I’m a goin home…”)

But CETLALIC (our language and culture school) had saved one last experience for us before leaving Cuernavaca. On Friday en la tarde (generally, the time between lunch and sundown) we were invited to join in a meeting of a Christian Base Community in the Altavista neighborhood.

The community meets once a week in the home of one of its members to discuss the events of the previous week, to sing a song, to read the Bible, to connect the Bible readings to the events of their lives, to sing another song, and then, always, to celebrate with food and drink.

I am ashamed to say that I was not particularly looking forward to this. I was tired. Well, I suppose I was not physically tired, just tired of sitting and listening to people talk. That the meeting would be in the late afternoon, the sleepiest time of day, was not helping. But that afternoon, to paraphrase C.S. Lewis, I was surprised by grace.

We arrived, for the second time that week, in an poor neighborhood where the road is crumbling, where the houses seem patched together with slabs of concrete and corrugated metal, and where dogs and chickens roam the alleyways, squawking or staring or both. We walk down the road a few paces and are ushered into a…convenience store? Yes, it is one of those hole-in-the-wall places that are everywhere in Mexico where you can buy a Coke or a bag of chips, and behind the counter of this store lies a door that leads to the three very, very small rooms where the family lives. Past these rooms there is a small outdoor patio, lined with green plants of all kinds and today encircled with a ring of wooden chairs and plastic stools.

We fit ourselves in like sardines with those who have already gathered but we are not the least bit uncomfortable because already we realize that we have entered – nay, have been welcomed to someplace special. In the middle of the room is a table on which there is a vase of red roses, a lit candle, a coffee can for an offering, and a visible offering of canned goods that will later be distributed to those in the neighborhood who have even less than the people here (the poor giving to the poorer…).

The itinerary of the meeting is explained to us – in Spanish with some translation – and at some point I am handed a Bible. I am not sure what to do with it. Find the verse, ok, should I read it? No, not yet. I can follow the basics of what is going on but the details fly past me in a language I haven’t mastered yet. Suddenly we are standing and singing a song, twenty-some people sharing three tattered songbooks. Now someone is praying, now it is the Lord’s prayer, I recognize it, now we are crossing ourselves – at least, the Catholics are and a few of us Lutherans join in. The teacher’s strike is discussed. It has closed the public schools for this, the first week of classes. There seems to be some disagreement – some lament that the children are not learning, but others point out that they were not learning much to begin with because of the corrosive corruption in the school system and the resulting lack of adequate classrooms and qualified teachers.

Without much warning the discussion of local events is brought to a close. A story from Acts is read. Someone speaks up to point out a correlation between the Biblical story and the situation of the striking teachers. After a few minutes a story from Philippians is read, and a few minutes after that a story from the Gospel of Matthew. After each story someone in the group makes a connection between the Scriptural witness and the life of the community. Every once in awhile someone says something to make everyone else nod in agreement or says something to make everyone laugh.

Finally things seem to draw to a close, and we are standing again, and singing another hymn. I cannot see any of the three songbooks so I just listen. We sit down again, and now comes a giant tray of Styrofoam cups. There is a hot, milky substance in them – atole, a drink made from cornflour and milk and sugar and usually a few other ingredients, in this case rice. I don’t like the look of the congealed skin on the top of the milky drink but I take a cup anyway: this is hospitality, invited participation in this community, and I am not about to refuse it. Out comes another tray, this time full of sugary empanadas that turn out to be filled with something like rice pudding. They are delicious. As we eat we are told: This is the celebration part of the meeting, and it is very, very important. Later I realize just how close it is to the Sunday liturgy of Word and Meal.

As we prepare to leave one of the pastors in our group speaks up to affirm the work of the community out loud. He explains something about the book of Acts and cites another Scripture in a clear affirmation of the work of this community, and something about the way he says it moves me and reminds me of why I felt called to be a pastor in the first place. Later I learn that priests and even the local Bishop used to attend and encourage these meetings, but no more. Now the church leadership is trying to stamp out these little groups. I still am unable to get a satisfying answer why.

We stand and file out, shaking hands and thanking everyone profusely, making quite a racket but once we are back on the street we are quieter than usual again, reflective, I suppose, each in our own way.

All of us have reactions to experiences like this and some of those reactions are wildly different. On the way home I learned that one of our number reacted with anger – she was furious, really, not at the people but at the fact of their poverty. The experience of the disparity between our life experience and theirs left her with the righteous anger of the Hebrew prophets and psalmists. She was right, I think – someone should be angry at how much harder things can be for those who have so little in the way of economic resources, at how inexcusably those in charge – in government, in business, and yes, in the church – have abandoned their charges and abdicated their responsibilities.

Lord knows I’ve been bitterly angry about just this sort of thing on too many occasions. And yet on this day her anger was still jarring to me because it had no place in my own reaction. It’s surprising, really, considering the bitter rage I’ve felt about injustice at other times in my life. But this time I simply felt moved, deeply, rumblingly moved, as if a San Andreas fault inside of me had shifted and shaken away all of the excesses that had been slowly crystallizing around my heart. God opened my heart, as Bono suggests, by breaking it. And then God opened my eyes.

I saw God in the beauty of the people:

In the experienced wisdom of God, the cultivated memories of God, the faithful endurance of God that lies in the minds and hearts and faces of the older generation.

In the leap-of-faithful leadership of God that drives the middle generation to organize these gatherings week after week, even in the face of controversy from the powers that be.

In the eyes and ears and tongues of God in the inexplicable presence of children who sit among their parents and grandparents and make the most elegantly perfect contributions to the conversation and consolation that happens in this sacred place.

And finally, I saw God – nay, I tasted God in our holy communion of sugary, rice-filled empanadas and hot milky atole. It was sacramental. There was no other word for it.

At the end, an unexpected gift: A benediction, a blessing from the abuelo of the community, spoken in Spanish and translated for us by the lone Roman Catholic in our class, a gift, a gift, truly. This weathered child of God left us with these simple words:

May God and the virgin be with you on your way.