{"id":430,"date":"2011-11-26T23:46:59","date_gmt":"2011-11-26T23:46:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.scu.edu\/writeherewritenow\/?p=430"},"modified":"2011-11-26T23:46:59","modified_gmt":"2011-11-26T23:46:59","slug":"a-sacred-encounter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.scu.edu\/writeherewritenow\/2011\/11\/26\/a-sacred-encounter\/","title":{"rendered":"A Sacred Encounter"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cWho are you?\u201d said the five year old, looking at me as she firmly placed her hands on <\/strong>her hips. Her eyes were deep and dark.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy name is Juan. What is your name?\u201d
\n\u201cI am Brenda. Do you want me to tell you a joke?\u201d She laughed openly even before the joke was over. I could see how open her heart was. <\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Children at the School Presidio Liberado<\/p><\/div>\n

The sun was shining again over El Salvador. The devastating rains were over. The land was slowly beginning to dry. People have returned to their communities but children like Brenda are still <\/strong>struggling.\u00a0After the joke Brenda looked at me seriously.
\n\u201cYou know what?\u201d
\n\u201cWhat?\u201d I asked.
\n\u201cYou are not going to believe this,\u201d her face was intense and filled with mystery as if trying to understand the story herself.
\n\u201cWhat happened?\u201d I asked.
\n\u201cWell, there was this old man in the community. He was always around here. He used a little stick to move around. Then, another man stole the stick, and you know what?\u201d
\nI looked at her. I knew she was trying to tell me something but, as always, in indirect ways. I shook my head.
\n\u201cYou are not going to believe what happened,\u201d she repeated.
\n\u201cWhat happened?\u201d I asked. She got closer to me.
\n\u201cHe died\u2026of hunger.\u201d Her eyes searched inside my soul to find my reaction. I shook my head again. She did the same. Hunger in the community is something she was probably seeing a lot.<\/p>\n

When I joined the \u201cmedical brigade\u201d for a trip to Bajo Lempa, I wasn\u2019t expecting those communities to still be in such a bad shape. In the Bajo Lempa, the low-lying farming area near the\u00a0Lempa River, the communities were completely flooded, destroying most crops. At the school Amando Lopez, where Brenda found me, I saw many families left to survive on their own, with many children and adults underweight, some severely malnourished.<\/p>\n

\u201cBrenda, do you like school?\u201d I asked. She nodded.
\n\u201cBut you know what?\u201d she added immediately, \u201cyou are not going to believe what happened.\u201d She paused and looked at me, again searching to see if I was interested in this new story.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Lack of Transportation at Bajo Lempa<\/p><\/div>\n

\u201cWhat happened?\u201d I asked, impressed with her storytelling techniques.
\n\u201cWell, the rain came…and you know what?\u201d
\n\u201cWhat happened?\u201d I asked patiently.
\n\u201cThere is no transportation!\u201d\u00a0 She screamed it, with the exasperation of a five-year old, reporting the absurdity of that kind of news.\u00a0 We were both quiet again. She looked at me. I wondered if she wanted me to say something. But Brenda was not interested in pity. She wanted me to know. She wanted me to hear, to really listen.<\/p>\n

After spending the day together, on my way back home, I was thinking that for those living a more comfortable life (like me), it was easy to pretend the situation has gone back to normal, but for Brenda\u2019s community\u00a0the situation would be dire for a long time. I checked the stories Brenda told me with a couple of teachers and they confirmed the one about children not being able to go to school. Others were just Brenda’s efforts to make sense of the hunger and the difficulties of life through stories she could share with us.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Children Fighting Malnutrition<\/p><\/div>\n

At night, however, I couldn\u2019t stop thinking about that little child. My dream was that someday we would be able to offer scholarships to bright, feisty children like Brenda. Teaching at the program Casa de la Solidaridad<\/em> for a semester, I wondered if solidarity could ever be a comfortable \u201chome.\u201d The situation in the rural communities in the Bajo Lempa is extremely difficult, now more than ever. What is it we need to become so we can embrace and understand solidarity and the suffering of this world? I was thinking about the encounter with Brenda. Later at night I thought that maybe solidarity is not about you becoming something. It is about something much simpler. Like Jim Harrison says, it is about \u201ceverything and everyone becoming you.\u201d I was inspired to act by the sparkling laughter of Brenda and her courage to tell the stories. Maybe a little bit of her is still with me. That beautiful child helped me to understand a little bit better the long road home, the road to solidarity.<\/p>\n

Take a few minutes of mindful breathing to reflect on meaningful and sacred encounters in your own life. What people and conversations have moved you \u00a0and change you in powerful ways? What kinds of stories do you need to tell and share with others? \u00a0Write for as long as you can. \u00a0Enjoy it!<\/p>\n

Juan Velasco<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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