Oscar Romero and History

It was March 24. Just a couple of hours before the procession to remember the 30th anniversary of the assassination of Oscar Romero. Before we joined the march, our group was invited to visit the headquarters of the National Civil Police. It was chilling to walk through this palatial building, knowing that underneath the lovely courtyards lay the clandestine cells where death squads brought citizens of this country to suffer at the hands of the police.

We met with a director of Investigations. This man is responsible for investigating crime today and the disappeared from the years of the war. He is Augusto Castaneda and he is also a member of Emmanuel Baptist Church. He told us one of the best fruits of last year's election was the reform of the police force. A number of commanders were replaced so that now finally the police are no longer given the freedom to do whatever they want. Discipline and accountability have been enforced.

I saw a photograph on his shelf of Augusto and Desmond Tutu who as you know was one of the leaders that contributed to the end of Apartheid in South Africa. Augusto told us that it came from a time when he was in Haiti at election time providing security for Desmond Tutu.

Augusto asked Tutu if he could have a photo with him. After the picture Tutu asked,

Where do you come from?

I come from El Salvador, the home of Oscar Romero.

And what do you think of him?

I think he is one of the greatest men in the history of El Salvador.

Tutu shook his head. He said, "No. Oscar Romero is one of the greatest men in the history of the world."

These were the words ringing in my ears as we walked that afternoon through he streets of San salvador to the Cathedral and the tomb of Romero. Fitting on the verge of Holy Week.

Peter

Everybody has a mother and they all die

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This is excerpt #6 from, " Believer, Beware: First-Person Dispatches from the Margins of Faith"


Jeff Sharlet says, "Mine did; your will too. When she does - if she hasn't already - you'll be sorely tempted to make sense of what has happened."

Jeff speaks from experience. He asked the doctors for her medical records. They told him that they would do him no good and that if it was a lawsuit he was after that he'd lose because they knew how to handle these things.

He asked his grandmother for some of his mother's letters and it was in these letters and poems that he received some understanding of who she was. She developed a faith out of many faiths. In one letter she wrote to a doctor, she said, "For some reason I don't find it necessary to be exclusive. I concentrate on Buddhist meditation and Christian prayer. And sometimes a phrase comes to me that seems addressed to the Great Spirit."

But I like best her poems, such as this one from three months before she died,

"This body, bound in skin and downy hair
Is shuddering, weeping.
It breathes and whispers a thank you with each breath.
It likes to be giddy.
It likes the mysterious warm tingle of red wine on a dark winter night,
The startle of fragrance when an orange is cut.
It likes the smack of cold winter air..
It like to dance until it is the music."


Peter

Love: Prince or Frog

Cathleen Falsani, author of " The Dude Abides: The Gospel According to the Coen Brothers" , in a recent Sojourners article, related her attempt at a reading at a friend's wedding. After much thought she chose excerpts from Tom Robbins' " Still Life with a Woodpecker" which featured an exchange of letters between an environmental princess named Leigh-Cheri and a tequila-swilling outlaw called Bernard:

"The most important thing is love," said Leigh-Cheri. "I know that now. There's no point in saving the world if it means losing the moon... I'm not quite 20, but thanks to you, I've learned something that many women never learn: Prince Charming really is a toad. And the Beautiful Princess has halitosis. The bottom line is that a) people are never perfect, but love can be. b) that is the only way that the vile and the mediocre can be transformed , and c) doing that makes it that. Loving makes love. Loving makes itself. We waste time looking for the perfect lover instead of creating the perfect love."

Bernard's letter, via his attorney, arrived shortly.

"Love is the ultimate outlaw. It just won't adhere to any rules. The most any of us can do is to sign on as its accomplice. Instead of vowing to honour and obey, maybe we should swear to aid and abet. That would mean that security is out of the question, The words, "make" and "stay" become inappropriate. My love for you has no strings attached. I love you for free."

So here's a mix of realism, a love's bad breath, mixed with a degree of idealism which must be part of any new venture, or we'd never set out. If we were to write or borrow some lines to declare our love for a new love or a mature love, how would it have grown, evolved since you first met?

Peter