Interdependence

INTERDEPENDENCE

To get us thinking:

 God’s Touch by Bruce Eppery.   “From the perspective of ecology, systems thinking, and the new physics, the universe is a dynamic community of interconnected energy events in which each unique being arises from the influence of the whole universe.  Amid the complex interplay of pattern and novelty, the fluttering of a butterfly’s wings in California influences the weather patterns in Washington, D.C.  Physicist David Bohm asserts that the universe is a ‘holoverse,’ or undivided whole, in which the whole is present and reflected holographically in each part, and the part shapes the character of the whole. [. . .] Love rather than alienation is essential to reality, according to the emerging metaphysical, theological, and scientific world view” (Epperly 109 - 110). 

Decisions that we make every day affect people around the world.  From the clothes we wear to the food we eat, from the cars we drive to the temperature control in our homes, our choices connect us to far away people and places in hundreds of hidden ways.  In the ever expanding reality of globalization,  our lives are intertwined with the lives of others in a complex network stretching around the world and pulling us inescapably together. This planetary order that reaches beyond ethnic, cultural, religious, economic, social, and political boundaries to facilitate the easy production and exchange of marketable goods has created a new arena for social conflicts and environmental destruction.  Many of us have tried, like the proverbial ostrich, to bury our heads in the sand pretending that we are absolutely independent.  We believe that we can live emotionally and economically isolated from God, the rest of humanity, and even the earth were we live. Yet, we all share the same air and water, we all must obtain the same basic elements to survive and to thrive, and we all have the need to be in relationship.  God is constantly reminding us through the beautiful and terrible lessons of nature that we are all  unique parts of a bigger whole.

            It is Christmas time and summer in southern hemisphere.  Every day on the weather report, besides noting the constant climb of the temperature, there are red letter  radiation warnings about the sun’s ultraviolet rays.  We are told to use sunblock, long sleeves, hats, and sunglasses.  There are recommendations that children not play outside in the hours of the day when the sun is directly overhead.  We are warned about cataracts,  skin cancers, and damage to the immune systems of our bodies as the plants shrivel and the sheep die.  We live under the hole in the ozone layer.

Far above the earth, a gaseous band in the atmosphere called the ozone layer protects plants and animals from overdoses of the sun’s powerful ultraviolet rays.   Scientists unexpectedly discovered in 1980s that this layer has thinned dramatically over the south pole and that all of the circumventing countries have suffered the effects of increased radiation.  The production and use of cloroflourocarbons (CFCs), invented in the 1920s by people working for the General Motors company, in air conditioning and refrigeration units, in the making of certain kinds of foam and plastics,  in aerosols,  in different solvents, and for sterilizing was found to be the cause of ozone reduction.   CFCs are extremely stable gases that can remain for more than 100 years in the lower layers of the atmosphere.  Each atom of CFC released can destroy up to 100,000 molecules of ozone.  In the past 20 years or so, there have been decreases of up to 50% registered in the ozone layer above Antarctica.  Perhaps one of the most serious effects of the resulting increases levels of radiation will soon appear in the ocean where many species of plankton, at the base of the marine food chain, have drastically lower levels of reproduction.

An international agreement called the Montreal Protocol, signed in 1989 and renegotiated in 1990 and 1992, calls for the reduction and, eventually, no more production of CFCs.  The countries most seriously affected by the hole in the ozone layer have continued to call on the rest of the world to respond to their plight and slowly the hole seems to be repairing itself.  Chile,  for example, which is one of the countries most seriously affected, does not make any CFCs and represents only a .07% of the world consumption.   Meanwhile, the countries of the northern hemisphere are the greatest producers and consumers of CFCs.   The decisions made by individuals and communities in the north influence the health and well-being of those in the south, and ultimately, because the earth is an interconnected web,  affect their health and well-being.  The decrease in the ozone layer has meant that the whole surface of the earth, north and south, is receiving increased levels of radiation.

Globalization has always existed in nature, whether we were aware of the intricate threads of interdependence or not..  The consequences, however, of economic and political globalization have led to an ever increasing rift between consumers and earth’s resources, between those few who hold the reins and whip of power and those millions who haul on their backs the load of  goods to the world marketplace.   Shalom, as an invitation to participate in the healing of human and earth communities, is also call to recognize our interdependence even as we experience the benefits and negative results of globalization.   Our decisions made as individuals or local communities travel rapidly along the threads of interdependence to heal or to destroy the global web of life.

                        

LandFillharmonic

Shortly after posting this week's blog about my experiences in the Barrio San Francisco and the stream at the Jack Norment Camp in Caacupé, Paraguay, Carolina, one of my former Sunday school students in the Christian Church, Disciples of Christ in Paraguay sent me a video about the program she has been coordinating.  Though she did not live in the Barrio San Francisco, Carolina as a camper at the Jack Norment camp, was particularly interested in my  environmental education activities.  She, too, grieved over the polluted stream and at age thirteen, visited the children of the Barrio, playing games, presenting puppet shows, planting trees.  Even  though I felt that my activities as a Global Ministries Volunteer at the Camp and in the Barrio were ineffective "band-aids" stuck onto the massive, festering environmental wounds, Carolina is evidence that something shifts, something heals when we concentrate on doing what we can do, no matter how insignificant it seems, rather than on the freezing fear that what we finally manage to do will never be enough.

As I share Carolina's video with you, imagine a thread that stretches down through nearly 20 years, from those environmental experiences with my campers at the Jack Norment camp, to the present.  In many ways, nothing has changed.  You will see the garbage.  You will see the poverty. You will see the families and children living on a dump.  And yet, there is music, there is hope, there is new life recycled from the garbage.   I feel like the grandmother of this story: I planted  seeds of justice in the heart of Carolina when she was a teenager; as an adult, she is beginning to harvest peace.

Landfill Harmonic teaser de LandfillHarmonic Like us on Facebook, share this video and help us spread the word about these kids and their Recycled Orchestra. Please go to the link below to support the film and learn more! (do not forget to "like us") www.facebook.com/landfillharmonicmovie

Genuine community

Genuine community

            I wrote this poem when I worked at the nature center at the Jack Norment Camp in Paraguay.  The name of the nature center was “Arapy,” a Guaraní  word meaning “sky – foot.”  (Guaraní is the mother tongue of Paraguay.)  We were committed to building genuine community with all creation, that above and around us in the sky and that on and in the earth below our feet.  At times, it seemed like an impossible task.

            As I sat one day on the edge of the stream that flowed through the camp, this poem came to me with a heart heavy with grief.  I had just finished a five kilometer hike up stream from the camp and made many shocking discoveries along the way.  The first thing I noted as I left the camp were the eroded hillsides.  As I looked back over my shoulder, the camp appeared to be a lonely emerald jewel surrounded by the deforested land.  The soil in Paraguay has a distinctive brick red color, the same color that tainted the stream after every rain.   On my first stop further up the stream,  I found two clandestine tanneries that were dumping their wastes and byproducts including chrome and aluminum directly into the stream.  My nose lead me to the pungent smell of an alcohol distillery where there were enormous vats oozing a horrid smelling black goop.  I found out that it was the waste left over from the sugar cane used in the alcohol production.    Next I arrived at the municipal slaughter yard just in time to watch all the blood and useless parts of several cows being hosed into the stream.  I kept following the stream as it came down through the town of Caacupé and counted the pipes dumping raw sewage and drain water.  Plastics, cans, diapers, batteries, and every kind of garbage imaginable was piled high, left behind by high waters of a storm.  Finally, I came up to a fence.  It was a pig farm with the ramshackle sties in a disorderly arrangement on both sides of the stream. 

            The Jack Norment is on the opposite side of  the stream from the Barrio San Francisco, a very poor outlying area of Caacupé.   I worked with the students from a small school in the Barrio San Francisco,  children discriminated against for living in what was considered to be the “armpit” of the town.   The garbage trucks from Caacupé would unload in the Barrio to build up the dirt road beds with the wastes from other parts of the town. In the hot afternoon summers, I would watch the children playing and laughing in the stream, children with skin sores, runny noses, distended tummies,  and rotting teeth.  They would gaily shout my name when I would come walking down to see them and run to hug and greet me chatting in a mix of Spanish and Guaraní.

            I sat on the edge of the stream and cried for the children of the Barrio San Francisco.  Environmental degradation is one of the most obvious manifestations of injustice and systemic violence in our global community.  As we fight about where to dump all of our toxic wastes shouting “not in my back yard”,  we ignore the children and the streams,  the powerless and voiceless.   We manipulate the environment to discriminate against the poor and to reinforce the destructive powers of segregation, racism, and classism.   The environment has become a weapon in modern warfare; oil intentionally spilled on agricultural lands, defoliants sprayed on forests, and poisons mixed into drinking water sources.  Will the environment also become a primary reason for violent conflicts? Will we be fighting not only for agricultural land to produce our food, but for clean water and air?

            It was with the children and the stream of the Barrio San Francisco that I felt the urgency for a miraculous and profound transformation:  healing not only for the humans of the community but also the environment.    I often felt like my activities with the children of the Barrio San Francisco were just tiny and temporary Band-Aids attempting to patch the deep wounds of injustice.  We planted trees in the school yard and made puppet stories about the stream.  We hiked through the forest at the camp learning about the trees and singing songs about nature.  They taught me the names of the animals and the plants in Guaraní, the language born in that land and that describes its beauty with word images.    I despaired, however, fearing that  the tiny seeds of hope, peace, justice, and stewardship I was sowing would die along with the stream before they had the chance to bear fruit.

            I have gone back to Paraguay about once a year since I have lived in Chile to teach environmental education and conflict transformation workshops.  I will never forget the day that we scooped our nets through the stream and found the first dragonfly larvae!  Over the years, the tanneries have been closed, the alcohol distillery has built a new waste containment system, and there are projects to better handle the garbage and the sewage.  The hillsides are still bare and the stream is not clean.  The children still have runny noses and health problems.  But somehow I must keep believing and hoping  that the seeds of healing are growing against all odds.

            Transformation for the Barrio San Francisco, and for the inhabitants of the world, will come hand in hand the healing of the people, the community,  and the environment.  None can be whole without the healing of the others.  This is message at the heart of Shalom.   

Requiem to a River

Requiem to a River

In life you gave life

            Watering the knees of the trees

            That on your shores bent to drink.

In life you gave life

            To birds that at daybreak danced

            Among the rainbows that you painted from the waterfalls

            Arched with crystal drops.

In life you gave life

            To fish, insects and algae

            Food chains passing along  packed energy

In life you gave life

            Animals and children splashed

blissfully under the hot summer sun.

Year after year, with trickling tunes of satisfaction

You ran through the earth as blood in the veins

Carrying life on your way.

            But now...

In death you deal out death

We erased the trees

And now you get angry, dragging

Houses and vegetation in whirlpools dyed

Red from bleeding soil.

In death you deal out death

And birds in mounds of garbage

Cease their aerial acrobatics

Failing to find food among the gunk.

In death you deal out death

When the corner stone is smashed

The building blocks of life

Come crashing down.

In death you deal out death

The sores on the skin of the children who

Bathe in your waters, fester.

And the fish float belly up,

Suffocated

Oh river, I wish a miracle could resurrect you,

But we traded  your life

In exchange for our death.

Elena Huegel

1994, Paraguay (Originally in Spanish.  Translated November 20, 2003) 

            

Diversity

            My mother always says she is glad that she hears about my adventures as a missionary after I am home safe and sound.  One of those memorable trips took place about nine years ago when I joined two other young women on a long bus ride to the Pantanal, the largest swamp in the world.  Our adventures in southern Brazil remain in my memory as unforgettable lessons in nature’s classroom.  It was through those experiences that I learned the basic, intrinsic, values of diversity in nature and among people as an expression of God’s creativity and imagination.  Diversity, exposed in millions of different plants, insects, animals, and people, is mystery that stretches the limits of our comprehension and a fingerprint that gives evidence to the unfathomable magnitude of the Creator. 

            Diversity demands that we develop a profound respect for life in all of its different manifestations.   To this day, I am not really sure how we ended up riding with 8 other women from 6 different countries on a dilapidated pick up truck that broke down multiple times on an abandoned dirt road going into the swamp.  It took all day, but we finally arrived at a campsite set up by our Brazilian and Danish guides at the edge of one of the tributaries of the Paraguay River.  We laughed over dinner trying to understand the mix of English, Spanish, Portuguese, German, Danish, and French, and then, feeling exhausted from the journey, decided to get ready for bed.  Yvette and I headed down to the edge of the water to brush our teeth.  Suddenly, I spotted two green marbles in the water about four feet from where we were standing.  With my mouth foaming with toothpaste, I asked Yvette what she thought those pale lights were.  When she turned on her flashlight, we discovered that the marbles were the eyes of a nine-foot alligator!  We almost choked on our toothpaste as we carefully began stepping backward away from the water’s edge.   The next morning, the guide showed us the carcass of another alligator near where we had been standing.  He explained that the dead alligator had been the companion to the one we had seen in the water, but while they had been away from camp a few weeks before, poachers had killed it.  Suddenly our fear of the solitary alligator turned into a new appreciation for life so easily snatched away.

            Diversity invites us into a new awareness of the world we inhabit and into a sense of awe before the Creator’s magnificent handiwork.  One afternoon in the Pantanal,  the Brazilian guide offered to take us on a long hike through an area of grasslands.  Just as the sun was touching the tips of the tall grasses and painting them yellow, red, and orange, our guide motioned us to be quiet and to follow him quickly.  He headed off the trail,  trotting quickly toward a large, shaggy, dark figure.  When we were just a few yards away, I recognized the animal: it was a giant anteater!  The guide told us it was one of the largest he had ever seen, measuring well over six feet from it’s long snout to the tip of its stringy tail.  The whole scene still fills me with wonder as I remember the sun sinking slowly down into the horizon, the anteater scuffling the ground looking for dinner, the howler monkeys screaming in the distance, the dozens of different bird calls, and the burnt sweet smell of the toasted grass. 

            Appreciating diversity requires humility and patience.  Our Danish guide told us that it wasn’t the anacondas, alligators, poisonous snakes, or jaguars that bothered him about living in the middle of the swamp.  It was the insects.  The insects showed no prejudice; they were completely impartial. They stung and bit us all: Europeans, North Americans,  South Americans, rich, poor, thin, fat, short, tall, pretty, ugly. To the insects we were all the same, and no one could take on airs of superiority, no one could claim to be free of bumps and rashes.  It is amazing how humbling itching can be.    The constant buzzing, whining, flying, crawling in our hair, under our clothes, and even inside our shoes while we were wearing them sorely tried our patience.  There were two choices: to go mad or to accept the fact that the insects ruled the Pantanal.           

Opening ourselves to exploring diversity of life is a risky business.  Our participation in the discovery process can radically change our perspectives and beliefs about ourselves, about others, and about God.  We went fishing in the Pantanal.  We were excited as school boys playing hooky as we made some old-fashioned cane poles, grabbed a container of chicken innards, and set out single file first along the path beside the river and then crossing the waist deep water several times.  When we found a quiet corner, the guide said “this is a good place to fish.”   In a few minutes, I had the first bite.  When the fish landed on the bank squirming and flapping, I recognized its large, razor sharp, white teeth.  Piranhas!   I stuck a stick as thick as my thumb in its mouth, and with one snap of the powerful jaws, it split in two.  The guide calmly told us that where there are still waters, there are also piranhas, and where there are piranhas, there are alligators.  Gulp!  Suddenly the happy and rollicking hike along the river turned frightening and ominous.  In our ignorance, we had followed our guide wading from bank to bank.  We would have to retrace our steps now knowing that we would be sharing the river with piranhas and alligators.  Where before we had been oblivious to the danger or need to trust our guide, now we paid close attention to his indications and carefully followed his lead.

 Nothing had changed in the environment from the time we started on the hike to when we got back to camp and broiled our large catch of fish, yet everything seemed different.   We had been transformed.  Through our new knowledge, we were forced to accept the swamp as a full package, with all of its beauty stretching out before us and with the dangers lurking in the calm waters.  Perhaps this fine line between fear and curiosity,  the unknown and the yet to be discovered, the safe and the dangerous, is the same tension we experience as we explore the earth’s diversity,  enter into new relationships with others, or dare to open our lives to God.

In the Shadowlands

In the Shadowlands

In the waiting womb of nativity

In the dewy grayness before dawn

In the curve of the tunnel which hints of an exit.

In the in between time.

In between despair and hope shared

but not yet fulfilled.

In between fear and courage spreading its wings

but not yet taking flight.

In between sadness and joy bubbling from the depths

but not yet overflowing.

In between suffering and justice opening its hands

but not yet embracing.

In between hate and the seed of love sown

but not yet sprouting.

As shadows point a path to the sun

so faith guides us on the journey.

Shadows incubate the babe to be born.

Shadows solemnly announce the new day.

Shadows excitedly foretell the open air.

Shadows draw us irresistibly towards the light.

Peace is cast in the shadowlands.

By Elena Huegel

October 3, 2001, Revised Sept. 16, 2005

Things I have learned about staying alive

Things I have learned about staying alive

One by one, each of the hikers came out of the trail onto the bare rock overhang.  We looked down about 120 yards to the rollicking stream below.  The air was filled with the thundering notes from the waterfall across the chasm.  The virgin forest before us, uninterrupted by trails or signs of humanity, called out freedom with millions of leaves in the wind.  We were youths and adults, from the south and the north, dark and light skinned, from different religious backgrounds, but we all came to this place seeking the renewal of spirit and vision.  “Ritual’s liminal or transformative space allows new ideas and relationships to form. [. . .]  Ritual space alters the surroundings, bringing important symbols or creating a sense of beauty in a context that will announce the unique relationships about to take place.  For people in conflict, ritual space is a “jumping ahead to the end of the book” experience in which they can imagine living in a peaceful future” (Schirch 72).

I have learned that to stay alive, I must seek the sacred spaces of transformation. “In a sacred moment, I experience that wholeness. I know I belong here.  I don’t think about it, I simply feel it.  Without any work on my part, my heart opens and my sense of ‘me’ expands.  I’m no longer locked inside a small self.  I don’t feel alone or isolated.  I feel here. I feel welcomed” (Wheatley 133).

 Sacred space is an elusive place to get to.  It seems to me that interdependence, trust, willingness, desire, faith, connection, hope, love, mystery, risk, and challenge are all words that are a part of this shimmering “end of the rainbow” place.  It is a moment that one doesn’t fully comprehend until the savoring of it afterwards.  It is the space where unity, diversity, and liberty are balanced. That balance in this world can only last an instant, but in that moment, we glimpse at what heaven must be like.   Peeking into heaven transforms us.   Peeking into heaven with others convinces us that we have not stepped through a mirage or an illusion. Long after the feelings fade away, the transformation of our relationships will be proof that we have been to holy ground.

I have found that place in Chile which goes with me nestled in my heart wherever I go.  When I return there, I remember where home is and what I am called to be and do. It is my spot. To stay alive, I return frequently to that place either physically or in my imagination.  “Never forget that as you yearn to have these moments with your spot, your spot years to have them with you.  Love in nature is not just one-way; it is all around us, everywhere in us, and meant to be shared.  When you start longing for your particular spot, know that your spot is longing for your particular presence.  It’s a mutual thing” (Franquemont 308-309).

“There you find that meeting place, the home where heart and lungs gather, where breath meets blood, there you will find voice.  When you find your way to that home, there you will find yourself, the unique gift that God has placed on this earth.  You will find the place from which your journey begins and to were it returns when the road is confused and hard.  This is the deeper sense of vocation” (Lederach 166). I have been called on a quest seeking the sacred spaces where we are transformed.  I long for the holy ground where our relationships with God, others, ourselves and all creation are healed.  The sacred spaces are pauses that give us hope and inspire us to continue on our journey through the “shadowlands,” a term C.S. Lewis used to speak of living on this earth with all of its difficulties and challenges. 

In order to be vibrant, joyful, and engaged, and to continue believing in and working toward peace and justice here in the shadowlands, I must remember to pause and be fully present in the moments where I am restored and healed.  A visit to sacred space brings about transformation on the journey to wholeness.  

Works Cited

Franquemont, Sharon. You already know what to do: 10 invitations to the intuitive life. New York: Jeremy P Tarcher/Putnam, 2000.

Lederach, John Paul. The Moral Imagination: The art and soul of building peace. New York: Oxford University Press, 2005.

Schirch, Lisa. Ritual and Symbol in Peacebuilding. Bloomfield, CT: Kumarian Press, Inc., 2005.

Wheatley, Margaret J. Turning to one another: simple conversations to restore hope to the future. San Francisco, CA: Berrett-Koehler Publishers, Inc., 2002.

We had a wonderful "once" (afternoon tea/supper) with Pastor Félix Ortiz along with Richard and Julia and their two girls, Maria Isabel and Alondra.

Bridge builder

            It wasn’t a deep gully or a dangerous one, but it was just the right size to challenge three elementary age siblings.  They agreed to pool their abilities and build a model suspension bridge stretching from the edge of the pine forest to the sandy soil across the ravine using only the three tools they had with them: a pocket knife, a ball of string, and a bucket.  Daniel, age twelve, was fascinated by how things worked and spent his free time constructing models from complicated diagrams and taking apart, fixing, and putting back together everything from toasters to lawn mowers.  Joel, age eight, could “see things” in his head, often visualizing in three dimensions before sketching or modeling with clay the inventions his mind created.  I was a typical middle child who, at the age of ten, already made relational connections between people and could translate the ideas and feelings behind the project so that my brothers could understand each other and work together.  It took two days and many hours of work, but finally a beautiful model bridge, perfectly balanced and held together by the string stays, tiny whittled railings, and mud packed pavement, crossed the gully joining the two sides and allowing a constant flow of play cars and imaginary people.  Little did I know then that bridge building would become my life’s calling!
               Sometimes in my position as an intermediary, I feel trapped and stretched between the two parties while filtering all of the communications and carrying the weight of the relationship.  I jump into action. Far too often, as I push, pull and risk getting stepped on, I am converted into an easy convenience that excuses the parties from doing their relational work.  I compared the difference between being a bridge builder and attempting to be the bridge itself when I learned about  triangulation.  Bridge builders accompany the construction process.  Once the creation is complete, the parties, not the builder, are responsible for maintaining the bridge and for continuing to grow in their knowledge and understanding of each side.  The bridge, on the other hand, must forever carry the weight of the relationship.  I recognize that I often confuse my role as a bridge builder with being the bridge itself.       
I sat around the table at with a group of life long bridge builders.  They were people whom I had just met but felt like I had known for a long time.  Like myself, these people were all Third Culture Kids.  According to Pollock and Van Reken in Third Culture Kids: The Experience of Growing up Among Worlds, “a Third Culture Kid (TCK) is a person who has spent a significant part of his or her developmental years outside the parents’ culture.  The TCK builds relationships to all of the cultures, while not having full ownership in any.  Although elements from each culture are assimilated into the TCK’s life experience, the sense of belonging is in relationship to others of similar background” (19). Tears and laughter mixed together as we talked about our challenges, privileges, and pain along with the special skills and perspectives that TCKs can bring as global intermediaries into peace building.  I began to read about Third Culture Kids after this gathering and recognized that many of the perspectives, skills, prejudices, and biases that affect my bridge building come from my personal history as a TCK.
The worst question someone can ask me is “where are you from?” The question always highlights the uncomfortable reality of my confused identity. The effective mediator must be able to stand at ease in his or her own shoes.  John Paul Lederach recognizes importance of self-awareness and emphasizes the need to be aware of the “cultural assumptions” one brings into a conflict (101).  However, I find it difficult to unravel to the knots created by the multiple cultures that form my tangled identity.  “In the formation of a sense of personhood and identity, the TCK experience has [. . .] [a] paradoxical potential [. . .] to be either a source of rich blessing o a place of real struggle.” (Pollock and Van Reken 147)   It was while I was reading an article by Michelle LeBaron that suddenly I realized that my stormy identity crisis could also harbor precisely those experiences I most need to tap into as I become a multicultural mediator.  In building bridges between Chileans, Americans, Mexicans, and Paraguayans, traditional and liberal churches, city and country folks, young people and adults, I have the possibility of seeing my “. . .role not as a prescriber but as a guide, not as a keeper of a catalogue of givens, but as a repository of possibilities [. . .]” (LeBaron 13).  As I continue to struggle with my identity, I can develop a unique style of leadership.  “Process leadership [. . .] comes in the form of structuring dialogue in collaboration with the parties, but more fundamentally in creating and holding the space where something new can be brought into being” (LeBaron 13).  My greatest bane can also become my most precious gift.
“The job of culturally appropriate process design is to develop a process that invites multiple dimensions of meaning into the forum, while addressing significant power imbalances and traumatic histories that contributed to a focus on particular aspect of cultural identity” (LeBaron 5).  A bridge builder carefully watches over the process of building the bridge.  If the bridge is to withstand floods and constant use, its initial design must be thought out with all of the possible difficulties in mind.  If new information is uncovered during the construction, then the design must be adapted to incorporate the new challenges.   In my work as a cross cultural mediator, I feel that I need to explore the significance of process – structure in designing meetings, delegations, worship services, and other activities.  Programs must be designed with a careful structure so as to communicate across languages and cultures and to address historic and current issues.  However, they must also be flexible enough to integrate the insights gained from storytelling and relationships. 
When Daniel, Joel, and I finished our bridge, we celebrated with a ritual.  Not having the customary ribbon or scissors, we tied the last bit of string across one entrance and managed to cut it, a midst a great deal of shouting and clapping, with the dulled blade of the pocket knife.  The ceremony sealed the success of our efforts and marked the beginning of “real play” where we drove the toy cars and trucks honking and beeping from one side to the other.

LeBaron, Michelle. “Mediation and Multicultural Reality.” N.p., n.d. (Class Reader)
Lederach, John Paul. “The Mediator´s Cultural Assumptions.” Mediation and Facilitation
Training Manual. Ed. Carolyn Schrock-Shenk. Akron: Mennonite Conciliation
Service, 2000. 101-105.
Okun, Barbara F., Jane Fried, and Marcia L. Okun. Understanding Diversity: A Learning-
as-Practice Primer. Pacific Grove: Brooks/Cole, 1999.
Palmer, Parker J. The Active Life: A Spirituality of Work, Creativity, and Caring.
N.p., n.d. (Class Reader)
Pollock, David C., and Ruth E. Van Reken. Third Culture Kids: The Experience of
Growing up Among Worlds. London, UK: Nicholas Brealey, 2001
Shirch, Lisa. “Ritual: The New (Old) Tool in the Conflict Transformer´s Toolbox.”
Mediation and Facilitation Training Manual. Ed. Carolyn Schrock-Shenk.  Akron:
Mennonite Conciliation Service, 2000. 125-127.

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Commitment to Shalom

High on the side of the Andes mountains, in a forest of millinery  “araucaria” trees, an ancient  individual stretches its umbrella like branches over the ground where a seed, after maturing through the summer, has dropped to earth.  Somehow this seed, protected by a  tough fibrous covering, has managed to escape the gathering hands of the Mapuche people who would depend on it for food and the gnawing teeth of the rodents and other herbivores.  The fall season brings the first rains, gently soaking the ground and providing a perfect climate for the seed to grow.  Many months will pass, however, before the araucaria seed will send its first shoot up to greet the cold mountain air and bright sunshine.  Meanwhile, the seed has all the appearance of being dead, a fallen thing, forest refuse, waiting to biodegrade and become part of the soil.    With a gentle surprise, the seedling eventually pokes up through the carpet of leaves and twigs and ever so slowly begins the arduous task of growing.  Through the icy winter snows, spring melts,  summer heat, and fall floods, the tiny tree pushes its tender limbs upward and its hairy roots downward steadily developing  season after season, year after year, decade after decade.   It will take many years for the tree to produce its first fruits.  But one day in March,  the southern hemisphere’s late summer, the araucaria will produce its first cones, each containing over two hundred seeds, and so the age-old ritual of birth, growth, new fruits, and death flows in the forest cycle.

            I meditated on Shalom as I sat on a boulder in the araucaria forest and  opened myself to learn from creation. The Hebrew word “Shalom” has a meaning which is broader and deeper than the word “peace” in English.  It is the desire of the best and richest blessings from God and it is the sense of tranquility, cooperation, and well-being on a personal and community level. Shalom is an invitation to a constant and profound search in the mystery of the essential relationships for life.  The Bible tells us that “ when peacemakers plant seeds of peace, they will harvest justice.” (James 3:18)  I considered what it meant for me to be a peacemaker planting the seeds of Shalom, and I compared my mission to the dilatory but constant growth of the  araucaria forest. The events of this past year have caused me to reflect in depth about the interconnectedness of life, and there with the araucarias, I wondered how the seeds planted in my ministry in Chile are intertwined with happenings and people around the world.

             With the daily news of injustice, war, violence and the destruction of the environment, it is easy for to lose sight of hope.  The United Nations has called upon the countries and inhabitants of the world to commit themselves to a culture of peace during the year 2000 and the decade that follows it. The Manifesto 2000 invites us to respect life, to practice active non-violence, to share our time and our material resources, to defend the liberty of expression and cultural diversity, to promote a responsible consumption of the natural resources, and to contribute to the development of our community.  We are called to be sowers and gardeners of peace assuming our role as protagonists in the promotion of healthy relationships departing from an inner transformation and projecting out toward others and the entire creation of God.  We must believe that as we patiently care for the seeds and delicate shoots of peace, we will one day harvest a healthy crop of justice.  

I seek to be a seed sower, an active part of the healing plan of God to help strengthen and transform the relationships of people with God, themselves, others and creation.  This is a life long learning process. I have many questions about how to plant and care for the seeds of peace in a troubled and violent world and how to create a balance between the needs of individuals and those of society while celebrating diversity in all of its human and non human forms. I want to continue to explore how "ecology", or the study of our home, includes the complex interactions between people, God, and nature.

“Today physicians, philosophers, theologians, and scientists are exploring the frontiers of a world in which relationship, rather than isolation is the key to understanding reality.  From the perspective of ecology, systems thinking, and the new physics, the universe is a dynamic community of interconnected energy events in which each unique being arises from the influence of the whole universe.  Amid the complex interplay  of pattern and novelty, the fluttering of a butterfly’s wings in California influences the weather patterns in Washington, D.C.  Physicist David Bohm asserts that the universe is a “holoverse,” or undivided whole, in which the whole is present and reflected holographically in each part, and the part shapes the character of the whole…  Love rather than alienation is essential to reality, according to the emerging metaphysical, theological, and scientific worldview.”  (God’s Touch, p.118 by Bruce G. Epperly)

            I have worked with the Pentecostal Church of Chile, a grassroots Christian movement, for the past sixteen years. Sometimes I forget that story telling and listening are a vital part of my ministry, and I try to rush through the story to get on with all the things that need to be done.   I continue to be surprised by the connections between the stories  of pain and hope and the stories of deep seated conflict and of new life.   September 11^th , 2001 will forever be branded on the memories of people, especially Americans, who lived, many for the first time, the harsh realities of international violence and hate at their doorsteps.  September 11^th, 1973 is remembered with anguish by the Chilean people.  On that tragic day, the military forces of the country, heavily supported  by the American Central Intelligence Agency, bombed the offices of the Chilean president and staged a successful coup that lead to years of a powerfully repressive dictatorship.  Although Chile now has an established democratic government, the unresolved issues of the dictatorship bubble just beneath the surface of society. Though there has been an attempt at "reconciliation and dialogue," the divisions between the right and the left, the rich and the poor, the indigenous and the "non natives", the city people and the country folk, Catholics and Protestants, continue to grow.

The vision of Shalom becomes a quest for those who dare to ask questions and seek answers.   How can we combine peace education with environmental education and Christian education in a hands on, dynamic, practical setting?  Where can we live together and work, play, and pray hand in hand?  How can we learn to love, respect and appreciate each other, ourselves, God and creation? Can we learn to face our conflicts and dare to grow through them instead of burying our differences and allowing the wounds to fester in our hearts, minds, and relationships?   How can we heal from our individual and collective traumas? The challenge is in discovering how all the parts of the system fit together.

Shalom requires a covenant with God and a willingness on our part to yield by faith to “a power not our own, which is to concede that we are not in charge and that we are not managers of our destiny and our ministry. Shalom is precisely the capacity to yield to the gift of power, which comes unexpectedly and unexplained and, therefore, is neither understood nor managed by us. . . (It) requires that we be open to guidance, to think thoughts and embrace values and take actions that we never thought we would do.”  (Living Toward a Vision, p. 149 by Walter Brueggemann)

Shalom Center Theme Song

As we prepare for the camps of the spring and the summer at the Shalom Center, our theme song is running through my mind.  It is in Spanish, of course, but I would like to share with you the words, translated into English

            In the image of God

Because God gave us many colors to dream

And then to paint what we are feeling inside.

We’re invited to dance in a rhythm of love

With the light and the song of wind.

Because God gave us each identity,

And made each one of us unique and different.

In freedom and love, with creative gifts

Formed in the image of our God.

Chorus:

And so God spoke, and all was created

And God rejoiced, and felt  great delight

And seeing all had been made good, God smiled

And called us each to share in creation.

And so God spoke, and all was created

And God rejoiced, and felt great delight;

Wonderfully made in the image of God

We have the freedom to create and to love.

Because God gave us the ability to think

To disagree and then to make decisions

God gave us the word, images, senses and reason

To speak and express our opinions.

Because God gave us spaces to grow

With a thousand smiles, emotions, and games.

God invited us to share, to believe and create

In the dance of liberty.

Words by Marijo Veiga y María Victoria Servián (Paraguay)

Sung to the music “Lena s’endort”  by Ismael Ledesma (Paraguay)

Translated by Elena Huegel

The Path of Simplicity

THE PATH OF SIMPLICITY

The used clothing stores in Chile are called “American clothing” stores.  Every week, shiploads of used clothing from the United States arrive in ports all over South America.  In Chile, the clothing is classified with more expensive or luxurious items going to more exclusive used clothing stores and the more common ones going to tumbled heaps in rummage sale style markets.  The poorest people in Chile depend on these markets for their clothing needs.  I choose to buy most of my clothes, including the costumes for the theater group, at the “American clothing” stores or markets.  This decision comes from my personal convictions about the care of the earth and the wise use of natural resources, the obligation to be in solidarity with the poor, and the need to protest, in some small way, the slave like conditions of most people who work for multinational clothing corporations.   These convictions have grown out of my cross cultural pilgrimage and from my close relationship with and love of nature.

            The homes on Manuel Correa street in Curicó all belong to people from the middle or lower middle classes.  The carefully kept yards, both in front and behind the houses, reflect the orderly and decent character of the people who live there.  The house on one corner has a high fence made out of manicured shrubbery and the house on the other corner has flowers lining the short walk to the front door.  In between, there is the house with the four Husky dogs, the house with the bright green grass and tiny swimming pool, and the house with the beautiful roses and grape arbor.  Then there is the house where the backyard is overgrown with yellow, orange, purple, and blue wildflowers, tall, sun burnt golden grasses, a crazy lopsided lemon tree, and bright pink and green camellia bush.  That is my house.  I am not the only one that enjoys the “unkempt, and shabby”  yard; it is a haven for butterflies, birds, snails, caterpillars, bees, and lizards that flock there seeking refuge in the “weeds” from human predators, pesticides and artificial fertilizers.  Yes, my neighbors either think I am a little strange or else feel sorry for me, a single woman with no one to keep the yard for her.  I love my tiny wilderness!

            The simplicity path is not one of deprivation.  It is an inner process where the truly important things in life are prioritized and projected out into behaviors and actions.  It is the decision to not be governed by the glitz of advertising or the drive to buy but to enjoy and be good stewards of the material blessings of food, clothing, and shelter and the spiritual blessings of dreams and hopes, friends and family.  It is the recognition that a price tag cannot be placed on people or nature, and that creation has intrinsic value because it is God’s masterpiece and not because of  its service our needs   This path starts with the refusal to bow before the modern god called consumerism and to risk a profound and responsible relationship with the God of creation.  The choice of walking on the path of simplicity is a decision  that touches at the core of who we are and what we believe and then overflows in a  bubbling spring of gratitude streaming toward others with compassion, a desire to share, and a sense of communion with God, others, and nature.  The simplicity path leads to a constant questioning of what motivates us and an implacable search for inner and outer balance. To chose this path is a sign of spiritual maturity: a growing up and away from ego centrism, constant worry, and the need to control.   

            Richard J. Foster in his book Celebration of Discipline suggests that voluntary simplicity is the outside evidence of an inner transformation. He suggests ten ways to put into practice voluntary simplicity:

1. Buy things for their utility not for the socio-economic level that they represent.  You can choose to buy a fuel efficient car or to ride a bicycle instead of driving.

2. Refuse to buy anything that creates a dependency. 

3. Develop the habit of giving things away.  If you are attached to a possession, give it away!

4. Refuse to be programmed by those who are trying to sell the latest modern gadgets.

5. Learn to enjoy things without the obsession to own them.

6. Develop a profound appreciation for nature.

7. Develop a healthy skepticism toward anything that says “buy now, pay later.”

8. Let your language and the way you speak reflect your sincerity and simplicity.

9. Reject anything that increases or supports the oppression of other people.

10.     Avoid anything that distracts you from “seeking first the kingdom of God and his righteousness.”

Foster, Richard, J. Celebration of Discipline. Spanish Trans.  Alabanza a la Disciplina. Nashville:

            Editorial Caribe, 1986. 101-107.

The Web Unraveled

The Web Unraveled

            “At the far end of town where the grickle grass grows and the wind smells slow and sour when it blows, is the land of the lifted Lorax...”  I can write from memory these words that open Dr. Seus´s book The Lorax. I read the story every Friday morning to the children at the School of Environmental Education in Texas for three years, and yet I never tired of the crazy rhymes and the sad story of how the old Oncler, because of his unabated greed, brought destruction to the land of the Truffula trees.  As the story progresses,  the Lorax tries to warn the Oncler, to no avail, of how his production of Thneeds is contaminating the air and the water.  Finally, the last Truffula tree is cut and the whole web of life is unraveled.  Nothing can live in the wasteland left behind. As I see the story of the Oncler repeated over and over again, I wonder if we will heed the warnings before it is too late.

            Just outside of Mexico City is a beautiful reserve called the “Desert of the Lions.”  It is quite a misnomer since it isn’t a desert at all but a forest, and the nearest lion is many miles away in the zoo.  They say that the park was given this name because it was a deserted tract of land donated by the Lion (or León in Spanish) family. On many hikes with my family through this forest, the trees, ferns, mosses, streams, sunlight, and rich earthy smell awakened in me a profound love and respect for God’s creation.  

One morning, as we drove along the winding highway up to the reserve entrance, I  witnessed a strange and mysterious crime.  Many trees were dead along the roadside, some fallen over and some still standing,  their bark gone and their trunks pale in the early light like white flags of surrender.  I was only a girl, but the solemn sadness of that morning is burned into my memory as if with a branding iron.  The forest was dying and nobody knew why.

When we talked to the forest rangers, they told us that the trees of the eastern coasts of Canada and the United States and of the Black Forest in Germany were suffering from the same unknown plague.  The articles in my environmental magazines spoke of  secret  microscopic assassins that roamed stealthily through the forests of the world killing trees without leaving a trace.   It wasn’t until many years later that the environmental detectives were able to decipher the clues leading to the perpetrators of these crimes.  After years of unchecked atmospheric pollution caused by industries, factories, and vehicles, the clouds over the Mexico City valley had become so saturated with chemicals that the trees on the mountain sides were being burned by acid rain baths.  The forests all over the world are dying in a heroic effort to clean the air full of toxins. 

The death of the forests means more than the loss of trees.  Every breath that we have ever breathed has depended on the oxygen processed by billions of leaves around the world.  The food we eat comes from the soil enriched by those same leaves, naturally composted over hundreds of years, and held in place by grasping roots and staunch trunks that protect from the eroding forces of wind and rain.  Thousands of manufactured goods were born from tree seedlings: houses, tools, furniture, pencils, and even the very pages of this book.  The forest habitat is home for creatures known and unknown and for many humans; no one knows how many  insects and plants are yet to be discovered in the different forests around the world.  Humans depend daily on the medicines, food, and fuel for cooking and heating produced by trees.

The loss of the forests is more that just a material, physical, or economic loss.  It represents also a profound spiritual loss.   Throughout time, people have retreated to the forest seeking in the solitude and silentious music of birds, wind, insects, and water the whisper of the God of creation and of their own souls.  Trees have been the subjects and settings for poems, paintings, plays, stories, and sculptures.  In their towering majesty and profound stability, trees somehow bridge for humanity the distance between  heaven and earth.   Trees are the ancients who hold the secret wisdom of the ages in the rings of their hearts and link the history of humanity and the world with present and future.  Trees are the cradles that rock us in our childhood, the projects inspire us in our youth, the canes that support us in our old age, and the coffins that bury us.   The death the forests could very well mean the death of humanity.

Yes, the forests are dying, and their dying is a warning, a horrid portent of what is to come. We have transgressed the principles by which creation was founded and so we have snatched away its potential for carrying out its primary purpose.   The fundamental objective of creation is to praise God, but how can a river polluted with all kinds of toxic substances praise the Creator?  How can the birds sing their praises if  they fall motionless to the earth due to air pollution?  How can the soil give food if it is full of artificial pesticides and fertilizers which rob it of its natural nutrients?  Humanity has opened a chasm that separates creation from its Creator.  We are the ones warned about in Revelation 11:18.  We are the ones who will be judged, for we are “those who destroy the earth.“

“So, ‘catch’ calls the Oncler, and he lets something fall.  It is the very last Truffula seed of them all.”  The Lorax ends with the puzzling word “unless” and a challenge to every reader.  We all have the last of the Truffula seeds in our hands.  “Unless” each of us chooses to plant the seeds and grow back the forest, “unless” we look at the world from a different perspective and change our  priorities, habits, and expectations, “unless” we as individuals and as a society learn to care for our home, the earth, then “nothing is going to get better. Its not.”