Good Ripples

Good Ripples

I don´t watch much television, but when a friend lent me the DVD episodes of "Joan of Arcadia" a few years ago,  I found myself exploring the various philosophical and religious themes of the show with my teenage nephew who was at my house for a visit. One of my favorite lines is an exclamation of joy from Joan in "Jump," a thought-provoking episode about suicide:  "The ripples were good!"  I often think about how my actions, even the ones that seem unimportant in relation to the need which are so great, can ripple on to touch people and change faraway situations with results that I may never know about.

This week, the ripples came back to me in the form of photographs.  In September, Mexico suffered two devastating earthquakes.  In October, I facilitated a Roots in the Ruins: Hope in Trauma course with seven church leaders from Juchitán, Oaxaca, an area severely affected by the earthquakes.  In November, those leaders helped teach the "Doors of Hope" training workshop for Sunday school teachers.  And this week, the first group of Sunday School teachers sent me photos of their emotional first aid, trauma awareness, dignity and resilience building classes with the children, youth and adults of the Emanuel Church of the Nazarene in Juchitán, Oaxaca.  The ripples have been good!

Elena Huegel

Dec. 2017

The Widow's Mite (Might)

And there came a certain poor widow, and she threw in two mites, which make a farthing.

And he called unto him his disciples, and saith unto them, Verily I say unto you, That this poor widow hath cast more in, than all they which have cast into the treasury:

For all they did cast in of their abundance; but she of her want did cast in all that she had, even all her living.  Mark 12:42-44

I am invited to preach just outside the city of Juchitán, Oaxaca in an area where most of the residents are Zapotec people.  Just three years ago, the services were adapted into Spanish from Zapotec because the new minister does not speak the ancient Mesoamerican language. Zapotec words, phrases and songs spring from the hearts of the people in the congregation during the worship service like the little flowers decorating the auto repair and machine tool shop sanctuary.   Clanging work continues in the background even as the service begins.

Mary Katherine Ball, a Global Missions Intern on loan to the Institute for Intercultural Studies and Research while waiting her assignment in Ecuador, accompanies me past the rubble, to the solitary pillars of what is left of the church building.  "The sisters and brothers worked so hard to have a simple, comfortable, worthy place to worship," the pastor says shaking his head.  "Every single family in my congregation lost their home." 

As I preach, three Zapotec matriarchs look on from the second row,  their bright clothes trimmed with lace and long braids intertwined with ribbons.  They nod in agreement and then weep openly as I remind them that we are the children of the High King, worthy princes and princesses, who treat others with dignity just as we expect and demand to be treated.    "When you treat me with dignity, your own dignity is uplifted.  When I treat you with dignity, my dignity is strengthened.  Dignity is expressed and experienced in community."

At the end of the worship service, one of the matriarchs hands me an envelope. " Thank you for coming to visit us. This is our offering so that you might bless others in need," she tells me as she gives me a hug.

Ten dollars. Three matriarchs.  Widows?  Houseless?  Churchless?  Worthy queens in the court of the High King! Again the widow's mite, becomes the widows' might,  for nothing, not even a devastating earthquake can strip them of their dignity and their power to share that dignity with others!

We spoke too soon

                Magyolene, the Global Ministries volunteer from Chile who serves in Nicaragua, arrived on Sunday.  I was thrilled to be facilitating again with her, as we had many times over the years at the Shalom Center of the Pentecostal Church of Chile: environmental education projects, youth mediation trainings, and the Roots in the Ruins: Hope in Trauma post earthquake recovery program. We spent the evening decorating the old meeting hall at the Institute for Intercultural Studies and Research in San Cristobal de las Casas, Chiapas, México, for the "Four Winds of Healing: Hope for Traumatized Communities" course which would start the next day.  We caught up on our lives, the changes and the dreams, and remembered friends and family spread across the globe. 

                The course began Monday morning with 6 participants from Mexico, Nicaragua and the USA and continued all day, along with a continuous rainfall outside, until 9:30 pm when everyone when home. Just past midnight, I awoke to another aftershock.  I calmed myself down with the hand massage I teach in the emotional first aid courses and went back to sleep.

                The neighbor of the Institute, whom I greet every day as I walk by her shop, stopped me in the street, wringing her hands and shaking nervously.  "The wall between the Institute and my house fell last night!  It made a terrible noise.  Please tell the administrator to come see me as soon as possible!"  I was the first to enter the Institute grounds, arriving early to set up the details for the next session of the community trauma healing course.  I reported a couple of weeks ago, after the two large earthquakes in Mexico, that the Institute buildings had not suffered any damages.  Well, this is no longer the case. 

                When I open the doors to the old colonial adobe and tile-roofed hall, a bright beam of sunshine greeted me through a gaping hole in the wall.  The roof sagged precariously.  The two monuments the participants had made the night before out of cardboard rolls and magazine cutouts to commemorate community grief and trauma, resilience, and the path to healing had been gently pushed away from the falling adobes and sat, unharmed, the middle of the room.  A corner of the "grief process" flip chart poked out of the rubble while the cheery yellow cards stating the elements of dignity, some buried and others mud-streaked, wrinkled or wet, decorated the moist, brown earthen heap.  Normally I reuse my flipcharts and signs.  Not this time.   But the guitar, piano, violin, computer and projector also in the room suffered no damage.

                As the other staff and participants arrived, we quickly moved everything out of the meeting hall, and Magyolene and I set up the course again, now in the dining room.  By the time we ended the course that afternoon, the administrator had already called in a work crew.  The roof has been propped up and the massive amount of mud (even 200 year-old adobes turn back to mud when wet since the blocks are cooked only by the sun) is being removed from the hall. The board of the Institute has begun to try to figure out how and when repairs will be made, including the neighbor's wall.

                It is probable that the wall of the Institute's old meeting room cracked during the two previous earthquakes allowing for the rain to seep into the adobes.  Then, the saturated wall crumbled with the smaller aftershock.  Many other buildings and homes will disintegrate across Chiapas and Oaxaca as the rains soak through deep fissures in the adobe walls and the tectonic plates continue to settle.  Meanwhile, we are grateful to have a new meeting space at the Institute, and even though it is not completely finished, we are rushing to clean it up and begin using it during the next workshop.

                We ended the community healing course by sitting in a circle and sharing food and drink, giving thanks that the wall caved in while we were gone and that the neighbors were not harmed, remembering all those whose suffering is compounded by the rains, and committing ourselves to continue to be a part of the healing of the communities we are accompanying .

Elena Huegel

Chiapas, México, 2017

Pray for Juchitán, Oaxaca...

Fireflies

            The last month has been an emotional roller coaster for all of us.  I arrived in Texas just before hurricane Harvey hit and my flight to Puerto Rico was cancelled.  I waited for two days with my parents as we received the news of floods in the greater Houston area.  Some friends had five feet of water in their homes while my brother, David, and his family watched the water creep up the lawn and then go down before reaching the house.   I finally travelled on to my original destination, Puerto Rico, to facilitate two second level Roots in the Ruins: Hope in Trauma courses -  Odyssey of Healing: Hope for Individuals and Conflict Transformation for Communities and Congregations. I had planned on spending a few days on the island to evaluate the program and schedule the next steps when hurricane Irma appeared on the scene.  The brothers and sisters in Puerto Rico decided that it would be best for me to leave, and so I was on one of the last flights off the island.  Then Hurricane Irma tore through the Caribbean Islands and Florida.  I hadn´t been back in Texas long when the earthquake devastated Chiapas and Oaxaca.  I arrived home in Chiapas to find that everything in my house was fine, but that almost all the Catholic Churches in San Cristobal de las Casas had varied degrees damage.  Then, I felt the second earthquake with its epicenter near Mexico City.  Practically half  of Mexico has felt the  shaking again, and again, and again as the aftershocks continue.  Just today another earthquake of 6.1 downed an already damaged bridge in Oaxaca as news arrives about the devastation in Puerto Rico from yet another hurricane.  I am just beginning to hear from  my friends there.

            In the next two weeks, I will be co-facilitating a 5 day course at the Intercultural Mayan Seminary on grief, dignity and resilience and a two day course on The Four Winds: Hope for Traumatized Communities.  Through these activities were already scheduled, they take on a very different meaning in the light of the devastation. 

            On Thursday of this past week, I accompanied a team from the Institute for Intercultural Studies and Research down the highway from San Cristobal towards the coast to visit towns and cities affected by the Sept. 7 earthquake.  Drawing from all the experiences I obtained during the recovery process from the earthquake and tsunami in Chile in 2010, I encouraged the team to seek out signs of resilience and hope in the midst of the devastation.  As we traveled through the towns of Ixtepec and Ixtaltepec, we went past house after house with gaping holes in the tile roofs or giant cracks running on the walls or simply reduced to piles of rubble. But we also saw people braving the blistering sun to clean off bricks and tiles to be reused, opening spaces to rebuild, and helping neighbors with basic needs. Our final destination for the day was Juchitán, Oaxaca, the largest city affected by the Sept. 7th earthquake, and still shaking with new earth tremors.  Through contacts that the Institute had in the area, we spent two hours with 63 pastors and leaders of the Church of  the Nazarene teaching briefly about emotional first aid, compassion fatigue and the dangers of untreated trauma and then inviting them to begin to envision the new ways that they will be involved in God's mission over the coming months and years.  They asked us to return to continue with emotional first aid and resilience development, and to begin the process of training Roots in the Ruins facilitators over the course of the next two years.  The Institute will begin the process of securing funds to be able to accompany this group as an encouraging example of resilience.  They had the capacity to organize, even in the midst of chaos, bringing together people who represented the broad spectrum of lay and pastoral leadership in the church with  youth, middle aged, older men and women with many different capacities and professions, from medical doctors and psychologists, to teachers, students, and housewives.

            I wrapped a prayer shawl around the shoulders of Pastora Noemí, a mother, a pastor, and the coordinator of the Church of the Nazarene seminary in Juchitán, Oaxaca.  This prayer shawl was given to me last year by the women at First Christian Church in Fort Worth, Texas, and has been on many travels with me.  I felt Pastora Noemí needed the comfort and encouragement of all those prayers.  She wept with tears of pain as well as gratitude as she began to tell me her story.  Her husband was not at home the night of the earthquake.  She managed to get her four year old daughter from the second floor down to the first floor  as the house fell down around them.  Then, she brought her 85 year old mother-in-law to little piece of the house still standing.  It is a miracle none of them cut their feet on the broken glass.  Noemi went back upstairs to look for shoes, feeling around in the dark, Then the three huddled together in the deep stillness of the night, unable to find a way out of the house.  It was at that moment that they saw the first blip of light.  Then another and another. Fireflies!  Never before had Noemi seen fireflies anywhere near her city home.  They hugged each other, granddaughter, mother and grandmother, and exclaimed with delight at each new flash.  When the neighbors finally called and then helped them out of the rubble, they discovered the fireflies were all over  the neighborhood, bringing joy and hope sparkling into the darkest of nights.

            I am looking for the fireflies in the midst of all the bad news.  One firefly flash for me is the prayer by Archbishop Ken Untener that I quote above.  I don´t have to do everything, but I will do my best to shine faithfully in the tiny fraction of time and space where I am called to be a part of God's mission.  Thanks to all of you for your emails, prayers and concerns over the past month.  Please continue to pray for the Roots in the Ruins: Hope in Trauma program as we accompany those affected by these disasters and train new facilitators to bring healing in the midst of so much need. May each of you shine like sparks of firefly light wherever God has placed you today.

Elena Huegel, September, 2017  

Prayer

Fireflies

It helps, now and then, to step back and take a long view. 
The kingdom is not only beyond our efforts, it is even beyond our vision.
We accomplish in our lifetime only a tiny fraction of the magnificent
enterprise that is God's work. Nothing we do is complete, which is a way of
saying that the Kingdom always lies beyond us.
No statement says all that could be said.
No prayer fully expresses our faith.
No confession brings perfection.
No pastoral visit brings wholeness.
No program accomplishes the Church's mission.
No set of goals and objectives includes everything.

This is what we are about.
We plant the seeds that one day will grow.
We water seeds already planted, knowing that they hold future promise.
We lay foundations that will need further development.
We provide yeast that produces far beyond our capabilities.
We cannot do everything, and there is a sense of liberation in realizing that.
This enables us to do something, and to do it very well.
It may be incomplete, but it is a beginning, a step along the way,

an opportunity for the Lord's grace to enter and do the rest.
We may never see the end results, but that is the difference

between the master builder and the worker.
We are workers, not master builders; ministers, not messiahs.
We are prophets of a future not our own.

Bishop Ken Untener 
(This prayer was composed by Bishop Ken Untener. The words of the prayer are attributed to Archbishop Oscar Romero, but they were never spoken by him.)

http://www.usccb.org/prayer-and-worship/prayers-and-devotions/prayers/archbishop_romero_prayer.cfm, Sept. 23, 2017

The Life of a Bottle

¡Thanks to Joel, who is 14 years old, for making this video of the journey of a plastic bottle from the streets of San Cristobal de las Casas to the Cañon del Sumidero National Park!  Please share and remind everyone that our garbage doesn´t just disappear...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nE-13pgovMo

When the thread is thinnest

"When the tread is thinnest...when we sense the tragedy of endings...when life and grace is threatened by deafness and ugliness...when tenderness is bullied...when fences of enclosure overshadow the last scrap of commons...then, which is now, comes a ferocity on the side of life, to protect, to cherish and to envoice what cannot speak in human language." Jay Griffiths.

Cesar Moya on Conflic

"In conflict, people and communities mature and grow.  In conflict, faith, hope, and love are strengthened." César Moya

Words in Tseltal

K’alal ay slamalil k’inal
tsel ko’tantik yu’un

[When we are in peace - profound silence inside and outside -

That is the reason our heart is content and happy.]

On the other side of the sun

June 22, 2017

Elena Huegel

San Cristóbal de las Casas

México

The Other Side of the Sun

            I had spent the day thinking about the back and forth flow of migrants through this historic city known to this day by the Mayan Tseltal and Tsotsil people as "Jovel" or "Jobel"  (The Valley of Tall Grass) and registered on maps as San Cristobal de las Casas.  Each new wave of residents over the centuries has renamed the city. 

            The Mexicas, natives from Central Mexico, called it "Hueyzacatlán" ("Beside the Tall Grass" in Náhuatl) while the Spaniards, who took the valley away from the Tsotsiles, named it "Villa Real de Chiapa" (Royal Village of Chiapa) after the indigenous Chiapan  people who preferred to jump off a cliff rather than submit to the conquistadores.

            Colloquially, the city was called, "Chiapa of the Spaniards" while the nearest town down from the lush, cool, mountains and in the sweltering lowlands where there were large plantations was called "Chiapa of the Indians."

             Those who can claim Spanish heritage in this city are still part of the inner power circle and call themselves "los auténticos coletos" (the authentic pony tails - after the male fashion of long, tied back, hair in colonial times.)

             I don´t know why in the year 1529, the city was renamed "Vicious City" or "City of Vices," but I can imagine... 

            In 1531, it was decided, understandably, to change the name again to San Cristóbal de los Llanos (plains) after the patron saint of the town. 

            The name was changed again to the "Royal City of Chiapa", then to the "City of San Cristobal."  This name was then modified to "San Cristobal de las Casas" after Friar Bartolomé de las Casas, who was "converted" by the cruelty he saw during the conquest and so became a defender of the rights of the original peoples and one time Bishop of Chiapas.

            Again the name was changed to "Ciudad de las Casas" and eventually back to "San Cristobal de las Casas," the name that remains to date.

            For nearly five hundred years, people have come and gone from San Cris, as the tourists fondly call it today, migrating in and out for different reasons.  On any given day, as I walk down the main street, closed to vehicular traffic, I can hear people speaking Tsotsil, Tseltal, German, Italian, French, English, Chinese, and a wide variety of accents from the different Spanish speaking countries. Some are permanent residents while others are tourists or merchants who come into the city to sell their wares. There are people from Guatemala, el Salvador, Honduras, Cuba and other Caribbean and Central and South American countries making their way north, through Mexico, in what is considered the most dangerous leg of their painstakingly slow journey to the United States.  Now a days, the flow is reversing, and people either forced or choosing to leave the United States are seeking more favorable living conditions in Mexico. Some are settling in San Cristobal while others are  trying to return to what used to be home in countries further south.

            After I had spent a morning last week writing materials on dignity for the local migrant shelter, I walked down the pedestrian street on the way to my Tseltal language and culture class.   First I came across a little boy, maybe 5 or 6 years old, sitting in front of an outdoor cafe on top of  a large cardboard box wrapped in newspaper, a folded piece of paper with a couple of coins on it laying on the pavement in front of him.  With great vigor and showmanship, he was wailing out a song and banging on the box as if were a drum.  His mother, with the dress of a woman from one of the Tsotsil communities, was selling crafts nearby.  Some of the patrons of the café were smiling; some dropped another couple of coins on the paper.  What he lacked in musical ability, he certainly made up for with serious dedication in helping to earn a living for his family.

            Along the next block, I came across another singer.  This young man with his unmistakable Argentine accent, was singing "The Other Side of the Sun" by Albert Louis Hammond and Janis Ian in a beautiful "folksy" voice while skillfully playing the guitar.  Sitting next to him  on the curb and singing along in a wide variety of keys and rhythms was a very intoxicated man, toothless and in tattered clothes.  The Argentine was not in the least bit fazed by the discordant accompaniment.  He smiled at the man beside him, swaying in sync to the music, and then in an instant, smiled up at me, locking his gaze with mine as if to say "I honor this man´s dignity as well as yours."  

            I stopped and listened to the words and was reminded that in one way or another we are all pilgrims on the path, migrants trying to find a way home, through the tall grass, and back from the other side of the sun.

            Even as I'm leaving I'll never stop believing you are the one
            Who can make me laugh and can bring me back
            From beyond the other side of the sun,
            Beyond the other side of the sun.

Tsajtayamel jbeel - Take care of yourself  your path.  (Tseltal good-bye)

Elena

Slamalil Kinal

According to the Tseltal people, for there to be "lekil kuxlejal" or good and abundant life, there must be tranquility and harmony as understood in the phrase "slamalil kinal," often translated as peace.  "Slamalil kinal" is social and cosmic tranquility, felt by the individual, but that reflects unity of wills, dreams and hopes that make up "a single heart", "jun nax ko´tantik.

Legacy of a Bishop

Legacy of a Bishop

BY ELENA HUEGEL ON MAY 09, 2017

jTatic Samuel, as he was lovingly known to all in this region of Mexico, was the visionary Bishop of the Catholic Church in San Cristobal de las Casas from 1959 to 1999. jTatic was the title the Mayan descendants, the Original Peoples of Chiapas, gave him and means "our dear father", a sign of respect and appreciation for his tireless work on behalf of the marginalized and the poor.  There are many ways to describe the life and ministry of Bishop Samuel Ruiz, but there is a particular legacy that touches my life and the work of Global Ministries here in this southern state of Mexico on the border with Guatemala.   jTatic Samuel knew he would not be around forever, but he saw  his call to "see that justice is done, let mercy be (his) first concern, and humbly obey (his) God" (Micah 6:8)  as growing and expanding in the organizations he helped to create during his time serving the church and the broader community.

In the  Institute for Intercultural Studies and  Research (INESIN in Spanish), organized by members of the Catholic Church and the United Church of Christ,  jTatic Samuel deposited his vision for ecumenical and intercultural dialogue where people from across religious divides and representing a  broad range of countries, races, and languages could come together, learn from each other and work towards healing the wounds of political and social oppression, environmental degradation,  forced  immigration, and gender inequality.  Mayan, Catholic and Protestant spiritualties come together, pooling their strengths to build God's kingdom of Shalom.  This is the organization where I am serving in Chiapas on behalf of Global Ministries.

Last week, Cara McKinney a Global Missions Intern who grew up in the Ohio Region of the Christian Church,  (Disciples of Christ),  arrived to San Cristobal de las Casas to work with another organization started under the auspices of jTatic Samuel: Melel Xojobal, which in the Tsotsil language means "True Light".   This organization works with indigenous boys, girls and teenagers encouraging them to promote, defend, and exercise of their rights through participative processes while discovering ways to improve their quality of life.  Cara will be working with teenagers in both school and out of school programs.

As both Cara and I enjoy and learn from the legacy of jTatic Samuel, you will be hearing more about how the seeds of justice, truth, hope and faith planted by one man have multiplied into a great harvest in the lives of individuals and communities throughout the state of Chiapas in Southern Mexico.      May we be faithful stewards of this legacy!

Shalom,

Lekil Kuxlejal

Today the children in the market taught me the meaning of Lekil Kuxlejal in Tseltal, a Mayan language.  It is the good life or the abundant life.  It is was they live in work, play and laughter.  It is what they dream because it is not fully here, as they see pain and sadness around them and sometimes inside them.  But it is not a utopia because it is not the impossible dream.  Lekil Kuxlejal exists in God´s perfect dream, but it has been damaged, without disappearing, and we can always work for it to be again. It is for today, tomorrow and always, and for everyone and everything.

In preparation for Easter

 All of our hope is founded in the sure and certain hope of the Resurrection. Jesus’ resurrection inaugurates the reunification and remaking of heaven and earth. As resurrection unfolds, all that is good, true, and beautiful, becomes building material for the Kingdom, in ways we can’t yet fully see. Like the body of our Lord in the 40 days after the first Easter, the Kingdom slips in and out of sight, alternately terrifying and exhilarating us. It’s hard to grasp that God continues to use us as co-creators of this world, and that God will redeem and sanctify and perfect this world and not just leave it behind. It’s challenging to believe, when we know how broken, dysfunctional, grimy, and cruel this world can still be, and how easily we contribute to all that evil, even when we have heard the Good News. Our work – lay and ordained – is to proclaim resurrection in the face of despair and discouragement, over and over.
The Rev. Jennifer Brooke-Davidson 

Where there is smoke, there is a fire

Where there is smoke, there is a fire

With pungent spice burns the resinous heart wood of the Montezuma pine, "ocote" in Spanish,  drawing us round the Mayan altar.  We gather, Christians and those who profess no faith,  Tseltales, Tzotziles, Europeans, Mexicans, United Statesians, Canadians, Lebanese,  called by the smell, the smoke, the candles, the flowers into sacred space.  We pray for awakening to  peace in the midst of the political crisis and government sponsored violence, we pray for courage as the diversity of the environment disappears around us, we pray for justice in communities devastated by migration, alcoholism, drug trafficking.  We pray for the people of the United States to have the courage and perseverance, the wisdom and strength to stand in dignity, as the Mayan have stood again and again, over the centuries, bending under oppression, but not breaking, resilient and resistant.   With each prayer we turn, East, West, North, South.

I resist opening my heart in this liminal space, the doorway between heaven and earth, because of the smell.   Thousands of miles away, the pine plantations owned by powerful lumber companies  are burning like blue matchsticks covering Chile in a heavy gray blanket.  Homes, churches, native forests catch on fire.  A blaze near the Shalom Center threatens the 240 acres set apart by the Pentecostal Church of Chile and the national reserve I know so well, the Altos del Lircay.  As with  many of the other situations mentioned in the prayers, there is so little I can do.  Finally, when we turn to the south, I give in: I feel the tremble of the hummingbirds, the lizards, the condors, the foxes, the ancient trees.  It is the fear of fire and the ravages of humanity.  Thousands of miles away, in the highlands of Chiapas, surrounded by people in a place where "mercy and truth have met together; righteousness and peace have kissed" (Psalm 85: 10) I fight off insidious despair and breath deep, filling my lungs with the smell of commitment, imagination, and joy which abounds in the struggle for Shalom.   "For God has not given us the spirit of fear, but of power, and love, and self-control."  2 Tim. 1:7

Elena Huegel

Feb. 28, 2017

Handing it over

Hello everyone!  It has been a while since I have updated my blog.  Here is a link to a recent article about Roots in the ruins from the Brookfield Institute.  ¡Enjoy!  Shalom E

http://www.brookfieldinstitute.org/news-resources-2/2017/2/27/handing-it-over-is-a-victory-in-itself