Reflections on Salvador

As the semester is coming to a close, El Salvador is hanging around like a spurned lover, demanding that I give it more attention. I feel I never really went into depth about my experiences there on this blog. Well, that isn't exactly going to change- but I will reflect on one specific incident for a minute, anyway.

In life, we encounter situations (often of a religious nature) in which no word seems appropriate to describe our corresponding emotional response. I had several such moments in El Salvador. For the sake of this footnote, I will focus in on one incident that left me groping for a descriptor. When I finally reached one, it didn’t feel totally authentic, but it was as close as I could get: the incident left me “floored”.

It was our first full day in El Salvador. To say that I was not adequately emotionally prepared would be an understatement—I had no idea what to expect, I was in unfamiliar territory and out of my element (both literally and figuratively), and I was already feeling a bit homesick for Minnesota. It was a long, hot day—it might have been the hottest day of the entire trip—and I was soaked in sweat, uncomfortable, and feeling more than a little groggy after only having slept four hours in the last two days. In less words: I wasn’t fully open to learning about something as heavy as the martyrdom of Monsignor Oscar Romero. Yet as often happens when one closes oneself off, I was fully hit with truth anyway.

I began to feel “emotional” in the churches we visited downtown (I hate using such phrasing; are we not “emotional” all the time, since emotions range from extremes to neutral feelings? In this case, I mean it in the common contemporary usage.) I have been in a bit of a dry spell religiously as of late (this trip did not resolve that—I do not get emotionally bullied back into belief like I used to—although it certainly got me seriously thinking about religious belief again and actively weighing my options), and I was suddenly overwhelmed with a desire to believe in something. I would’ve been satisfied with anything at that point. My sentimentality craved the comfort (and discomfort) of belief and wanted such accompaniment for the experiences ahead. The feeling tagged along to Romero’s tomb and watched as a man approached the tomb and disrespected it in a saliva-utilizing gesture, and by the time we reached the chapel in which he was shot, the nagging had crescendoed into full, sweeping emotion. I was being set up for what was to follow.

Inside the chapel, we were told the story of Romero’s assassination. I must have missed this detail before, but the women telling the story informed us that Romero’s final words in the homily delivered before he was killed were pulled from John 12:24 (she didn’t actually identify it as such, but I recognized the words immediately). This verse is that which is tattooed on my right calf along side an image of a stalk of wheat. The verse reads: “I tell you the truth, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds” (NIV). Romero said this because he knew his fate; I tattooed it on my body in a superficial, superfluous decision to emulate what I saw as my religious beliefs in ink. In choosing a verse that I found literarily beautiful but devoid of real meaning, I unintentionally set myself up for this situation two year down the road. We moved from the chapel, where I lingered behind for a moment in solitude, to the house that Romero lived in, where I took a photograph of my versed leg beside his bed.

So I was “floored”. The incident stuck with me through the rest of the trip, forcing me to think and relate in a new, entirely more personal context. It made me a more genuine, open learner. And yes, it made me contemplate my place in the religious world. I can affirm few things religiously (for example: I believe, but in what? I’m good at making broad, easy claims; but when it comes to the details, I’m lost.), but I’m working on it. The unrelenting faith of Oscar Romero and the people of El Salvador in the face of such spiritually destructive acts is awing, and as cliché as it sounds, inspiring. It is scary to make claims of a religious nature, but we’re better for it. I myself am still trying.

Now: back to homework and all that. I'm severely overwhelmed, so I needed a break to think back to better times, I guess.