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| intimacyDays are full. We spent the weekend (which included Wes' birthday- Sat) involved in a wedding, which more than one night in a row prevented me from honoring my 9pm bedtime. I'm tired.
We're in the throws of project development- a therapeutic option to accompany the economic option we hope to start in 2009. A small business for the women. A place of work outside of prostitution. Our responsibility (Wes and I) is the to facilitate a discipleship program which will walk with the women through the first couple years (quite intensively for the first 6-8 months, and regular follow-up- counseling, etc.- thereafter). All of that to say we're in some intensive desarollo (development) and I am feeling a personal burden for some personal spiritual work as well. And of course, those thoughts are also overwhelming- even moreso. I'm reading the memoirs of Mother Teresa and challenged by the intimacy of her call, her conversations with God about the beginnings of Missionaries of Charity, the intentionality of her discernment and her prayers for purification, realizing how deeply personally these moves must flow from our Intimacy. So I'm thinking about Intimacy. About the person I want to be in Christ before and with the women.
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| Its Snowing!A rare day in El Alto, despite the reality that we never really get warm.
Snow somehow gives meaning to the cold. Every one is a bit friendlier with white flurries on their shoulders.
I sit with my Tazo Passion tea (still working on the Christmas stash), a heavy sweater, scarf and hat.
I'm happy.
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| ResistanceSome say that living, walking and working toward the Kingdom is and should be marked by peace and joy and affirmation (see Job's friends, popular theology, all things Christian hedonist).
My aunt once told me that her experience - and her theology - is pretty well the opposite, that its right about when you're about to touch the very thing that is closest to the heart of God that evil makes its biggest plays of resistance, speaks its most persuasive lies.
The question (and its answer) has terribly fatal implications. Do we give up, go home, wait it out? Or do we push through, claim victory and move ahead? I have a strong sense (esp. this round) that its the latter. I sometimes wonder how Job and Paul and the rest kept their certainty and resolve in the midst. Its exhausting.
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| Days of RecollectionThat is why- as soon as possible- primarily for myself, I will try to organize days of recollection. I will not be able to stand the impact of the world otherwise. We can do nothing without saints, big ones and little ones. The only weapons we will develop will be prayer and penance. The world will leave us along, saying, "After all, they are not doing anything. They are just a bunch of smug fools praying." -DORIS DAY
Irreligiosa Solicitudo Pro Deo. (a blasphemous anxiety to do God's work for Him). -HILLARY of TOURS | | |
| Wars and Rumors of LoveWes and I arrived home last night after spending the weekend with friends. There was an election yesterday regarding a new constitution, autonomy of states (which favors the rich, and ultimately hurts the poor- especially the district of La Paz), etc. all of which is shady bureaucracy, one government accusing the other of illegal illegitimate laws, votes, and being. Its a bit interesting. We watched the news as stone wars went on in Santa Cruz. We waiting to see if our neighbors would riot. We returned last night to quiet streets, our cold house, and staff meeting this morning. I muttered as I got ready for bed last night, "I don't think many would understand what it means to prepare for civil war and have nothing to show for it but an all-too-heavy backpack." Its a volatile place to live and its hard to know just how and when it'll go bad.
Elizabeth and I spoke of reconciliation yesterday in her kitchen as we prepared lunch. I thought much of Volf and his theology of reconciliation, his brave calling out of the sin of the oppressed, their need too for repentance of the hate, anger, vengeance that is bred from the underside. That without a new order of Love, there is no peace, no freedom, just changes of power, someone different with a different name and color of skin becoming the very oppressor they hated. It has to be about more than power. Freedom even is hard to make sense of. Whose freedom do we fight for? At what cost to whom. "There is too much injustice in the fight for justice," he says. And can a war be won justly, without hate. I only know that I pray love and choose love. I don't know any other way.
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