It has taken a while for me to grow accustomed to the way conversations start throughout Central America and Mexico. They usually start, “De donde vienes?” which translates to mean, “From where are you coming?” The question usually confuses me for a brief moment, because what person really wants to know is where I live. In other Spanish speaking countries if someone wants to know where I live they usually ask “De donde vives?” Which literally means “Where do you live?” or “De donde eres?” which literally means “From where are you?”
But here, they ask “De donde vienes?” or “from where are you coming?”
“Well… I just came from Honduras, and then El Salvador, and then Nicaragua…”
That’s not what they wanted to know… but it is what they asked. The confused looks they give me in return resembles the puzzled look I had only moments before.
When I get asked “De donde vienes?” It causes me to pause and recollect the question being asked. “Where do you come from?” It is a subject I have already written about twice during this pilgrimage. The first time I explored the question, I used the paradigm of my parent’s homeland in Damiansville, IL. The second time I explored the question, I wrote about my paternal ancestors who lived in Gross Fullen, Germany.
There are many ways I could still explore the same question. I could answer it in terms of my faith. I come from a tradition of order, philosophy, and religious cult that was birthed in the Roman Empire. Or I could say that I come from the ongoing succession of teachings inspired by Jesus, a wisdom figure who lived on the north shore of the Sea of Galilee. He healed the sick, performed wonders, and traveled to Jerusalem to reform the cult of Moses.
When I was in South Africa, I could have explored how scientists believe that the oldest skeletal remains of human beings can be found in South Africa. Therefore, all human ancestry begins in Africa. Where do I come from? Africa. We all did.
Perhaps I should go further back? Yes! That’s it! I came from the Big Bang, the eclipse of inevitability, when the dense core of the universe exploded into energy and matter, across time and space, creating events of dissonance and harmony that evoke the majesty of God.
If I gave such a response, it might confuse people. So I usually just say that I’m from Chicago… which is more or less the same thing.
Although the question, “where do you come from” has confounded me this year, I generally appreciate that it is a good conversation starter. Today it led me into wonderfully revealing conversations about where we come from.
We come from places like the ones Sr. Frances works. Sr. Frances is a medical doctor with the Poor Handmaids of Jesus Christ. While assisting a very sick baby, just a few months old, she gave the family medicines to treat the illness. She specifically told the family to cut the pills in half, and give one portion to the child, once a day. When she came back, the child was dead. The family had taken the pills, crushed them, and sprinkled the powder over the child every day to no avail.
We come from journeys like the one Rodolfo made. He hiked three days and nights through the northern mountains of Mexico, and into the desert of Arizona. His feet were red, full of blisters that stung. The heat was unbearable, but he survived, and moved to Houston to work. He talks about the experience with a deep sentiment. It was a prayerful journey which deepened his relationship with, and trust in, God. Eventually, he left the United States. He could endure the trials of the desert, but he could not endure the feeling of being treated as sub-human, the racism of the American people.
We come from situations that we would rather forget. The state of Veracruz in Mexico has been saturated with victims from the recent flooding in Villahermosa. The refugees tell stories of desperation, being surrounded by dank water, infested with human remains, feces, and petroleum. With no other way to live, they drank the urine of cows to stay alive. When they found sanctuary in the nearby villages, guilt imprisoned their hearts. To the communities that gave up their beds and homes, the refugees said, “We don’t deserve this. You have shown us what it means to be Christian, while we fled the flood waters selfishly, leaving those who were infirm behind to fend for themselves. Possibly to die.”
Today, I went with Sr. Edith to a retreat center run by the parish of the Sacred Heart of Jesus in Las Choapas. The retreat was for a group of youth who made a small pilgrimage in honor of Our Lady of Guadalupe. It was also a way to start the first day of the season of Advent. If you have downloaded Google Earth onto your computer, you can view my pictorial of the retreat, pilgrimage, and church by clicking here.
When we began the pilgrimage, we left from a chapel called, “La Cruz del Milagros” or “The Cross of the Miracles.” For just a second, abandon all the association that Christians might have with “the Cross” and just imagine what “a cross” actually is.
A cross is an intersection. It is the physical representation of dialectic. A cross is the meeting of contraries to form a unified whole. In that, it has no unity of direction. Its unity is, in itself, a mystery.
To have “The Cross of the Miracles” signifies that this intersection is an intersection of a super-ordinate reality, a miracle. A miracle is also a mystery and as with all mysteries, our exploration of its significance deepens our appreciation of its truth, while revealing the inadequacy of our explanations.
The Cross of the Miracles is the chapel from where we began today’s pilgrimage, but it is also where our pilgrimage of life originates. We don’t really come from Damiansville, Germany, or Chicago for that matter.
As far back as I can recall, I never chose to be born. Actually, if I really think about it the whole thing was rather unfair. My parents never asked me my opinion on the matter. I was just born. I did not have my own will, and my will came into being, without my willing it.
There is a physical aspect to the process of birthing a child which is relatively easy to understand, but the deeper reality is the intersection of miraculous mystery. The source of every human life is the previous intersection of two human lives, man and women, whose point of reference is immutably contrary, and yet through their unifying encounter, new life proceeds. The fact that this intersection (this cross), which gives life, happens so often, tends to taint its profundity. Life itself is an intersection of mystery, the cross of miracle.
So I couldn’t think of a better place to start a pilgrimage with the youth of Sacred Heart parish then at the chapel of the Cross of the Miracles. It wasn’t the longest pilgrimage I have done and it wasn’t the most attended, but there is always something tremendous about walking with people, singing songs, and engaging other pilgrims in rich, full conversations.
“De donde vienes?” (From where are you coming) a fellow pilgrim asks me.
“The Cross of the Miracles” I respond wearing a knowing smile.
“No… mean where did you come from?
I came from a miracle, understood richly as a mystery.
We all did.