love and living

the incredible mariah schoppman shared this quote with me, and naturally its profundity and relevance to my life here in bolivia, as well as to all who may be reading my blog, resulted in my inabilitly to not help but share it.

"Love and Living" by Thomas Merton

"Love is, in fact, an intensification of life, a completeness, a fullness, a wholeness of life. We do not live merely in order to vegetate through our days until we die. Nor do we live merely in order to take part in the routines of work and amusement that on around us. We are not just machines that have to be cared for and driven carefully until they run down. In other words, life is not a straight horizontal line between two points, birth and death. Life curves upward to a peak of intensity, a high point of value and meaning, at which all its latent creative possibilities go into action and the person himself of herself in encounter, response, and communion with one another. It is for this that we came into world--this communion and self-transcendence. We do not become fully human until we give ourselves to each other in love. And this must not be confined only to sexual fulfilment: it embraces everything in the human person--the capacity for self-giving, for sharing, for creativity, for mutual care, for spiritual concern."


Yesterday I had an incredible opportunity. I spent the entire day at a seminar for leaders all over Bolivia who work for ¨La derecho humano a viviendo adecuada, ¨ also known as the human right to adequate living. The entire seminar revolved around Maria Auxiliadora and how the women (and men, there are some who live with their wives and families in the community) are working to create a safe communally-owned area for people with low resources. It was amazing, especially the parts I understood (lets be honest, my Spanish comprehension fades in and out at times, especially during long days). I´m really beginning to be moved by the people that surround me in this work, it is no easy task, and often it is women who are fighting out of the necessity of protecting their families. They are dedicated. They are serious, and they give all that they have to this movement. It is also one, that i can see as necessary all accross the world. Why are we all not fighting for the human right to adequate living? this is what i´m beginning to wonder.

An issue I think I should continue to deal with, having to do with this, is that I don’t know if I would ever be able to stay permanently in Bolivia, or any other nation. While i´d always had a preconceived notion somewhere in my mind that i´d never be able to stay in the US, i´m realizing that on some level my beliefs about race and its influence in different contexts is a conversation i´m going to have to have with myself. I think that I have the most to offer back in the United States, perhaps, and as I continue to go into other cultural contexts for short periods of time i will be able to make friends, learn from others, and get insights into other needs and points of view, which will then be able to be integrated into my understanding of life and influence the work i can do in the US. There is somethign valuable about returning to ones own cultural context, and increasingly i see the people who need it most in the place where i come from; the immigrants, both legal and undocumented, students, the impoverished, the ignored, the ones that have no voice and no one has spoken up for. I think this is the first time I have considered truly living permanently in the U.S, because in truth, for most of my life I have wanted to escape it. My perceptions about what I can and cannot offer, my skills, and my legitimacy in different contexts are certainly changing.