Gratefulness in the Midst of Poverty
The asphalt is bumpy and the road is narrow as we are driven through the forgotten neighborhood of San Ramon in El Salvador. This place, like many impoverished places throughout the world, has not seen the fruits of the post-war economic boom. Homes held together by a thread, walls of corrugated steel and floors of dirt are a stark contrast to the lovely hotel I share with my husband and son in Antigua Cuscatlan. I stare out the window as my daughter, Laura, chats excitedly about her Salvadoran friends, who we will soon meet. I see mothers holding a baby in one arm and a child’s hand in another. I wonder what their eyes have seen in this place that has suffered death squads and brutal beatings.
We round the corner and I know we are getting closer to the community where my daughter works for I see a brilliant yellow building covered with paintings of working people, colorful crosses and Oscar Romero, the beloved archbishop of the people who was murdered while saying Mass in 1980.
We pay the cab driver and walk inside. I can’t tell you what I expected. Perhaps, dour faces in this place that has endured sufrimes (suffering) beyond my comprehension. Perhaps, I would see poor, cheerless people with dirty hands and torn clothes. Maybe I would feel their sadness and their loneliness and my heart would open in compassion on this Holy Saturday as they practiced for the Easter Vigil. Yet, as we walk slowly down the hallway, we are first greeted by Marita, a wide eyed four year old who shrieks with laughter as she hides from Emilio, her friend. My daughter tells us that Marita’s mother sings in the choir-”Marita is a buster,” she says, “who loves nothing better than pulling one over on a hapless, gullible volunteer.”
As we move closer to the sanctuary where the group practices, we hear guitars and joyful singing (there must be at least 100 voices, I guess). We walk into the room and Anita, the community director, greets my daughter with a great hug-Laulita, she says with smile and then she hugs my husband and son who tower over her. She comes over to me and says, like “Laulita”, we are familia to her and we are welcome to sit and enjoy the singing.
Rather than 100 people, I see less than 25, but they sing with such passion, they raise the roof. Gustavo, one of the few men in the room, plays the guitar and glances at our gringo family with a smile. Laura tells me that Gustavo is an artist who crafts beautiful crosses that he sells for $6 to delegations who visit their tiny community. As he plays, I notice my husband and son watch his deft hands strum the chords.
The atmosphere is full of joyful celebration. The room is covered with home made decorations-crosses are painted in bold colors and Romero’s face is painted on many of the crosses. In El Salvador, he right up there with Jesus as one who understands the plight of the forgotten poor. When they sing of “Christos,” I am struck by the intimacy and solidaridad they feel towards this man who has endured suffering like theirs. As they sing, they have no sense of self consciousness. Their eyes close in reverence and their mouths open and move like well-trained choirboys. Their hands wave with expression.
Every song I have ever sung feels hollow when I hear them sing-they have become the song-their gratitude is palpable. They dream fragile dreams, but they still dream. They are full of hope-their fathers have been stolen by war, their sons, as young as 12, have not come home from school for they were taken by the army, the women have been raped, their homes have been bombed and their cousin’s homes have been buried by volcanoes-and they still sing. In a strange sort of way, I was reminded of the townspeople of Whoville who sang that memorable song after the Grinch had taken all their cool Christmas stuff. My God, how do these people still sing?
When they finish their practice, I ask Laura to translate a message to one of the women, a 70 something woman who has stopped to greet “Laulita’s” family. I tell her that her singing is louder and more beautiful than one thousand voices at my home parish. She points to her chest and to the others and responds in English, “We happy.” My eyes fill with tears.
I suddenly realize she is feeling badly for me, the poor gringo who comes from a faraway parish where the singing is weak. I, who expected to feel compassion for the sad and lonely, found myself the recipient of compassion from a woman who has known deep joy that springs from I know not where. I don’t want to leave-I want to stay with these people for days and days as they have shared something with me and my family that feels trite every time I try to describe it. There are no words.
When I wrote theology papers in grad school, I wrote that wise sages and mystics could never articulate an experience of God. They just knew they had encountered the great mystery-they used words like “unitive awareness” and “ineffable.” They used poetry, metaphor and song to convey their experience-either way, they knew something had happened. In that tiny cathedral in El Salvador, something happened that I can’t explain. I stood on sacred ground. I just knew.
I thought gratefulness was easier when one had good health, money in the bank and material comforts. I questioned whether gratefulness could happen in a country wounded by the ravages of senseless violence. I wondered if gratefulness was easier in my country of abundance that suffers few wars on its shores in these modern times. Perhaps easier, but maybe the deep profundity of amazing gratefulness comes a bit slower when we become complacent in our abundance.
Many who face death will tell you stories of gratitude for the sheer miracle of a new day. Those who have lost someone say they wish they had appreciated their beloved more deeply. Those who have been hungry know that bread and milk and rice are sacred manna. The eyes of those we love, a bite of food and a safe home take on new meaning when it is elusive.
Yet, when we find happiness and gratitude in forgotten towns like San Ramon, we know that gratefulness has little to do with affluence and good health.
Perhaps, gratitude is more about finding hope in the face of hopelessness. Perhaps it is imagining that if everything were stripped away from us like it was for the people in New Orleans or in Iraq or in the tsunami ravaged countries of Thailand, Indonesia and India, and we were standing alone before Life itself, where would we find gratitude? Would we remember that “we have always belonged to something infinitely greater than our small selves” as Brother David Steindl-Rast writes?
Gratefulness has the courage to trust and so it overcomes fear, says Steindl-Rast. He says “Each joy and each sorrow gratefully accepted opens our hearts further until we come to know we are fully loved at all times in all places even beyond time and space.”
When I stand before the Easter choir in El Salvador, I remember that gratefulness springs from a deep insight: something good has been freely given. These people knew only my daughter, but they welcomed my whole family with open hearts and a song. My daughter is an hija (daughter) of theirs. Somos familia (we are family), they say to us. We are connected in this web of our lives. I have found another familia in the most surprising of places.
In my country, where we value independence and individualism, we can also remember that our forebears’ survival depended on their small communities of connection and relationship. They knew they were intricately connected to the natives of the New World and through this profound insight, they created a day of thanksgiving.
This week, we celebrate this national holiday of Thanksgiving. In this year of war and natural disaster and global poverty, the choir of San Ramon reminds me that prayers of hope and gratitude stretch beyond these shores and into a place, time and space that knows no bounds.
A grateful heart is an open heart and just for today and just for tomorrow and just for the day after that, we can choose gratefulness over alienation when we look in the eyes of a stranger and realize there are no strangers. Simple acts of kindness and gratitude, I know from San Ramon, shed light in these dark times.
May we live gratitude from the inside out this Thanksgiving week and every week. Happy Thanksgiving to all of you.