Lucha por la verdad

My blog is titled paz. That’s peace in Spanish for those of you like my loving father who don’t understand the beauty and simplicity of google translate. If I, a person of far too many words, had to choose one word, it would be paz. OK, I need to choose two words. Love and peace. After all, “the final word is love.”  Love is that divine, all-consuming goodness that has the power to transform everyone and everything. It is all I am and all who I can be. (If of course I give God an inch of wiggle room to work in me. Still very much working on that.) If love is the final word, the what, then I think peace is the how. It’s my dream, my hope, faith and charity. It’s my dream—for myself, for my brothers and sisters, and the world at large. Peace is how I hope for this dream and where God leads me. I wait in good faith, with the peaceful trust that my prayers will be answered. I know the peace of being at home with God like I know a good friend. It’s the peace of sharing a good beer and good conversation with a great friend. Peace is my charity. It is how I love. Like the disciples were sent forth to bring peace into each household they enter, I am also sent forth to bring good news. That good news doesn’t come forth in my words. (We’ve covered how I have issues with words sometimes.) God asks me to sit, eat, drink and stay in each household I enter. I’m a peacemaker. However, it has taken me quite some time to learn that God and I have this peacemake’n deal going on (this covenant). I wasn’t the gal given the peacemaker necklace in pre-K.

            All this is getting to the point that I want to write about peace. But here’s the thing. Just like I know peace, I also know the insufferable impatience for which Teilhard de Chardin wrote his prayer (“Patient Trust”). I know the restlessness that St. Augustine has helped so many of us name. “Our hearts are restless until they rest in you, Lord.” I know the leg-twitching, list-making, mind-spinning utter impatience. I know the uneasiness that precedes its arrival, and I know the desire to cast it off like Dumbledore’s army fighting the dementors. “Get this shit out of my house.” I know that restlessness. I can even see the restlessness: when I check my agenda 10 times a day, tear through the dvd cabinet, read two chapter of every book on the shelf, wash copious of laundry. However, the state of my laundry basket suggests that last symptom may not be so terrible. It’s the smallness of the restlessness that’s insufferable. Merton wrote that which makes me feel better. I guess he also felt like he hadn’t yet reached the level of Teresa and Therese who knew the joy of suffering. The smallness is so frustrating because it doesn’t stop us. We’re just restless. We’re just impatient. I still teach my classes and do my chores. I still smile and laugh and live. I keep going. Sometimes when I don’t encounter a foot-stopping, breakdown-making event, I forget to stop myself. It is totally possible to live with restlessness.

            I won’t take this time to write about how we idolize our schedules and productivity. Far smarter people have already done that. I just wanted to take a page to write about the other side of paz. I wanted to speak to my embarrassingly normal experience. I still struggle to find a good exercise routine and still eat one too many cookies. I still hit snooze in the morning. I worry if I say and do the right thing.

I still struggle to love and be a pacemaker.

I still get up each day and try again.

            For our closing song at the chapel in my neighborhood, we often sing Santa María del camino. And I mean often. It’s a simple song, which I believe is why we sing it. (We don’t have any musicians or a choir.) However, like many of the songs sung in mass here, it is the simplicity of the words that allow them to enter right into your heart and speak to your soul. The refrain says, Ven con nosotros a caminar, Santa María ven. Come with us to walk, Mary; Mary, come. But my favorite part (which I sing loudly, enthusiastically and off-key like all the other grandmas in mass) is the second verse.

Aunque te digan algunos

que nada puedes cambiar,

lucha por un mundo Nuevo,

lucha por la verdad.

            Even though some people tell you that you can change nothing, fight for a new world. Fight for the truth. Fight for the truth. I like the sound of that. It sounds like my dream, my faith, hope and charity. It sounds like my call to be a peacemaker. It also sounds big and bold and a little bit intimidating. But just as the restlessness is frustratingly small, peace is miraculously, wondrously small. The world-changing truth is that we still get up each day and try again. We’re all fighting for the truth the best we know how. Now that’s something worth getting out of bed to go see. So I turn off the snooze button, put on my teacher clogs and try again. I see little kids deeply concerned with playground justice. I see teachers trying their best. I see parents working hard. I see a lot of failure too—on big and small scales. I see it all, the world turning and turning, and I thank God I get to participate in the good fight.

I see how I’ve grown, but I also see how much more there is for my to walk. While standing with the impatience at the trailhead and wishing I was on the mountaintop, I pray for the courage to give God my hand and let Her lead me out into the gracious darkness and miraculous wilderness. With the Graces of hope, faith and humility, Santa María and I walk out together singing. We witness miracles.