were you there?

I've done this semester trip a few times already; so I've been through most of the activities once or twice. And while I don't get bored - this does afford me a sort of luxury in being able to mentally and emotionally prepare myself for certain activities.

Yesterday I knew, as we took the boat across the lake, that we were headed toward a massacre site. I knew that while sitting there in that sacred place, we would listen to a difficult testimony. Testimony of a man who was just a boy when he watched an unjust, bloody attack by the army take the lives of his entire family and another 100-some people from his community.

His community had been persecuted by the government army because of the suspicion of a 'guerrilla presence'. During one foreseen attack the majority of the civilians had escaped across the lake, but returned too soon, before the army had gone entirely, and they were seen at the banks of the lake. And here begins his story, running down the hill, watching rolling boulders smash other children, watching his parents, his siblings, aunts and uncles get shot and fall into the water, watching body parts of the people escaping in boats be severed and strewn through the air by grenades viciously hurled. And as if this red mess at the shore weren't enough, they marched the survivors through another three days of torture. All the time telling them that they were headed toward the capital and then, at the end, raping and killing the girls and dividing the remaining people into three groups and killing each in a distinctly cruel way.

His story is long, and it wasn't the first time I had heard it. I watched the ants and centipedes and all variety of bugs crawl past me and under me and I broke twigs and kept my hands busy throughout. He did the same, ringing his hands, placing them on his hips, crossing and uncrossing his arms, constantly moving but somehow much calmer this time than the last. He has said before that the telling of his story is difficult, but shedding light on such an extreme reality is important and for him, healing.

I sat there and wondered how it was that I wasn't crying as I listened to the first hand testimony of a man who was 9 years old when he watched his entire family be brutally killed, while he watched a man get hung from a tree and beat to death as if he were a pinata, when he watched dogs and vultures eat the raped, assassinated bodies of the young women with whom he had spent his childhood. Of the three times that I had heard it, never had I cried. Until yesterday.

Our professor had requested that our Olaf student, a violin player, bring her instrument and play a benediction of sorts. She stood up after nearly 2 hours of testimony and with a few lines from three, perfectly chosen hymns, she beautifully embodied the pain and bewilderment, the hope and commitment of the moment.

"Were you there when they crucified my Lord?" was the first one, and as soon as I heard it, I couldn't help but weep. Hymns can be so powerful and this music is just so much a part of the base of my faith. A faith that has changed and grown and begun to encompass a world full of extreme hurt and beauty. This month has truly pushed me to look for the divine in people, to serve God by serving 'the least of these' to see our 'suffering servant' in the poor, the oppressed. And talk about new light being shed on old theology: I was sitting there where they crucified so many, where they crucified my Lord. And that question had never felt so personal, so pertinent, so demanding. How could one not tremble at the thought of it all?

I am here where so many are being crucified. The armed conflict was terrible, but in many ways, things continue on the same. Gang violence and hunger, unjust economic policy and brutal assassinations on the immigration path to the United States continue to rob these people of life and the opportunities that my 'higher power' has clearly stated belong to all. ALL.

And last night, I laid in bed and listened to the little boys in my homestay (the nephews of the man who gave testimony that morning) giggle as they recited their own versions of the Lord's Prayer. I was reminded of a piece of our professor's re-written 'People's Prayer':

"Forgive our giving up, our fixation on being
comfortable and powerful...
Forgive our inability to see beyond our street and experience,
thereby denying the lives lived by others
and denying the power and complexity that is you.
We have trespassed on your fullness,
your design, your sacred spaces.

Your voice cries in pain with ours,
will not remain Silent in the
face of injustice, will not let violence strip
Love from Life.

For you are the Creatrix,
the season-changer, the maker of snow,
the center of hope, a Spectrum of Aliveness. "