10.21.2007
a glimpse of a day
so i have gone from random updates to weekly updates to no updates. where is james? egad! so says my mother and father who only partially mockingly let me know that they were glad to hear i'm alive. so i've been mia for a bit, but we have had electricity problems and my school had internet issues and then i went on retreat. enough excuses. frankly i find a blog hard to update. maybe it is my perspective that is skewed, but my life is not an adventure. i am not motorcycling through europe or climbing volcanos in asia. my life is, believe it or not, quite boring. i wake up before 7am, i get dressed, read some daily reflections from merton or the psalms, take a half hour long bus ride to work when i either read or journal about the previous day and my thoughts. i then take another half hour 3 wheel moto taxi ride to get to my school where i fear for my life because of the poor quality of the road. i get to school, sweep my classroom, make sure i'm ready for class, realize its 10:05 and still no students. i go around the school looking for and rounding up my students so that we start by 10 after or so. i teach them for about 40 min. english phrases and words that most are able to forget in mere minutes much less remember anything from the day before. i repeat this 2 more times until lunch time comes around. i eat lunch, usually in silence (me, not the students) and then i return to my classroom. i might sweep again, i might read a little. i might check my email at this time or maybe plan some things for my afternoon classes. at 2:00 my level 2 english students start to wander in and i usually am asking them "what did you do last night" or "what did you do this weekend" to practice the simple past tense. sometimes, however, with these students i will forego english class to discuss more pertinent things. take, for example, the other day when a fight broke out between 2 students. punches thrown kicks etc. the director and another teacher were in the street outside of the school and stood there watching the fight from the other side of the fence, so i was the first teacher there as the students were breaking it up. the director threw both of the kids out for the afternoon, and they were both back the next day. so with my english level 2 students we talked (in spanish) about why there was a fight, why do we fight, is it right to hit people when they hit you etc. etc. 3:00 and i teach my level 1 english class which has changed from 20 students to 1 student to 30 when they re-registered for the class to now when i have about 8, only one of which was in the original 30 and the others that have showed up and said "profe, can i be in your class?" and me saying, sure, why the heck not. we will be doing foods soon. 4:00 comes, i get on the school bus with 100 roudy students who will throw spit balls and food scraps at each other, will flick me in the ears, play with my hair, and hit each other as i generally try to ignore them as they try to annoy me and try to intervene as they hit each other, both with only moderate success. we get to where i catch my other bus between 4:30 and 5:00 depending on our bus driver and the daily quality of the road. and then i take another bus where, if i get a seat, i read until i get home... usually between 5 and 6 depending on traffic and other sorts of things. i sit in my house until we eat dinner. i sit some more with my community until i brush my teeth and go to bed. other things i may do depending on the day are play guitar, cook dinner, meet about our community, meet about our faith. and that, my friends, is pretty much every day. jvi, for me, has been a lot more about accepting the slow repetitiveness of the days and accepting how helpless i am in the face of such great need and poverty. i pass a man on the street. he is high on glue and hungry. gosh, maybe i'll teach him english. nope, i'll just smile and nod and carry on my way. so this is why i don't usually update my blog because 90 percent of my life is lived in the same day after day way. i could, i guess, write about my thoughts but those are even starting to sound pretentious to me, so i write in my journal, and i'm sorry you aren't able to read that, but it might not interest you either. please do not write me saying you think i'm doing wonderful work and please do not worry that i am despairing. neither of these are true. i am not doing "wonderful work." i teach english for a non-profit that wants to teach kids computer and english skills so that they have an opportunity to succeed in a business world that doesn't value human beings but only human skills. it is not glorious, it is not horrendous, it just is. it is not attempting to address injustices in the current capitalistic value system in order to bring more freedom to those suffering from oppression and it definately isn't trying to revolt against the current system by embracing holy ways of living and being human. it is giving kids a chance to make it in the system we have now that requires that many many suffer so that a few can succeed, so some of mine may succeed but countless others will continue to die. and i do not despair. i find happiness in sunday morning breakfasts and saturday night hide and go seek, 15 year old students that are still ticklish enough for me to use that maneuver during a game of soccer and farmers that love moonshine. so i live in joy, but i do not feel any desire to write about it. so do not be surprised if this is updated only rarely, when something shareworthy happens, because things do happen, but most of the time reading a blog of mine would be as exciting a reading a blog from your own highschool english teacher or spanish teacher. not fun. so be blessed and have a lovely life enjoying the simple things that cannot be expressed or written about and keep writing about them anyway so that you may grow wise about yourself and the world around you.
james
9.05.2007
a reflection in 3 parts. part 3
8.28.2007
a reflection in 3 parts. part 2
8.16.2007
a reflection in 3 parts. part 1
this is something i wrote in response to a question by a good friend, and as that i have been failing in updating you on anything actually going on in my life, i thought this would be a legitimage thing to share. more or less about any thoughts I might have on the pressing matter of the self-destructive mindset of the human race and if only I even thought of other things once in a while I would be saner. But as that it is close to all that I think about, it really depends on the day in which one catches me as to how optimistic or cynical I am… how much it's the individual or the institution… and some days I contradict what I have thought and said on other days. As a self-aware hypocrite, I find this the best way to be (don't we always) and I rationalize it by saying that I am constantly learning, growing, changing and trying, like nhat hanh says, to be aware that I can learn from all life (rain to republicans) and that my perspective is never ultimate. But from all of this confusion, a few themes are rising to the surface as I write to you. They are the lack of community and communities, the human disconnect from our sources of life: food, water, shelter, work, etc., and the loss of the sacred. These are all, of course, interconnected, and in a probably confusing manner I will scribble my way along some of these lines of thinking, starting from the end and working my way back there, and ignoring all contradictions and gaps in thinking.
How often do we stop and realize that the ground that we walk upon is sacred? This is a thought that Margaret has triggered in my head and that I can't get out. Annie Dillard tells me that some 70 to 90 BILLION people have died on earth. wow. Here's the issue. I believe that humans are sacred beings. Vessels of the divine spark. And while I'm not sure what happens when a person dies my religion teaches me that at the end times we'll be resurrected body and soul. My only confusion is who gets the dibs on the carbon particles that first made up their body? Because when I think about it, I realize that some 80 billion dead people have disintegrated, broken down, turned into dust, soil, been taken up as nutrients in grass, wheat, apple trees, eaten by worms and rodents, and then birds and bigger eater things like people. So I'm pretty sure that within my constantly changing body are particles that once made up other human beings. Wow. We get so reverent around graveyards and then I look at the back of my knee and wonder how many of those little hairs once existed as teeth somewhere in
7.24.2007
happy ammon
well not exactly, but according to robert ellsburg's book "saints" today was the day that ammon came up as the day that we remember him. he died on jan. 14th which coincides with my little brother's birthday and only missed by 17 years. i write today because he is another one of my "dead heroes" (i have been asked before if i have any living heroes and the answer is yes, but that's another tale). ammon is someone that i consider a spiritual companion. he was a young radical, spent time in prison for political action and there in solitary confinement went through the beginning of his conversion, seeing others as subjects to be loved and carriers of the kingdom of god... the sermon on the mount. eventually he fell into the catholic worker movement and decided to become baptized a catholic; dorothy day was his god-mother. there with the catholic workers he organized public opposition to new york city air raid drills refusing to live in fear and refusing to assume the inevitability of war. he eventually left catholicism because he couldn't reconcile his personal radial commitment to jesus with bishops and other members of the hierarchy that supported war and what we would call today the "culture of death." and these problems still exist in the church... hypocrisy is a convienent friend in times of desperation. ammon founded a catholic worker house in salt lake city called the joe hill house and lived out his days as a christian anarchist--a follower of christ and one who "doesn't need a cop to tell him what to do." this one man revolution believed that the revolution of god must begin in every individual and then invite others, sometimes with one's actions, to join this radical view of human community, but never should it be forced on others through government, policy, or violence.
so here in nicaragua? well, i wouldn't say that i'm living out the one man revolution, but slowly, day by day, i am trying to transform the way in which i relate to god and to those i meet every day. it is oh so slow to the point that i am usually a failure but i have others to help and support me with good food and good music. and we remember to support each other and a life of service to others rather than service to oneself is a revolutionary way of being in and of itself. so pray for us as we continue our journey deeper into the spirituality of jesus and share our time and commitment to a radically different world that assumes and invites justice, sharing, community, and love rather than inequality, selfishness, individuality, and indifference. peace to you.
james
http://www.catholicworker.com/ah_jh.htm
7.11.2007
well so it turns out
what's been going on lately? well not much different stuff for me. i teach 5 days a week. i grade papers, i plan classes, and i try to convince students that their low grades aren't really my fault since they don't study, or pay attention, or come to class that often. one of my recent challenges is realizing that with the majority of my students i truly value their own education more than they do. today one of my students told me he wouldn't go to school if we didn't have soccer. and if we didn't offer any classes? he'd still come to play soccer. of course. so now at least i see that my english classes are just getting in the way of his soccer time. that's always a good feeling.
i have learned how to ride a motorcycle. (don't tell my mom)... (if you are my mom and are reading this, don't worry too much, i wear a helmet) i don't ride it for any real purpose. i take it 20 minutes one way and then 20 minutes back. wasting probably a dollars worth of gas, maybe less. and i think to myself, how can i simultaneously work against the destructive tendencies of humans to manipulate the world around us to our own detriment through hunger and injustices etc. while at the same time enjoy so much the feeling of getting on a motorcycle, and just going. i guess thats another way in which i'm a hypocrite. so be it.
the other day a man came to our house. said his name was henry jr. call me junior. he was looking for some money. spoke perfect english. had been deported from the states for being an illegal a while back. has aids. so does his wife. so does his 2 year old daughter. he told me he had cheated on his wife, gotten aids, passed it on to his wife and now their daughter has it. he needed some money for the medicine for his daughter... and maybe a few diapers also. we walked down to the pharmacy and i got him the stuff he needed. he might have been lying to me, but i tend to trust people who speak english more (prejudiced) and he bought 3 pampers also. i ran into him later that day near a gas station where i was waiting for a bus. he sat with me for a while, told me it wasn't safe where i was and asked me for a little more money... i gave him 10 cords, about 55 cents. i'm so hesitant to give out money and i used to be a lot less so. i think its the budget that we are on here, but i could just take out my own money from the bank to give to people who ask. and then some people say we shouldn't give out money at all. people point to systems that create these injustices and say to work against them or say we are supporting a lifestyle of begging and handouts. to that i simply respond, well, all my life has been a handout from god to my parents to my education to my time here in nicaragua. but when we give money to someone of our own class its called a donation, and to a lower class a handout. and as far as the systems of injustice, i agree entirely, but lets not pretend that we're all revolutionaries overthrowing the current system and that that gives us a free pass to ignore the immediate needs of our brothers and sisters right there... if we start ignoring those around us we will forget why and for whom the injustices need to be confronted.
this weekend we might go to a solidarity conference. they charge 175 dollars for americans to go. we are going to try to sneak in. solidarity is just too expensive these days.
i hope you too are living a life worthy of reflection and that you are sharing yourself with those around you. let me know how life is going in your area.
j
6.27.2007
oops
well, i've been working a little bit on the farm for the last several weeks, only about 2 hours a week, but i really enjoy it. for those of you that know me, you know that i used to live on a farm and never really liked it, but since reading more catholic worker writings and thinking more about the way in which things are produced and consumed in the world, i guess my catholic guilt got to me, being just a consumer of food and not a producer... so i dig holes and plant seeds. literally. and it is nice.
classes have been getting easier and i have been getting better at teaching, but even so, i am realizing that i don't really like teaching english all that much. its an interesting place to be in, because i was thinking that if i got better, it would be easier and i would enjoy it more, but really as i get better, plan better classes, and commit myself more to my classes, i find myself still not enjoying it. maybe it has to do with my ideas about fabretto as an organization, or teaching english in general, or how i see myself now compared to how i used to understand my role in the world. there are a lot of things i struggle with, including living off of the money of other people, not feeling like i'm actually working in general, or working towards justice specifically, feeling like i need to live more radically the good news of jesus and life in sharing communities, feeling like i need to be denouncing more injustices, wondering how it could ever be possible to build the kingdom of god here in the world and especially here in nicaragua when i'm unclear on my role here as a human being. normal things.
my mom's birthday is coming up and that gets me reflecting on the gift of life and all my parents did for me, struggling to give life to their children.
and there are so many mothers that struggle here, so much, every day, to give life to their children, and they pray for changes so that their kids can go to school and raise healthy grandchildren and learn to sing and dance and play and work. and who hears these cries of the poor?