In the Mud

If your religion is one in which you are not required to change the way you live your life, it is one God rejects.

~Desmund Tutu

We left Ciudad Juarez a few weeks ago and I was  feeling a bit thrashed, like I’d been trying to run uphill against the wind. Questions like, “Really, just what am I doing here?” have rattled around my bloated skull, interrogating my ambition. The work ahead in this tiny speck of a neighborhood, forced up against the dry thorny mountains of Ciudad Juarez, this prickly little cactus of a colonia, often feels unconquerable. In the colonia lies a pile of need, stress, and pain, so high that it clouds the air like the dust blowing in from the obtrusive desolation around us. The despair is difficult to escape, so I have to be intentional about it. And not wanting to drown in a black sludgy sea of endless pity, I am impelled to explore the hiss and mummer of words like  hope and change.

Somedays I feel like an ignorant young man fighting for ideals and innovation, which feels more like I am spinning my wheels in the slimy mud. What am I doing here in Ciudad Juarez? What is this buzz-word called hope? Why am I asking all these people for money? Is it all really in vain? Can I make a difference?  Recently, I was told that I have this ambition because I am young, and that one day I will realize that I cannot make much difference. Really? Is it true that upon approaching a mature age, all of this moxie and fortitude will turn into the soft and sophisticated placidness of a seasoned man? I know that I am young and at times a bit idealistic, but I am choosing not to fall into the traditional rut that says, “this is how it goes…” or “this is how I have to live…” I am amazed that the children of God are the ones that seem to despair the most. The ones that in reality hold the hope for a future generation, the ones that have the ability to bring real change are the ones easily lulled by the heretical, dismal gloom-and-doom talk. Desmond Tutu said that we are, “agents of transformation”, Jesus said that we should pray the “Kingdom of Heaven on Earth, now, as it is in Heaven.” I am searching for a better way, and the best part is that I am not alone. There are millions of people that are turning their faces towards God with a fresh perspective, and with this comes a new horizon and an untouched landscape.

Not long ago, our friend Todd posted these words of encouragement. He was writing about faith that holds its ground against all odds.

 …So, is that what faith looks like? I don’t know. I do know that my faith doesn’t look like a dusty, old manuscript still sitting on my desk after 5 years of writing and nearly 50 rejections anymore, and that it does look a little more like the first installment of what God has just begun in me…

We settle. We get tired. We love tradition so much that we are going to line our coffins in it, lay down and crumble into the dust from which we came. It is our comforting blanket, our reason to stay home. Change is uncomfortable and greasy. It can be a psychedelic whirlwind of dirty, scary, ugly, painful, lovely, and good feelings. Different can scare the crap out of us. Moving to Ciudad Juarez, Mexico was and is like that. And though I love change very much, this one was like trying to swallow a cinderblock. I have had to stand back, step away from the illuminated pain and agony, and gaze at the whole and what can be. Trash and dust, forsaken young men running from the police, mangy dogs, families living under  sagging and saturated tar paper, malnourished little boys buying drugs for their parents, dissatisfied soldiers holding assault rifles; all are snapshots of a beautiful abstract composition: the aggregate of life in Juarez. These snapshots stand and live next to the overwhelming radiant color of young people playing soccer late into the night, 400 children eating a scrumptious meal, the richness of passing time with friends and family, eating tacos and elotes on the street corner.

Change does not mean that one has to pick up and move to Mexico, or even across the street. It looks so different for everyone. Our stories are different and as a whole they make up a sensational bouquet and each individual story is like a complex flower. And because life has ended up, turned out, or gone a certain way for so many people, I do not want to live with an expectation of less. I want to really live. I might fail, it might not turn out like I had hoped or even made up in my head, I just don’t want to stop the fight. 

 

 

 

Here is a link to an NPR report about our crazy city:

 Economy, Drug Wars Hurt Cross-Border Business

 

Palo Chino's Future

Moon Setting in Palo Chino