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HOLINESS
IN GUATEMALA: A VIMer’s View
By Rev. Gary Scott, N IND
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In Guatemala I saw something I already
knew that was shown to me anew in the light of our journey
there. It is this: There is something ultimately Holy in
experiencing the paradoxes of nature, human existence,
and service. The Holy resides miraculously within the integrated
realities of beauty in the midst of
the pain.
Nature provided beauty in the midst of the ugly at the village of San Antonio
as I sat on the shore of Lake Atitlan in the mountains.
I was disgusted as I focused on seeing and smelling one of
the village’s open gutters that drained sewage down the
mountainside into the water. |
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Yet when I changed my focus, I was
looking out on a scene of rolling waters on an expansive lake
guarded by volcanoes standing like sentries under a brilliant
blue sky decorated with blinding white clouds. I experienced
the Holy – as the ugliness of humanness flowed down the
hillside to be swallowed up, cleansed, and transformed into a
beauty beyond
human imagination that only God could create.
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Human existence provided wonder in the midst of the awful
when I purchased exquisite creations in fabric from a cooperative
business called Ruth and Naomi. It is a business run by Mayan
widows whose husbands were murdered during the government
sanctioned attempt to exterminate the Mayan people of Guatemala
in the 1980’s. Out of this horrific and awful tragedy
emerged awe full and wonder full fabrics that now |
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sustain those widow’s lives. I experienced the Holy – as beaten down women living
in awful grief were raised up by wondrous colors of fabric that
reflect the light of God’s love through the prism of human
imagination and explode into the colors of the rainbow. It is
a miracle that
only God could birth from such lowly motherhood.
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Service provided joy in the midst of pain when I spent
one morning with the dental team at a remote site. I disinfected
dental instruments and emptied Novocain from syringes while
our Jewish-brother-dentist and our Guatemalan-sister-dentist
pulled teeth from 42 people in about 3 hours. Although my
ears heard the first patient, a girl of about 5 years crying
in fear, my heart knew that within that experience of fear
was the gift of a life with less pain. I experienced the
Holy in a kingdom that only God rules where toothless smiles
of young and old alike
communicate joy.
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| I thank everyone who helped make this experience in Guatemala
possible. I pray that when I encounter times of ugliness, awfulness,
and pain in my life, I will be blessed by the ability to find
in those times, the Holy –beauty waiting to emerge from
the ugly, wonder waiting to emerge from the awful, and joy waiting
to emerge from the pain. |
