ad astra

We got back from Nicaragua two weeks ago today, and it already seems like an eternity ago.  It’s crazy how quickly we can adapt to different environments - it’s like we flip a switch or something.  I’m having trouble remembering what I’ve even done for the past two weeks; there seems to be some sort of black hole where that time has disappeared to.  I did go to my first official soccer game and saw Saprissa play (and win!), and saw Paranormal Activity 3; both spiced up my usually horrendously boring weekends.

On Halloween we had a fiesta at LASP.  All of us here had been lamenting the lack of fall flavors (pumpkin, apples, caramel), so we tried to imitate some of our favorite recipes with Tico ingredients.  For the most part I would say it was a wild success - Laura even managed to continue spoiling me/us with a recreation (re-creation?) of Harvest Loaf (pumpkin bread with chocolate chips…there are no words).  Some students even tried to make apple cider with hot apple juice, cinnamon, and caramel.  We also embraced our gringo-ness and devoured 15 pizzas between less than 40 of us - I think some are reaching their limit of rice and beans (a limit which I will never possess nor understand) and needed a junk food binge to ease their suffering.

During these two weeks at LASP we have had a bunch of guest speakers as part of our Faith & Practice Seminar, which when I was a student was one of my favorite parts of my semester (it’s quite possible that I say that about every part of the semester).  It seemed to go well this time around, although students were often (and not surprisingly) very resistant to some of the ideas presented.  The toughest pill for people to swallow was Liberation Theology, a very Latin American theology which emphasizes life on earth as opposed to life after death.  We read some things from Oscar Romero’s book “The Violence of Love,” and the following is an excerpt that I really like:

“Unfortunately, brothers and sisters, we are the product of a spiritualized, individualistic education.  We were taught: try to save your soul and don’t worry about the rest.  We told the suffering: be patient, heaven will follow, hang on.  No, that’s not right, that’s not salvation!  That’s not the salvation Christ brought.  The salvation Christ brings is a salvation from every bondage that oppresses human beings.”

Because I’m a nerd and because I have an obsession with Steinbeck, the passage reminded me a part from The Grapes of Wrath.  Tom, the main character, is talking to his Mom before he leaves and says:

“An’ I got to thinkin’, Ma, most of the preachin’ is about the poor we shall have always with us, an’ if you got nothin’, why, jus’ fol’ your hands an’ to hell with it, you gonna git ice cream on gol’ plates when you’re dead.”

I think that is still in large part true - our churches teach us that “life after death” is really the only thing that matters, so don’t spend too much time worrying about what’s going on down here.  I wonder first of all how people ever pulled that message out of the gospels, but I also wonder why a message which contradicts this traditional narrative is so often viewed as threatening, or worse, heresy.  One question that came up when we were talking about Liberation Theology is why it doesn’t seem to be a very popular theology today.  I liked don Mike’s answer: “Because all the liberation theologians were murdered.”

Per usual, I have no solutions to offer to this issue.  I’m not a liberation theologian, nor any type of theologian - these things are just what’s been rolling around in my head for a few weeks.

So now this part of the semester is over and next week all the students head out to their community projects.  This is the part of the semester when I worked on an organic farm and experienced the strangest mixture of extreme happiness and extreme loneliness that I have ever experienced in my life.  It’s definitely another fun and difficult part of the students time here in Costa Rica, and I’m looking forward to talking with them about it when they return.  And in a month from tomorrow we’ll be off to Cuba, which is incredible.  The semester is already two-thirds gone!