Hello family and friends,
Again it has been some time and I will not make this update long, but I just wanted to thank you for your support and prayers and let you know that I am still alive and well here in El Salvador.
This spring has been packed with work and visitors and I was blessed last week with the visit of a Brebeuf delegation from my high school. We were lucky enough to be allowed to enter the male youth detention center where I have invested much of my spirit, energy, and love in the past few months through art therapy workshops, and it was amazing to get to see these two worlds collide.
Fear and barriers washed away as we did icebreakers and had small discussions all morning and by the end, kids with their whole faces tattooed were now friends and no longer the dehumanized “other.” I hope to continue to be able to create these spaces of exchange, as to foment the destruction of unfounded prejudices and plant the seeds for questioning the punitive justice system that serves to destroy the spirit and most relationships rather than rehabilitate it in any way.
The students from the Brebeuf group left motivated to work in prisons back at home to find out what is really happening in these places near you that are intentionally (and profitably now that they are privatized) kept out of sight and out of mind of “law abiding citizens”.
There are many forces here that do not want this rehabilitative work to continue, and this has become quite clear in the past two weeks. However, I remember somewhere hearing that we are probably not doing Christ’s work until we are persecuted and falsely accused, so I just take the efforts to stop our work as motivational signs that we are indeed living out the uncomfortable, nonconformist gospel that we are each called to live.
Until I am kicked out of detention centers I will continue visiting them and discovering the wealth of wisdom and grace that is trapped behind bars, a myriad of tattoos and a flimsy wall of toughness and self-protection.
I am eternally grateful to the incarcerated youth who continue to illuminate my days here with wisdom and a great respect for their resilience against all odds.
A month ago we published a book of a year’s worth of the young women’s poetry whom we have been working with and it has been such a gift to share these pieces of their soul with others here. It is an amazing tool towards breaking down prejudice and at the book’s presentation in the girl’s center the most strict judge of all cried as one of the girls tearfully presented the poem “Your terrible daughter.” We are chiseling into the soul of things here which goes far beyond political banter and lies the media likes to spit out about youth these days.
We hope to translate the book soon and I will post it here as soon as we do.
I hope this finds you all well in this Holy Week, being light in whatever corner of the world where this may find you and chiseling into the soul of whatever issues and communities may surround you so as to connect with those around you in all of their humanness and brokenness. May we continue to go to the margins this Easter season and sit there until we learn to be light.
