Hispanic Theological Initiative, day 4

Today was the last day of the HTI at Princeton.  It was scheduled to be a full day, and a full day it was.  Today was when the Doctoral fellows met with the Editor, Uli.  It was a writing workshop, and I wasn’t sure how I would enjoy it, or if I would?  I tend to have a lot of anxiety about my writing, the writing process, and so sitting in an all-day writing workshop seemed, well, strange and anxiety producing.  But, before the workshop began, we ventured to breakfast, and I had the most enjoyable time with Miguel Romero, an ethics student at Duke.

Miguel and I talked about his work in Ethics and Disability and how his brother prompted him to consider Theology/Ethics as a vocation.  I don’t know if he would say that, but that is the gist of it.  Miguel’s brother, Vicente, has an extreme impairment.  I don’t exactly know what language to use to describe Vicente’s condition.  Vicente does not have words, so Miguel uses his words to give voice to Vicente, or try to give voice to Vicente.  Miguel is Catholic, and he is so very kind and inviting.  From the moment I met him, I had a deep sense of hospitality and invitation from him.  I was grateful for that breakfast we had together!

I headed off to my workshop with the other Doctoral fellows.  We are a small group, but we grew to feel a sense of belonging with the other fellows who were invited.  We entered into the workshop.  The first assignment that we were given was to draw the room we were sitting in.  WHAT?!  DRAW?!  I am no artist.  I love good art, but am by no means a good artist!  We drew.  We slowed down.  We centered ourselves.

The next assignment was to draw one object in the room.  Challenging, yes.  But, Julián’s picture of the lamp was amazing!  Mine, however, sucked!  I am so not an artist!  But again, we learned about the challenge for detail and focus.  The third assignment was to take that same object and draw the object in using only 6 lines.  Again, challenge!  I drew the duck sitting on the table.  And, well, it sort of looked like a duck!

We then ventured into words.  I am a lover of words and the poetic rhythms that language evokes.  I love very few things, but words and language I know that I love!  Our assignment was to write three sentences about ourself.  These were mine:

1. I am queer
2. I am mestiz@.
3. I am a survivor of a traumatic brain injury.

Each person went around in the room and read their sentences.  Every person had a sense of the profound in their sentence and a sense of focus.  It was not a time to imagine, but rather a time to focus.

Jonathan, originally from Costa Rica, now studying in Chicago at the Lutheran School of Theology, had three really good sentences.  They were:

1. I was looking for the shape of the light.
2. I get lost in the limits of the English language.
3. My eyes are so short, I cannot see my back

I really like Jonathan.  We connected on many levels.  I asked him right out if he was Christian.  I had this feeling that he and I were on similar pages when it came to belief.  And in all that, his wife’s last name is Henderson!  I told him that we must be cousins, and that we will be in touch for some time to come.  Jonathan welcomed our connection, and I look forward to being in touch with him!  He may even be worth visiting in Chicago.  He does have that Pura Vida way of living…and I really like that about him.

So, our next assignment for the writing workshop was to write a 6-word autobiography.  I had 2.  They were:

1. Catholic school, baptist, Agnostic, Ethicist, Invisible.
2. Mixed race and I never belonged.

We spent a lot of time talking about being mixed race and not belonging.  Several of us are mixed and all of us have migrated to study.  And, as a result, there are feelings of invisibility and not belonging.  Yet, we all had a sense of belonging with one another.  This, I am grateful for!

Our last assignment was to write three paragraphs on one of the following topics:  1. Moving, 2. Why go to my School, or 3. New Shoes.  I chose to write on Moving, as did several other of my colleagues.  This is what I wrote:

Moving

I have always been in transition.  Moving or migrating with my family has been the path of life–the pace that I know best.  Because of this, I oftentimes do not know how to slow down, or how to appreciate the path, until now.

When I moved to Denver, the pace, the way my body moved in and around the city, was slower.  It was more thoughtful and perhaps more intentional than ever before.  The people I knew, my friends, were extremely busy, and I noticed how fast their pace was compared to mine.  I knew then that my pace was changing–I was in transition.  I was moving.

As I was becoming aware of my own pace, my own transition, I met someone and we developed a deep and meaningful friendship.  My head and heart were better aligned after meeting this person and developing a compelling friendship.  Her pace was different than others and centered around breathing.  As a result, I became aware of my own breath, my own life, my own pace.  I am trying to let the wind carry me now.

I received some very nice feedback from these 3 paragraphs, and I was reminded that there are some great things in my life.  My breath being one of them.

The workshop was wrapping up, and the day was almost over.  Soon, it would be time to head home.  Before doing so, we had a closing worship service.  It was Latin American through and through.  Songs in Spanish, Oscar Romero made an appearance when we read his prayer, and there again, I was reminded of how important community is.  This community, specifically, but even the folks I feel a sense of connection to here in Denver.  Those folks are few, but they are folks who take race and ethnicity seriously.  I like to call them prophetic whites.

The day came to a close con muchos abrazos.  We loaded a limo bus and headed out of Princeton to Newark’s Airport.  I barely made my flight, which was then delayed 2 hours on the runway due to weather out of metro New York.  I landed in Denver, relived to be home, but reminded of how the rhythm of last week and weekend was.  We always did social time as a community.  This social time always included beer.  Indeed, Latin@s love their beer!

If I can say anything about the time at HTI, I would say that I belong and that I trust this community.  That feels pretty major to me.  And, someone in my life might say that this is “of the Lord…”  I’m not ready to say that, but I am still saying that I’m compelled by Jesus and the Jesus community…

Tags: Latinos, phd