15.8.07

Sin fin

La guerra contra el terrorismo no tendrá fin. Una de las partes en esta guerra nunca se rendirá. Sin rendición, el otro partido no puede reclamar una victoria total y oficial. La guerra contra el terrorismo es entonces un ciclo de brutalidad y muertes sin fin para todos los involucrados.

There will be no end to the war on terror. One of the parties in this war will never surrender. Without surrender there's no total, official victory to claim by the other party. The war on terror is therefore an endless cycle of brutality and death for all involved.

5.4.07

The Man

I am the richest man
and the poorest man
all at once.
You have conquered my soul,
but my flesh keeps conquering me.
Riches because of you.
Poverty, all left to me.
You are the eternal dawn of my age.
Me, dying twilight every second,
everyday.
Did I say I’m a poor man?
Running naked towards the grave
to find a nameless tombstone split
in two.

24.2.07

Return to Me

Homily preached on Ash Wednesday 2007.

Today’s readings make an urgent and honest appeal to the hearers of the word of God. This appeal is to turn around, to come back, to turn away from a current pattern of behavior, to change, to make a u-turn, to repent.

"Yet even now," declares the LORD, "return to me with all your heart, with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning.”

Among the several meanings of the word return, we find this one, To revert to a former owner. A return unlike any other. Not a mere return to someone else; not even a return to ourselves, for it is a coming back to the One to whom we rightly belong. “Return to ME,” says the Lord.

These words bring back to memory the circumstances of the prodigal son, who carried his own self straight up to a pigpen. At that moment, where there could not have been a lower place to fall, the prodigal came to his senses and thought about two things. The first one was a course of action, to return. The second one was a mission, to return to his father. In the situation of the prodigal, as in ours, returning is intricately related to the father.

I remember a moment in my childhood when my younger brother and I were playing out in the street with other friends from our neighborhood. I remember seeing my brother stumble while running on the sidewalk across from our grandma’s house. His right wrist went straight down to a broken glass bottle lying on the sidewalk.

The very first thing my brother shouted was not “big brother, help me.” It was not “friends help me.” The very first word my brother shouted was “Papá.” I, the big and protective brother was close by. The friends with whom we were playing were close by. Yet, my little brother, in a moment of great pain and despair because of all the blood coming out of his wrist, did what any son knows to do best in such moments, he cried for help to Papá. Papá was quite a few feet away from all of us. We were out in the street and he was inside grandma’s house. So I grabbed my little brother’s wrist and squeezed it very hard. I told my little brother to calm down and hurried to our Papá.

My brother knew right there and then that the only one who could provide him with real succor was Papá. The only one who could provide him with real comfort was Papá. The only one that could give him real protection was Papá. My brother’s pain and fear outgrew him so rapidly and so greatly that my brother immediately sought the help of the only person he knew without the shadow of a doubt could help him. I couldn’t get him in a car and drive him to the hospital back then. That person was Papá. To him is to whom my little brother cried and our Papá is to whom I took him.

We usually don’t run to Papá when things are cool and easy. When we are playing out on the street and having fun. When we are going about our business and business happens to be OK. It’s when we stumble; when our backs are against the wall. You look right, nowhere to run. You look left, nowhere to run. It’s time to face the music. What to do then? What God is calling us to do today, that we come to our senses, like the prodigal, and return to him.

“Return to me with all your heart, with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning.” There are ways of returning to the Lord. Actually, there is a way of returning to the Lord. There are concrete signs that speak of our returning to Him who would receive us again. In these readings we hear of returning to God with fasting, weeping and mourning. These actions mean repentance.

On this Ash Wednesday, the first day of Lent, we cannot come back to God as if nothing had ever happened. “Rend your hearts and not your garments,” says the Lord. Weeping, fasting and mourning speak of pain and sorrow. It is really much more than saying “I’m sorry.”

Rending our hearts means going below the surface, going deep beneath the skin of our lives, examining our souls and exposing what we cannot hide before God in the first place. To rend our hearts and not our clothes demonstrate that our innermost being is shaken, moved to a degree where we need to cry “papa” because nobody else would respond like him. Nobody.

“Return to the LORD, your God,” says the prophet Joel. And here is clincher for us, “for he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love; and he relents over disaster.” Lent is a journey that for us may begin with pain and sorrow; with rending our hearts, with repentance and ashes, so that it may end in mercy and grace, in forgiveness and glory, and in joyous light. Amen.

26.1.07

¡Duérmete!

Bueno, primeramente debo admitir mi cinismo ante el proyecto de la peseta boricua. Realmente me descalifica para comentar con seriedad acerca del asunto, pero lo intentaré de todos modos.

Si el gobierno federal aprueba el proyecto de la peseta boricua, encabezado por el comisionado residente en Washington, Luis Fortuño, mi hipótesis es que la mitad de la población puertorriqueña se cantará irónicamente de verdaderos americanos (estadounidenses). Claro, la mitad de los puertorriqueños hace años que se considera verdaderos americanos (estadounidenses), peseta boricua o no. Una peseta boricua será vista por muchos de mis compatriotas como un peldaño más alcanzado en el escalafón que nos llevará a la concretización del sueño americano puertorriqueño de la estadidad. Y es muy triste querer que la moneda de una nación que solamente nos reconoce como territorio (léase colonia) se revista de emblemas netamente puertorriqueños como el coquí, la garita y la cotorra para llenar a los puertorriqueños de falsas esperanzas.

Por otro lado, el proyecto por lo menos hará que el tema de Puerto Rico y el de los territorios estadounidenses en general se discuta en el foro del gobierno federal y eso nunca hay que lamentarlo aunque en mi opinión no hay que mantener las esperanzas muy en alto. Los políticos norteamericanos han demostrado históricamente que mantener el status quo en Puerto Rico les conviene. Como dicen en inglés, "If it works don't fix it." Es demasiado pedirle a personas ajenas a nuestra realidad puertorriqueña cotidiana que nos resuelvan el "pequeño" problema de qué es lo que queremos ser si nosotros mismos no lo sabemos. Y el no saberlo es el amargo fruto de la realidad del colonizado.

A fin de cuentas, ¿quién gana con el proyecto de la peseta boricua? Sin cinismo alguno, ¡los coleccionistas de monedas!