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Journey from the heart (IX)

May 10, 2020

 

This week has been one of comings and goings, especially in Madrid, on whether or not to change phase, if we go from zero to one, in this state of alarm that has lasted until May 24. We can continue walking in the established schedules and modes but we remain in phase zero. Better do it calmly.

On a personal level it has been a rich week of deep inner connection, traveling inside in silence and solitude revitalizes me and helps me to think and order feelings and experiences. And also strolling alone, almost always at dusk makes it possible for me to pick up the day thanking this time that makes me sense a different one but I am not in a hurry, I savor each one of the days so that nothing is wasted.

This interiority is populated by very hard, painful faces and situations, of much suffering and basic deficiencies in people near and far but who from the digital world get into my house and when I close the computer, when changing the scene on the screen it is not They go, but they are recorded in my heart, in my retina, in my ears and become part of me.

I am discovering this force of virtual connections that have a good dose of reality, even if there is no physical contact; they enter and stay in the house-room and in the deepest depths of the self and become a we, or a self inhabited by that world that belongs to me and from which nothing is alien to me.

This week in Entreculturas, which lives up to its motto of this time #entreculturascuida, has offered us training spaces like the one in the Amazon; a connection with the itinerant team that is in Iquitos (Peru) that filled us with great emotion when seeing well-known people from the Synod and now hearing their situation. Basic unmet needs, at the health level without means, with the paradox of not having oxygen being the lung of the planet…

It was an hour of listening describing the hard situation that they are living while we listened with the contained breathing; the immense distance of kilometers suddenly becomes that proximity that leaves our hearts very moved and we wonder what we can do.

They reminded us, like other times, “one jungle without the other has no solution”; We need to shake hands, be supportive to the extent of our strength, that this reality penetrates us deeply and is part of us because suffering humanity, near or far, cannot leave us as if nothing happened.

Meanwhile, on the national map a different scenario begins to appear, some provinces have changed phases, they have opened small parks, on weekends there are more roads without traffic; Preparations begin in churches and other places of worship to resume the celebrations, but life still has a rather particular rhythm; us we cross with people but keeping distance, we almost do not look at each other because the mask hides a large part of the face, we cannot touch or even approach, to buy food we have to queue -sometimes a long time- however there are friendly faces, cordial treatment , delicacy in respecting the spaces; It is as if there was an unspoken pact to treat us well to compensate for that spontaneous lack of naturalness.

I don’t know when we will return to the previous rhythm. I would not like us to repeat it as it was. I love dreaming of this way of treating ourselves delicately, of not considering ourselves the only daughters in the world but realizing that our humanity is very uneven and we need to redistribute the goods so that they reach all human beings. I dream that we will realize how fragile we are, that the conviction that the crisis is an opportunity for further growth, to deepen our inner wealth, is deeply engraved on us, but we also know that we cannot overcome it alone, we need to give ourselves the hand, take care of us to take care of.

I dream of hope being the cloak that covers us inside and out; that it allows us critical lucidity so as not to ignore the painful reality but without alarms or ominous announcements; strengthening ourselves to remain in the darkness of the tunnel trusting that the light will come.

I end by copying the verses of Mario Benedetti very appropriate for this situation:

“Don’t give up, please don’t give in, even though the cold burns,
although fear bite, even if the sun goes down and the wind is silent;
there’s still fire in you soul, there is still life in your dreams,
because each day is a beginning, because this is the time and the best start…”
 

And in case we forget, someone a long time before also leaves us breathless:

“Courage, do not fea … I will be with you every day until the end of the world…”

María Luisa Berzosa fi
Entrevías – Madrid

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