These are my People, Not a Social Justice Project

20 agosto de 2008.

It is hard to decide which is the exact moment a lowly caterpillar becomes a fully-developed butterfly while inside the cocoon. Metamorphis is a long, delicate process, and I don´t know that it is ever fully completed in the life of a Jesus-follower while on this earthly journey. In this poem, I try to capture key moments, key turning points in my journey with Christ through Latin America. These are moments in which the metamorphisis was more than imagination, when I knew that a call to Christ was a call to join Him in solidarity with those jóvenes that are pouring their lives out that Christ would be made known among the least of these. I dedicate this pensamiento to the Latin American Youth that have changed my perspective: Las jóvenes de Renacer, C.R.; las jóvenes del albergue en El Salvador; los jóvenes de El Roble, Puntarenas, C.R.; a los peruanos: Sulam Peña, Freddi Hancco, Pedro Ecca, Ivan Machado, Lidman Presentación; a los mexicanos: Luis Chavez y Bibiana Mendoza, a mis hermanos: Diego y Carolina Duran.



The perspective changed
Through a video in 2005
Where I heard music that pierced my soul
And peered into
Clouded Indigenous eyes that spoke directly.
I knew in that moment
My head was turned south.
I had to go back.
These were my people.
There is a difference
Between visiting
And feeling rooted
In the landscape—
To feel as if these mountains
Sprang from my own chest
To feel as if these rivers
Were my own life-blood.
The perspective changed
Among Oaxacan stars.
In a central market
When I saw their feet,
Cracked with walking.
The perspective changed
When I cared for their abandoned babies
Offered my seat on a crowded bus—
18 hours bouncing from seat to seat.
The perspective changed
When I could sing their songs
Wear the manta-skirt
And sleep in another terminal—
Just like them.
The perspective changed
When I could call them
“brother” and “sister”
and feel ONE with their history—
Their present—
Our future.
My history—
Shared.
Solidarity.
Poverty.
All of us scraping the bottom together,
All of us dreaming about change together.
The perspective changed
On the road.
When we rode the same broken busses
Ate the same food
Walked the same barrios
Squatted at the same wall.
The perspective changed
When we shared the same destination.

These are my sueños, too.

You appear in my sueños.
Same destination,
Same light sparkling off the river
Into our eyes.
I hear you laugh.
These are my people—
Not a social justice project.
Here there is no “them,”
But only, “we.”
Together—my hand in yours—
We climb on yet another bus.
We share the same road.
The same destination.