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Deli asked me about how I felt about the Pope's visit, so I thought I'd share.
I'm pretty excited about the Pope's visit, even though I'm Protestant and he's Catholic. He's spiritual and religious, but much more, too. He represents my southern South American generation, really. We went through so much dictatorship and PTSD in the 1970s and 1980s, a period called the Dirty War because our armies turned on us unarmed civilians.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dirty_War
"The Dirty War (Spanish: Guerra Sucia), was a period of state terrorism from roughly 1974 to 1983, during which military and security forces hunted down and killed 30,000."
Then besides the killing, there was constant imprisonment, torture, arrests without trial, all of that. I graduated from high school in 1975, right into the teeth of it all, and got tortured that way.
But some have come out like Pope Francis in the end. It wasn't easy. Some of his fellow clergy were killed during that time. Archbishop Romero of El Salvador spoke out against the military in 1980 and was shot the next day in church at the altar when he raised the cup saying mass. Six Jesuits who worked with Romero were then killed, too, in 1989, for continuing his work speaking out against the military. One was a friend of mine, and I spoke at his memorial.
Pope Francis is not the only one who came out on top after all--torture survivor Pres. Michelle Bachelet of Chile's like that, torture survivor and 10 year political prisoner Pres. Mujica of Uruguay's like that. Sort of a bunch of South American Nelson Mandelas. Pres. Mujica is the reason I use Muji as my username.
This generation will die off, but it will be helpful to remember its life lessons, ya know? So that's what I see when I see Pope Francis in America. That spirit of recovery from PTSD that he brings from South America is the reason I go down there to be inspired again every year.
I'm pretty excited about the Pope's visit, even though I'm Protestant and he's Catholic. He's spiritual and religious, but much more, too. He represents my southern South American generation, really. We went through so much dictatorship and PTSD in the 1970s and 1980s, a period called the Dirty War because our armies turned on us unarmed civilians.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dirty_War
"The Dirty War (Spanish: Guerra Sucia), was a period of state terrorism from roughly 1974 to 1983, during which military and security forces hunted down and killed 30,000."
Then besides the killing, there was constant imprisonment, torture, arrests without trial, all of that. I graduated from high school in 1975, right into the teeth of it all, and got tortured that way.
But some have come out like Pope Francis in the end. It wasn't easy. Some of his fellow clergy were killed during that time. Archbishop Romero of El Salvador spoke out against the military in 1980 and was shot the next day in church at the altar when he raised the cup saying mass. Six Jesuits who worked with Romero were then killed, too, in 1989, for continuing his work speaking out against the military. One was a friend of mine, and I spoke at his memorial.
Pope Francis is not the only one who came out on top after all--torture survivor Pres. Michelle Bachelet of Chile's like that, torture survivor and 10 year political prisoner Pres. Mujica of Uruguay's like that. Sort of a bunch of South American Nelson Mandelas. Pres. Mujica is the reason I use Muji as my username.
This generation will die off, but it will be helpful to remember its life lessons, ya know? So that's what I see when I see Pope Francis in America. That spirit of recovery from PTSD that he brings from South America is the reason I go down there to be inspired again every year.
One of the worst things you can do to your favorite story is to meet the person who wrote it. Familiarity breeds contempt, as they say. They never measure up to their work. Take it from me, I know. I guess no one can. They're human.
To me that goes with spiritual people. John Lennon got disillusioned with the guru he and the Beatles went to meet in India. He thought the guru made an inappropriate sexual overture toward someone, and he packed up and left. Fair enough. George Harrison stayed, though. And he became a spiritual follower of the Hindu faith that inspired me afterwards for decades.
That doesn't mean the guru didn't do what Lennon said he did. Doesn't mean leaving wasn't right. Doesn't mean bad guru behavior is excusable. But it doesn't mean leaving was the only good option, because when Harrison stayed he went on to bear good fruit of his own that surpassed that guru's for sure in the long run.
It's the good work in spite of all that inspires me, in the end, I guess. I certainly am not perfect, and I haven't met anyone perfect here, either, since we're all survivors of all kinds of damage to our souls. Yet I can honestly say that I'm inspired by you all here every day.
So a murderer by any other name is still just a murderer.