Lent

A tradition practiced in my family, is Lent! I hear the same old message from the pulpit, and recognize why so many Catholics can identify as non-practicing. Lent is a time for sacrifice and alms, this is what the clergy asks of us. Unfortunately I gotta say check yo self before you wreck yo self. Who am I to question, I am only laity. Well I have a sermon. Lent for me is being loved, a selfish desire for God, Christ, and the Holy Spirit.

So the ritual is to give one thing up for 40 days out from Easter, so its absence will remind me of Christ. This is an individual quest for the divine. What I hear is, find one thing in my life that is distracting me from acknowledging God. What is so special about a 40 day period? My answer is that even Jesus, the incarnate, might have been overstimulated. Why else would he choose to enter the desert. What better place to eliminate distraction than the desert.

As I finish up a little research on Ayn Rand, she reminds me of how foolish the followers of Jesus are. We are irrational, as she would call us. She might even call us enslaved and victims of communism. I think she would feel a need to educate us and explain to us how valuable our lives could be, if we only recognized our own desires. I would say, "Mrs. Rand, might I call you Dr. Rand, altruism is what I believe it to be, and if it offends you, please forgive me." If serving the less fortunate frustrates you, I apologize, I will try and do it where you don't have to see it or pay for it. Sorry you see me as a corrupt person, and belonging to a corrupt set of people. I hope you will see that I fear your ambitions, and love my hope. If believing in the unprovable is foolish than cast me away with the other fools. I admire your desire for rational. So in honor of you and my Lenten tradition I will do my best to find my own deserts to walk in. With compassion for Ayn Rand I will think freely and rationally about scripture, carving my own understanding of what it means to follow Christ, building an internal industry of faith, aspiring to be as industrial as her fictitious invention John Galt.

Irrationally in love with forgiveness, empathy, grace, suffering, and sacrifice

I feel more understanding of how I am an immigrant soul wondering in this human experience

Gratitude

I believe gratitude is not only a feeling, it should manifest itself as an action. A brother of mine, Brad, concerned for my discontent with aspects of America, inspired me to describe my understanding of gratitude, in the hopes of communicating that I am not anti-America but rather invested enough in it to think critically. Being a member of different communities I believe America is one of them. So am I grateful to be American? Yes and No...maybe if there were a word that captured both it would be YO!

What is gratitude? Gratitude is holding an elevated appreciation or favorable value towards a thing. How would a person demonstrate gratitude? In our society it surfaces as a greeting, like "Thank you", "I love you", or a head nod. As we go a little deeper I see gratitude surfacing in service, bonuses, donations, or gifts. In my field of software development, I see gratitude when people use my systems, give me feedback, and invest back in the system critically. As a father I want my daughters to show gratitude, communicate gratitude, but more importantly embody gratitude. I feel words are useless, unless they are preceded by action.

Going below the surface I believe that gratitude is a quality of respect. So if I am grateful for something I honor it. If I am grateful, I am respectful, and as a human, giving respect is a sacred skill. Giving respect is complicated. It gets even more complex when perceived disrespect must be overcome. Maturity is being able to understand what I am grateful for, so I can know what it is I am honoring. So in order for me to demonstrate gratitude I have to venture down the critical path and taste contempt, disgust, and hate. It is during this journey that I can sift the grain to separate the wheat from the chaff, allowing me to embody gratitude. So as I venture down this critical path, which is also revealing to me injustice, I am discerning what America is.

America is an institution of people, so I find it hard to be grateful to an institution. I think this country's founding fathers would be grateful that I am critical, but regardless of my wonder about their opinion, my grandfathers are proud of my mindfulness, my father is proud of my integrity, and this is enough for me, that is where I lay my gratitude. My ancestral fathers, who span multiple countries, are encouraging me spiritually. So I am doing my best to serve my heritage, not America's. In my search for gratitude I come across how my ancestors lost a war to America. My founding fathers' land was invaded by America, and later stolen and made a territory; America didn't do this to Germany, Italy, or Japan. I feel defeated, and gratitude for being assimilated is not something I hold with esteem. I have been told at times that if I don't like it then find another place to live, and then I realize that's the problem, all these people displace others trying to find a new place to live. So I am searching for reasons to be grateful.

Demonstrating gratitude is not exclusive of criticism. When I value something I invest in it, being critical is not disrespectful or degrading, it is necessary. America is a symbol of many people who are worthy of gratitude and contains people who aren't, but in the end the institution is only a concept in our minds. It is only an idea that we generalize in our heads because of the complexity that is found when diving into the history America has. The history is so rich, unpalatable, wonderful, evil, inspiring, dehumanizing, just, and unjust it is hard to see it anything other than great. Well I am courageous enough to know that America is created by humans for humans. It is fallible. I am learning I don't have to buy into its norms. In fact at its core I am expected to look critically. It is more important that I discern what systems it provides that are catholic(not the noun the adjective), peaceful, and benevolent. So revealing darker truths about America is not ungrateful, it is being American.

This is gratitude in action, this is gratitude to my founding fathers, for the army of ancestor of mine that were defeated, their efforts to retain this invaded land, and my wandering people. It is a step towards needed forgiveness from the Acoma, Cochiti, Isleta, Jemez, Laguna, Nambe, Ohkay Owingeh, Picuris, Pojoaque, Sandia, San Felipe, San Ildefonso, Santa Ana, Santa Clara, Santo Domingo, Taos, Tesuque, Zia, and Zuni people. It is a step towards forgiving our Fatherland Mexico for abandoning us. Gratitude is a warrior's process. If done right, it isn't pretty because it leads to respect. I must finish the race, get on the critical path less traveled, seek to understand my enemy, harbor the American refugee, pay Exxon what is Exxon's, recognize myself in the criminal, and burrow into the facades of our institutions so I can see the soul.

And lastly, I am grateful for Brad's concern because getting on the critical path is dangerous, it borders the edge of darkness, i need these reminders to remain grateful.

American Refugee

I'm not all bitter, though at times, I realize I move so furiously through my oppressed thoughts that I forget to remind myself of beautiful aspects to the human struggle and search for fulfillment. I think about the people my family has marginalized, discriminated against, or refused to have compassion for. I think about how I am judgmental, attached to materiality, impatient with ignorance, and hostile towards arrogance. I think about how easy it is to choose sides, knowing that choosing sides is my own laziness in understanding the other side, or as Jesus describes as enemy.

I long for a day when people actually value what they say and fulfill it with what they do. I guess I long for a day when I can move towards living my philosophies. I long for a day when taxes aren't needed because we no longer mistrust it as a tax but see it as charity. I also wait for day when capital gains are measure by how low our global poverty rate is. I desire a day when we give Javier the plasterer as much respect as Joe the plumber, by not calling him illegal, but collaborator. I value a day when we actually hold corporations accountable not only with dividends but by best practices, a day when their morningstar rating includes morality criteria. I wait for a day when the stereotypical Mr. Jones realizes he doesn't need to fence in 35 acres to feel like a man. I wait for a day when the stereotypical Carlos can wake up and have enough love in his heart to smile at the vato across the street versus sizing him up. This in a nutshell is me. All my judgments are small indicators for who I am, have been, and long to be.

There are American refugees who are bringing communal skills to this region as well. There are non New Mexican people who are equally longing for equality, freedom, and justice. There are a groups of American immigrants who bring life to our communities, invest in its people, need only what can be used, and profit only from connections. There are American immigrants who use as much if not less than they contribute back into the community. I am proud to know American immigrants who inspire me to live by dissipating Chicano qualities. This is proof that Chicano qualities are not native to the mestizo people of this region. The human qualities like compassion, altruism, simplicity, consideration and community are shared in every healthy community. I think the beauty about a healthy culture is that it can collaborate with other cultures, as long as there is reciprocity, as long as one culture doesn't need to win, lead, know, overpower, or control.

These American immigrants bring with them skills that are....I can only describe them as being...divine skills. These people have taught me how to feel my anger, hatred, and prejudice, without becoming it. A few are listed below:

Norbertine Community
Center for Action and Contemplation
Peace and Justice Center
Attachment Healing Center
Animas Valley Institute
New Mexico Parent & Child Resources, Inc.

As a Chicano, my grip on my history, ignorance, violence, struggle, and tradition is loosening. I see how a lot of American immigrants long for connection back to their ancestors, like true refugees.



"In this bright future you can't forget your past" -Bob Marley

What does our Country think of us?

New Mexico has a rich history of culture, simplicity, and sustainability. We have immigrant cultures who have brought education, technology, government, and an art culture that we are marginally benefitting from.

Photographer John Collier Jr.

Why was this desert region a refuge for the American immigrant. The American immigrant refuses to see themselves as a foreigner, exploitative, profiteering, and impossing. As I have learned, which may be inaccurate but willing to be corrected, many easterners came to escape the onset of Tuberculosis. Our climate was convenient for recovery and lifestyle. With them came their culture and imposed value systems.

My Grandma and Grandpa remember a couple of these families, thier names are Simms and Dietz both immigrants with plenty of wealth and education to exploit a dusty Spanish artifact. Symbolically a message of "you reap, what you sow", for a people who once exploited a wild native region of indigenous peoples. John Simms' family later went on to have sons who prospered in this state, enough to become a representative and governor. They weren't illegal by their definition, but alien by my definition. The Dietz family is also immigrant to this region. Both of these men were lucrative land owners. They contributed to the discriminatory white (not white indicating race, rather what society sees as legal) markets called government, brokering, and banking. Both my Grandparent's families worked for these families, during the depression era. My Grandparents, as humble as they are, appreciated the opportunity to work their land, nurse their children, and prepare their meals. I on the other hand, I despise their laziness to be gluttonous enough to need servants to manage their material stockpiles. They were welfare gluttons, using their intelligence to manipulate the best business strategies, buy low and produce high. I am still learning what these families did for a living, all their children attended college and am not sure if they served in the war. I know they paid my grandparents families well enough to feel grateful. I see the payment as the distraction needed for these immigrants to sink their fangs into a culture, and start the feeding process. I will seek to see the compassionate perspective just not yet.

Around the time when these families had settled in and made themselves at home, the government needed a place to experiment. They needed a wasteland, a useless testing area to blow things up. They needed a target range. Well, what better place than that barren state with those Spanish speaking Catholics. What have they got to lose. So as we have all learned and been taught to admire, the nuclear age was born here. We were the first place to have been nuclear bombed. This is reflective of what America thinks of us. This continues today, as we suck on the tit of the energy department, continuing to develop and harvest weapons of mass destruction, unwilling to recognize our real capabilities. This has resulted in defense and energy contracted corporations imposing more capitalistic movidas, under the disguise of laboratories and research facilities, called Sandia (watermelon) Laboratories and Los Alamos (cottonwood) Laboratories. For years we only entered these facilities as groundskeepers, janitors, and mules. As, we, the youth, have been educated, we have become the modern house slaves, excited that we can wear a badge and enter their gated areas.

Around the early 90's the government again needed a place to experiment. This time it was with their garbage. Not your normal everyday garbage, but the worst kind, nuclear waste. I think about where I keep my garbage, then I realize awe this is what Gringo politicians think of my region. This region is that stinky part of the city where no one will care if we leave our garbage. Again we have been taught to feel honored, as a place, respected enough to hold Americas shit. The American immigrant explains to us ignorant and powerless pendejos, "Be happy, It brings jobs!"

So my understanding of New Mexico's participation in America is understood through this lense. It is through this lense that I formulate an understanding for what immigration means. It is through this lense that I ask myself to see the benefits of this immigrant culture. It is through this lense that I wonder how our privileged educational institutions isolate themselves from the deterioration found in barrios and reservations. I am beginning to understand how these privileged institutions can have such a unique perspective on acceptance with an aptitude and a knack for success.

Roark, Kelly.(2011). Natures Sanitarium: Getting Well in New Mexico. New Mexico State Record Center and Archives

I run

I ran to work today. I think a lot of people either think I am crazy or long to run themselves. I enjoy car watching because a car says a lot about who we are. So as I am trekking along Albuquerque's streets, I see people who glare at me, inquire, and wonder. I enjoy eye contact, for the sole purpose of soul. I know when I see someone running while I am driving, and I think about how free and in-sync they are with their body. I remember how it feels to be in that tempo, cadence, and rhythm. I enjoy cold weather running because that synchronicity is so much more in tune. Any imbalance is amplified by the cold air. I wonder what people are thinking when they glare, glance, or watch as we cross paths for a moment. I wonder what goes through their mind as our souls connect for an instance.

In a symbolic, maybe silly, probably senseless way (to the common man), I run to work to make a small impact on my body, mind, and soul, hoping it send shock-waves out to the rest of the world. I run so the restless troops on Restrepo can come home, to Captain Donald Maloy so you don't have to go back, and for Pat Tillman so your memory isn't lost, I run. I run to work as often as circumstances will allow, and connect with hundreds of people a month, even if only for a moment. My responsibility as a citizen is to ensure that independence from oil starts with me, energy conservation starts with me, and respect for New Mexico's future starts with me.

With disdain for the oil executive, with pity for the marketer, with admiration for the American soldier, and with hate for the exploiter, and with empathy knowing I am all, I run.

Yo soy un Gringo

San Agustin Catholic Church, Isleta Pueblo

I spent half my life knowing the word gringo as a way of describing White people. It has more than one meaning, it also can be derogatory. It holds a whole deeper meaning. As I mature and process the emotions that comes with witnessing life, injustice, and grace, I find it hard to use gringo as a term to simply distinguish a group of foreign people. It has become too superficial of a use. In my adolescence and early adulthood it served its purpose and allowed me to express my belonging to a Chicano culture, by helping me believe I could discharge my vengeance and vindicate my own Latino pride. Education and understanding has defused this arrogant energy. Life has broken my pride and dignity down enough to allow compassion to seep into my soul's crevices. The compassion has infiltrated my defenses, it has manipulated my hatred. Unfortunately for my primitive mind this is the downfall to my ignorant thought process. I still come to judgment when I meet an arrogant white person. My defenses and radar for arrogance is honed, probably because I held so much myself for so long, that I can smell it...sense it. I see it in every one, the gringo quality that is. The term "Gringo" is a mentality.

I have my prejudice and it steers me wrong most times. So I am trying to deal with it. I could say that it reveals my ignorance, wounding, and my humanity. My stereotypes and bitterness are being broken apart, slowly, but certainly. Today was a great example. After working out and preparing to shower, a mature white man had his clothes sprawled on the bench. Significantly, symbolically, we were both naked, and he apologized for having his stuff sprawled out. Then he said words that don't seem that profound, but rocked my conscience sternly. Paraphrasing he said sorry mate, I am like a refugee, i don't have a locker. I connected because I don't have a gym locker either. For the first time in my life I was forced to see a white man declare himself as a refugee. Again, "Gringo" may only describe a mindset. It could very well describe someone who is a foreigner for opportunistic or self-serving reasons. It could describe the refugee or the imperialist. Regardless now I can recognize the refugee in the white face, crushing my rooted understanding of the stereotypes that white means selfish, individualistic, oppressor, and restless. All I can conjure is an apology, to who, I don't know, all my animosity is never truly acted on. I try to seem pleasant to everyone. But bringing this out, makes me guilty of living it. I have grown into a thinking that I condemn in others that have the same gringo thinking.

I recognize how my ancestors were "Gringo" to this land. The archetypal quality of an inspired immigrant shares the gringo's beliefs, and is a hopeful refugee full of ideas. I am a Gringo, to my Chicano communities because I don't dress, appear, or talk barrio I am gringo to my American institutions because I resent them for the culture and community they've created. I am gringo to myself because each identity that I am insecure with, ashamed of, and embarrassed by i suppress, reject, and oppress. I think if we were to look at our immigrant selves as refugees we might recognize the rejected, suppressed, and oppressed.
In honor of my white internal refugee, may I keep close the pain I left behind, be mindful of suffering I can create by arriving, and I give the respect that I wish I had received in the place I abandoned.

Somos Peregrinos

Shadow Work

Following the theme of shadow, a teacher's blog about students gets her pushed into the shadows. For the mystically deficient, this translates to, A teacher had some shocking blog post about students and might be fired/expelled.

Read the NPR Story Here

So with compassion I was inspired to write a little letter to this education warrior. Yes educational warrior is mystical, and can be translated to under-served public service provider.

Dear Natalie Munroe,
I respect your shadow qualities. I see the frustration you have with some students lack of value for learning. I have been one of those students. So in a crazy way thanks for letting me know and sorry for being a smart ass, rude and a lazy whiner...seriously. I honor your ability to defend your shadow self. I am reminded by your experience that what institutions find appropriate will likely be at odds with my shadow qualities, reinforcing the shame that comes with some experiences of being human.

You are a brave and courageous American Patriot for education.

Gods Speed!

Ron