the first lesson

These are the streets where poems were written, where stories were born, where people have loved.

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I love New Years Resolutions. They’re my most favorite ever and I generally on any given year have approximately a page and a half of goals for my year. I have a few that are essential, that I will stick to even if it means spitting whatever is in my mouth out the window of the car or bringing my own meals when I go to other peoples houses or even if I’m so tempted it takes someone else’s belief in my determination to keep me steady. And a few that are guiding ideas, goals that I know may not happen this year but that I want to be intentional about putting into action right now, this day, this year. 
This year I have twenty. It got to the day before New Years Eve and I had an identity crisis because I hadn’t thought of a single one for this next year, no direction or goal: I was directionless, no thought at all of what I wanted for myself in this year, of who I wanted to be or where I wanted to go or what I wanted to do, or not do. It took me until New Years Eve, two hours before midnight to get them together, but the very first one is a word: reverent. To become more intentional and worship minded, the reverent side of worship in regards to Jesus and God and church. To study the word reverent: find what it means, relearn how to use it and how it applies to God but also the people around me. So far, my lesson in this has been on the people around me, here in El Salvador. 
This time last year I was in Italy, wandering through ancient streets riddled with the obvious signs of wear and tear and moments passed. Places where love stories are written about, places people joke about going to find love, or if anything the best food. Wine, art, gelato, streets lit by glittering fairy lights swaying above, and buildings old, towering, grand. I found a quote about Italy a few weeks before I went to El Salvador that reads: “These are the streets where poems were written, where stories were born, where people have loved.” It was the very first thing I thought of when we were walking through the airport and it has danced through my mind since. These streets are the streets where poems have been written, where stories were born, where people have loved. These streets. The ones that are littered with trash . We look at developing countries of poverty and see the illiteracy, gang activity, trash despite the life that exists there, instead of the breathes and moments and beauty. I have found that even though this city is not bright or shining or even stunningly beautiful in the way that people who go places to experience culture look at cities, that even though there are no magnificent museums and the country is desperately impoverished: people still exist here. They still breathe and love and dream in these streets, especially the places that make us ache the most. We lose the importance these places hold for them, the kisses that have happened, the babies born in all of their miraculous splendor, the secret favorite places, first holding of hands, sunrises and sunsets, the tiny victories that move mountains in their lives— we lose these things and see only their pain. And that is perhaps what keeps them where they are. Some of the most beautiful moments in the whole entire world have happened here, and that fact is more stunning than any artwork that takes your breathe away. 
I was thinking today how it would work to develop the country. This place is already more developed economically than any other South American country I’ve been to. They have lines on their roads, which are paved entirely and quite nice. They do landscaping along their streets and sidewalks; they have gutters along the side of their roads and street signs welcoming you to other cities or giving you direction. This country is not a sad place, it is already changing and growing and moving so spectacularly. It is making leaps and bounds, while we stare at them holding our breathes so as not to feel anything they are already something, they already exist in this world and that alone is a beautiful thing. But they are on their way to becoming something more, too. They are taking the steps in their government and lives to bring themselves out of this. And I don’t know how to rebuild a country, I don’t know how you start to build concrete houses on top of the metal ones already in place. I don’t know when you start putting in flooring where dirt has always carried the weight and witnessed the memories. I wonder if we try to fix their problems by giving them our answers instead of listening to theirs, and maybe they don’t want sleek wood floors instead of the earth. Maybe they do. Most of us don’t understand them well enough to know. I’m unsure of how to fix a place set in age old ways, with unique practices and traditions, with a history just as evident as Italy’s, although Italy’s has more street cred. But I am sure that it is our job to think of this city and people with reverence, because they deserve it, and we do too. It is impossible for us to be here and not treat them with respect, they are far tougher and more able in so many ways than we ever will be and yet we exist in a world that thinks they are helpless. They are not helpless. They are fighters who are fighting, they are artists who are painting, lawyers and doctors and dreamers who will change their context whether we notice it or not. 
So there it is, the lesson in reverence. These are the streets and the people and the moments that exist outside of history books. And we are witnessing them with every blink and breathe and second we are here. How dare we not respect that. 

These people are made up of the same air, the same blood and bones and anatomy of any human in first world country. This place is made up of the same earth, the same dirt and plants and footprints. It was just built differently, it rose from the ground as a colony not an empire and it has been treated as such since then. The inhabitants here could have been the kings and queens, they could've been the composers of pieces that make your heart stop, painters of artwork that make the whole world seem shinier than it was before you saw it, the authors of books that change your life. They could've been the world-shakers. We have yet to see them as that, but they still could be.