Faith

 

2025 Month 04 Day 14 Thoughts of the Day

 

Thoughts of the day, or rather, of the night. Usually, during daylight hours, I am always doing or inventing something physical. Today I went into the jungle, or rather, to the other side of the boundary, to prune bushes and trees near the fence. I was fortunate that my oldest son agreed to be present in case anything happened to me; although I never asked or suggested that he cross the fence, fearing he might be exposed to an accident. He helped me by his company and carried my tools over the chain-link fence. The task lasted two or three hours while, using the machete, scissors, and saw, I cleared the boundary with the adjacent vacant lot as best I could. Since, I believe, after Hurricane Maria, I had not ventured to cut bushes and branches along the boundary. I cut the overgrown vines and pruned the branches of the almond trees and others. At one point, while cutting one of the thick branches, it fell sharply on one of my arms. I feared that the impact might have fractured my right arm; luckily, it was not that bad. During that day, I asked my son to bring me a bottle of water and pass around the pack of cigarettes. It was a temporary break. The work, which began at nine in the morning, concluded happily around noon.

 

I left the property panting, machete in hand, heading for the clearer lot behind the neighbors' houses that border the abandoned property. I do not know, maybe some suburbanite who doesn't know me, upon seeing me emerge with a machete in hand, became alarmed, presumptuous God knows what, and called 911, assuming I was a murderer.

 

Today, there are those who, out of fear, are shocked by what used to be commonplace scenes and acts when they see someone working with a machete. They are the same people who do not notice when, next door to their house, there is a recurring verbal exchange between immediate neighbors, sometimes resulting in death or murder, even if it's because a heart attack has indirectly occurred in the midst of an intense argument. There are many deaths and murders that go unnoticed because there isn't even the slightest trace of a physically violent act having occurred. But those of us who know know that sometimes constant humiliation, denigration, insults, and abuse, even without physically attacking the victim, can also lead to death. My advice is that in a toxic relationship, it is imperative to seek help before dying of a heart attack.

 

I am moving on to other topics. To the memory of my grandmother Lucía, when she used her hands and a rolling pin to knead the dough to make meat pies or crab cakes. My palate still delights in them, just as when we dried crab shells in the sun to make crabs in a carapace. Remembering is to live.

I conclude this thought of the day with that story typical of Holy Week that I titled:

 

Superstition, Philosophy, and Faith

 

It is Good Friday night, when, according to Christian tradition, God died. It is the so-called black night where witches celebrate a Sabbath to perform all their magic, potions, and spells. There are other, less evil superstitions; they are the pious ones that prevail among believers. I remember the front page, or even mention of it, of the sensationalist newspaper El Imparcial back in the 1950s. At a time when the population was concerned about what would happen to our compatriots enlisted for mandatory military service to fight in the Korean War.

It was in a town in the Cordillera Central, Adjuntas, Corozal, or Utuado, that when a farmer violated the mandate that no work be done on Good Friday, the face of Christ appeared while cutting a tuber on his farm.

During those same years, the apparition of the Virgin of the Well occurred in the Rincón neighborhood of Sabana Grande, which became a place of pilgrimage for all believers on the island. I have memories of a trip my maternal grandparents, who lived on the east coast of the island, which took over six hours to that remote sanctuary in the far southwest, a complete day to travel. I imagine there were praying for the well-being of my youngest uncle Salvador and my father, who al the time were still active in the USA Army.

 

As a child, I was taught that on Good Friday, no physical labor could be done. Cooking was done the day before: pickled fish, Vizcaína cod, rice with squid, and Diablo-brand red beans. It was the belief that cutting, ironing, sweeping, cooking, or frying was like doing so on the body of Christ. After Palm Sunday, the time was for speaking in hushed voices, in whispers. Music should be solemn and classical music, no rumba, boleros, or plenas. At the academy, it was a week of retreat: spending the full day in church listening to homilies, participating in the Stations of the Cross, repenting for sins, confessing, and doing penance. On Holy Thursday, the obligation was to attend Mass in the Patio de la Guadalupe, where bingo games used to be held, participate in the Mass of the Last Supper, and then the procession following the canopy with the monstrance to carry the Blessed Sacrament to the monument. Good Friday dawned as if someone had died in the family, and we dressed in our finest mourning clothes to visit Old San Juan, the Seven Monuments. At three o'clock, there was the Mass of the Seven Words, and at night, the Procession of Silence, when, dressed as penates with a black toga, peaked hat, and a candle in hand, we walked behind the image of Our Lady of Sorrows.

 

On Good Fridays, we also had macacoas, and in many of them ended up in the emergency room due to respiratory conditions, such as asthma, in our children. Since then, whether because I understood that not attending the pilgrimage would cause these ailments or because of the affection I felt for my elderly mother so she wouldn't be alone that day to perform her devotions, I have always attended the pilgrimage, even now that she has passed away.

 

Years later, I skipped the processions, Chrism Masses, repentances, homilies, confessions, and mournful silences, although I always maintained the tradition of visiting the Seven Monuments in the company of my saintly mother. On that occasions when I didn't follow tradition, unfortunate events occurred. In 1978, I preferred to go camping in the Río Abajo Forest with a married couple who were friends. That same year, my mother contracted an illness that kept her bedridden for a year, including more than a month in intensive care. Although I am like Saint Thomas when it comes to miracles, it was not until the visit and blessing given to her by Luis Cardenal Aponte Martínez that she began to recover. That simple man, mocked for his humble origins, was just another laborer among the eighteen siblings born to a peasant family in the La Hoya neighborhood of the town of Lajas, near Sabana Grande.

 

I am a rational person and I have always tried to give a logical explanation to events. I know that if someone sees the image of God appear in a tuber or a miraculous apparition of the Holy Virgin, it is due to a powerful psychological reason. Wasn't it during the Vietnam War that apparitions of other Virgins multiplied in Naranjito, Caguas, and Bayamón?

This is what happens when we face difficult situations, and we grasp at any solution. Logically, we try to understand and explain these existential mysteries of life by creating humane and plausible philosophies about the reasons for material things or mortal behavior. Today, given the island's precarious economic situation, lines of believers have multiplied to visit The Seven Monuments in the old capital. Many people rightly commented, "Is it not to pray that the tax rates on sales to the delta would not increase from 7% to 16%?"

 

Faith is something different; it is something beyond superstition or philosophy. It is a conviction in believing in something that surpasses our human thought, in something that exists independently of what we believe; or that in our inner being we know is certain but cannot be define. Faith is something that surpasses the superstition of lightly believing that any fortuitous event is due to karma, a job, or slander, an evil eye, or a spell. Faith is that concept that lives within you that there exists something beyond, independent of limitations or circumstances; something that cannot be explained in human words because it is as divine and exalted as yourself. Faith is that soul, that God, that Christ that dwells within you.

 

Happy Easter.

April 4, 2015