A letter from David and Jeannene Wiseman in Guatemala
December 5, 2007
The Amazing grace of dailiness
The light of Advent hope burns brightly in Guatemala.
Quetzaltenango is chilly this time of year, frequently 50 degrees Fahrenheit when we get up in the mornings. On the most extreme days the first hour demands the whirring warmth of a space heater. By midday when the sun is shining, as it does most days, the temperature could be in the 70s, but once the sun’s warmth recedes, cold grips us by the shoulders. The six-month season without rain has begun. Our sandaled feet are dusty brown, reminding us of the gift Jesus extended to his disciples when he washed theirs.
It is the third day of Advent, the season of waiting and hoping with expectancy. David and I have been in Guatemala for two-and-a-half years. The Guatemalans have taught me a lot about esperando, a blend of waiting and hoping, a central theme of life here. Guatemalans wait for the chicken buses to leave and to arrive. Women wait at Western Union in navy, rose, yellow and lime-green trajes (clothing), forming long feminine lines interspersed with the occasional hombre in jeans and cowboy hat. These “waiters” live in the expectant hope of receiving enough money from loved ones in the States to get them through another month. Guatemalans wait in honking lines of traffic while road construction or tumbling boulders block the way. They wait with pleasure and cautious optimism as their children and grandchildren grow and mature. My brothers and sisters wait for a time when there will be more trust and more justice within their culture, when the scars from the bloody 36-year war are healed and when there is more safety, transparency and accountability.
Guatemalans have helped me to accept waiting as a normal part of life’s dailiness, and I have rediscovered in that acceptance those spaces in time when there is no goal or immediate destination. I can lapse into daydreams and simply look out the microbus window toward Volcano Santa Maria or at the amazing beauty and diversity of the people around me. I discover holiness in not having control of my time. It is an attitude of simply being, unfamiliar in much of the culture I come from.
God’s mercies are new every morning in the faithful preparation of tortillas.
I receive other gifts from my Guatemalan brothers and sisters. Last year I led a women’s retreat, and we began getting acquainted with a simple game. Standing in a circle, each person says something like, “Me llamo Juana y me gusta tortiar.” “My name is Juana, and I like to make tortillas.” The speaker makes the action of her favorite activity as she says the word. Then the rest of the group responds by waving to her and repeating her words and actions. “Hola, Juana, que le gusta tortiar.” “Hello, Juana, who likes to make tortillas.”
The women’s favorite activities were things like sweeping, washing, ironing, cooking and sewing. As I listened, I gradually heard that while doing these daily tasks, the women prayed day in and day out for their children’s well-being and their groundedness in God. In the women’s daily actions they can simply be, in prayer.
Another time I asked a gathered group of 25 Guatemalan men and women to tell about a person from childhood who made a difference to them. I was surprised by how many expressed gratitude for parents who had taught them to work. A simple and ordinary learning, and yet they were well aware what a gift this teaching had been and would continue to be in their lives.
I’ve been rereading Quotidian Mysteries by Kathleen Norris: “God has commanded us to refrain from grumbling about the dailiness of life. Instead we are meant to accept it gratefully, as a reality that humbles us even as it gives us cause for praise. The rhythm of sunrise and sunset marks a passage of time that makes each day rich with the possibility of salvation.”
The people of Guatemala seem especially graced in living the dailiness of life. Like their Mayan ancestors, many follow the rising and setting of the sun for their rhythmic cues. They get up before the dawn and then are ready when the darkness invites them to the restoration of sleep. Because so many of the Guatemalan people remain close to the rich, brown earth and the yellows, whites, reds and blacks of the maiz (corn) that nurtures them, they seem more attuned to the sanity and sanctity of waking, working, sleeping.
As I watch expectantly for the presence of Emmanuel, God-with-us, in this season, I am so aware of the grace I receive from the people of Guatemala. While I have things from my culture to share here, Guatemalans’ gifts offer me a multiplicity of saving graces. Many Guatemalans suffer from the poverty created by lack of material provisions, but my culture of origin often suffers from poverty of time and the capacity for simply being. We have much to give each other so we wait and hope.
Jeannene W. Wiseman
P.S We will be completing our first term of mission service in June, 2008. We will be available for mission interpretation throughout the PC(USA) during the months of May and June. If interested, please contact us with the dates that work best for you.
We are deeply grateful for the myriad support we have received during this formative term of mission service.
Gratefully and faithfully yours,
Jeannene and David
The 2008 Mission Yearbook for Prayer & Study, p. 258
