the valley of the shadow of death

Mexico is a land where plans collapse in the face of daily life.

Yesterday, the Purépecha nanas welcomed us to their meeting place (communion in the mountains). We shared their ceremony.We broke bread and pozole with them. Today they are in mourning.

The agenda today was to return to the meeting place and spend more time with the nanas. For some, there was to be a sweat lodge experience. For others (including me), there would be an opportunity to learn cooking techniques from a master chef.

It was not to be.

During the last year, the property around the meeting place has been taken over by the monoculture of large plastic-covered fields of blueberries. All financed with money outside of the village that has displaced what once had been Purépecha subsistence fields producing a rotation of traditional crops.

Tensions between the two ways of life have increased -- as they have worldwide when the "we" encounters the "they," as Oswald Spengler would have it.

Something happened in the night that has increased that tension. The details are vague, and they probably never will be known.

But we do know the bare facts. Last night, two young men of the Purépecha community were shot by security personnel on the property where the blueberries grow. One man is dead; the other is in the hospital.

The Purépecha community is emotionally crushed at the loss. Because the police are investigating the shootings, the road to the meeting area was closed.

Our group fully understood and adjusted our schedule. Our Purépecha guide thought we might be interested in spending time at a park in the village of Chilchota. It is a peaceful place with a spring-fed stream. It turned out to be a wise and timely choice.

Even though we had spent only a handful of hours with the Purépcha yesterday, a certain bond had been created. A bond that was strong enough that we were shocked at the personal tragedy that had been visited upon them. And there was nothing we could do to heal the loss that they had suffered.

As we walked through the park, the life-affirming nature of water in this tranquil setting brought words I often repeat by rote without even trying to listen to their meaning. "He leads me beside still waters. He restores my soul."

At the onset of the greeting ceremony yesterday, there was a strong emphasis on the god who created all that surrounds us. It is through that faith that the Purépecha will be restored following this tragedy. And, in a certain sense, it has given us all an opportunity to find that same restoration. 
Just before I left on this trip, I read Tracy Lee Simmons's review of Anthony Esolen's Nostalgia: Going Home in a Homeless World. Building off of Esolen's work, Simmons noted: "We are all wanderers looking for a cheering hearth, sailors searching for a last port. Yet, there's a decisive difference between those who know they're wanderers and those who don't, between those who frankly accept and then embrace life as a pilgrimage, as a purposeful journey marked by prudence, luck, and grace, and those who feverishly adopt any New Thing to bestow meaning on thin, rudderless lives."

That is why I feel confident that those of us who are sharing that pllgrimage can empathize with those who suffer the vagaries of life even though we can never understand or feel what those who have lost love ones actually feel.

What we may share is: "even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me."

We did do other things during the day, but they all paled with those moments beside the still waters. Where we hope that peace can be shared with our new neighbors.