“The abyss doesn’t divide us.
The abyss surrounds us.” –

says wislawa szymborska from Poland in her poem

autotomy :: wislawa szymborska

In danger, the holothurian cuts itself in two.
It abandons one self to a hungry world
and with the other self it flees.

It violently divides into doom and salvation,
retribution and reward, what has been and what will be.

An abyss appears in the middle of its body
between what instantly become two foreign shores.

Life on one shore, death on the other.
Here hope and there despair.

If there are scales, the pans don’t move.
If there is justice, this is it.

To die just as required, without excess.
To grow back just what’s needed from what’s left.

We, too, can divide ourselves, it’s true.
But only into flesh and a broken whisper.
Into flesh and poetry.

The throat on one side, laughter on the other,
quiet, quickly dying out.

Here the heavy heart, there non omnis moriar—
just three little words, like a flight’s three feathers.

The abyss doesn’t divide us.
The abyss surrounds us.

  

We have been the people of the abyss.

The people who have seen that which kills us… and that which gives us life

Our indigenous people have seen the abyss.

Our latinxs people

Our black people have seen the abyss.

Our people called white trash have also seen the abyss.

The refugees have seen the abyss

The undocumented have seen the abyss

All of the poor people of any color and place have seen the abyss.

 

 

The abyss doesn’t divide us.

The abyss surrounds us.

 

And it is around this abyss that we gather together!

around this abyss we light a fire and warm each other

around this abyss we feed each other!

At the abyss we bring our balms and secrets, potions and sacred sorceries to heal each other.

 

This abyss manifests itself in all of us in many and multiple ways.

But we must know that the abyss have both and many sides to it.

There is the side of the abyss that is made of colonization and coloniality full force!

The abyss of colonization looms large in our lives and in the lives of our familias.

This abyss keeps swallowing us and our people time and again!

This abyss takes away the chances of a pura vida, pure life as the people of Costa Rica says.

This abyss like the devil, kills, steals and destroys

This abyss keeps us always in a surviving mode!

This abyss makes us feel that only some of us are immigrants

With no rights, no honor and no ability!

This abyss makes us be fakes to ourselves, parrots of other’s voices, living with this impostor syndrome all life long

Thus abyss takes away our self-esteem, our capacity to trust in ourselves

This abyss surround us with violence and frustrations that we in turn we throw back at each other

This abyss takes away the ability to have a better self-analysis, a way of going deeper into ourselves

This abyss gets us lost

This abyss propitiates traumas and repetition and incidences of the same and other traumas

This abyss is madness!

The abyss breaks our bodies and makes us push the snooze button all the time

This abyss makes us loose our bearings, our proper thinking, our adequate and expected behavior

This abyss doesn’t respect our ways of thinking

This abyss makes us things out of order

This abyss detaches us from nature, from the earth where we truly belong!

This abyss makes us forget our own people! We forgot our indigenous people, the undocumented, the black lives killed on the streets everywhere in the American continent! 30 black boys are killed every day in Brazil… every single day!

This abyss makes us think only in ourselves because we need to survive!

This abyss makes us sick, sad, fearful

This abyss lives fully in us!

The abyss doesn’t divide us.

The abyss surrounds us.

 

However

 

 

 

 

 

 

Worship reflection today @HSummerProgram. Blue for what we are thinking. Purple for what God might be saying. #hsp2017. By Russ K – https://twitter.com/RussK_089

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There is another side of the abyss

Another look at the abyss

Another positioning at the abyss

This abyss that doesn’t divide us

But the abyss that surrounds us

 

This abyss is God

And everything that belongs to God!

 

This abyss is made of all the people we encounter

As similar and different as they might be

Of all colors and no colors

This abyss invites us to approach, to listen, to look, to feel, to care

This abyss centers us,

To the point that we look at it and we feel that there,

at the center of the abyss, is also the center of God’s will

This abyss makes those who have been awaiting, to finally arrive, to finally receive

This abyss is both past and future but it is fundamentally our present, right here and right now!

This abyss makes me see you as all that I have so I must care for you!

This abyss brings restoration to our lives, to our stories, to our families!

This abyss is the restitution of our health, of our ability to look up, to rise up and go

This abyss reconnects us back to the earth! Time and again

This abyss reconnects us back to ourselves! Time and again

This abyss reminds us of God’s option for the poor!

This abyss brings us back our memory!

This abyss gives our voices back!

This abyss fills us with courage!

This abyss makes a way out of no way

This abyss charges us with missions and tasks!

This abyss keeps telling you time and again: Yes you can! Yes you can!

This abyss accompanies us with pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night,

This abyss brings us to its tipping point and whispers TRUST! For God is with you!

This abyss brings healing to each one of us!

For there is a balm in Gilead!

 

There is balm in Gilead,

To make the wounded whole;

There’s power enough in the abyss,

To cure a sin-sick soul.

 

And God is calling us to be healers of the world, healers of our people!

Pastors and prophets!

Wounded healers! All of us!

 

Is there no balm in the Gilead? Asks the prophet Jeremiah

Is there no balm in the Latinxs community?

Is there no physician there?

Why then is there no recovery

For the health of the daughter of my people? Jeremiah 8: 22

 

The abyss doesn’t divide us.

The abyss surrounds us.

So now the health of the daughters and sons of our people start to happen!

Are you ready to continue the process of healing?

Are you ready?

 

So you are invited to receive healing!

And if you are so moved

We invite you to come and receive the healing

Then you turn and heal those who comes after you!

We will have 3 people in the front where you will come, receive healing, turn and heal the person after you. But I will be here too and if you do not want to offer healing come to my line, receive the healing and go. A sign of the cross will be placed n your forehead. If you want a circle in your hands, stretch your hands and show that this is your preference.