Lessons in orthopraxy

Lessons in orthopraxy

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Hello, everyone! I hope you're all happy, healthy, and living life to its fullest! I write you today with a few cultural lessons and a reflection I've had recently...

Here in Carorita, there's a strong belief in spirits, particulary in the idea that after a person passes on, their spirit might go looking for you if you had ever done them wrong. Right now, in the time between October 31st and December 25, it's considered by many to be the season of the souls, meaning that more spirits are out than usual, particularly at night. Moms tell their kids to be home early, and many kids try to be home early on their own, out of a strongheld fear.

I must say I've had some pretty interesting conversations with my friends about this topic. They find it both amazing and worrisome that I'm not afraid of anyone's spirit attacking me at night. It's funny to me, because my simply telling them that these spirits don't exist, doesn't outweigh years of everyone in their family and community telling them that they do exist. In the same way, their simply telling me that they do exist doesn't outweigh years of everyone in my family and my community telling me that they only exist in movies. Our views of the world are really affected by these differing beliefs.

Along these same lines, I have not only heard stories from dear friends about encounters with spirits, but I have also been advised about ways to protect myself. The main source of protection and security that people rely on here is the use of camándulas, which I have interpreted to mean as anything that wards off evil, any religious object. In many cases, the term camándula is interchangeable with rosario, or rosary, which is the most common camándula that people use.

A few weeks ago, I got the chance to go with some friends to Maracaibo for Maracaibo's annual celebration of their city's patron Virgen, la Virgen de Chiquinquirá, commonly and affectionately known as La Chinita. On the trip, a friend of mine bought me a rosary containing the image of La Chinita, in front of Maracaibo's gorgeous Basilica. Upon receiving this beautiful gift, instead of just accepting it as an accessory, I decided to start to research a little bit about what repetitive prayer is like, to see if it could become part of a new spiritual experience for me.

I found an internet guide on one way of praying the rosary and started to try. I should tell you that my praying the rosary is pretty humorous, since I only know the Apostle's Creed in English and the Hail Mary in Spanish, and the Our Father in both, my praying has to be in two languages until I learn the Hail Mary in English. It's really an international prayer for me!

At first, I decided, well, I guess I'll never know until try, so I threw myself headfirst into that first rosary... but you know, there are 53 little blue beads on my rosary, and I have to say a Hail Mary for each one of them! Not only is that incredibly repetitive, but also, as a lifelong Protestant, I have never been taught anything about what it means to pray to anyone other than God, so the words just didn't have a lot of meaning for me, even though I really wanted them to mean something profound.

As usual when I'm stumped on a spiritual question here, I decided to run it by Francisco, and as usual, I'm very glad I did. I basically approached him saying I didn't understand what I was talking to Mary for, when I could just go straight to the Father. His response was this: you know, we Protestants, any time anyone gets sick, send mass emails to all our friends, family, and church members asking them to pray for us. We could just go straight to the Father ourselves, instead of asking for their prayer requests, but there's a sense of security brought about when you know others are praying for you. He then explains, that what's you do when you pray to to Mary... she has a special relationship with the father, a special understanding... it's like asking a wiser friend of yours to pray for you, isn't that comforting?

And you know, it is! I can think of times in my life when things were so bad I just didn't have any words to say to the Lord. Sometimes, it's good to be in silence with Him and just listen, but others, I have felt like if I didn't communicate something profound to him, my prayer didn't have value, it wasn't sincere. I am realizing that by saying Dios te salve, María, it's a way to say, Hey, God, I don't have a clue!, which I think is something it would be good for me to admit more often. Along with the Hail Mary, I am praying the Apostle's Creed and the Our Father, and sometimes it's freeing to pray and think about things you believe, without forcing yourself to analyze them in your own words during prayer. Sometimes, yeah, talk it over with God, other times just say, Hey, Lord, I believe, and let him bless you with peace and understanding because of it!

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I should also include another spiritual experience I had just this week... I made some new friends who are part of an evangelical church in town, and they invited me to their service. I was interested to go just for a new experience, since I have never had the chance to attend an evangelical worship service here in Venezuela. The most striking part of all was communion: soda crackers and sparkling fruit juice. In that moment, I realized once again how much my own ideas and experiences affect what I think spirituality should look like in practice. And you know, with the sun bathing into the garage, yes, garage, window, that looked out over La Puerta's rooftops before the Venezuelan Andes, soda crackers and sparkling fruit juice were all I needed.

May God Bless you all, and May He Use you as Blessings in the Lives of Others!

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