The Contradiction of Catharsis

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About two weeks ago I got a call from my United Church of Canada bosses. The wonderful women who are responsible for me wanted to check in to see how I was "doing" with the Surface James Balao! Campaign. Their call came at the perfect time, exhaustion and stress were starting to unravel me, and I had been holding handfuls of string for days looking for a proper place, and proper people to unravel to. Crossed legged on my porch in my favorit STU hoodie I let go of the strings and allowed myself the unselfconcious honesty needed to talk about how I am really doing.

At the end of the conversation I let them know that on October 14th we would be hosting an event entitled "Searching for the Missing" in Baguio, and that the key note speaker would be Edith Burgos, the mother of Jonus Burgos. Jonus was the victim of an enforced disappearance two years ago. Mrs. Burgos has been fighting ("tooth and nail" as my Dad would say) for information about the whereabouts and/or fate of Jonus ever since. My bosses were excited that I was getting the chance to hear Mrs. Burgos speak, she is a woman who has learned to take those handfuls of string and move forward. As we hung up with cheerful goodbyes and ignats something inside me tweeked, something that tweeks at things that seem contradictory.

And so, with our giant bamboo crane preening itself in the corner of the stage, and a thousand colourful paper cranes roosting in its wings, I relaxed into the audience to listen to Edith Burgos speak.

Mrs. Burgos spoke with a mother's pride and a mother's grief about her son, who was abducted because of his work to uplift the peasants in their region. I began to cry almost as soon as she began to speak. And concentrated the rest of the speach on not crying too much instead of not crying, which seemed impossible. There was no need to be embarassed, because we were crying as a group, eeryone in the auditorium. It was surprisingly cathartic. I have cried numerous times since James was abducted, and yet sitting in that room there was the inexplicable easing that comes from crying in a group.

Listening to Edith Burgos I was struck by the instinctive contradiction that comes from gaining catharcis from something in intself so sad, the tweeking I had felt after talking to my bosses from Canada. A women poured out her anger, fear and grief to us with complete honesty, and I felt finally like I could put a little understanding to my own.

Afterwards when people asked me how the event had gone the first thing I told them was how amazing it was to hear Mrs. Burgos speak. And then I would pause, and apologize and backtrack, trying to explain what I meant. I invariably ended with "amazing, but well... you know what I mean." It feels wrong to have, in a way, enjoyed hearing Mrs. Burgos speak. It feels wrong to feel better after having heard Mrs. Burgos speak. And yet, everytime I have fumbled through trying to explain to people what I mean, they have gently raised their hand and lowered the corners of their lips in the unmistakable sign that they understood. As human beings we live with this contradition, sharing saddness for catharcis, even if it tweeks something inside of us.

Our souls heal in communion. And it was in communion that we listened to Edith Burgos speak on October 14 and realized that with James's abduction we all now understand a modicum of her pride and her grief. And she, in her own place at the podium, explained to us her healing process, as well as her continued battles, as a way to join the collective human spirit in the room. We may not understand ourselves and our processes all the time, but we are creatures who need to hurt and heal together.Getting to hear Mrs. Burgos speak was amazing, unapologetically amazing, because it made me feel better, because it let me see that we were all hurting, but that we all possed the strength to keep fighting. That strength is where healing lies. I cried as she spoke, because it was sad and because it was cathartic.

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