Spirituality in Guatemala

I’ve had a complicated relationship with religion for my entire life.  In fourth grade, while at a Catholic elementary school, our teacher told us the Gospels weren’t written until well after Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John were buried in the ground.  Instead, they were passed down by word of mouth from one person to another until the first bible was created.  Somewhat innocently (ok, I’ll admit, I was an instigator), I raised my hand and asked how we knew that the message didn’t get all twisted, that it wasn’t just some giant game of “telephone” (where a simple message gets whispered from one person to another so that in the end, the message almost never resembles the original).  My teacher, after 10 minutes of consultation with the older, more experienced and apparently wiser third grade teacher, told me simply, “It was divine intervention.  Let’s move on.”

In my eighth grade youth group, someone asked why Catholics need to be married in a church.  The teacher answered that a Catholic wedding needed to include a mass and a mass needed to be inside, of course, because God’s presence was stronger inside.  Again, my hand shot up.  “What?  God can’t go outside?  I thought God was everywhere.”  (Hopefully, I’ve tempered a bit of that obnoxiousness.)  My teacher explained that she didn’t mean God couldn’t go outside and finally finished with, “It’s just a rule from the Pope.  Let’s move on.”

At the same time, I felt a connection to religion.  I attended religious schools, went to church regularly, taught religious education, and received all my sacraments because I had a desire to do so, not because my parents required it.  I was on the parish council and a lector at mass.  I read books about religion and quizzed my mom (who has her M.A. in Theology) regularly on the history and tenants of our religion.  I craved the depth of spirituality that I saw in some people in church.  They seemed to feel such a deep connection to our faith, our congregation, our God, and I wanted that.

What does this have anything to do with Guatemala?  Guatemala is a religious country.  Religion permeates daily life in a significant way.  There are several religions in Guatemala, but at least in my location, there are two that dominate.  In my town, you are either Catholic or Evangelical.  My family here is Catholic.  They asked me the first day if I wanted to go to church with them.  They didn’t pressure me in any way, simply offered.  “Sure,” I said.  “I’d love to.”  The truth was I wasn’t sure if I’d love to, but I needed to find out.

One thing about the specific “rules” of a Catholic mass is that the process doesn’t change much from country to country.  Although I didn’t know many of the words they were using, I was comforted with the familiarity of the mass.  When they said, “Padre Nuestro,” I said the Our Father.  Instead of shaking hands as a sign of peace, we placed hands on shoulders.  But in the end, it was mass.  It was familiar and it didn’t matter that I didn’t understand the homily or the creeds.

I’ve gone back each week, learning a bit more Spanish and participating more each time, until this week something changed.   After Communion, we go to a smaller room to pray, think, sit quietly.  Many people pray out loud in Spanish or Kaqchikel and often there are several people weeping.  This week, it created an environment, at least for me, of white noise that was comforting.  I was able to lose myself in my thoughts.  Whether those thoughts were “prayers” or not isn’t very important to me.  In that moment, with those people, I felt spiritual.

I hope to learn more about myself and my spiritual beliefs in Guatemala.  I hope to learn about the interesting mixture of Mayan gods with a Christian one.  I hope to be open to new and different aspects of faith as well as new and different religions.  And I hope to never just move on.