Last Friday part of my “family” in Guatemala picked me up at the airport.  Sami, my youngest Guatemalan grand daughter, was along ’cause she had a doc appointment.  As we were chatting away and catching up, I turned to Sami, who at the tender age of ten has a serious case of bilingual, and asked her if there was a Spanish phrase for Holy Land.  She told me she didn’t know and wasn’t familiar with the words Holy Land.  I turned to Lourdes, whose English is like my Spanish and said, Viajo a la tierra de Jesucristo.  For you Spanish speakers, correctly it would be viajé, with the little accent sign over the e, indicating past tense, traveled to the land of Jesus Christ.  Renato then chimed in with, Israel, pronouncing it correctly, Is-ry-el, not the way we Americans say it, Is-real.  Then he introduced me to a new phrase, La Tierra Prometida, The Promised Land.  With Spanish and English bouncing around in the car, I told them about my trip.

Like probably most of my fellow pilgrims, thoughts since coming back have been filled with visual recollections, conversations, and memories of the Spiritual, the historical, and the archeological.  A trip to the Holy Land is blessedly long in it’s linger.  I keep replaying in my head the things I’ve told people about my trip since returning.  The last one before coming down to Guate was with my kids, over dinner, the night before I left, ….. again.

In all of that, one word keeps percolating to the surface of my thoughts and recollections; privilege.

It’s a privilege to be able to travel anywhere because it takes two things many people do not have; the health and physical capability to do it, and resources.  But I have slowly come to a realization that resides in both my head and my heart, that the privilege to walk in La Tierra de Jesucristo, the land where Jesus “lived, and moved, and had his being”, is a privilege with it’s own bar.  And it will tone every conversation I have about being there.

Meanwhile, here in Guatemala, I have been enjoying being motionless for the first time in awhile.  While I’m down here I walk almost everywhere, with the occasional “chicken bus” ride.  Chicken bus is by no means derogatory, but intended to be descriptive in a way people seem to understand.  In truth, I love riding on these rolling containers of chaos.  But my preferred method is always walking.  Back to being relatively motionless.  My brief time at home was filled with errands, responsibilities at the hospital, a fund raiser, chauffeuring my Spiritual Director who has Parkinson’s, of course laundry and repacking, coffee with friends, kissing the kids, anyway, it was anything but motionless and relaxing.

Now slowly, methodically, jet lag is leaving me, sleep is returning, breathing is becoming relaxed and even, and my love for, and the pace of Guatemala, is soaking it’s way back into my whole being.  Which brings me to a familiar spot.

I am well, (understatement), and hope you all are too.  Now, aren’t you glad I didn’t mention the weather in any of that? 🙂