A Decade of Solidarity

An unusual burst of summer hit Washington, D.C. the third week of March, temperatures in the high 80s catching all of us by surprise as we gladly shed sweaters and heavy winter coats. Even the cherry blossoms were fooled, coming into their glory two weeks before the annual festival to celebrate them.

So it was rather shocking to awaken on the morning of March 24 and see the snow coming down in big, wet flakes. We tried not to let it dampen our spirits as we made our way to St. Aloysius Church.

Half an hour before the commemorative prayer service on the 10th anniversary of the assassination of El Salvador's Archbishop Oscar Romero was to begin, the downstairs sanctuary of the church was already full. Twenty minutes later, it was announced that a couple hundred people were still outside in the snow, unable to find space in the church. We moved in one great mass upstairs to the drafty, cavernous sanctuary that sees little use these days. Within minutes, this sanctuary was also overflowing.

The only creature that didn't have to wait patiently for the stream of people to make its way inside was a pigeon. It flew in the back entrance to the front of the church, where it perched on a ledge that circled the base of the sanctuary's huge dome.

The gray bird distracted the attention of many of the worshipers. A man standing in the aisle near me commented, "It's too bad it's not white -- that would make it a dove, a sign of the presence of the Holy Spirit. "

The large Salvadoran family sitting in the pew behind me overheard the remark. The father of the family said to the man, "But in El Salvador the doves are gray and brown -- so, you see, it is a sign of the Holy Spirit. "

For those with the eyes to see it, indeed the Spirit was present that morning -- not only in the pigeon that swooped over our heads from the dome to the massive pipe organ in the balcony and back again throughout the service, but also in the prayers, the singing, and the lighting of candles by people of faith from all over the country and other parts of the world.

The most touching moment came when Leonor Arguello de Huper of the Nicaraguan Embassy rose to offer her prayer. "This will be the last time that I will be able to address you in this country," she began. The crowd rose in one motion, and the ovation for her and her colleagues went on and on and on. With great emotion, she continued, "I will always remember the faces, the devotion, the courage. God bless you."

I THOUGHT BACK 10 YEARS to the moment I had learned of Romero's death, and to the small group of us gathered a few evenings later across from the White House, soft light from the thin candles we clutched illuminating simple faith on worn and somber faces, many of them from El Salvador, "The Savior." I thought of Julia Esquivel of Guatemala and her poetry that invited me to live, like her people, "threatened with resurrection."

I remembered my first trip to Nicaragua, and the gracious hospitality of Gustavo Parajon and other sisters and brothers at CEPAD (Evangelical Committee for Aid and Development). And the rich memories of my second trip, to the frontier town of Jalapa with the first Witness for Peace team, came vividly: our night under alert in Ocotal; 13-year-old Agenor and his rifle; the trenches for safety and the endless homemade crosses in Jalapa's cemetery; the boy on crude crutches who lost a leg to a contra land mine and the mother of six-month-old Ricardo who begged us to take him to safety in the United States; the mortar fire on the road as we jolted back through the dust toward Managua.

I flashed to a more recent memory -- a chilly sunny day at the White House last December. On the ninth anniversary of the murder in El Salvador of four U.S. churchwomen, 60 of us went to the gate to pray, and to protest the more recent murder -- just two weeks before -- of two women and six Jesuit priests at the University of Central America in San Salvador.

At the police precinct, we were cited with a $50 fine, to be paid within 10 days. For those of us who wouldn't pay, court dates for arraignment and sentencing were assigned. Washington, D.C.'s courts are so clogged that the group had to be spread over three different dates, each a month apart.

On February 21, five of us had our day in court. Barbara Schaible, who works with SHARE (Salvadoran Humanitarian Aid, Research, and Education), set the tone for the sentencing. It had been her first arrest, at 55, and the gentleness and strength of conviction that came through in her testimony touched us all, including the magistrate.

Barbara's voice began to choke as she talked of how much it had meant to her to have had her husband, Max, come to support her, and how the witness at the White House had moved him. I remembered meeting him that night after our release at the police precinct; I had been touched by his gratitude for the action and for Sojourners. Max died very unexpectedly in January.

In that courtroom, I learned again that all suffering is connected. Barbara's grief was joined to that of the people of El Salvador, and the magistrate herself made one more connection. She sentenced us each to pay a fine of $25 -- to the organization of our choice that is serving hungry or homeless people in Washington, D.C.

In that quiet courtroom -- as in the packed church with the congregation on its feet and applauding while the pigeon of the Holy Spirit soared over our heads -- I thanked God for a decade of solidarity.

Joyce Hollyday was associate editor of Sojourners when this article appeared.