Religion, part 2

After attending my first mass in Colombia, I thought I’d add just a bit in the religion vein.

It all started Thursday night, with a random entreaty by a friend of a friend to experience the word of God. Well, thought I, I’m down for nothing if not new experiences. We jumped into a car and drove off (a new experience in itself—driving in a car instead of a bus! In downtown streets of Barranquilla!)

We arrived just a few minutes after the hour. Unlike every other event in Barranquilla, however, this didn’t seem to constitute as early—instead, the church was packed. But I use the term church lightly here.

Since we were attending Catholic mass, I expected nothing less than vaulted ceilings, a fair amount of religious iconography, hard wooden benches, and a slightly stuffy atmosphere. Instead, after winding through the entranceway, I found myself at the door to an outdoor patio. The priest, in white robes over a colorful, pajama-like suit, raised his hands and spoke under a terracotta gazebo. The crowd listened enraptured, filling rows upon rows of the ever-present white plastic beach chairs.

There was no more room for us to sit, so we stood on the brick steps, listening to the sermon.

Gradually, I learned from my companions and from listening to the priest himself that this was no ordinary sacerdote. This was a priest “from Africa,” who was apparently well known on the traveling Catholic priest circuit. He is purported to have performed miracles, and related to us a few—giving a blind woman sight, healing another so they could walk.

I decided not to spend my time questioning the veracity of these stories, and instead enjoyed the smooth flow of his words, the call and response format of the service, the peace that filled the patio. Branches of a wide-leafed tree arched over the space and rustled in the night breeze. To the right, the city’s skyscrapers rose taller than the tallest palms into the sky, their lights blinking against the darkness.  A family down the block squabbled, their dog lending its voice to the argument. And every so often, the breeze sent a hint of marijuana wafting over the crowd.

The service itself concluded after an hour, but then the crowd was offered the chance to experience the power of the priest’s hands; immediately, a line formed. And for the next two and a half hours, we watched the priest bless the attendants. This wasn’t a blessing of the sort of a cross drawn over their heads—instead, the man laid one palm on their foreheads and wrapped the other around their necks. And then, eyes closed, he swayed them—with the women looking not a little like he was making love—or, in the case of the short ones, as though he were using them to stir a very large pot. 

Three men in the white polos of the church staff stood close to catch those who crumpled. And this was not a few. A few went down immediately after being touched, although with others it took a few rotations in the priest’s hands. Caught by the men they were borne to the ground, where they lay for a varying length of time with their eyes closed, some quivering, others with their hands folded over their chest and beatific smiles on their faces.

As the end neared, the flow of people moving to line slowing, my companions stood to take their turn. Come, they insisted, smiling. So I did. His palm was soft and his hand smelled like cloves. Perhaps sensing I would not be experiencing a rapture that night, the time he took with me was brief.

After the service, we made like good Colombians and went out for early-morning salchipapas, and then went to catch what little sleep we could before work the next day.

I write this post mainly because after attending that service I was re-thinking a little bit about how religion presents itself here. Since my own Catholic experiences have been limited to attending other weddings or visiting cathedrals (including cathedrals here in Colombia), or attending high holiday masses, I assumed that mass must be the same everywhere—said in a church with few variations overall. But after witnessing mass in that natural, lovely outdoor space, I’m beginning to think that Catholicism here is a bit like the US Christianity—that there are churches with plenty of variations to fit individual needs. Even if they are all Catholic, and all share the same general belief system and all hold mass.

(On a side note, the idea that there are different “brands” of Christianity in the US is a really hard concept to explain, here)

But even if Catholicism is Catholicism anywhere, the fact that it would vary at least in presentation and in formality makes lots of sense, if it’s going to be the most ubiquitous belief system in the country. Since I’ve still only been to one church, this is mostly just a postulation.  

Religion is Everywhere

We are, as a matter of course, teaching in public schools. Schools that are funded by the government. Schools that are open to everyone to attend. I stress this because with amount of religious paraphernalia found in EVERY single one of said schools, you would think we were at the state equivalent of a private Catholic school.

Here, for example, is the four foot Jesus picture that adorns the main stairway:

 

This is the shrine that we keep in our back staircase:

And of course, there is the smaller iconography found in each one of the classrooms. Oh, and then there’s the daily Catholic prayer that is said over the loudspeakers at school, Pledge-Of-Allegiance style. (As a side note, I also know that there was a sighting of the Mother Mary by someone on my birthday some year, because every time I tell the teachers when it is, which is May 13th, someone starts singing this song: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f0Rk-EJ5nAk)

Overall, this is one of the more modest displays of religion found in our schools. One volunteer’s school had an entire DAY filled with religious “sharing time,” during which prayers and handholding commenced. At least two of our schools are run by nuns. 

There is a rule that states that no one is allowed to discriminate on the basis of religion in schools. In a country which, for much of its history after the Spaniards arrived, has been almost strictly Catholic, there are very few deviations of religion. And certainly no acknowledged distinction between Religion and Everyday Life.

Evangelical Christians have taken root here as well—and so those who aren’t Catholic are mostly Evangelicals. (They are an interesting breed, of the Evangelical sort those in the US may be accustomed to, but also have Israeli-derived music and dances. But they don’t believe in parties or much public sorts of fun. I’m not really sure how it all works). People here don’t really understand what it means to have different “brands” of Christianity. And don’t even try to explain Judaism…Jesus exists. That is a fact.

There are, of course, some Jews/Mormons/ Jehova’s Witnesses, though contextually scarce…but I’ve yet to run into any other religion, not to say it doesn’t exist here. But religion itself is a deeply rooted concept of being. It is often one of the first questions a person is asked, after name and origin. Sometimes it precludes “Are you single,” but that and “What religion are you” are basically the interchangeable third “who are you” mandatory question. Coming from people you met two seconds prior.

When I was telling my counterpart, who is not Catholic, how we don’t allow religion as a taught belief in American schools, the concept didn’t quite stick. “I wish we could have that,” she said. “I mean, we’re not all Catholic. We should stick to neutral things, like just saying that God created the earth.”

And yet, it’s interesting, in a way, to experience group prayer in the school. Not that there’s much discord between the teachers, but with fifty people who possess a wide spectrum of personalities, the majority of them female, there is certainly a lot of noise. It’s actually quite calming when the prayer that starts each teacher meeting begins, and everyone puts away their catalogs and magazines, stops trying to sell each other the things they bought at the market that morning or food they made the day before, and yearning-filled discussions about the plastic surgery they want to have/other teachers have gotten cease.   Although the out-of-tune hymns and fervent “Our Fathers” aren’t really my style, to hear prayers for strength to give the students wonderful educations is, even for the agnostic, somewhat comforting. 

I’m not sure what has kept this country so religious. I haven’t experienced life in enough Latin/South America countries to know if this is generally the norm. I’m also not sure what has kept other churches outside of Evangelicalism from gaining much ground on Catholocism.  But I do know that, for the next two years, I will be experiencing more religion in my life, at least via proxy, than I have for the past five years. For the moment, I’m treating the prayers (sometimes the only slowly-spoken statement made by the teachers in an entire day), as a useful Spanish learning opportunity! And if anyone asks, I’m a Christian…which they believe means Evangelical, which is, in the Catholic’s book, at least one step up from being a heathen…