I know that there are many who still claim that global warming is a myth, or at least that the idea of an ecological footprint isn't likely - that if the earth is warming, it has very little to do with our practice.

I tend to believe in connectedness and think that our greed has consequences on many levels, the created world being one of the grounds.

We're thankful for the choices that are made for us on a daily basis, having chosen to live among the poor, we rely on public transportation (not that emissions testing in El Alto has really caught on), largely local food sources, and very limited energy use... which brings me to last night.

June 23 in Bolivia is known as the festival of San Juan. A Christian adaptation, it follows closely on the heels of the Aymaran New Year, which corresponds with the winter solstice, and really is a celebration of all things together. Being the longest night of the year, it also bears the tradition of being the coldest and so bonfires are the focus of the fiesta. People traditionally light fires in the streets, roast hot dogs and set off fireworks. In recent years, however, the department of La Paz/El Alto has attempted to crack down on smoke pollution and began threatening 1000 Boliviano ($145) fines for burning, which on my street, for example brought the number down from 14 to 2 visible burnings in just the last couple years. But we find our ways... Many have taken to lighting their folgatas inside property walls, in front yards, on patios, away from the watchful eye of police. We (guilty) stayed inside and partied around the fireplace. Multiply my guilty contribution by 2 million people, and well...

This morning we woke to a sky less smoke-filled than we remember in years past. And yet, our temperature which has consistently been hovering in the mid 30's (F) for the past 4 weeks or so registered a steamy 42 degrees this morning (this, by the way, is inside our bedroom). And I will admit, it felt good - or at least better. But when I look past my own room, over my neighbors houses, lift my eyes up to the mountains and can visibly register the shrinking glaciers, I feel sad... and responsible.

We had a holiday on Thursday: Corpus Christi, which means "body of Christ," but no one around here seems to know exactly what we're celebrating. Failed catechisms. My favorite reflection on the day was found in my aforementioned new favorite book, Take This Bread, in which Sara Miles remembers her time in Corpus Christi, Mexico during the Corpus Christi Massacre, in which she reflects on a popular dicho, "en su propio carne." Or "in your own meat" literally, to live it in the flesh, as we might say, which I like the sound of. Living it in your own meat. The high call of the Gospel.

So I took advantage and rented a tiny cabin room on Lake Titicaca, took a couple books to guide me and spent two days in mostly quiet spaces. I listened and waited. I heard through the voices of psalmists and prophets cries from my own desperate depths. I scribbled journal pages of "excavation of self" (I think Keating uses this phrase in the Human Condition). I stopped running from all the things that are pushing in and threatening to crash. And I wish I could say I've come out with a regained sense of purpose and peace. The truth is, stillness most often gives way to honesty, and truth says I'm desperate, pitiful, poor, blind, and naked (rev. 3). And I feel it. Cold. Tired. Unseen and unseeing.

In the days since I feel like I've answered almost every question with, "I don't know," and almost every request with, "I just can't." Which is about all I can offer.

This is me in my own meat.