"Majdanek is a place of horror and destruction;
Bełžec, a place of death with no other reality.
These are two places among a multitude, and there are all those that we do not yet know about.
When a friend spoke to me about this retreat I did not stop to think, I simply told her: I will be there. And I welcomed this certainty within myself. Then, as the days passed, and still today, things began to take form. The reason for this certainty: I will be there.
I will be there, because I am already there. Every day, in every thought, every word, every gesture, I experience the interiority and exteriority of the world. Every day the question of boundaries arises, boundaries between conscience and shadow, peace and what namelessly emerges within it, the already and the not yet, the accepted and the suffering. And the answer, which is still slowly revealing itself in this same place: within. Through breath, I am opening up and reaching out to this space where suffering and alienation in whatever forms they present themselves, do not exist. I have been given faith that they cannot enter— unless I choose to give them the key. It is my responsibility, I, the life within me, to stand guard at this threshold. I must not forget it. I build this breath.
I will be there to return the voice to this inner space, to return it its rightful place, to learn with it and grow with it. And to grow in all the human dimensions, without rejection or judgement. Without separation, without distinction between good or bad, just with what is. How can I name peace if I divide myself up? Does life know how not to love itself?
To grow fully in order to live freely, more so every day. To open up and offer myself to the life that is there.
For me as a Christian, Christ, the Son of Man, passed through hell and was resurrected. As daughter/son of woman, I walk in his footsteps, and I shall not renounce my hells, but rather learn to love them so that they do not suffer from not living. I speak from within, because that is what belongs to me, that is what I can name, but understand that I also reflect and carry the exterior.
I will be there, because in the face of current events and the emerging, howling hells that are brandished by our media or concealed behind it, this is something that I can give, something that I can do that is true to what I am.
I will be there to say that for me, these deaths, this suffering, these atrocities and all these denials of humanity were not in vain.
I give thanks. I welcome the face of humanity, this part of the immensity within us. I rise up. Gospodi Pomiluy, Lord give to me. Lord enter me. It is You that I carry within. Lord, forgive me, it is I who creates these realities that I name hells through my ignorance and fear; in this way I give them a face that You did not give them. Lord, teach me to grow like a child.
We found joy in Majdanek and we were surprised. Yet a priest found your grace there. Why doubt life, its power, its generosity, and its capacity to be reborn? Do I know how to simply and truly be alive? How to be free? Without fears? Responsible?
I am still there. And I am in the world."
Jany Pons Ballester
St Dramont, 26 october 2006
