The woman of silence:
Mayra lives beyond El Maniel, in the high plateau of Laguneta. It takes two hours from Paraíso to reach the farm where she cooks for a living. Not only is she in the precarious situation of being an undocumented immigrant from Haiti; she also responds each day to the challenge of not hearing anything... of living in perpetual silence.
Bringing forth fruit:
Because she spends much of the day alone, Mayra can focus in an uncomplicated way upon the basic needs of the people who let her live on the farm: preparing the food and washing dirty clothes. She thrives like the plants in an environment that does not strain her ability to communicate. The garden plants grow in an setting well suited to their needs. They grow effortlessly in all their glory... much like the lilies of the field that Jesus so admired!
Contrast:
Mayra´s adopted farm nestles in a habitat above the precipitous mountain flanks which fall steeply towards the ocean. The earth escapes the forced growth patterns of migratory extreme slope production. Imagine Mayra being yelled at by a group of twenty people, each clamoring for her to do this or that... when she has no way of hearing the commands. Such is a metaphor for the mountain slopes which are required to produce food, even as they lose topsoil to erosion. They are like a Mayra forced to do tasks that go beyond her abilities.
May the plants grow where they can:
In a few decades, the steep slopes will be left alone once again... as they have been for most of their millennial history. They will respond to the unrelenting demands of human beings until they have precious little nutrients left. The people will then move on and the slopes will bring forth an aggressive weed grass that knows how to fight for life. Long gone will be the delicate ornamental plants that used to grow freely beneath the canopy of shade trees.
The wisdom of Earth:
God gave us a round planet, with finite distances, when He could have placed us within a creation that extends in infinite directions. In this creative act, He placed us upon a path to learn the wisdom of restraint. We slowly and painfully learn that each bio region has a unique ability to nurture human families. When we reverence the God given requirements of this or that land, we enter a spirituality of stewardship. When we treat the land the way those around her are treating Mayra, we live in harmony.
