Repaso

Today at Maryknoll, and lately: We are moving at a pretty rapid clip through the lessons in the intermediate textbook. Already we are moving on to the third lesson in Unit 1. (There are six units of three lessons each in this textbook.) I do wish we could move at a little slower pace! Granted, everything in this first unit is review, or repaso, of what was covered in the first textbook, namely verbs in the present, past, and future tenses. Granted, it is time to kick into a higher gear and go with the flow of Spanish at a pace more natural to native speakers. But all the same, I do feel like I am running just above the velocity at which I am comfortable; and were this a sprint, I would be watching Grace and the teachers pulling away down and around the track. 

I suppose that if I were here for only six weeks instead of six months, I would be wanting to cover as much ground as I could before my studies ended. I would be living each day as if it were the last one I had. And there is indeed good sense in living each day as if there were no tomorrow—it would concentrate all your mind and heart and soul on what matters most. But I do have another ten weeks, or 69 more tomorrows, to go. So my sense of pacing and timing is necessarily altered. I want to run for the long distance and conserve my strength. This could be a formula for living a long life. On the other hand, it can become an excuse for complacency or timidity. I have many years ahead of me—no need to work so hard today. I don’t feel up to the challenge today—I will try harder tomorrow. Well, my tomorrows may be many, but what if somebody else’s tomorrows are not? I could amble along without a sense of urgency, but then I may not be as available or as able to be of help to someone who speaks Spanish, somewhere, back in New York City or Boston or wherever I may serve God, the Church, and all people. Often I find myself wondering, am I living as if God, the absolute future, is bringing tomorrow into my today? Am I welcoming the life that God brings when God brings it here from the future? Do I have the spiritual sense to tell when God is at work in me, bringing what is eternally new into time, and when it is merely me trying push my today into a tomorrow of my own choosing; or merely me trying to keep today from slipping away into a past I cannot recover, cannot redo, cannot remake? 

Ah, vague musings. Mind over heart and soul, again! Better to talk to God about the longed-for in-breaking of future time than only to think about it. Time to get into a wrestling stance and prepare once more to meet my mercurial Maker. 

Whatever the case, temporally speaking, my teachers do wish to press forward. Thus it is my task to follow as best as I can, in the classroom and outside. (Profesoras Liliana and Karla have been giving homework generously. Lots of reading and lots of listening.) In the meantime, I ask God to consecrate the hours, precious and holy, I have dedicated to these studies, and to the relationships I have made here with fellow students, with fellow friars, and with all of God’s people. To this I would add a request to God to consecrate the times to come, after I return to the United States, and help me anticipate the new encounters that an understanding of Spanish may make possible.