“Poco a Poco”

“Little by Little.” This little phrase quickly became my motto for my time here in Antigua, Guatemala. As I have mentioned before, I have been assigned to a Spanish immersion program in Antigua for eight weeks this summer. In addition to taking six hours of class each day, I spend part of my time walking around the city, taking trips to other parts of the country, and speaking with my family and other locals in an attempt to learn a little bit about the culture of the ‘Guatemaltecos’. I must admit that it has been a slow process for me, both in learning Spanish and in learning to appreciate the many different cultures that are present here. I have come to realize that my lack of patience extends well beyond my attempts to bridge the cultural gaps and to learn a foreign language. I realize, as I have said in other posts, that God is using this time to teach me not only Spanish, but another language that only the heart can speak and understand.

It did not take me long in Antigua to realize that my expectations for learning the entire Spanish language in eight weeks were completely unreasonable. For some reason I had it in my head that for this summer to be a true success, I had to return to the States being fluent in Spanish. Each day as I would sit in class, I would become extremely frustrated with what I perceived to be my own lack of progress. I get frustrated when learning the subtle differences between the Pluscuamperfecto and the Present Perfect tense. I get frustrated by my inability to fully express what I want to say when I am having a spiritual conversation with my teacher. I have found it extremely frustrating to have something that you really want to say but don’t have the means or the capacity to say it. It is like having a gift that you desperately want to give but for one reason or other are unable to let go of it. My teacher can see the frustration written all over my face. After about 5.5 hours she can see me slowly shutting down. My progress comes to a near halt as my frustration sets in and dominates my demeanor.

However, the true problem lies not in the fact that I am not making progress in learning Spanish. The truth is I have made a great deal of progress in the last four weeks. The real problem lies in my perspective. The problem is the set of discolored lenses through which I view my own progress. At times the lenses are nothing more than blinders that prevent me from seeing anything. At other times they are like the ‘drunk goggles’ that police officers and educators use to teach people what it is like to drive while intoxicated. With these glasses everything seems blurry and shapes are difficult to see. At other times my blindness to my own progress seems to be similar to ‘night blindness’ that is caused by improper (or vitamin deficient) nutrition. Regardless of the cause, the inability to see my own progress becomes a rapidly spreading virus that affects the rest of my life. Sometimes the only way I can see my progress is when someone else points it out to me. In the case of learning Spanish, my teacher has repeatedly tried to point this out but, for one reason or the other, I couldn’t accept what she was saying.

Recently, I posted a few pictures of me after being in Guatemala for a few weeks. In addition to the many compliments I received about my beard (Thank you), several people told me that it looked like I have lost weight. Each time I deflected the comment and said that I don’t think I have lost weight. I told them that I feel like I have gained weight. Despite the fact that my pants are getting a little bigger (literally not figuratively) and I am on the last hole on my belt, I wasn’t ready to accept the truth of my progress in losing weight. Perhaps it was because I could not take credit for the success. After all, I have not been trying to lose weight whilst I am here. I have not been watching what I eat and I thought I had been eating too many carbs. Yesterday, I got on the scale at the local hospital (one that you pay about 12.5 cents to use) and realized that I have lost 10-11 pounds in the last month. I could not deny the progress with that degree of certainty. I can only hope that the scale is more accurate than the lottery numbers it gave me after telling me my weight. I had to ask myself, ‘Why is it that you only admit your progress when you have some degree of certainty or objective measurement that progress has been made?”

The truth is, for many things in our life, there is no objective measurement of our progress. I don’t write these reflections merely as a means of public confession or to get things off my chest. I write about myself in the hope that you find something in what I have said that allows you to draw your own conclusions about how God is working in your own life. Whether we are talking about losing weight, learning a foreign language, growing in our relationship with the Lord, reconciling with a family member or co-worker, desperately hoping that we have raised our children right and that they will make the right decisions, living in the later years of our life wondering if what we have done has made a difference and what is left for us to do, wondering if our time in a particular assignment or position has made a difference, preparing to leave the comforts of home to begin college or start a new career, struggling to grow in our spiritual lives and relationship with the Lord, or working to reconcile a marriage that seems beyond repair, we must be patient with our progress. We should take a step back and realize that at times it is difficult to see our progress from our own perspective.



For this reason we should take into account the trusted counsel of our dear friends, priests, counselors, faculty advisors, family, and most importantly, the Lord Jesus Christ. After all it is God who has designed our lives and has made plans for our lives, “plans for good and not for woe.” (Jeremiah 29:11). It is God who sees the final product and it is He who directs our hands. Our job is merely to do the task that is assigned to us each day (i.e. to love one another as He has loved us). It is God who is the master builder of all of Creation and will be there in the end to see His plans brought to fruition. With this in mind I am reminded of a poem by the late Archbishop Oscar Romero called the “Long View.” I hope you won’t mind me sharing it with you now even though this is already a long post:

It helps, now and then, to step back and take a long view.
The kingdom is not only beyond our efforts, it is even beyond our vision.
We accomplish in our lifetime only a tiny fraction of the magnificent enterprise that is God’s work.
Nothing we do is complete, which is a way of saying that the Kingdom always lies beyond us.

No statement says all that could be said.
No prayer fully expresses our faith.
No confession brings perfection.
No pastoral visit brings wholeness.
No program accomplishes the Church’s mission.
No set of goals and objectives includes everything.

This is what we are about.
We plant the seeds that one day will grow.
We water seeds already planted, knowing that they hold future promise.
We lay foundations that will need further development.
We provide yeast that produces far beyond our capabilities.
We cannot do everything, and there is a sense of liberation in realizing that.
This enables us to do something, and to do it very well.
It may be incomplete, but it is a beginning, a step along the way, an opportunity for the Lord’s grace to enter and do the rest.
We may never see the end results, but that is the difference between the master builder and the worker.

We are workers, not master builders; ministers, not messiahs.
We are prophets of a future not our own. – Archbishop Oscar Romero


With this prayer from Archbishop Romero in mind as well as the examples provided above I offer my own prayer for myself and perhaps for some of you as well (if you think it applies to you):

Almighty God and Father, thank you for allowing me to play a small part in building up your kingdom. Help me to focus on the task at hand each and every day. Help me to follow your plans and design for my life and avoid relying on my own intelligence (Prov 3:5-6) or passions in directing my life. Guide my hands, my words, my actions, and my desires to complete the work you want me to do each day. Grant me the grace to abandon my own desires of seeing the final product before its proper time. Allow me to love each day knowing that this is the most important task you have given me. Help me to trust in the fact that progress is being made towards living a life in full communion with you especially in those times when I can’t see it. Help me to continue this progress, even if it is “poco a poco.”

Pax tecum,
Tom