CAC Programs Director Barbara Otero-López writes in the spring ONEING issue about the colonizing exile that her ancestral family suffered, and the resilient love that her ancestors inspire:
My ancestral family includes many Indigenous women who were taken captive by Spanish conquistadors and settlers. These women were captured and taken from their own families into communities that were vastly different from their own. They were taken as captives, wives and slaves. They were used as bartering tools and to secure alliances. They were exiled from the lives they once knew and were forced to live as wives and slaves. These women bore the trauma of captivity, the trauma of exile in the land of their own people. They were forced to marry and bear the children of their captors. Trauma such as this is known to be passed on through the womb, through the umbilical cord, from mother to child, and then again to that child’s child. Sustos is a Spanish word that names soul wounds such as these.
Despite the pain and trauma of captivity and forced assimilation into a culture and society which was not their own, despite their sustos, these women learned how to love and pass on this love through food, song, healing, tradition, and the love of God and all Her creation. This love in the time of exile was a sacred love, one borne of resilience and silent resistance. And, as I have learned, just as trauma and soul wounds are passed on to successive generations through DNA, love and resilience are too.
As Dr. B [Barbara Holmes] has taught us, “You journey with your ancestors. That’s why knowing your roots is important, because whether you know it or not, they’re journeying with you. Wouldn’t you want the help? Wouldn’t you want the warnings? Wouldn’t you want the blessings of those who have gone before you?”… [1]
I am going to be a grandmother myself now, and I can hear my mother and my grandmothers calling me to listen and to wake up and live the stories they want me to pass on, to continue the honor of being the translator of memories and mythologies, to pass on the love and resilience which has been passed on to me.…
There is an invitation for us all in times such as these. We are all being called to wake up and name our sadness, pain, and trauma, to allow our tears to flow and season our very lives. Times such as these are also calling us to stand up, to avoid becoming cynical and bitter, and to not be consumed and overpowered by our anger and sadness. Instead, we are to transform all that into something much more generative. We have much to learn from our ancestors, from their stories of trauma and from their loving protest of resilience.
I believe that in times such as these, we are all being called to listen. What stories are your ancestors wanting to tell through you?
References:
[1] Barbara Holmes, “Living in a Crowded Cosmos,” CAC’s Living School: Essentials of Engaged Contemplation, Center for Action and Contemplation, August 2024.
Barbara C. Otero-López, “Listen,” ONEING 13, no. 1, Loving in a Time of Exile (2025): 42–43. Available in print or PDF download.
Image credit and inspiration: Kryuchka Yaroslav, Untitled (detail), photo, USA, Adobe Stock. Click here to enlarge image. Things will break, and we are invited, when ready, to put the pieces back together again.
Story from Our Community:
“A Prayer for the Exiles”
Holy One, have mercy on your exiles, / those of us who no longer fit / within the traditional teachings of the church. / Those whose voice falters in the songs, / who cannot say “Amen,” / who desperately think of something else during the sermon…. / Have mercy on us, Holy God, / those exiles who cling to faith / and yearn for a bigger, wider story, / a bigger, wider community. / A story that embraces the vast expanses of time and space, /and the enormous complexity of the cosmos. / A community in which everything and everyone is connected / and embraced. /Holy God, … / be born again in us, your exiles, / Tell your story in words that we can understand.
—Janet D.
