SOYAPANGO, EL SALVADOR --- On a typical Thursday evening in this bustling urban neighborhood, people young and old gather in a makeshift community chapel to give thanks to God for another week.

Faith and song come alive in this little chapel with its dirt floor, tin roof and simple wooden benches. The banner in front says, "Vivimos la alegria de la solidaridad" (We live the joy of solidarity). Indeed, there is a lot of joy and goodwill among these neighbors as they welcome their U.S. visitors with enthusiasm and outstretched hands.

In March, I traveled to El Salvador with a delegation organized by the Salvadoran American National Association to observe the country's presidential elections. This tiny Central American country, still recovering from a brutal civil war in the 1980s, today relies on international election observers to support its fragile democracy.

We came from Germany, Spain, France, Australia, Canada, the U.S., Mexico and countries throughout Central America to see if every eligible citizen who wanted to vote could do so peacefully and to ascertain if voting fraud was being committed.

Together with their international observers, Salvadorans accomplished an important presidential election March 21 without major incidents of vote tampering.

Campaign interference?

What was unsettling to me was the campaigning beforehand, which involved direct U.S. involvement. A key campaign issue was whether or not the U.S. would suspend remittances if Schafik Handal of the Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front (FMLN) opposition (left) party won. Salvadorans in the U.S. sent $1.93 billion to family members in El Salvador in 2002. Numerous threats warning of such suspension were made by the ruling Nationalist Republican Alliance, or ARENA (right) party. And according to published reports U.S. officials in the White House, the State Department and Congress expressed concern to the Salvadoran press about how an opposition win might effect U.S.-Salvadoran relations.

As a result, election observers witnessed thousands of poor campesina women and men decide their vote based on the fear of losing their remittances, and not on the hope that the Salvadoran government invest more in education, health care, agriculture and just wages for the poor.

On the other hand, many on the left continued to propagate a discourse that pits rich against poor without proposing how people of different economic means could be reconciled with one another and create a better El Salvador together.

When the votes were tallied presidential candidate Tony Saca of ARENA won handily.

The Romero influence

A few days after the elections, the Catholic Church in El Salvador launched a jubilee year to commemorate the life and legacy of its most significant prophet and martyr, Monseńor Oscar Arnulfo Romero. The late archbishop of San Salvador was assassinated March 24, 1980 for his outspoken defense of human rights, dignity and justice for the majority poor in El Salvador.

Preaching outside the Cathedral this March 24 at a public Mass attended by some 10,000 people --- many of them teens and young adults --- San Salvador Auxiliary Bishop Gregorio Rosa Chávez talked about making decisions based on fear versus making decisions based on hope. Our faith, he said, gives us the energy to transform the world. Our commitment, he added, is the common good of all, beginning with the poor. In this jubilee year he urged the faithful to return to the memory, life, testimony and words of Msgr. Romero.

For me, Msgr. Romero was first and foremost a priest who tried to stay close to God in prayer as he walked each day. It was from his reading of the Gospels that he spoke against poverty, violence and greed. He felt free to speak the truth, because he accepted the consequences --- a likely death sentence.

But in death Msgr. Romero's prophetic words have spread throughout the world and continue to inspire. He left us his profound and vibrant homilies, many of which have been recorded on audio. We stand on his shoulders, needing in the present to keep building on the clarity of his vision and his understanding of how the Gospels show us the way to reconcile rich and poor and build the kingdom of God on earth.

What do the Gospels and the words of Msgr. Romero have to say to me today, as a resident of the world's richest and most powerful country? I live a fairly modest middle-class life in Los Angeles. But compared to many in the rest of the world --- who live without a car, cell phone, a laptop computer and E-mail --- I am a rich woman. And yet as an American I am too often spiritually wanting, longing for the depth of solidarity and community I experienced in the small neighborhood chapel in Soyapango.

These days, when someone tells me that so-and-so is poor or so-and-so is rich, I am asking, "Poor how?" or "Rich how?" For we are in danger of missing the bigger picture if poverty only means material poverty and wealth only means material wealth.

I learned important lessons from my time in El Salvador about what it means to be generous in spirit and to multiply the loaves and fishes through daily community living. I returned to Los Angeles less attached to my things and more interested in giving of my presence and sharing what I have. It has been both freeing and fun.

Zacchaeus' example

These days I reflect a lot on Luke 19 in which Jesus strikes up a conversation and initiates a friendship with Zacchaeus, a wealthy and much despised tax collector. Zacchaeus is thrilled, but the people who see Jesus talking with a greedy man begin to grumble. In response Zacchaeus decides to give half of his money to the poor and to pay back four times anyone he may have cheated.

Reflecting on this story, I am struck by how Jesus initiates the friendship, which softens and enlarges Zacchaeus' heart so that when the people hold Zacchaeus responsible for his unjust ways he is able to make decisive change.

The path to conversion and reconciliation might begin with those who are materially poor recognizing their spiritual wealth and inviting the rest of us into friendship and community while at the same time holding us accountable for injustices, like paying poverty wages to coffee farm workers or factory employees. Friendship and accountability --- it might just be a powerful and effective combination.

Msgr. Romero went through his own conversion process, and the key was his willingness to visit poor communities and listen to people's stories.

For me, as a Cuban-American woman visiting El Salvador, the most important thing I did was be present to people and listen to their stories, as a way to encourage the healing that needs to happen in El Salvador as well as boosting my own heart conversion.

The hope I experienced in El Salvador this spring was in the friendships and alliances --- for example, fair coffee trade or anti-sweatshop groups --- being formed between Salvadorans and people throughout the world. Pope John Paul II has said that one response to the injustices becoming evident through economic globalization is a globalization of solidarity. It's already happening throughout faith-filled communities in El Salvador which will only continue to grow with time.

Staff writer Ellie Hidalgo can be reached at ehidalgo@the-tidings.com.