Let’s provide asylum for Marisol

I’ve written before about the young woman who took over as chief of police in Praxedis G. Guerrero, a town overrun and overcome with the violence resulting from the rivalry of two drug cartels. According to today’s Fort Worth Star Telegram she is now seeking asylum in the U.S. She fled here four months ago after receiving death threats. The seriousness of those threats was born out after an attack last Wednesday on a policewoman who remained behind.

Last March I revised the title of my original October, 2010, post to indicate that Marisol Valles Garcia’s “Guadalupe Presence” was now “gone.” Identifying “virgin qualities” has been a recurring theme of this blog. To unabashedly quote myself:

Virginity is powerful.  In its original concept, it had NOTHING to do with physiology. Being a virgin meant having authority, because a virgin was “author” of her own experience. She carried no labels from any faction. She was defined by no relationship other than the one she maintained with her Creator. She was no one’s daughter, servant, wife, lover, or mother. She was “one-in-herself.” She was whole, complete, un-captured, unbroken, un-invaded, intact.

Revision is a necessity when we place one person on a pedestal and say “SHE” or “HE” is the embodiment of whatever good we’re searching for — and trust that that individual will come up with solutions — will be “the answer” for whatever ails us. Surveying the current field of Republican hopefuls in the States, taking account of the current incumbent, and then doing the same thing for a field of Mexican presidential hopefuls, I am convinced that the days of looking for “a hero,” male or female, are past us. The “pickin’s” are rather sparse in the hero department these days. They seem to be even sparser in the virgin department, whatever variety of virgin you might consider. But enough has been written about that.

Or maybe not. If anything comes out of the constant litany of hero failures and moral shortcomings of elected officials, it may be a heightened longing for virtues lost. In our forty year long “War on Drugs” the U.S. has used practically every violent and subversive means to counteract violent and subversive means — even providing arms to drug cartels. Recriminations on this subject are many, but recriminations only go so far. A practical, positive step toward redeeming our collective “virgin qualities” would be to provide safe harbor for those virtues when someone has tried to live them. Let’s provide asylum for Marisol Valles Garcia.

Young woman sheriff in Mexico = Guadalupe Presence…gone

Marisol Valles Garcia said, “Yes.” She is twenty years old and she’s become the sheriff of Praxedis G. Guerrero, a town practically on the outskirts of Ciudad Juarez, the most dangerous city in Mexico.  Here’s a link to the story.

Her name, a combination of Mary and Sun, is appropriate. THIS is how the Guadalupe presence functions. That woman-image from Revelation 21, “clothed with the sun,” offers a new paradigm for conquering evil.  New? After all, those words have been there for a long, long time. But maybe we’re moving into a time, when we’re finally ready to leave the old model behind. That’s the one we’ve been playing over and over again: perpetrator, victim and rescuer.  The innocent victim is tied to the railroad tracks by an evil villain and waits for a hero to show up and save the day.

In the new model, it is Guadalupe (Woman, the spiritual ideal, the image of God, enlightened consciousness — SO many names) who shows up. Her presence is the day, and like dawn destroys the night, the mere fact of her existence sends darkness packing. The Guadalupe presence doesn’t retaliate, use force or bravado. It simply is what it is — virgin.

Virginity is powerful.  In its original concept, it had NOTHING to do with physiology. Being a virgin meant having authority, because a virgin was “author” of her own experience. She carried no labels from any faction. She was defined by no relationship other than the one she maintained with her Creator. She was no one’s daughter, servant, wife, lover, or mother. She was “one-in-herself.” She was whole, complete, un-captured, unbroken, un-invaded, intact. Can’t touch that! Not without going down in flames.

Am I saying Marisol Valles Garcia is an incarnation of Guadalupe, another appearance of The Virgin there on the Texas and Mexico border? No, no more than I would say she was the sun itself. But I do recognize a sunbeam when I see one.  Perhaps the dawn is breaking.

March 9, 2011 Update:  Sad to report there are clouds over that dawn. I’ve been wondering what was going on with Marisol, and found this from two days ago. And this article in Spanish from yesterday. Evidently Marisol has fled to the U.S. in the face of death and kidnapping threats. The mayor of Praxedis G. Guerrero, called after her, “You’re fired.” Sounds like he’s about as supportive of public employees as Wisconsin Republicans.