Theophany Narrative:

Aldea of the Holy Family, project of the Institute for Integral Rehabilitation of the Incapacitated, Sabandia, province of Arequipa, Peru, January 2019.

Seven boys, all severely challenged, gathered around the kitchen table and given the task of peeling fava beans invite me to join them. The boy with one arm works twice as fast as me. Jilmar participates at the rate of a bean every twenty minutes every bean a testimony to the victory over the gyrations of severe cerebral palsy. No one checks to see how much nor how little each one produces. They have developed recognizable interest in one another, cleaning a noise, taking a companion to the bathroom, making room to-fit in another wheel chair. The common language is an almost constant laughter, both simple and profound that emanates from the heart. Never once a negative comment, nor derisive gesture break the camaraderie.

One comments, " I really like fava bean soup. '' Everyone laughs.

Another claims, " I like fava bean soup more than anyone" Everyone laughs even harder. When we finish, every one helps to clean up.
David takes out of his pockets a chewing size packet-filled with wafer thin cookies that he has broken down to the size of communion wafers. The children have nothing of their own. A small package of cookies is a treasure to be guarded in secret and consumed in delight. A mother often told me how she used to hide a candy for herself only to be discovered eating it alone and evidenced by one offer daughters. Significantly retarded and affected with constant drooling, David enjoys a special place of affection. He takes out each cookie end places it in the hand or in the mouth of every companion according to their ability to use their hands.
  Commentary (free verse) Deficient, demented, dispossessed, disenfranchised, discredited as a public burden, gathered around a table, apostles of other capabilities, vested in shop worn, threadbare garments, the boys peel fava beans, planted with palsied hands and harvested as fruit  of the earth, completing a sustainable cycle driven by devotion bereft of any productive demand.
Replete with glee worthy of being re imagined and retold, sowed upon the heart, they create a world of fellowship.
What benevolence, enduring and endearing, ineluctable of how to live together in canonizing acceptance, anticipation offends, memorizing engagements Constant laughter accompanies them, laughter worthy of being consecrated and distributed as communion in holy trust ozone another, bread broken, not horded, shared for the life of the world