A Cuban Reading of Psalm 137 :: Cuba Religion Bible Christianity Essays

A Cuban Reading of Psalm 137 There argon two Cubas. On the Island are revolutionaries crusading to construct a Cuba that combats any sweat to subjugate her spirit to the US hegemony. On the (main)land are the modernists who intuitive feeling toward the linked States as the guide and hope for revitalizing a Post-Castro Cuba. Consequently, the Cuban conjunction is divided into two antagonistic camps Resident Cubans living under Castros Marxist regime, and Exilic Cubans living under a global capitalist system. ascribable to these political and economic differences, we Cubans are a people divided against ourselves.This socio-economic class creates a unique space in how we read the Bible other than than the rest of Latin America or other U.S. Hispanic groups. Theologians in operation(p) from a liberationalist perspective focus on Exodus as a source of hope for their existential situation. The story of a God who hears the cries of the laden and personally leads them toward liberat ion is a powerful motif. However, Exodus is not the claim from which we Exilic Cubans read the scriptures. It is the second exodus, narrating the Babylonian Captivity, that resonates within our very being. equal the Psalmist of 137 we sit by the streams of this country, singing about our inability to sing Gods songs. BESIDE THE MIAMI RIVER WE sit down AND WEPT AT THE MEMORY OF LA HABANA LEAVING OUR CONGA DRUMS BY THE handle TREES.In la sagesera (Southwest Miami), on Calle Ocho (Eighth Street), is a restaurant called Versailles, dubbed El palacio de los Espejos (The mirrored palace). What makes this restaurant unique are the mirrored walls. Sitting at the table in the crowded salon, I constantly see myself reflected on one of many heavily-gilded mirrors. As we Exilic Cubans look in the mirrors touch us, we are in fact searching for our ontological origin. Not so much what we are, but what we see ourselves as being. Versailles serves as a vivid illustration to Lacans theory of t he Mirror Stage. Lacan, the postmodern psychoanalyst, maintains that while I look at myself in the mirror, I assume that what I see is a reflection of a self &9472 a secondary reflection truehearted (more or less) to the likeness of an existing original self. Lacan would propose the opposite, that the image in the mirror is what constructs the self. My encounter with the mirror literally reverses the direction, and serves the function of forming my I.