Homesick...

I'm feeling homesick today, really for the first time since I've gotten here.  And what am I homesick for?  Husker football.

Now, to understand this, you really need to know that I have never before come even remotely close to saying anything like this before. 

I resisted the Husker football culture when I first moved to town, partly because everyone was telling me that getting drawn in would be inevitable.

I definitely didn't think I would miss it when I was gone...

Yet here I am.  In Guatemala.  Thinking that nothing would be better than to be able to watch tomorrow's football game in the company of friends.

Apparently the culture snuck up on me, and Husker football is now synonymous with home.

Poem

I came across this ode of Pablo Neruda today when I was preparing a lesson for my students.  I like the attitude behind it.  (I've pasted the poem in both Spanish and English below):

ODA A LA TRISTEZA

Tristeza, escarabajo
de siete patas rotas,
huevo de telaraña,
rata descalabrada,
esqueleto de perra:
Aquí no entras.
No pasas.
Ándate.
Vuelve
al Sur con tu paraguas,
vuelve
al Norte con tus dientes de culebra.
Aquí vive un poeta.
La tristeza no puede
entrar por estas puertas.
Por las ventanas
entra el aire del mundo,
las rojas rosas nuevas,
las banderas bordadas
del pueblo y sus victorias.
No puedes,
Aquí no entras.
Sacude
tus alas de murciélago,
yo pisaré las plumas
que caen de tu manto,
yo barreré los trozos
de tu cadáver hacia
las cuatro puntas del viento,
yo te torceré el cuello,
te coseré los ojos,
cortaré tu mortaja
y enterraré tus huesos roedores
bajo la primavera de un manzano.
(http://www.poesi.as/)

ODE TO SADNESS

Sadness, scarab
with seven crippled feet,
spiderweb egg,
scramble-brained rat,
bitch's skeleton: (Note: In the Spanish, this literally refers to a dog that is female...)
No entry here.
Don't come in.
Go away.
Go back
south with your umbrella,
go back
north with your serpent's teeth.
A poet lives here.
No sadness may
cross this threshold.
Through these windows
comes the breath of the world,
fresh red roses,
flags embroidered with
the victories of the people.
No.
No entry.
Flap
your bat's wings,
I will trample the feathers
that fall from your mantle,
I will sweep the bits and pieces
of your carcass to
the four corners of the wind,
I will wring your neck,
I will stitch your eyelids shut,
I will sew your shroud,
sadness, and bury your rodent bones
beneath the springtime of an apple tree.
(from http://www.romanticlovesecrets.com/ode-to-sadness-sad-love-poems.html)

Living in the Moment...

I stressed myself out earlier today.  I realized as I was on elementary lunch duty that I had missed out on almost all of the first half of the day.  Sure, I did my work.  I was physically there.  But I was withdrawn, not connected...unaware of so much of what was really going on around me.  And why did I do this?  Upon further reflection, I realized it was because I don't have all the answers for what might happen in the next twenty years. 

That's right.  Twenty years.

As if I might have any way of knowing what might happen between now and then.  Twenty years is a long time.  I didn't even know I was coming here until the end of June.  And that was totally unexpected...

And there I was beating myself up because I didn't have a solid plan for twenty or so years still to come...

That's when I realized I needed to intentionally pull my mind back into the here and now. 

The light flickering on the leaves...

A bug dancing in the grass...

The breeze on my face...

The arc of a football...

The sun on my shoulders...

Back to all the joys of a bright September day.

And you know what?  It worked.  The rest of the day went incredibly well.  I went from dragging myself from one duty to the next to actually living them and enjoying them.

The next twenty years can take care of themselves.

Chapel

I will be giving a middle school chapel in a few weeks and need to start thinking of a topic.  I am considering doing something with how we perceive ourselves v. who God says we are, but I am still considering the best way of going about it...

Fear

Fear is a crazy thing...I find I fear so much that I want.  I'm not sure I can think of much of anything to do that wouldn't involve facing at least a little bit of fear.

But fear can be good.  At least it helps me realize how much I really need to consider moving forward.  It helps me decide not to let fear conquer me.

There are a lot of irrational fears, fears not based on any kind of legitimate red flags.

Those are the kinds of fears that should be ignored.  Those are the kind that can propel me forward...

With that said, life is moving forward quite splendidly.  I can gratefully say I am enjoying good health.  I thought I was coming down with a cold yesterday, but the symptoms have passed on quietly.  A fast moving cold.  I know others who have been miserably sick with stomach bugs...thankfully I have yet to be plagued with any of those.

I killed a flea in my room yesterday. I found it on me shortly after I walked in the door.  Probably caught a ride inside on my clothes.

And so far I have not yet had to resort to fumigating my room.

Life is good. :-)

Faith

I was reading Matthew 9 this morning, the story of Jesus healing the blind men.  They come to him saying, "Son of Man, have mercy on us!"  And Jesus response was: "Do you believe I can do this?"

Then, after they answered yes, he touched their eyes and said, "According to your faith let it be done to you."

Now, I have often heard these verses quoted in teachings about healing, and always before I had perceived in them a hidden threat.  You better have faith if you want to have healing...  So then I would work to conjure up as much faith as I could...

But I wonder now if there was another purpose to these.  Maybe this passage shows that the most important thing is what is really inside a person's heart.  Maybe the healing showed what was hidden, helped them understand what could not be shown or understood with merely words...

And, of course, there was compassion involved in all that, too. 

Too often I look at the physical and give it the most importance since it's clearly in the here and now.  I often forget the greatest value is often in those things that are invisible.  The intangible aspects of life.  Those are what are most precious and irreplaceable.

Loss and Restoration...

Leaving Guatemala six and a half years ago was one of the hardest things I've ever done.  Not the hardest--going to the funeral home to see my brother and then flying to Korea about a week after tops that list--but it was hard.  Incredibly so.

I was thinking about this today...how for so many years I tried to forget this place existed.  It was too painful to remember, too hard to let go.

It was possible to live without it, but it was like going through life without a limb...it can be done, but it's not ideal...

And I wondered why my heart didn't work the way it did before...

In a strange way, I grew accustomed to limping.  It wasn't until I returned to Guatemala this summer that I remembered what being whole was. 

I paid a visit to my old pastor's family today.  And on the walk home, I was surprised to feel my heart swelling inside me, as if it was expanding, reaching out, taking this place in without any reservations or fear.  A whole-hearted reaction...

That's when I realized my heart is whole.  Because my heart didn't do that before...during those years when I tried to forget this place existed.  It's like my heart had short-circuited and just couldn't do it anymore.

My old pastor here passed away two months ago...I was surprised by how hard it was to visit his family and realize he is really gone.  There is still part of me that thinks he is still here and the new pastor is just a short-term replacement.  Sunday morning was my favorite time of the week when I lived her before...I absolutely loved going to church.  And he was a big part of what that church was.  To me, anyway.  He always took the time to stop and say hello.  And when we went to the lake for baptisms, his family invited me to tag along with them.  After the baptisms, we had a picnic lunch on the beach.  Then we walked around the shops and went out for a boat ride on the lake.  That was my favorite trip to Lake Atitlan.

But times change and things happen...and people get sick and pass away.

But remembering him today, seeing his picture on the wall, reminded me of all that was.  And as I remembered, I also remembered who I was when all those things happened.  How things were different...

And I realized how much is in the process of being restored.  But yet, this time it's better.  It's like those difficult years in-between enabled me to love this place better.  It tore down walls that kept me from fully being at home here.  As if those difficult years in between were vitally necessary.  Not pleasant, perhaps, but good...

Almost as if leaving here actually enabled me to love it more...

I guess what I'm trying to say is I can look back now and be thankful.  Even for those parts that, at the time, seemed so incredibly hard.  All those times I grieved its loss.  Every time I had to push myself forward.  All those walks.  All that struggling with God...Giving this place up only to have it handed back again.

This song was one of my favorites when I lived here before and was one of the hardest to listen to when I tried to let this place go.  How I responded to this song was usually a good indicator to me of how I was handling readjusting home.   http://youtu.be/Uu5JEQ7WYTU

Enjoy.

Almolonga

Sorry, I tend to blog in bunches.  I guess I'm not the one-blog-a-day type. :-)

Today I was talking to someone about the changes in Almolonga.  I don't know how many of you have seen the "Transformations" video that came out some years ago in the U.S.--it talked about the massive changes that town went through ten or fifteen years ago, a spiritual transformation that led to material abundance as well.  Anyway, I was googling a year or two ago and saw a website someone had set up claiming none of those changes really happened, so I decided to ask a Guatemalan I know here for her perspective.

Her response?  As a whole, the town is characterized, more than anything, by unity.  If someone in the village dies, the entire village comes to help the family.  If someone from Almolonga is in the hospital, a big percentage of the town arrives to help and visit them.  It can be a bother to the employees, all those people swarming into the place, but it's also a blessing for those who are taken care of by such a united community.

She also said the town is safer because people are more afraid to commit crimes in a place where the entire town will rise up in defense. 

They have been blessed materially, too.  This is the part that I always remembered the most from the video--the economic blessing, the abundance of vegetables of great size and quality.  The best in Central America, from what she said.  She said the majority of their vegetables are exported.  Only the small ones are kept here.

But I had always overlooked the part about unity. 

Maybe that's the materialistic American in me coming out.  When I hear of God's blessing, I automatically think of money.  Yes, the financial blessing was there.  But far more important, I think now, is the unity.

Can you imagine living in a community where, when a family member dies, the entire community comes to your aid?  Or being in the hospital and having half the village come to see how you are?

Reminds me of Psalm 133:

How good and pleasant it is when brothers live together in unity!  It is like precious oil poured on the head, running down the beard, running down on Aaron's beard, down upon the collar of his robes.  It is as if the dew of Hermon were falling on Mount Zion.  For there the LORD bestows his blessing, even life forevermore. (NIV)

Or as the song goes in Spanish:  Mira cuan bueno y delicioso es habitar los hermanos juntos... (I haven't figured out the accents when typing yet...)

Unity--Is that the true measuring stick of God's blessing? 

And if so, what that mean in other situations?  Does that mean blessing on a church doesn't always mean the biggest building with the biggest numbers?  Could a small church with loving members be closer to God's heart than a big church in disharmony with each other, each person solely looking out for his own concerns?

Almolonga has both, material and spiritual blessings, but I wonder now, in the eyes of God, which one He values more...

I have a feeling that answer is different than what I have often assumed without putting the thought into words.

Random Ramblings...

It has been quite a week.  We're back to school after the break, getting back  into the swing of things, down to only just a few short weeks until the end of first quarter.

It has been raining a lot.  Sometimes misting in the morning.  Raining heavily in the afternoon.  Sometimes raining all through the night.  I've heard it may have something to do with a storm that is moving through Mexico.  So far I haven't gotten caught walking in a torrential downpour.  Those have mostly happened during my afternoon classes.  At some points it has rained so hard it has been hard to talk and hear each other above the sound of the rain beating down on the roof.  There was hail in some parts of town the day before yesterday, strong enough to knock down a big circus tent.  It's a big monetary loss for the owners since, from what I've heard, circus tents are very expensive, but at least nobody was inside when it happened.

I've enjoyed getting back into the routine with the students.  They really are a great group of kids (and teenagers--I know they don't always appreciate the use of the term "kids" :-).   I am really enjoying having the chance to bounce between the age groups and get to know almost all the students.  I don't teach all of them, but through lunch duties and chapels I am starting to get to know the names of some of the others.

I slept a little more this week, which was much needed and very welcome.  I had my first full-length dream in a long time the other night.  Something about escaping from Geneva, Switzerland, in a yellow, rickety, wooden motorized carriage.  (No clue what that was all about, but it was kind of exciting to have actually slept well enough to wake up remembering a dream with a plot. :-)

Otherwise it has been a lot of visiting with people...and getting work done at school.  We are doing writing samples next week, and since I am in charge of the secondary literacy training, I put together the packets for the writing samples and then led a collaboration time training the staff on how to score them.  We'll see how all that goes next week.

I also took a tip from a friend in using literature for grammar practice.  It has been fun to look for pieces of authentic writing that use preterite and imperfect verbs so the students can examine how and why each one was used.  So far it seems to hold their attention more than just using grammar activities from the book.  We've also been doing a lot of "Around the World" with verb conjugations.

I also started reading El Tunel by Ernesto Sabato to see if it might work to read with my high school students.  I am still waiting to see how grisly it gets towards the end, but so far it definitely has potential.  The author writes with such a strong voice and really draws the reader into the main character's head.  It's intriguing and there are parts that made me want to laugh out loud. 

And now it's the weekend again.  Time to get together with friends, go to a Spanish lesson, and keep moving forward into whatever each new day will bring.  It's exciting.

Another thought...

I came across this quote from St. Augustine in today's Slice of Infinity:

Slow was I, Lord, too slow in loving you. To you, earliest and latest beauty, I was slow in love. You were waiting within me while I went outside me, looking for you there, misshaping myself as I flung myself upon the shapely things you made. You were with me all the while I was not with you, kept from you by things that could not be except by being in you. You were calling to me, shouting, drumming on deaf ears. You thundered and lightninged, piercing my blindness.

Thought for Today

Some Christians seem to be accepted in their own experience-at least that is their apprehension. When their spirit is lively and their hopes bright, they think God accepts them, for they feel so high, so heavenly-minded, so drawn above the earth! But when their souls cleave to the dust, they are the victims of the fear that they are no longer accepted. If they could only see that all their high joys do not exalt them, and all their low despondencies do not really depress them in their Father's sight, but that they stand accepted in One who never alters.   --Charles Spurgeon

I hate the word fumigate...

Earthquake

There was a rather large earthquake in Guatemala down around El Salvador today that was strong enough to knock down some houses.  It was felt here, but only faintly.  Please pray that we don't have any more...

(If you want details about the earthquake, here is a news story from the USA Today:  http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/story/2011-09-19/Guatemala-earthquake/50468302/1?csp=34news)

How do you spell patience?

I used to think patience meant sitting quietly--like sitting with my hands in my lap in kindergarten while Mrs. "C" distributed the treats.  I used to think patience meant not complaining, being neutral, not really giving any kind of a reaction at all...

Now I think patience means hoping and longing but not being able to make time move any faster.

Patience means wanting something so badly you can taste it but having to wait because you do not have the power to impact time...

Patience means trusting...praying...longing...

And perhaps, just a little, patience involves a certain amount of letting go. 

Of examining the options, the "what ifs"...those scary dark places we are usually afraid to let our minds go...

Sometimes we can feel stuck when we stand there in the dark.
Sometimes, in the dark, time can seem to stretch on forever.

I used to think patience meant not caring that the dark was there...
but now I think patience comprehends the dark completely. 

It understands the dark completely but continues moving forward.
It understands the dark completely but refuses to let go.

It examines the consequences and is willing to face what will happen if the dream must eventually be replaced with another...

Patience rests in that knowledge, in knowing that whatever happens we will still carry on.

The alternatives won't destroy us, but until evidence arises that pushes aside all hope for the contrary, we will continue to hope and carry on.

In that hope, we find our patience.
In our resignation, we know we're strong.
And in patience we will move forward.

Patience means trusting, considering carefully, and even then choosing to hope that good will come.

Another thought for the day

Even the saddest things can become, once we have made peace with them, a source of wisdom and strength for the journey that still lies ahead.  --Frederick Buechner

Sometimes I feel like life is barreling along at the speed of light, and all I can do is hold on to something that is moving along with me--otherwise I'll be torn apart...

I never understood that before.  I always thought I could hold on to something stationary and that would be okay.  But holding on to something stationary doesn't work when you are the one who is always moving.

And I don't mean moving geographically, here.  I mean when life is spinning out of control, flinging you out, once again, from your comfort zone...

I used to think I could cling to myself and force the calm.  That really didn't work.  But even now, I find myself wanting to turn back to clinging to bad habits.  Force the calm even though I feel like I'm barreling along at the speed of light...

But my physics teacher said it quite well when he explained to us why the fly gets squished and the car doesn't...it all has to do with change of velocity.  The fly experiences the greatest change in speed and direction, and it all comes about so suddenly...

Maybe it's that way for me.  Maybe it doesn't work to cling to the externals I deem to be restful, those pitiful attempts to remind myself I have life entirely under control because those things aren't moving with me.  Those things don't really bring the calm.

Maybe the better option is just to continue to pray for wisdom.  Move with the changes instead of trying so hard to make them stop.  Grow with them.  Develop with them.  Learn to be within the changes.

And maybe when I'm moving with the changes I'll never even notice how fast they're moving me.  Going with the flow is often the easiest place to be...

Thought for the Day

Shattered dreams are never random.  They are always a piece in a larger puzzle, a chapter in a larger story.  The Holy Spirit uses the pain of shattered dreams to help us discover our desire for God, to help us begin dreaming the highest dream.  They are ordained opportunities for the Spirit to awaken, then to satisfy our highest dream.  --Larry Crabb

Today when I was walking home from running some errands, I saw some men down the street playing kind of rough on the sidewalk.  At first I thought they were just joking around, bothering the guy who was sitting down, but something didn't seem quite right about it.  As I paused to observe before walking any closer, one of the guys took the man's shoulder and started shaking him.  Then he and the other one took the man and threw him headfirst into the wall.  At this point, I turned around, intending to step into a nearby store and ask what would be the best way of responding to that kind of emergency.  But there was a group of women right behind me, and by the time I stepped around them and looked back to see if the men were still there, they were gone, all but the one who had been getting beat up.  A storeowner was standing on the sidewalk having some kind of interchange with the man (not a particularly pleasant one from the way it looked), and someone else stood across the street holding his phone like he was ready to make a phone call.  I stayed back with the women, watching from a distance, until that man in question walked away.  The man seemed to be unharmed, but he also seemed to arguing with the storeowner, so I don't know what was going on.  After a few minutes, he slunk away.  Then the street cleared and those of us who had been waiting continued on our way.

It was only after the fact that I remembered I have a sticker on the back of my phone with the emergency number here: *911.  I'll have to remember that...it's good to know.

Spanglish...

Spanish has been getting touchy the past few weeks.  I can go from needing to speak in broken sentences accompanied by miming to get my point across in Spanish to accidentally switching to Spanish when I'm trying to speak in English.  I think all the switching back and forth between the two languages combined with always seeming to have eight or nine things on my mind at any given time is leading to some short-circuits in the spoken-language part of my brain.  On any given day I email in English, listen to music in either Spanish or English, talk to my host family in Spanish, speak English with other teachers, then switch to Spanish when I go out into the community.  Then, with my students, I respond in whatever language they use to speak to me.  Since I am focusing mostly on reading and grammar with them, I do a lot of my explanations in English (since I can explain grammar more clearly that way and they seem to understand it better, too).  But the texts we are reading are in Spanish.  So it has been a lot of going back and forth.  I am hoping this is an adaptation process and my brain will eventually get used to things.  I guess we'll see. :-)

Random Thoughts

Elections were today.  The people I talked to said the lines were long.  At one site, they waited in line four hours to vote.  At another they waited three.  But they voted.  Now the polls are closed and the counting has started.  The TV stations are broadcasting the counting of the votes from the major areas of Guatemala.  The people counting are sitting around the table.  One person unfolds the ballot and hands it to another man who announces which party was chosen.  That vote is tallied and the ballot is then handed to someone else.  They expect the counting to be done by midnight or 1 am.  The ballots here show the pictures of the candidates along with their party logo.  People vote by writing an X across the party chosen.  People going to vote are also fingerprinted.  Most likely there will be a runoff election in November between the parties that end the closest tonight. 

I went to my old church this morning.  I went hoping I would be able to get information about how to contact the pastor's wife from when I was there before.  Her husband passed away earlier this summer, and I wanted to have a chance to talk to her.  Well, when I arrived at the church this morning, she was actually there--she and her daughters--so we were able to exchange phone numbers to make plans to get together sometime.

Then this afternoon I went to visit my old "host mom" (the lady I boarded with when I lived here before).  While I was there, the rain started to pour.  The last time I visited, the same thing happened and I got soaked on the walk home (even with my umbrella).  I decided to wait a little bit to see if it would let up.  In the meantime I shot up a little prayer that God would stop the rain so I could stay dry on the walk home.  I immediately cut myself short, though, reminding myself that there were lots of other times I prayed prayers like that and the answer was no and that I didn't really have any reason to complain about it.  After all, who was I to demand that God change the weather (or even the climate) of a region just so life could be more convenient? 

Then, not too long after this, my host mom told me the rain had stopped, and she said it was because she had asked God to please stop the rain for Rebekah so she wouldn't get wet.  And look, she said, He did.  I thought that was funny, especially since she had no idea what had been running through my head just a few minutes before.

So I walked home without even needing to put up my umbrella.  I was thankful, but I also realize I would have had just as much cause to be thankful if I had walked home and gotten wet.  After all, God isn't my own personal genie...

Faith not Sight (Through a Glass Darkly?)...

Making decisions for the future would be easier if we could see what is coming.  Making decisions on the little information we have right now can be so difficult.

It reminds me of something that happened last Friday night.  Church was canceled on Sunday since the building was going to be used as a voting site, so we went to the special Friday night service set aside for praying for Guatemala.  But as we left the house to drive to church, it was raining pretty hard.  The sun had already gone down, and it became quickly evident that our headlights were questionable, the windshield wipers only kind of worked, and the window defogger did not appear to be functioning at all.  Add to that the relative lack of street lights, heavy traffic, and large puddles, and getting to church became very interesting.

I wasn't driving, which helped a lot (for my own peace of mind at least).  I mostly just watched for dangers, prayed under my breath, and periodically wiped down the inside of the windshield with a hand towel.  That, and I tried not to be a distraction for the driver who was focusing on getting us there safely.

The thing is, with the rain, the darkness, and the inability to completely clear the windshield, it was really hard to see what was coming very far ahead of us.  Pedestrians darting between cars.  Backed up traffic.  Curves in the road...

I heard somebody say once that when Proverbs says "Thy Word is a lamp unto my feet..." it meant a lamp that was just enough to see the next step ahead of you...I don't know if that is true or not, but it certainly appears to fit with what I've seen so far about life.

My problem is that I don't want a lamp to light the ground by my feet; I want a floodlamp.  Something I can hold up so that there will be no surprises.  None whatsoever.

It would make decision making SO much easier.  Perhaps a bit more stressful, since making the right choice would be entirely up to me, but there is still part of me that thinks having that much clarity would have to make things easier than they appear to be right now.

Granted, sometimes the surprises are fun.  But some decisions carry so much weight. 

I imagine some of you reading this might be thinking, "Well, can't you just trust God?"

I can trust God, but perhaps my difficulty is in learning to trust myself...to trust the instincts and wisdom that God has given me.  It's really hard to make a decision when you're so afraid that decision might be wrong.

Some people are able to sit back and enjoy the ride.  They're the kind of people who love roller coasters.  The kind who, when the roller coaster gathers speed, lift up their arms and let out a yell. 

I've never liked rollercoasters.  My ride of choice was always the merry-go-round.  It's safe.  It's tranquil.  You know exactly where you're going to end up. 

But I don't think God made this a merry-go-round kind of world.

So I think I need to get used to things sometimes speeding up.  To coming up on crests at the top of the hill.  To those times in life where things are ready to start moving but I have to keep going without knowing exactly when or where...

To get used to surprises:  the good, the bad, the ugly...

I realized today that all I need to do is follow God's moral will.  Right here.  Right now.

I'm not expected to decode the future.  I'm not expected to know exactly what to do based on knowing what will come next.

I take what I have now.  I match with what I know of God's will and nature from the Bible.  I then weigh the situation, do my best, and move on.  That's all any of us can do.  And I have to accept that I'll probably do some of it wrong.

It happens.  Then we brush ourselves off and move on.

It amazes me that God can bring restoration to such a broken world.  That every horrible situation can somehow be turned around for good.

My mind can't comprehend it.  I wouldn't even have a clue as to where to start.

Making out the path at my own feet has at times been sufficiently difficult.  Magnify that by millions and my brain just starts to hurt...

Incredible.

Thought for the Day

Hope waits but does not sit.  It strains with eager anticipation to see what may be coming on the horizon.  Hope does not pacify; it does not make us docile and mediocre.  Instead, it draws us to greater risk and perseverence. --Dan Allender

Elections

Guatemala is having their elections on Sunday, Sept 11.  After lots of propoganda (stands in the park, notices on TV and the radio, cars driving around town with campaign songs and slogans blasting from loudspeakers attached to the top of the car), all campaigning stopped as of noon yesterday.  Alcohol sales are also suspended until the elections are over.  I believe discoteques are closed.  All in an effort to keep things tranquil and give the Guatemalan people sufficient time and space to carefully consider their vote. 

I don't believe things will get violent, though things have gotten rough in elections before.  (There is always more of a risk of things happening in the capital than here.)  I have heard the public school teachers have threatened to block roads so people who are traveling will not be able to get to the polls to vote.  (They've been setting up roadblocks since before I got here--I'm not exactly sure what they are protesting about.)

So here is hoping for a nice, tranquil elections Sunday.    

And also a peaceful Sunday for everyone back home as we remember another 11th of September when things were anything but peaceful in the United States.  Ten years ago...amazing.

Thought for the Day

We're not necessarily doubting that God will do the best for us,
we are wondering how painful the best will turn out to be. --C.S. Lewis

language and suffering

The connection between language and suffering has intrigued me ever since I went to a Holocaust symposium held at my old college several years ago.  At that symposium, a visiting professor shared a paper on torture and how it affects the body.  What I remember most was the idea that torture robs a person of words, forcing them back to the pre-verbal stage where they can do nothing more but scream.  She also quoted someone as saying that with other emotions, there is an outward focus.  You are angry with someone.  But that is not the case with physical torture--physical torture gets trapped inside.

At the time, I filed the thought away, asking myself what role language played in helping someone heal from traumatic events.  Does that mean healing resides in regaining the ability to put words to the experience? 

Then, about a year ago, I came across a book at the library called The Silent Child: Exploring the World of Children Who Do Not Speak.  This was written by a French psychologist who worked with children who, for one reason or another, would not or could not speak.  He always began his session by first observing their play and then inserting himself into that play to communicate with them on their own terms.  He mentioned one magical moment where he worked with a child who loved to swing doors--after not making any progress for several sessions, the man happened to swing his body along with the door.  At that point, the boy looked at him and connection happened. 

Now, today, as I was sitting in my usual place in the library, my eyes fell on a title I had noticed several times before, but this time I decided to pick it up and see what it was about.  It is called No Language But a Cry.  When I opened to the first page of the prologue, I saw that it is the story of a girl who was abused so badly that she did not speak for the first twelve years of her life, not until she was placed in the care of some nuns who somehow managed to draw her out.

That is as far as I have read, but I am excited to learn more about how she managed to speak again and what the nuns did to help her--one more link in understanding the connection between language and trauma.  

bucket lists

I had often heard people talk about having bucket lists, but had never given a lot of thought to the idea for myself...For many years I found the idea all but impossible.  Other circumstances kept me busy focusing on taking just one more step ahead.  Breathe in breathe out.  Take one more step forward...

To the point that a couple of years ago, I found myself telling people I had no more career goals.  I had accomplished what I hoped to do when I was in college, now I had no idea what I wanted to do next.

It's encouraging to find myself beginning to move forward.

In the last few weeks, I have found myself thinking again and again about the idea of bucket lists.  Things I want to do.  Things I get excited about.  Things I don't know for sure will ever happen, but if the opportunity ever presents itself, I would love to dive in and see what happens.

A few items on the list so far:

Do something on an Indian Reservation--experience and learn about life from their perspective
Be able to do something with literacy  training to help women who have been rescued from human trafficking get back on their feet (or to prevent them falling prey to trafficking at all)
Take a class on ancient Greek
Adopt, be a foster parent or work in an orphanage...

It has been so much fun to be living with a family here.  All the generations.  When all the kids and grandkids congregate at the house on the weekends...After getting used to being a single adult, it's a change in perspective, but I like it.  The craziness, the unpredictability.  The community and the sense of being home.

That's just a start on my bucket list.  I am sure I will be adding more.

bookshelves...

As I work in the school library, my eye often wanders to the bookshelves, scanning the titles of the books around me.  Here are some of the more unusual titles...

How to Cultivate the Habit of Succeeding
Solving Life's Problems
Death: The Final Stage of Growth
Am I Normal
and
Why You Can't Be Anything You Want to Be

(Can you tell I often end up near the self-help section? :-)

Thoughts for the Day

“Remember that all through history the way of truth and love has always won. There have been tyrants and murderers and for a time they seem invincible but in the end, they always fall -- think of it, ALWAYS.”--Mahatma Gandhi

"If we want to grow in faith we must be open to listening to our own stories, perhaps familiar or forgotten, where we have not mined the rich deposit of God's presence.  With better eyes and ears we will sense how God has worked to redeem even our most tragic circumstances." --Dan Allender

Dreary weather...

I've been feeling irritated the past few days.  Not like I'm lashing out at anybody or anything... just an underlying irritability that doesn't go away.  I suppose it's a combination of hormones and lack of sleep and a lot of other little things.

This morning I woke up at 3:30.  I don't know why.  It has just been happening a lot since I came to Guatemala.  There isn't really any external reason to explain the waking up...there isn't even a rooster in my neighborhood this time around (the last place I lived the rooster started crowing at about 2 am, well before dawn--it was a familiar background noise I got used to hearing when I lived there).  I just wake up and then start thinking about things.

This morning I heard the electricity go off at around 4.  We had A LOT of rain yesterday, enough to make little rivers in some of the streets, and the rain actually continued throughout the night and into the morning.  That felt strange.  Usually in rainy season the morning is dry and the afternoon is wet. 

So I took a cold shower and went to school with everything wet and dreary.  It just felt weird, kind of surreal, like it does whenever anything unexpected happens in the early morning hours.  On the plus side, we had a nice sunny afternoon for a change.  So I went out to buy rainboots.  (I already had to dry out my dress shoes one day last week after getting them soaked.)

I hope the rainboots fit...I went to the market to look around since another teacher told me that is where she found hers, and after walking by a lot of shoe stores, I decided to actually respond to the "Pase adelante" by the storekeeper who then asked what I was looking for.  When I asked if he had any rainboots, he immediately pulled out a pair of boots that appeared to be my size.  He offered to let me try them on to make sure they would fit, but I declined, telling him I didn't have any socks.  He said it was okay, but I still declined, choosing to hold them up to my shoes and look at the size instead.  He was right--they are a little loose, but I think when I have pant legs tucked into them, they should be okay.  (I didn't really feel like shopping around, and the price was good and they appeared to be my size--I was happy to take him up on it.)

I found it kind of amusing that I was the one insisting that socks were an issue.  Usually in the U.S. it's the other way around... 

I noticed when I was out today that I don't talk to people as much as I used to before.  I am more content to just stay silent, and if people think that means I don't speak Spanish, I'm okay letting them think that... I think when I was here before, I really wanted to prove I could speak the language.  But when I was here before, I also had a clearer idea of my purpose in coming.  This time around, I'm not so sure what my purpose is...and maybe after working in Korea (where I truly didn't speak the language), I am less worried about being perceived as a foreigner (since that is really what I am).  I'm more content to just be and less concerned about proving something. 

I kind of wonder if the purpose issue might be contributing to the irritability...I like knowing where I'm going so I can plan on how to get there.  This time around, I really, honestly do not know.  I wasn't planning on coming here until June.  It was just a matter of taking up the opportunity that presented itself. 

So since I don't know what's coming, I have to take things one day at a time.  It has its pros and cons.  I've been less worried and stressed about things, more content to take life as it comes.  Everyday is a little bit different.

Yesterday, for example.  Since it was raining so hard, I decided to just stay home after school.  And I had hardly been home five minutes when the little boy who lives at the house came up with a box of dominoes and asked me if I wanted to play.  How could I say no to that?  I ended up having a really enjoyable evening building things out of dominoes, coloring pictures, and looking at books.  Then there was catching up with the family and a student who is staying here for a few weeks to study Spanish over dinner...

Lots of conversations.  Hardly any of them planned...

Maybe that's part of taking life as it comes.  Being surprised.  Letting the unexpected happen... 

Today's Thought

I came across this quote in a Bible study today:

God does not allow us to continue to reduce Him to a size and shape we can manage.  He moves in our lives in ways that burst our categories and overwhelm our finiteness.  When we realize He's bigger than anything we can get our minds around, we can begin to relax and enjoy Him. --Paula Rinehart

blessings and shoe shine

Last night as I was getting ready for bed, I felt tired and crabby and just a tad bit paranoid about having  a repeat of last Friday night, but as I was brushing my teeth, I found myself humming a song.  I'm not sure how long I was humming before I realized which song it was..."when upon life's billows you are tempest tossed, when you are discouraged, think that all is lost...count your many blessings name them one by one, count your many blessings see what God has done."  I have to admit, my reaction to this song was varied.  On the one hand, it's reassuring to have songs like that pop into my head at just the right time.  On the other hand, I was kind of irritated.  Sometimes I really want to just feed the bad mood. :-)  Yesterday the song won out, though, and I've found myself humming it again today.

This morning the woman at the house where I am staying asked me if I had any shoes that needed to be shined.  If so, she said there were a couple of young men in front of the house who would shine them for me for two quetzales.  They were shy and polite, and as I handed over my shoes I was reminded of another shoe shining incident I had when I was here before.

As I was walking through a park on my way home from church one day, a little boy approached me to ask if I wanted a lustre, shoe shine.  I asked how much, and he told me two quetzales.  I agreed, but after he shined my shoes, he explained that I was wrong--he had said "doce" (twelve) quetzales, not "dos" (two).  I explained that he had said two, but he stood his ground (with a big smile on his face, of course).  After a moment or two, other children joined him until there were four or five little boys in front of me, whispering to each other in either Mam or Quiche (I don't know enough about the languages to tell which one) and giggling before turning back to me to say in Spanish that the proper price was twelve.  I knew that was way overpriced by Guatemalan standards (though it was still the equivalent of less than two U.S. dollars) but I figured I wasn't getting taken advantage of if I went into it with my eyes open.  I looked at those eager faces, and (whether it was right or not, I'm still not sure) I decided to give in.  I still remember the sounds of excitement behind me as I walked away.   

And I remember a little shoe shining boy who intercepted me on another Sunday when I was walking home from church.  He was really talkative while he quickly polished my shoes.  Then he asked, when he was finished (with a smile), if he could have an orange from my bag (since I had just picked up a few things from the grocery store.)

Then there were a couple of little boys at the bus station when I was waiting to go to the capital to fly home for the last time.  The shoe shining boys are typically dirty, but these boys were more so than many I had seen.  They had sniffly noses and one had a cough.  They worked quickly, whispering to each other under their breath and glancing anxiously over their shoulders like someone was watching them.  I got the impression they were afraid.  These shoe shining boys didn't ask for a higher price.  They didn't ask for anything extra.  They just took their money when they were finished and hurried away.

I feared for them the most...for their health, their safety, what someone else might be doing to them to make them work.  And I still wonder about them from time to time...hoping the last six years have made their lives better instead of worse.
   

foot washing

It's a well-known image in the Christian church of Jesus kneeling down to wash his disciples' feet.  And in the pictures of the children's books, it always looks so nice and clean.  Sanitary.  And when I have been in Christian settings where people practice this kind of thing, it was just that: spotless, clean, nice smelling, sanitary.

Nobody comes to the foot washing ceremonies dirty.  At least, not the one time I experienced it.  If anything, I would be willing to wager quite a few feet were actually cleaner than you would find them on a day to day basis...

Which is perhaps why the act seemed purely symbolic...a ritual...not quite as powerful as people made it sound like it would be.

But one thing about being in Guatemala is that my feet get dirty.  Because of this, there have been a couple of times this week where I have come home from work and decided to wash them.  Sometimes because I wore sandels and my feet were dusty.  Sometimes just because I had been walking and my feet in my shoes were hot and itchy.

What I noticed is that foot washing is much more than a ritual experience.  To seriously scrub my feet after a long day is amazingly refreshing.  It eases the itching bites around my ankles and helps me transition to the evening feeling fresh and new.  This really surprised me...I wasn't expecting such a small thing to have such an impact.

But it did...

And how much more satisfying a cleaning is when there is actually something to clean.  It makes me wonder if some of my satisfaction with God (or lack of it) is due to not really bringing anything to be changed.  If I ask him to repair something in me without presenting anything broken, I shouldn't be surprised when the results are like washing something again that I washed myself already.

It becomes nothing more than ritual.

But presenting the nitty gritty dirty stuff, now that's when I feel the full satisfaction of being clean.  That is when the difference is more discernible.  And that's when I walk away refreshed, marveling at the wonder of finally being free of the dirt and the filth...

Maybe that's why the dark times, in the end, lead to me feeling lighter...maybe it's a matter of sifting through the dirt and dust.  Maybe without those hard times, I would merely wash my feet myself before handing them over to be washed again.  I would merely go through the ritual without ever understanding its underlying purpose--without ever knowing the contrast between dirty and clean.

Food for thought

Charles Spurgeon wrote:  We dare not assume that the Lord will remove all illness from those we love, but we dare not forget that believing prayer for the sick is far more likely to be followed by restoration than anything else in the world; and where this does not happen, we must meekly bow to His will by whom life and death are determined.

A tenuous balance...agree?  disagree?

Thought for the day

The value of a good deed is not in how much that deed is appreciated.