Yo no sé mañana

This last week I submitted an application to participate in a faith and writing conference at the end of September, which meant that instead of writing new content to share with you wonderful people, I was sifting through hundreds of posts and tens of thousands of words for the perfect 2,000 words to offer as my writing sample. *I love rereading old journals, little notes I’ve written to myself over the years, and notes of encouragement from others, but I find I rarely reread my blog posts.  It’s just not as fun to cozy up with my laptop as it is to unfurl a battered, well-loved journal sprawled with hopes and dreams and rants and prayers.But these posts are the same, a chronicle of my hopes and dreams and rants and prayers.It was good for my soul to look back at the ways God has gifted me with words— not in the I’m-so-talented sense of that phrase, but in that sense that each blog post, each reflection, each whisper of words He’s given me to record and reflect on has been nothing but gift.Today I’m particularly thankful for a post that I wrote awhile back reflecting on a chunk of T.S. Eliot’s poem, The Journey of the Magi. I hope that maybe it will resonate with you, too.“Then at dawn we came down to a temperate valley,Wet, below the snow line, smelling of vegetation;With a running stream and a water-mill beating the darkness,And three trees on the low sky,And an old white horse galloped away in the meadow.Then we came to a tavern with vine-leaves over the lintel,Six hands at an open door dicing for pieces of silver,And feet kicking the empty wine-skins.But there was no information, and so we continuedAnd arrived at evening, not a moment too soonFinding the place; it was (you may say) satisfactory.” I wrote,

“I’m struck by the line “But there was no information, and so we continued.” Not “and yet” or “but” we continued. No, “and so.” There was no information, AND SO we continued.That is not my usual response. On all my metaphorical camel clad pilgrimages, the darkness and the silence and the lack of clues and INFORMATION is a sign of failure, of defeat. A signal to turn back. To search harder. To turn the running streams and water-mills and old white horses into a divine code that gestures to my success or my defeat.I don’t often think to just keep going. To walk anyway. To trust anyway. To  the Magnificent Star that first drew me out of my comfortable quarters so many distant miles back.And so the Magi continue. And guess what, they arrive--“not a moment too soon.”They arrive. We will arrive. I will arrive.The darkness will end. The search for information will be satisfied with relationship, with a meeting of the Messiah.I ask today for the courage to walk anyway. To trust anyway. To not be discouraged by the lack of information, but to rejoice in the hope of Who I will find.And so I continue.”

I can’t help but think how apropos this post is today. With only two months until I hit my year mark of living abroad and have to decide—yet again—what the heck I want to do with my life based off of a startling lack of information and certainty, it’s a good challenge to be present, to be here, to continue, even when I don’t know what the future holds.I don’t know where I’ll be living in two months. I don’t know what kind of job I want to look for back in the States. I don’t know if the Bible study I started here in Guatemala will grow deep enough roots in the next two months to continue in my absence. I don’t know if some incredible job opportunity or relationship opportunity or some other dazzling opportunity will be dangled in front of me that will convince me stay here in Guate longer than I had planned.I don’t know where I’ll be living in two months.And so I continue investing in the community I have here while staying connected to friends back home. I don’t know what kind of job I want to look for back in the States. And so I continue to give my best to the job I have here now.I don’t know if the Bible study I started here in Guatemala will grow deep enough roots in the next two months to continue in my absence.And so I continue praying for growth and connection. I continue inviting new people. I continue showing up every Friday night even when I want to give up or my Spanish feels inadequate or I’d rather go to pizza with my friends.  I don’t know if some incredible job opportunity or relationship opportunity or some other dazzling prospect will be dangled in front of me that will convince me stay here in Guate longer than I had planned.And so I continue to pray and seek guidance. I continue to look for ways to give and serve and be here now.If there’s anything that being in a foreign country has taught me, it’s that I don’t know a lot of things—or words or phrases or cultural subtleties. But I can continue anyways. I can find meaning anyways. I can find God anyways.There’s a really popular song here in Guatemala called “Yo no sé mañana,” meaning basically, “I don’t know about tomorrow.”And today it really, really feels like I don’t know about tomorrow. I don’t know what the next two months or the next two years will hold.And so I continue. And I hope you will, too.

**I also had the pleasure of hosting two friends from San Diego, which filled my usual writing time with volcano hiking, crepe eating, Youtube video watching and general merriment making. Thanks for visiting, Frank and Kellie!

Evergreen

Today I want to share a poem by one of my favorite poets who doesn't happen to be T.S. Eliot, but Luci Shaw.

We're on the cusp of the rainy season here in Guatemala. Last week, a thick, smoky haze settled over the sky from the pre-harvest burning of sugar cane fields over on the coast. Some days, the clouds roll in and spit out a little water, but the real downpours, the real rain-everyday-until-everything-you-own-is-moldy season hasn't started yet. But it's coming, it's definitely coming.

We've just planted new flowers in our garden, confident that they'll thrive and bloom with the rains to come. I think of the seeds I want to sow in my own life--the seeds of friendship and growth and hope--and ache to be confident that they will bloom into full-fledged flowers, too.And I was reminded of this poem, Evergreen, by Luci Shaw. It's actually a Christmas poem, about a tinsel-strewn Christmas tree and piney-scented evergreens. But she writes a phrase that rings through me here on the cusp of planting season: planted with purpose. I've done a lot of work with an organization called Plant With Purpose. In fact, I was a part of the team that helped come up with the name. I've punned and alliterated the heck out of that phrase. But I had never once thought of myself as the object being planted with purpose.I'd never thought of the phrase in the context of Jeremiah 17:8:"They are like trees planted along a riverbank, with roots that reach deep into the water. Such trees are not bothered by the heat or worried by long months of drought. Their leaves stay green, and they never stop producing fruit."Or Psalm 1:3"That person is like a tree planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit in season and whose leaf does not wither-- whatever they do prospers."Without further ado, here's the poem and an invitation to ponder what it would mean for you to be planted with purpose, tapping in to the water of life, and bearing the Spirit's sweetest fruits. Enjoy.Evergreen

Toppedwith an earthbound angel,burdenedwith man-made stars,tinsel-draped,but touched with notrue gold,cropped, girdledwith electricity—why be a temporary tree,glass-fruited, dry,uprooted?When you may beplanted with purposein a flowered field,and where,living in clean light,strong air,crowned with goldof every eveningevery nightreal stars may nestin your elbow,restbe found in your shade,healingin your perennial green,and from deep springs your rootsmay suck enough to swellwithin youthe Spirit’s sweetest fruits.Taken from Luci Shaw's, Accompanied by Angels: Poems of the Incarnation.

T.S. Tuesday: A Taste of Home

"Home is where one starts from." East Coker, Four Quartets, T.S. Eliot

This week I had a taste of home. My family, complete with corny dad jokes, freckles, and an abundance of luggage, visited me here in Guatemala. And. it. was. so. GOOD.

Home for me is not a place, but people. The people who have seen all of my ugly and love me anyways. The people who laugh and cry and share life with me. And I was gifted with the opportunity to share a week with four of these people, the people who carry my heart, and give them a taste of the beautiful city and country where I'm learning to make a new home.We laughed, we cried, we ate tortillas, we haggled and we got ripped off. I got to be a tourist in my own town and was pleasantly surprised to see how much I've learned and grown in the past nine months. But mostly, we had a heck of a lot of fun. We laughed at my dad attempting to speak Spanish (to his defense, he studied French in high school). We hobbled over the cobblestones of Antigua. We just so happened to run into ten of my closest friends around town. We bought art from my friend, Joel, handmade boots from my friend, Elio, and chocolate from my friend, Pablo. We hiked, a lot. We hiked to the top of the Cross, to the office where I work, to a magnificent lakeside getaway carved into the side of a cliff at Lake Atitlan. We kayaked across the smooth as glass water to splash upon a lakeside worship service and baptism. We dipped in a hot tub heated with a wood stove. We rode in the back of pick up truck with 15 Guatemalans and sped across the lake in a water taxi regrettably named, Titanic. We were welcomed into the home of my friends and coworkers. We almost witnessed my brother knock down a tiny salsa instructor in one fell swoop because he was dancing "too sexy" with me.It was glorious.I was reminded of the beauty all around me here and the beauty in the part of me that still aches for home.But I am here. I am whole. The missing and the aching is a sign that I am whole, not that I am part, or less than. It is a testament to the goodness of the community I left and to which I will return. It's rare, this type of community, the home I have with my real family and the "family" of friends and sisters who have welcomed me back in San Diego. And I long for it, ache for it with all of my being.But I remind myself, I am here. I am whole. Today I am stopping to see the grace. What grace it is that I am here. That I've learned to navigate a new city and a new country. That I'm learning still how to love and connect and engage with people across cultures, with people who are very different from me.And thankfulness rises.In a town where I can't make it to the park without greeting someone I know, but have an exceedingly short list of friends I could really count on when things get tough, it was a refresher for my soul to be with the people who have loved me for a long time and will continue to love me for a long time still. Thank you for the taste of home, of where I started from, and the reminder that ALL IS GRACE.Here are some of my favorite photos from the trip:Don't you want to come visit, too?!