Guatemalan Goodness
I've been pretty sad lately, paralyzed with missing the life I left behind to move to a foreign country, stewing in a sense of what I've lost, instead of soaking in the good, the gifts.But today I choose to see the good, to bite off the tasty fruit of this life, this fruit, this place He has given me. To rejoice in what is, not pine after what isn't. I will choose to, as Jason Todd recently wrote in an article for Relevant Magazine, "taste daily, deeply and constantly of the goodness of God."My new blogger friend, Elizabeth at Taking Shape Slowly, very eloquently wrote about this challenge to finding Home wherever we are,
"The challenge is to make ourselves at home, to live the life that is, rather than the one we had always dreamed. Praying over tender roots still unsure that they were meant to live in soil, unaware that the burlap was just the transition."
I want to let these roots of goodness grow. I will not plant bad days. I will plant hope and gratitude and grace for myself in this transition, this oh-why-is-it-taking-so-long-to-feel-at-home transition.Today I offer up a smorgasbord of the goodness of God in my life here in Guatemala, my life now, the life that is not exactly the life I dreamed, but is the life I have before me.The goodness of God is..
- a run to a cross on a hill, sweat shining, heart pounding, lungs and legs and life alive.
- a warm breeze, a volcano view, and a green picnic table turned outside office
- being walked home after a night of salsa dancing, delivered safely to my doorstep, no moves made, no disrespect, just a friend looking after a friend
- friends and family who put up with my snotty, crying homesick skype calls
- promises to flank me if I'm seen getting too friendly with a creepy guy, or a very cute, non-creepy guy that I still shouldn't be getting so friendly with. . .
- learning new salsa moves
- being challenged to give a blog training workshop in Spanish to my Guatemalan and Salvadoran coworkers--and enjoying it!
- being trusted to polish people's words, to tell their story on their behalf
- freshly folded laundry and a laundry lady who knows me by name
- a purring cat curled in my lap
- stringing together syllables of Guatemalan slang
- spontaneous cafecitos with friends I just happen to see in the park
- the anticipation of sharing this place and this life with my family when they visit in just three days!
What are you grateful for today? Where do you see the goodness of God?
Carpet Diem and the Upside Down Kingdom
Shew. For the last week my life has been turned upside down. You see Holy Week, or Semana Santa, is a pretty big deal here in La Antigua, Guatemala—and for all of Latin America for that matter.Life turned upside down. Hundreds of thousands of people poured into the city to take part in the veneration, adoration, and celebration.Cars choked out black exhaust as they lined up in the narrow streets that resembled more of a parking lot than any kind of thoroughfare. For days, my attic bedroom shook with the rumble of every passing truck, car, and moto. The sidewalks were bloated with people, with families, with little girls in tiny woven skirts, and with the faithful donning purple, black, or white cloaks as they marched in the many processions commemorating the passion of Christ.It was a bit like living in Disneyland for an entire week: the crowds, the lines, the noise, the street vendors calling out assorted fried and fattening foods.Since the beginning of Lent, there were processions in every town and village and aldea. And not only every town had a procession, but every church in every town had at least a couple of processions. Sometimes, especially when I was trying to find my bus route amidst the chaos, it felt like there was literally a procession on Every. Single Street. To my foreign, non-Catholic eye, it seemed over the top—what more could they possibly be celebrating?How much incense is just enough for the prayers of the faithful to reach the ears of God in heaven without burning his nostrils too?Stores and banks closed from midday-Wednesday on. Families stayed up all night Thursday night to watch processions and participate in making alfombras. Alfombras (or carpets) are beautiful works of art that cover the streets or floors of churches before a procession passes by. They can be made out of flowers or colored sawdust or chalk, and are absolutely stunning to see. The time and care and creativity that goes into each alfombra is truly remarkable, especially considering that they’re literally trampled in minutes when the procession marches over. (My friend and housemate wrote a beautiful post on these works of art here.)I started the week with a great admiration for these faithful street artists and procession participants, but as the streets filled to bursting and my introverted self cursed my broken noise-canceling headphones, I found myself falling out of the Lenten spirit. I found myself caving to annoyance and silently praying that everyone would just go home already. I didn’t like having my life turned upside down.But as I think about it now (granted from my quiet, crowd-free bedroom), I start to wonder if maybe that’s the point. This turned-upside-down-ness. This break from the status quo.If we're really celebrating how Jesus is God-with-us and how everything has changed with his life and death and resurrection, then maybe a life-stopping celebration is a little more appropriate than pastel eggs and tales of an Easter bunny with jelly bean treats.Maybe we’re meant to be turned upside down. The Kingdom of God is an upside down kingdom, after all. A place where celebration trumps personal space. Where the sick are healed, the captives set free, and the blind can see.And the best part is, this kingdom is here, now. In the Gospels we can see “a new set of signposts, Jesus-shaped signposts, indicating what is to come: a whole new creation, starting with Jesus himself as the seed that is sown in the earth and then rises to become the beginning of that new world.” (Simply Jesus, N.T. Wright)And we are called to be a part of this new world. To be kingdom-bringers, signposts of hope, sowers of healing and pillars of peace in this new upside world where Jesus is alive.And that is a life-stopping celebration I can get behind.Happy Easter, everyone!
T.S. Tuesday: A Fat Revelation
According to my Google Calendar, today is the day I rejoice in love handles and greasy food and too-tight-jeans. Today, February 12th, is an all day Fat Celebration.Oh wait, that can't be right. Before Google so rudely auto-corrected for redundancy, the calendar item I input should have read Fat Tuesday Celebration.That's it. Today is Fat Tuesday. Or Shrove Tuesday. Or Mardi Gras. Today is the last day before the commencement of Lent.Tomorrow, millions of Christians around the world will attend a mass or church service highlighting humankind's mortality and sinfulness. A small cross will be smudged with ash across their foreheads as a visible symbol of mortality and repentance, a sign of mourning for our sins, both individually and collectively. And for the next 40-ish days, many Christians will observe Lent by committing to a discipline of self-denial, such as fasting.Tomorrow, many would say, begins the real soul work. The humility and the bowing down. The confession and the contrition. The 40 days of preparation fashioned after Jesus' 40 days of temptation in the desert that will lead us to the richness of the Last Supper, the agony of Judas' betrayal and Jesus’ crucifixion, and then into the glory of His resurrection.But that all comes later. Today, we party. We indulge. In Spanish, they say, "Aprovechamos" or we take advantage of the freedom before the fast.And while I don't condone drunken carousing or irresponsible indulging (or certainly not breast baring for beads), I do think there is soul work in celebration. In gratitude. In joy. In aprovecharing the present moment.Here in Antigua, Guatemala, kids engage in a few Carnival traditions of their own, which I'm excited to witness. One of which is the making and breaking of "cascarones," or egg shells painted and filled with bright confetti (called pica pica). I've seen the bright bags of confetti all around the market, and apparently today at school they get to dress up in costume and break the shells they've made over their classmates' heads in one wild fiesta before the fast.And of course it wouldn't be T.S. Tuesday or the approach of Ash Wednesday without a reference to T.S. Eliot's poem, Ash Wednesday.As I think of today’s flash of vibrant colors before tomorrow’s dust and ash, I'm reminded of Eliot's prayer:
"Teach us to care and not to careTeach us to sit still"
I'm reminded of my own prayer to care and not to care.Perhaps that's what Lent does--the purposeful giving up of worldly comforts and pleasures teaches us to live intentionally. Forces us to examine what we really care about. Challenges us to be present in the moment, regardless of external circumstances.Despite the name of the poem, I've never really connected these words of Eliot's with the observation of Lent. Until now. A big, fat light bulb sparks: the caring about the things that matter and the releasing of the trivial, the tiring, the tearing down. The act of sitting still. These all begin with repentance. With confession and humility. With the giving up of pride. With the acceptance of our own faults and blames.The teaching doesn't have to be some abstract spiritual concept, but could start with the actual act of confession, of bowing low, of relinquishing self-consciousness for long enough to walk around with ash smudged across your forehead.That could be just the catalyst needed to help us realign our priorities. To teach us to care and not to care. To teach us to sit still in the presence of an awesome God.Now for me, that is one fat revelation.***So how about you... Do you have a Fat (Tuesday) Celebration (or revelation) of your own? Are you going to an Ash Wednesday service? Will you observe Lent? What are some practices you use to live more intentionally, to learn to care and not to care?