becoming known.

This blog has absolutely nothing to do with what I've been up to the last month or so.

And it has everything to do with it.

You see, the events of the past month, Advent, Christmas, Epiphany, "the Sundays after Epiphany" have been intense times of solitude + community, late, late night conversations, early mornings alone, phone calls, emails, no fewer than 5 letters and 6 emails from different people from my time in Spain, transitions at work, new friendships, and reconnecting.
Last week I had two snow days, one 12 hour day, and then a day where I planned a spontaneous road trip to Memphis with two guy friends. Why not? This weekend, we drove about 16 hours round trip, learned more about each other, talked about everything from Elvis to civil rights to Jesus (and maybe combined all of them in an adult-sized onesie), arrived in time for Sunday night church and Po's Dumpling Bar (and a "Love Potion: Management not responsible" drink). Then my parents picked me up (cute!), I recounted our Memphis adventures for the... seventh time, we went home and I heard about their weekend party, putting away the Christmas ornaments, and how our van - which we took in Friday at 7:30am - was still in the shop.

It's no wonder that today, Monday, I am having a hard time sitting still and being alone. A person gets used to momentum, and even though I sorely needed some "blank space", me cuesta acostumbrarme al silencio.

So now I'm sitting cross-legged on my floor, bent over my Mac-mac. Typing to think. Writing a blog as a means of creating space in my own life and as tracing over all this activity to connect the dots in a pattern I think I see forming. I think I need bullet points. But not bullets.

• It takes a long time to develop relationships with people. And if God is relational, how much longer does it take to develop relationships with God? And like any friendship that has been through the rocks, survived, and grows with time, how much more beautiful does our relationship with this creator become over time?
• I've logged a lot of hours with new friends this past month. A lot of life together. A lot of shared experiences. It was beautiful... And yet, I'm constantly reminded, sometimes painfully, of how much more life I've spend outside the context of those relationships. Sometimes it feels like Spain is this year that no one can really comprehend... and part of it is that a lot of things happened during those nine months that I'm only beginning to express. I NEED to talk about it. I want to share it. So many good stories, characters, painful experiences, raw beauty, and lots of emotion. A place that is so different from this, my native landscape, and is yet somehow my home? It's still a bit incomprehensible. I want to go back. I don't want to go back. I don't know. I think I need to talk about it more.
  
• My car is broken somehow. It is the classic story of taking it in for an oil change and there is some part that takes in air on the engine (I don't remember it because mechanical vocabulary does not stick in my brain.) that doesn't work quite right and costs $1200 to fix... One hour later we found out that the minivan also is flawed in some way that, coincidentally also costs $1200 to fix. It's a tense day in my house. Neither vehicle is going to get completely fixed. This is not really related, but it's stressing me out and I wanted to add it to the post.
  

As life continues, as I develop these relationships, enjoy time with others, it is contrasted with this idea that my friend Katherine keeps telling me, "Schmellen, there are so many stories you don't know about me yet!!"
Every time Katherine (who I really want to call "Schmatherine" and probably will in the future) says this, I think "YEAH! There are so many stories you [collectively] don't know about me!!!"

And I wonder if this is how life is... we keep loving each other, creation, God and entering deeper into life together, sharing stories, adventures and becoming known... forever and ever. I hope so. Becoming known is not easy; but it is beautiful. Let's keep after it.

Rima IV

One of my favorite pieces of Spanish poetry.

No digáis que, agotado su tesoro,
de asuntos falta, enmudeció la lira;
podrá no haber poetas; pero siempre
habrá poesía.

Mientras las ondas de la luz al beso
palpiten encendidas,
mientras el sol las desgarradas nubes
de fuego y oro vista,
mientras el aire en su regazo lleve
perfumes y armonías,
mientras haya en el mundo primavera,
¡habrá poesía!

Mientras la ciencia a descubrir no alcance
las fuentes de la vida,
y en el mar o en el cielo haya un abismo
que al cálculo resista,
mientras la humanidad siempre avanzando
no sepa a dó camina,
mientras haya un misterio para el hombre,
¡habrá poesía!

Mientras se sienta que se ríe el alma,
sin que los labios rían;
mientras se llore, sin que el llanto acuda
a nublar la pupila;
mientras el corazón y la cabeza
batallando prosigan,
mientras haya esperanzas y recuerdos,
¡habrá poesía!

Mientras haya unos ojos que reflejen
los ojos que los miran,
mientras responda el labio suspirando
al labio que suspira,
mientras sentirse puedan en un beso
dos almas confundidas,
mientras exista una mujer hermosa,
¡habrá poesía!

-Bécquer

New year

A quote from sacredspace.ie

The greatest sale of self-help books takes place every year around the end of December and beginning of January. We see the new year as a time to turn over a new leaf, to make a new beginning. Our best intentions, and the books we buy, can easily become something of a reproach as the year progresses and we see ourselves making little progress. Perhaps we need to be careful about the scale against which we measure ourselves. Growing in patience, self-awareness and in proper love of oneself are tasks that deserve time – even if we cannot always measure or prove our progress. Allowing ourselves to be open to the work of God within us will remain a call to all of us during 2011. God won’t give up but waits for us to awaken to the wonder and joy of knowing ourselves to be always in the presence of God.

Merry Christmas

(This probably will need to be edited. I wrote it for me and am sharing it because it feels right. I'm a feeler. )

The whir of the kitchen aid mixer resounded in my ears as the front door swung shut behind me. My body knew what to do. The cold air enveloped me, swooshing in the holes in my shoes. It didn’t matter. I kicked the shoes off, climbing the ladder and through the net. The trampoline was frozen, causing the mat that covered the springs to break from its usual soft thud into a loud clap, every bounce clapped louder and louder.

Thwack. Thwack. Thwack. With each bounce, I exerted more of my pent up energy, stored from the feasting of Christmas and the family-directed regimen of the day. I hadn’t wanted to sit in the kitchen for the card game. Thwack. I can’t believe I ate that gummy candy. Thwack. Why couldn’t we be one of those active families that goes on hikes together? Thwack. I’d put my foot in my mouth too many times to count today. Thwack.

As my legs pushed harder and harder into the trampoline’s surface, I wished I could fling my body in the millions of flips I’d seen my brother do. Instead, I hopped around, starting each hop with purpose. I’d had my fill for the day and we had yet to eat Christmas dinner.

As my bouncing incarnated my tension, a strange thing happened. With every push deeper into the surface, my body refused to rocket up as high as before. I was exhausting myself, and my throat rasped as I drew in each cold gasp of air. The anxiety faded as I was left with only the desire for a full breath. My jumps grew smaller in the still pre-dusk, my breaths louder. Such is life for an exercised-induced asthmatic. Phlegm always fills those tiny, critical pockets in my lungs when it’s cold out.

Panting, I dismounted the trampoline, sliding into my clogs. I noticed only my breath as I walked into the house. It felt holy somehow. Just me and my breath.

In Judaism, one of the names for God is unpronounceable. However, some scholars have noted that the name written in English as YHWH sounds a lot like someone breathing. So when Moses asked this unseeable being what his name was, he heard the sound of God’s breath. Inhale. Exhale. Inhale. Exhale.

Yoga would not be yoga without the emphasis of breath. There is a profound awareness of moving with your breath, lengthening each draw in and release, settling into your own body’s rhythm. Each movement occurs on an inhale or an exhale. That breath must be yours, not your instructor’s, not your neighbor’s. Within each pose, there is a dynamic balance of the ebb and flow of oxygen. Those waves of breath hold you in the pose, draw you deeper, release you from it and transition you into the next one.

If God’s name, the very identity of God, sounds like breathing, it is no great leap to say that God is in each breath we take. And if, as in yoga, our breath moves us from place to place, holds us there and leads us out, perhaps it is unnecessary to search for God “out there”. That’s what incarnation is, isn’t it? That’s what Christmas is - celebrating that God, this “other” being/existence became a human. Encountering God went from a usually petrifying experience some spirit that was hovering or in fire, clouds, water, or the stillness of a mountain, to eating, fasting, drinking wine, or even giving birth. Our humanness becomes a way to experience God. Or rather, God experiences our humanness and leaves us with new eyes to see it as holy.

So friend, know today, on Christmas, that you are holy. You bear the presence of God in your body. When you least feel that way, take a deep breath. Enjoy the air and the miracle of life that you are.

Epic. But I don't know how or why.

Best day ever...

Listen to quote




"So, Dad, I planned out our whole day. First we'll make snow angels for two hours, and then we'll go ice skating, and then we'll eat a whole roll of toll house cookie dough as fast as we can, and then to finish, we'll snuggle."

Open arms

Hello blog readers,

How are you? What's going on in your lives as you read this? Are you mindlessly internet surfing? Looking to see if I've updated the blogaroo? It strikes me that blogs are slightly weird. Well, they're weird in a lot of ways, but especially because I feel like sometimes I click the link that says "New Post" and then proceed to word vomit all over the screen. It's like when I start a phone conversation with a close friend and it jumps from "Ellen!!" to me rattling off "So, today at work..." without so much as a hello back to the other party. This even happens to me at work. A teacher comes in the room and I jump in with both feet, "Where do you want me to stack these papers?" Almost every single time, I think "Dang. I just skipped the greeting and went for maximum efficiency." My Spaniard self HATES when I do that. What about the relationship? What about the obligatory "How was your weekend?" I wish there was a less clichéd way of saying "How are you?" I really mean "It's good to see you. Is there anything going on that you want to share with me (because I'd be happy to listen) or shall we dispense with pleasantries and move on to what's happening now?"

Perhaps this is why the question gets boiled down to a quick, "how's it going?"

ANYWAY, all this as an intro to what complused me to come straight up to my room and jump on Ned the MacBook, click on Firefox (what a strange name for a browser.), and go to Blogger before I even did the compulsive email/ FB scan.

I've been wondering why sometimes I feel uncomfortable around Christians. This may strike you as odd if you know that I do - in fact - profess faith in Christianity. But for some reason, for a number of years (two), I have been much more comfortable in public* settings that are decidedly achristian. (This may be an invented word. Let's hope so.) I have struggled with articulating why this is to those who are more comfortable in Christian contexts.

Today I found myself in a situation where I thought I might be being evangelized. To diffuse the situation, I hurriedly explained that I too was "a believer"**. Immediately, I felt as if this kind woman created a little wall around us that separated us from the rest of the world. WE were Christians... THEY were on the outside. Except... I feel more similar - I think - to those on the outside. And I like it out there. I can think creatively... outside the box... outside the expectations of those inside the box. It's only outside the box that I feel like I CAN be a Christian. Because it's not uniform. It's just part of me. So in building aforementioned wall, I felt isolated.

And the other, more important part of this analogy is that Jesus never says a lot of good things about walls or about people who try to hang with only the ones on the inside. Au contraire, Pierre. Jesus likes to hang with the folks*** who have been kicked out for NOT being religious.

I am certainly a measly beginner when it comes to this. But I want to keep trying to begin, no matter how daunting it seems, to meet everyone with open arms, even people who have a more closed view of life.

*I almost forgot the "l" in public. That would have been awk.
**A strange term in itself. I'm pretty sure everyone believes in SOMETHING, even if it is that you believe in nothing. HA paradox... Anyway, yes, I'm a believer in lots of things, including that my father should not tuck his casual shirts into his jeans. Also I believe in love, that peace is a better way, and that fashion should not cause anyone - wearer or seamstress- pain. Mul.ti.dim.en.sion.al.
*** My English textbook in Spain cited "folks" as the American way of saying "relatives/ parents." I was unaware that this is a distinctly USA-ian noun, but it makes sense.

PS. I think that it was a very natural reaction for that woman to create a little world of Christianity around us. It's natural to seek community with those who are similar to us... as if we'd both just discovered we were from Tennessee or given birth to quadruplets. Or both.

PPS. I do not edit my blog posts. I might look this over once it's published, but otherwise, it's straight from the horse's mouth.

PSS. (Does that even come next?) If you're still with me, kudos. Also, in closing, have a good week and hasta la próxima!