meditations on a tree

As I stared at the tree, I absorbed its bareness. I thought about how all winter long, it scratched the sky with its silhouette. I know that spring is coming and is here (Paradox!), but today the air is still cold. Then I remembered that inside of the tree, something is happening. From the roots up through the trunk, into the thick branches and into the thin twigs, sap is stirring. Although we cannot see it, it stirs deep in the tree and is moving and bubbling up.
As the tree senses the movement within, the brush of warm air, it responds by bursting forth in buds, tiny, silky, fresh green leaf clusters or flowers. The flowers in themselves are beautiful. Fragile and seasonal, they express hope after so many months of stark bareness. Slowly, these buds or flowers fade away into thick, lush green leaves. The leaves provide shade in the heat of summer, absorb the abundant sunlight, catch the breeze and rustle, rendering the invisible visible. Again, like the flowers or leaf buds, they are beautiful in and of themselves. More durable than the initial delicate flowers of spring, they sustain storms, animals, and the tree itself.
Time passes and summer temperatures gently give way to cooler nights and crisp breezes. The tree again reaches deep inside itself and from those first flowers springs the fruit of the tree. After months of ripening, growth, storms, sunshine, those final leaves give way to something even more life sustaining: the tree’s own seeds. The fruit falls from the tree - a process which must be exhausting and somewhat painful. After the blossoms, endurance, and birthing, the tree falls into hibernation once more, preparing for the next season.


I am a tree. So are you.

bike zen

today I went on a bike ride.

For an hour and a half.

I wish I could do that more often, but the thing is, I don't usually have that kind of chunk of free time at bikeable times during the week. However, I did want to share one thought I had as I was pushing into the gusts of wind. I was biking up the BIGGEST hill and decided that I wanted to make it all the way up without getting off my bike. (If you saw this hill, you'd understand. Plus it's gravel and I have a road bike.) Then I decided to think of it as inviting rather than challenging. I told myself that the hill wanted me to make it to the top, was beckoning me. I explained to myself that my bike wanted me to make it to the top. The crest of the hill was even pulling me forward, willing me to arrive. The gusts of wind felt like they were against me, but they weren't. They were really for me, but a gust of wind can't just switch from north to south, can it? And I did it! I biked up that hill, quads burning, lungs panting, but feeling good because everything was drawing me upwards.

And afterward, one third of me thought, "what kind of weird nonsense was that?"

But the other two thirds really liked the whole idea. I'm not really a fighter. I don't like the idea of battling against a hill. And c'mon. A human versus a geographical feature? You tell me which one's likely been there longer. Don't even talk about dynamite, you know that's not what I mean. And I don't really like the idea of battling against life. I don't really like the idea of battling. (I've now typed "battling" so many times it doesn't seem real anymore.) Far more compelling is the idea of being invited into something. An adventure, a journey, your LIFE! Invited to climb the hill, invited to deeper relationships with others, invited to time alone.

Oh perspective. Oh biking.

hymn-day Monday

I don't know that this will become a theme... but here is a hymn for Monday. I love it.

Good Is the Flesh
by Brian Wren

Good is the flesh that the Word has become,
good is the birthing, the milk in the breast,
good is the feeding, caressing and rest,
good is the body for knowing the world,
Good is the flesh that the Word has become.

Good is the body for knowing the world,
sensing the sunlight, the tug of the ground,
feeling, perceiving, within and around,
good is the body, from cradle to grave,
Good is the flesh that the Word has become.

Good is the body, from cradle to grave,
growing and aging, arousing, impaired,
happy in clothing, or lovingly bared,
good is the pleasure of God in our flesh,
Good is the flesh that the Word has become.

Good is the pleasure of God in our flesh,
longing in all, as in Jesus, to dwell,
glad of embracing, and tasting, and smell,
good is the body, for good and for God,
Good is the flesh that the Word has become.

Hace un año...

Lately, perhaps inspired because it is Spring Break, I have been playing a fun game. I call it: "What was I doing one year ago today?" First, I ask myself that question. Second, I open up iPhoto on my Mac-mac. Third, I check the date. Fourth, I find pictures of what I did one year ago. I took a lot of pictures in Spain. So, one year ago today, I made a baked spinach dish with cheese, went on a fantastically long bike ride (I went out with the intention of getting lost), spent some alone time in a park drawing, and discovered that my neighbor in the building next to ours had left a flip flop on his window ledge. (Especially strange considering we were on the 9th piso or 10th story). Also coming up is the one year anniversary of me refereeing a Spanish volleyball match. I forgot about it... you can read the story here.

And since everyone likes a good picture post, I'll share some of the pictures from one year ago today. Enjoy! (Side note: photos are in reverse chronological order)

Neighbor's shoe

Orange tree blossoms (azáhar) smell soooo marvelous

Inviting bike path

I biked past this but never went there because I didn't have tres friends named Raquel with me

Faby's/ my kitchen! (In Faby's house, but definitely a room I liked more than she did)

you are not abandoned

If life is a couch,
I want to learn how to sink down into mine,
Rounding out my back, drawing my knees in to my
chest and letting my shoulders relax.

My head cocks slightly to one side and
I breathe in the moments surrounding me.

I think the fabric is chenille,
comfortably worn. Soft, but no longer
fake.
Once red, now faded to a mellow wine
color,
deepened by its journeys and experiences.

There's lots of wear left in my couch.
Come sit with me.

reaching out, reaching in

[Preface: I wrote this a couple of weeks ago after volunteering at a hunger-homeless outreach place and now feel the time is ripe to share it.]

People - I think all men - were milling around the entrances. They had easygoing gates and talked with an emphasized midwestern drawl. We met Laura on our way inside - and I was immediately grateful. She is friendly in the no-nonsense way that I am not. I felt safe in her presence, like walking in with a mother hen.

I have always been quiet and reserved. In recent years, I have found my confidence, my strength, my voice. I don't often find myself in situations uncomfortable enough to revert back to shy Ellen - and I've been in a lot of diverse situations. I consider myself fortunate to have lived such a breadth of experiences. I don't think (though I'd like to) that I am atypical for a 23 and 3/4ths year old - so many of my peers are equally well-traveled and experienced (and more). So many of my experiences are memories of me finding my voice, facing what could be considered "uncomfortable" and choosing to bloom there. It is in this way that I have gained a sense of self. And yet, I follow a God who says that whoever seeks to save his/her life will lose it; and if we lose ourselves for the sake of doing things God's way, that is when we truly live out our identities.

Death, you see, leads to resurrection.

And so, when I stepped out of my car, I experienced a kind of death. Not the kind of death you hear about on the news in the "bad" parts of town, though when I tell you what died, you won't be surprised. It was my sense of being comfortable. It started in my stomach and rose almost instantaneously to an all-encompassing sense of being uncomfortable. I searched the faces of the men we passed. They were not unfriendly or unkind, but hardened by weeks, months, years without a home. Or at least without a physical address.

It might have been useful to keep my mantra from Mexico in my mind: "We have more in common than what is different." Yet in Mexico, I was welcomed by children with joy on their shy faces and here there were no children. I looked. Twice.

I checked my companions' faces to see if any expression on them might mirror my heart. No sign of fear or discomfort registered on Caleb, Jon, or Shannon's face. Our mothering new acquaintance was greeting people and navigating us through the door.

As I decided I was alone in my sense of discomfort and fears, new mini waves of emotion surged through my heart. I kept my face composed and calm while instructing my heart to remain open. My friend David's words resounded inside me, "Feed the hungry? You can't mess this up." I drew comfort from it and did my best to push aside the uncertainty, uncomfortableness, and now shame for those feelings.

We stayed from 9:30-12:15, making burritos, cleaning, slicing and plating pie, and for me, just trying to stay busy so I wouldn't think too much about the double-edged sword of being uncomfortable and feeling bad about it.

I struggled to keep my heart and mind open in what felt like an entirely different culture. It was less than an hour from my house and consisted of mostly people born and raised in the same general area as me.

Even in all of my discomfort, I saw Jesus today. He was in the workers and volunteers who consistently form the community at this particular place. They are the ones that can invite the hungry and the chefs to be part of something bigger than frying eggs and clearing dishes. They laugh with us as we (the kitchen people) ask them stupid questions and work through our own prejudices and uncomfortable-ness. So gracious of them.

It's good to be uncomfortable.
It's good to grow.
It's good even if I don't grow, to get out of what I normally do. To serve and to NOT get anything out of it except an awareness of my own discomfort.

baptism