Right now I’m here in my room listening to some jazz music that I’ve never heard of before, but that I like fairly well. Jazz is music I can get lost in and I like that. It’s the same with classical too; you get absorbed in your own thoughts and time looses it’s meaning if only for awhile.
My roommate just walked in… and prompting walked out again.
Many things have changed for me these last couple months. I live in the same house thankfully, but that just about it. I’m living in a new room now, that doesn’t have its own bathroom, but is closer to the office building which means I can get internet in my room now. The roommate, although he is a really nice guy and all, is only temporary, just the month of December. He is one the kids here that started University in Costa Rica through the support of the Hogar Escuela.
I have new Parents in my house which I really love, and they seem to be able to tolerate me too so that’s good. They really deserve a blog entry of their own. I have learned much from them; they are some of the best parents I’ve ever known. They are always very accommodating and we are forming this really great relationship over time that is really special I think. That’s not to forget that we also have a bunch more kids than before in my house as well. What happened was that due to lack of funding that Hogar was forced to cut back the number of houses that we operate meaning houses had to merge. Thankfully the messy business has turned out very well. Instead of my house consisting of just guys, as before, we have two high-school- aged girls and five younger children. One of the new kids is David, or Davidsito as most call him now. He just recently turned six. I don’t know a lot about where he came from, but I do know that before he came here he was found living in a chicken pen because that’s where his mother kept him. You see, David has some mental retardation at least partly due to the fact that he drank some poison when he was really young. When he first got here he would barely talk at all or interact with anyone. But you would never know that about him now; he has the most pleasant disposition of any six-year-old that I’ve ever known. His joy is just so contagious that it’s almost tangible, as if you could reach out and touch it. He doesn’t know how to say or do a lot of things that a normal six-year-old should be able to do, but to me he proves that language has so little to do with words. It just is something I wonder at with real perplexity. He is a little boy who knows nothing of philosophy or ethics, he hasn’t read a bunch of some-help books, likely has a past, at six, that would make ours look like a stroll through life, and yet he has such contentment and simplicity. I just wonder if we make things so much more complicated than they really are. It makes me think about how broken I am inside, and why, and what do I do with that brokenness? To be honest, I don’t really know; I mean I’ve got answers but they all lead me to thinking that their really isn’t a lot I can do about it. The bible talks about how it’s really all God’s business; He’s in the salvation trade, not me. But what do I do with that? Is joy and an embracing of what he is doing the answer? It certainly seems a little backwards to what’s in my background. I remember seeing people that would tell you they had some joy, but I always found it hard to believe them. If that was joy I don’t know that that’s the answer, but now having seen real joy, like the sun rising out of a star lit sky, I wonder if that really it; that it’s possible. If I am really capable of responding to what God is doing in such a simplistic and often nonsensical way. Is there really a way to go back to that child I used to be and experience joy like Davidsito does? I hope I can and, too, know that I am. I really feel that I do experience that kind of joy here. I feel that if you can wake up every morning with the kind of joy and excitement about life that David does it’s like oil on the gears of God’s plan to not only save you but complete you outside and inside.
With water squirting in all directions and tears of sheer joy and exhaustion coming from our eyes; a few of mah boys and I raced down the hallway. We would doubtless get some sort of repercussion for this sometime in the near future, but for now our sole purpose was to see who could last the longest from the streams of water coming from the spray bottles, or possibly from the more exasperating and incessant laughter that intrinsically bellowed from or mouths and hearts with a chuckle and squeal reserved only for the most happy of fairy tales.
Needless to say, we made a mess; not a large one but substantial enough to bring pope (papee) out of his room with only half-hidden amusement at our childish escapades. I had run round and round, sometimes being pursued and sometimes in close chase of one or many of my devoted compatriots of seeming indecency. Often I would be carrying one on my back which was no small feat in some of mah boys cases; not because they were overly large for their age but rather because their bodies had grown larger than their inner perception of smallness. They still thought themselves small and cuddly and carry-able, but in reality this was not nearly the level of truth they thought it to be, I can assure you.
In any case, I thought it to be a healthy reprieve from the boredom of inactivity; racing hither and thither, under tables and down halls. And as is probably obvious, I was not the one to suggest the addition of squirt bottles to our jollity, nor was I the one to use it with such proficiency as was exhibited by my fellow amigos of mayhem. This, of course, necessitated that I make a hasty retreat to my room with the utmost dignity of some aged legionnaire, where I am still, writing to you.
Such experiences invoke many feelings; feelings of joy, feelings of happiness, exuberance, and release from all of one’s many cares. But the feeling most prevalent that I get after such interaction is one of oneness or connectedness and maybe even meaning. Yes, I feel like I meant something to those boys tonight and they had meant something to me, like as if they had seen me for the first time. I feel as though I broke down some of their insecurities and their walls and simply by letting them spray me with some water and chancing them around the house; so simple and yet so rare, so necessary and yet often overlooked.
The thought strikes me, what if we never got past hello and a hand shack with anyone? What if, “How’s the weather there?” was the only question we ever asked people. Nowadays we all know it’s a cliche but we use it anyway don’t we, like as if it were a little joke or a witty pun. There are many reasons for this I suppose, but I think those many and various reasons can be summed up like this: we all got a trash bag full of junk, some people hold on to their bag real tight so that none leaks out to anyone else and others try and dump all their junk on other people. This makes for a pretty incondusive arrangement for sharing anything beyond something that everybody has, like access to the weather channel.
To be able to share your junk you have to know that your junk isn’t who you are.
That’s part of what Christ did when He came down here; He literally and figuratively became the garbage-man, and because of of Him our identity is no longer connected in anyway with our junk. It says in the scriptures that when the angel appeared to Gideon he addressed him as a “mighty man of valor.” Was Gideon a mighty man of valor? Hardly. Was he even that keen on becoming one? But by the end of his life and his story every breathing man in his country would have considered him of valorous caliber. How was this possible? Because Gideon decided to believe in God’s reality about himself rather than his own; what he could see. Now did he become what God knew him to be eventually? Yes, he did, but not a moment before God decided it appropriate. So to our eyes we still got junk, but in God’s eyes all He can see is Christ.
The sooner we start seeing ourselves through God’s eyes, the sooner we can start really unloading our garbage, and start sharing with other people, even if it’s only a squirt of water in the face.
It’s the rainy season here in El Salvador. It’s hot and wet nearly all the time. The sun beats down fiercely and with merciless intentions on my pale skin. It would be an understatement at the least to say that I have a farmer’s tan; the contrast is quite glaring but thankfully a facsimile, if not an exaggerated one, of all those around me in the fields as well. The fields where I have been working for the past couple weeks, from above, might look much like a golden pool surrounded by lush, greens and dark hues of red; it might even seem picturesque from up there, and quite unlike many things I have experienced in my life it really is picturesque from the ground, in it, laboring and sweating in the sun-touched grasses. You start to feel like you’re part of the land, and the land, quite literally, becoming part of you.
The men I work with on the farm might be accused of being, or at least trying to be a rough bunch, but their inner kindness penetrates their callused hands and rusk appearance. As one would think, after years of laborious toiling in all the worst conditions, they form a very tight group. They constantly make jokes that I both often don’t understand and am the object of, but, in their defense, my inexperience does serve a lavish dish of comic morsels which they don’t hesitate to chew on.
Today in particular was especially fated with misfortune being as we were harvesting rice by hand which is common here and often very hot and tiresome work of which this day was no exception. But however many times one might wish for cloud or two to cover the blistering sun, no one expected such a speedy and exuberant response. No matter how hot it gets or how much sweat you lose (which could be measured by the cup) no one wishes for rain. But what we got wasn’t rain, no, it was more like what was left over from Poseidon’s rage with Odicious. For those of you who don’t have any experience with the art of harvesting rice it is quite simple, you cut the stocks with a large curved knife called a cuma. Following this you bash the rice like a snake by the tail on a wooden table. Usually this is quite a simple, though, very intensive, if not, exasperating process. The rain, though, frustrates the ordeal with no respect to its present difficulty, but rather making every repetition this physical mantra of rhythmic smacking even more tedious than you thought was possible; except, of course, the incredible heat which is quickly diminished and then demolished into out right cold chills. Not only this, but it affects the usual objectivity of the grains of rice in such a way that they too feel that clinging together is the only way to escape the lack of warmth.
All of this is how I came to find myself under an old, musty tarp with a bunch of El Salvadorian farmers of whom I was presently getting to know their smell much better than I knew their life history. That’s when I wondered, what on earth would I rather do than be with these guys. There must be farmers just like these on just about every continent in the world, but I am here with these ones. I am living and breathing and sharing in these men’s lives and work. What could be more fulfilling or gratifying than to realize that where ever I go in this world I can find men just like these; hard-working, honest, and sincere, or at least sincerely crazy sometimes. To have such a bond with these people here is just incredible to me. I think it shows me why Jesus spent so much of His time with the common, or rather the truly inspirational people. He understood their struggles so well, comprehended their depth where others saw only shallow minds, understood their pain where others only saw weakness, and appreciated their gifts where others only saw poverty. He gave to them dearly of Himself in life and death. He said, that what you do for the weakest and the poorest and the most humbled you did it unto Him. Think about it; you did it for Him; to Him. Don’t waste time in religious fidgeting and sophistry; don’t talk about doing good, do it. It is the currency of heaven and we can begin making an investment today.
Today is a Sabbath day, and as usual it was filled with good friends, good food, and good conversation. Unlike past Sabbaths though, the conversation was with a little girl. She couldn’t have been older than six I’d say. You know the kind, we all do; so full of life and energy, security and joy. As we were eating lunch, she went on and on telling story after story, including every detail no matter how trivial or inconvenient. She remembered it all like it were happening right there in front of her eyes and she was merely commentating on the present. She seemed so aware of everything around her; she had everything so well defined and in its proper place.
Later on, after lunch, she went and got herself a sucker. For a few minutes she just sucked on it, and then suddenly exclaimed to me that she was going to put it in the freezer for later. Well, later turned out to be less time than it had taken her to decide to put it there in the first place.
And that’s when it hit me, like a freight train in slow motion.
She was just as happy and content sucking on that lollypop as she was just playing with the rapper. She found meaning in everything she did. Every event, every action had significance. Nothing was pointless; everything had a purpose. And it makes me wonder what our society, our world, has done to us to cause us to accept such strict definitions for success and failure, for significance and pointlessness. This little girl had discovered a world where nothing was insignificant; your life wasn’t pointless if you had never been a great leader or saved thousands of lives through your sacrifice; it’s ok that you aren’t a millionaire or haven’t seen Paris. Your life means something no matter what you did with it. Every action, every choice you make; it’s all part of your story and an even bigger story going on all around you.
It reminds when Christ said that you had to become like a little child to enter the kingdom. Maybe what He was getting at is that we need to stop defining our lives the way the world tells us to. Success isn’t the number of zeros on your bank statement, and it isn’t the number of doctorates and honorary degrees you have either. Maybe He was saying that your existence is significance enough to be worthy of His love.
I worry for that little girl, who will be the one to tell that things aren’t the way she sees them now; who will be the one to tell her who she has to be in order to have worth? What event will strip her of all those sordid dreams? When will she have to face up to reality? Life has done it to us all.
Christ responded to this girl’s problem, this human problem, when He called the Pharisees liars and murderers and fools. Their intent was to lash and bind God’s chosen people to a false reality of their own design. Jesus would have none of it. Why? Because He came to expose the ultimate reality of God’s love for us, regardless of anything that we had done and will do.
When Jesus told his disciples to be as a little child He was saying that this little one’s reality is closer to what is, than all the Pharisees and philosophers, and is even more real than what we can see in front of us…right now.
Airports are fascinating places. There is little that is not in some way melodramatic. The airport is a place where all your best and worst qualities come out; a testing of your will to survive in the brushed-steel jungle of gate D-1. Will you keep your cool? Will your flight leave on time? And what is that long tube-shaped thing that guy is carrying anyway? What’s inside of that tubed-shaped thing?
When flying you learn not to think to hard about things like this.
The airport is where you see people, and lots of them, all different types, like the ones who read those thick, chubby books that have the authors name printed larger than the title; as if the author made the book good just because they wrote it. The kind of people you look at and feel as though you’ve seen them before, maybe even know them. The kind of people that can instantly be identified as a Texan or an easterner or some New York executive.
It makes you wonder what really is in a name and a look. How much can you really tell about a person by the cover? How much can you tell about the book by the author? Well, for starters, the big-author books are usually sappy romance novels or twisted mysteries, a genre that is so well used that the possible original titles are almost entirely used up. They just get simpler, though, instead of more complex which is strange to me. Instead of “The long overdue tragic end of the Bosnian sailor”, they are titled, “The Wave” or “The Shipwreck.”
I think it says something about what we value today. Nothing we do can be too long or drawn out. We want it to make us laugh, move us to tears, laugh again, and then show us that we’re alright and ok and feel good about ourselves, and all in five minutes or less.
Just like the airport forces us to slow our pace at times with delayed flights and long layovers; God too has to make us slow down sometimes. He has to remind us that Salvation and prayer and devotion, loving your neighbor, spreading the good news; they aren’t items to check off on a huge to-do list with five minutes devoted to each goal. God has to stop us and tell us that just like we can’t laugh and cry and change in five minutes we can’t really love our neighbor at 100 miles per hour either. But more than that we don’t have to worry about getting it all done at the exact moment we have told ourselves that it needed to be. He has to step in and say I’ve got it, don’t worry, it will all be done when it is time. That flight you missed is ok, we’ll make it, I’ve got it all figured out…Trust me…
It’s never easy for me to know how to start things like these. It’s hard because you don’t know how to get the reader to feel comfortable and at home in the words from the outset. The irony is though, that while this is a beginning for my blog it’s also representative of another beginning and ending in my life.
I figure if I were to take the time to pick a theme for this post it would be saying goodbye. I’ve had to do this often over the last few weeks; more so than ever, I would say. Saying goodbye is a cold ache; a pain that you can’t quite feel yet but you know that you will; you almost feel pity for the future you that will have to deal with what has just occurred. Saying goodbye forces you to really evaluate what that particular person or relationship meant to you. You realize feelings in those moments that you never knew you had. Just today I had to say goodbye to some friends after we’d finished our spontaneously scheduled thrashing at the Circuit rock gym. On this occasion I had driven myself there which is uncharacteristic of me. And as we left I pulled up behind them in the parking lot as they prepared to enter the busy streets of South Portland. As we turned onto the highway they started to pull away and I sort of thought to myself, “Well, that’s it; there they go...” But as I caught a glance of them again something inside of me was pulled toward them; I felt as though I wanted to speed up to them; drive up right behind them and see there faces one more time. But then I realized our paths had already diverged; I had my own path now.
It’s hard growing up, maturing; so much more is expected; so much more you have to take charge of. Everything seems as though it takes up more of your energy; your time. you have to wonder, “where is this path taking me?” and all the other questions that just won’t stop coming, and you wonder whether life is lived in between those questions and not at the end of the very last one. Is it possible that someday I will wake wondering where I’m going and realize I’ve already been there? That it already happened, and if I had just payed attention in those times of questioning I would have realized that there was where my life was.
I will have to say goodbye again, and many more times. And I will ask myself again, “where are you going?” and I will remember that where I am defines that next place; that, that moment where I have to say goodbye, maybe even for the last time, that is what holds real importance. The feelings felt there in their arms or in the strength of their grip; the perspectives gained there in time with the mutual thoughts of sadness and excitement.That is where life is, and it will remain in those moments where ever you go.