So. Among other things, I currently work part time at a coffee shop. My first day on the Bar (pulling expressing, steaming milk -- making the drinks essentially) I was given a basic "this is this and that is that" introduction and set loose. Until someone ordered a cappuccino, when the student manager momentarily relieved me, saying "you don't make cappuccinos your first day."
Cappuccino are a little tricky: they are mostly foam, but no airy foam, very thick nearly liquid smooth heavy foam.
i think they are beautiful.
My next shift, I got to try to make one. It was a little heavy. So I decided practice trying to make beautiful foam. Hold the steamer so it just brushed the top of the milk making a cute little whisping sound; holding it so the steamer was against the bottom or side of my pitcher of milk making a more "grr-ing" bubbling noise. Pouring the milk into the latter (or caramel macchiato or mocha or...) and using a spoon to hold the foam back and
having the latte weigh like a wet cappuccino. Wet meaning a little heavier, a little more milk in the milk : foam ratio than typical because I has made such beautiful think foam that it poured around the spoon.
Trying to actually make a cappuccino yielded thick big like soap bubbles. Sigh.
I still do it, make the unintentional cappuccino if I dont really pay attention thick heavy foam when bubbling milk is called for.
It seems to me that there's an analogy here. Somehow I have fallen in love with cappuccino foam (and it always makes me think of Emily cause I know she loves foam. And usually if i drink a cappuccino it is after dinner with her) and it has become the automatic (or the fascinated consistent accident).
It makes me think of the other "defaults" in my life. I was thinking earlier about how completely I seem to have transitioned and reverted back in Georgetown in my post-El Salvador life. I work in a coffee shop, yer I don't know where our beans are grown. I don't know who harvests them and what they are paid. I knew people who left their homes for 3 months of the year to be part of the coffee harvesting and I don't think of them as I work.
One of the beautiful things about the Salvadorans is that the truly embrace life. They seem to not just "survive" but to enter life with a commitment. How can I then enter into survival mode?
Life lately has seemed like a test of endurance: work and work, pay rent for food cell phone the bus . see friends(don't be a hermit) talk and laugh and drink coffee (from beans I again do not know the origins) and ... Those friends times make m think of sophomore year. Seeing people, listening, supporting, maybe telling my story: these relationships give me life.
Working 40 hours a week is a different type of busy than anything else. Having so much time accounted for and no "work" to do when I am done. I am used to "15-18 hours of class week, lots of homework reading projects) now it is the other way around. and seeing people and listening is limited.
the connection with the cappuccino has been lost but I want to share one last thing with you: Archbishop Oscar Romero was shot saying mass 30 years ago, for being the voice (and the hear for) his people. He gave everything for his love for his people. Vive Romero. We love you look up to you and live in your memory. Vive Romero
24 March 2010
23 March 2010
UCA Martyrs
This is a reflection I gave last November on the 20th Anniversary of the UCA martyrs. The themes, thoughts ideas are ones I have been revisiting as we approach the 30th anniversary of the assassination of Archbishop Oscar Arnulfo Romero this March 24. Likely this week I will post some reflections on Romero, but I wanted first to share my starting place.
The Jesuit Martyrs and their Legacy for Jesuit Education: Personal Reflections
Christina Darr, Georgetown University
Segundo Montes. Ignacio Martin Baro. Juan Ramon Moreno. Amando Lopez. Joaquin Lopez y Lopez. Ignacio Ellacuria. Elba Ramos. Celina Ramos.
I did not know them, I was barely alive when they were murdered on November 16 of 1989, yet they have had a profound impact on me, through what I know of their lives and what I know of their people, the Salvadorans
Last semester, I had the opportunity to study in El Salvador through Santa Clara University’s program Casa de la Solidaridad, House of Solidarity. Through this program, I lived in community with 26 other US students in 3 houses. I attended classes 3 days a week at the UCA (University of Central America). 2 days a week I spent in a poor urban Salvadoran community with 2 other students in my program. Calle Real, communidad Dolores Medina is a community of 43 families who had been forced to relocate from the country side during the war. I spent my days there teaching English and getting to know the people. They are a people who have formed me, who I hold close to my heart. Through them, I know the martyrs.
Martyr comes from the Greek word for witness, and so from the witness of the UCA martyrs, from the witness of the Salvadoran people I learn how I want to live: to speak the truth, to love and care for the persecuted and the poor, to not be afraid, to risk everything for the integrity of who I am and what I believe to be true.
This is the purpose of a Jesuit education: to teach life, how to live, to educate the whole person, cura personalis, to be and to recognize that same being in the other, so that together we work for justice, recognizing our common humanity and the fact that we are all in this together.
I saw this in the martyrs, but it was the Salvadorans – the people I knew and lived with and worked with, ate with, talked with, and loved that taught me how to live this way.
On my first day in El Salvador, we visited Mariona, a community where three other students in my program would be spending their Mondays and Wednesday. Later, I noted:
In my philosophy class with Father Mark Ravizza, S.J., we began talking about the hope of the martyrs, picking it apart, trying to understand what it meant, this seemingly contradictory phrase that was being lived everywhere around us: these men were killed for speaking the truth, where is the hope in that? It could so easily be catalyst to despair that even these men, respected priests, could be killed.
I talked with one of the women in my community, Juana, and I asked her if she had ever lost hope, she told me:
This is a woman whose father and brother died during the war, who was forced to leave her home in the campo to seek safety from the war violence in the capitol. This is a woman who, despite her limited economic resources, has taken in and raised for the pasts seven years two children abandoned by their parents (I don’t have enough money for them, she told me, but I have enough love). There is a living martyrdom in the way she lives her life.
Her faith and hope, the faith and hope of the Salvadoran people, is not in a life that is easy, nor in a life in which there is no suffering. It is however a faith that believes that life is not about conforming to those “worst things;” it is a hope in a God who is present and will draw one onward; it is a faith that the journey of life, of continuing onward, is good and worthwhile even amidst bitter hardship
Scott Wright, a gringo who spent many years during the war in El Salvador with the war refugees, came to one of my classes and spoke to us. In his book, he writes of the Salvadoran people, saying that “They teach us a deeper sense of what it means to live –to be able to give up your life for others, to have this capacity and this love to give up your life in a struggle so that all people may have life “ This is what we see in the martyrs. This too is what I saw in the Salvadoran people.
In a church in Chaletenango, there are pictures of the Stations of the Cross painted on the walls. For each station there are two paintings: one of Christ and one of an image from the war. In walking the passion with Christ, in allowing themselves to share his suffering, and in sharing theirs with him, these people name their loss and suffering and pain, but also the hope of redemption, of new life amidst death.
There is hope in the human dignity recognized by the Jesuit martyrs– a recognition which led to their death. A common human dignity I found I share through the martyrs, through the Salvavdoran people like Juana and Oti. I learned, and am learning to let suffering and loss, joy and hope sit right next to each other, not mutually exclusive. In reflection I wrote,
What a gift it is to feel: to cry with tears welling up from deep within me, to laugh so hard I cry. There is a freedom in this feeling, as well as a feeling of danger and of risk, to feel so deeply. In Calle Real, I live in this freedom with this risk, walking with a community who knows both laughter and tears, yet have welcomed me, a newcomer, foreigner and stranger, as one of them—or if not one of them, someone already loved by them.
In the tears and in the laughter, and the freedom and acceptance to do both, a freedom given to me in a way by these Salvadorans, is the result of a learning through example: in the Salvadorans, in the martyrs, I see the courage to embrace the difficult, the painful, the horrible. The courage, as Oti did to share that pain, years later, and yet to not become trapped in despair, but rather from the sacrifices and from the ashes to still be able to appreciate the life in themselves, in their community and to continue hope. It is a courage drawn from the passion of Christ, a courage drawn from identification with the martyrs
This identification is very powerful. A Salvadoran said, “There’s no difference between Monsenor Romero and a neighbor because they’re all our martyrs and we are human beings.”
It is this identification that allows the martyrs to still be a source of hope today Jon Sobrino, a Jesuit from the UCA who was traveling at the times of the killings, warns : “…beware of the well-known mechanism of admiration in order to avoid imitation, or in religious language of ‘canonizing,’ ‘sanctifying’ in order to create distance.” If the martyrs are only looked upon us heroes, they are awe inspiring, but removed; they have little to do with how I live my life because one so small as myself couldn’t live the great life they chose.
So the Salvadorans tell stories about the martyrs: keeping them human, keeping them involved in their daily lives, being challenged to live in truth and integrity even in the face persecution. So the martyrs are a source of comfort on several levels: first that the these Jesuits would risk staying in el Salvador, risk speaking up for the persecuted poor knowing their lives are at risk—sending the message that you are worth it. Second, So the martyrs they are a present day challenge to live whole, holy, completely; to feel pain and joy, to be and to live as I believe.
Ellacuria says beautifully what it means for a university to live such a life: “If our university had not suffered we would not have performed our duty. In a world where injustice reigns, a university that fights for justice must necessarily be persecuted.”
So to the martyrs have something to say not just about how I live my life, but how we as a Jesuit university must conduct education: through engaging students beyond the classroom, through being engaged in the community in which we are situated, through living and educating in a way that fights for justice and so leads to persecution.
The Jesuit Martyrs and their Legacy for Jesuit Education: Personal Reflections
Christina Darr, Georgetown University
Segundo Montes. Ignacio Martin Baro. Juan Ramon Moreno. Amando Lopez. Joaquin Lopez y Lopez. Ignacio Ellacuria. Elba Ramos. Celina Ramos.
I did not know them, I was barely alive when they were murdered on November 16 of 1989, yet they have had a profound impact on me, through what I know of their lives and what I know of their people, the Salvadorans
Last semester, I had the opportunity to study in El Salvador through Santa Clara University’s program Casa de la Solidaridad, House of Solidarity. Through this program, I lived in community with 26 other US students in 3 houses. I attended classes 3 days a week at the UCA (University of Central America). 2 days a week I spent in a poor urban Salvadoran community with 2 other students in my program. Calle Real, communidad Dolores Medina is a community of 43 families who had been forced to relocate from the country side during the war. I spent my days there teaching English and getting to know the people. They are a people who have formed me, who I hold close to my heart. Through them, I know the martyrs.
Martyr comes from the Greek word for witness, and so from the witness of the UCA martyrs, from the witness of the Salvadoran people I learn how I want to live: to speak the truth, to love and care for the persecuted and the poor, to not be afraid, to risk everything for the integrity of who I am and what I believe to be true.
This is the purpose of a Jesuit education: to teach life, how to live, to educate the whole person, cura personalis, to be and to recognize that same being in the other, so that together we work for justice, recognizing our common humanity and the fact that we are all in this together.
I saw this in the martyrs, but it was the Salvadorans – the people I knew and lived with and worked with, ate with, talked with, and loved that taught me how to live this way.
On my first day in El Salvador, we visited Mariona, a community where three other students in my program would be spending their Mondays and Wednesday. Later, I noted:
On my very first day, I was struck with this unbelievable willingness to encounter suffering in order to witness to the life of a friend and in witnessing to this pain, Oti also witnessed to an unnamable hope.
In my philosophy class with Father Mark Ravizza, S.J., we began talking about the hope of the martyrs, picking it apart, trying to understand what it meant, this seemingly contradictory phrase that was being lived everywhere around us: these men were killed for speaking the truth, where is the hope in that? It could so easily be catalyst to despair that even these men, respected priests, could be killed.
I talked with one of the women in my community, Juana, and I asked her if she had ever lost hope, she told me:
My faith will never come to an end. My faith and hope go together because hope is quite important. I never say, “ No, through what has happened, difficult trials,” it is easy to think of the worst things, but then I would only conform to that. I have faith and when I say, “this I cannot endure,” I kneel and I pray to God that he would draw me forward and the Lord helps me and the Lord blesses me… Faith and hope are things that must be together throughout life. …It’s not only about living life in the way that is already known, because life is a university where one never stops learning.
This is a woman whose father and brother died during the war, who was forced to leave her home in the campo to seek safety from the war violence in the capitol. This is a woman who, despite her limited economic resources, has taken in and raised for the pasts seven years two children abandoned by their parents (I don’t have enough money for them, she told me, but I have enough love). There is a living martyrdom in the way she lives her life.
Her faith and hope, the faith and hope of the Salvadoran people, is not in a life that is easy, nor in a life in which there is no suffering. It is however a faith that believes that life is not about conforming to those “worst things;” it is a hope in a God who is present and will draw one onward; it is a faith that the journey of life, of continuing onward, is good and worthwhile even amidst bitter hardship
Scott Wright, a gringo who spent many years during the war in El Salvador with the war refugees, came to one of my classes and spoke to us. In his book, he writes of the Salvadoran people, saying that “They teach us a deeper sense of what it means to live –to be able to give up your life for others, to have this capacity and this love to give up your life in a struggle so that all people may have life “ This is what we see in the martyrs. This too is what I saw in the Salvadoran people.
In a church in Chaletenango, there are pictures of the Stations of the Cross painted on the walls. For each station there are two paintings: one of Christ and one of an image from the war. In walking the passion with Christ, in allowing themselves to share his suffering, and in sharing theirs with him, these people name their loss and suffering and pain, but also the hope of redemption, of new life amidst death.
There is hope in the human dignity recognized by the Jesuit martyrs– a recognition which led to their death. A common human dignity I found I share through the martyrs, through the Salvavdoran people like Juana and Oti. I learned, and am learning to let suffering and loss, joy and hope sit right next to each other, not mutually exclusive. In reflection I wrote,
I cry a lot here. Sob is really more like it. So hard that I have a headache even still the next day. I cry for the kids in my class -- for their hard situations… I cry for myself, as I am learning to deal with conflict, as I am learning to embrace myself. Some days I am more angry and hurt at myself for my imperfections, screw ups, letting others down than others. Some days I can love my self with all of those imperfections.
What a gift it is to feel: to cry with tears welling up from deep within me, to laugh so hard I cry. There is a freedom in this feeling, as well as a feeling of danger and of risk, to feel so deeply. In Calle Real, I live in this freedom with this risk, walking with a community who knows both laughter and tears, yet have welcomed me, a newcomer, foreigner and stranger, as one of them—or if not one of them, someone already loved by them.
In the tears and in the laughter, and the freedom and acceptance to do both, a freedom given to me in a way by these Salvadorans, is the result of a learning through example: in the Salvadorans, in the martyrs, I see the courage to embrace the difficult, the painful, the horrible. The courage, as Oti did to share that pain, years later, and yet to not become trapped in despair, but rather from the sacrifices and from the ashes to still be able to appreciate the life in themselves, in their community and to continue hope. It is a courage drawn from the passion of Christ, a courage drawn from identification with the martyrs
This identification is very powerful. A Salvadoran said, “There’s no difference between Monsenor Romero and a neighbor because they’re all our martyrs and we are human beings.”
It is this identification that allows the martyrs to still be a source of hope today Jon Sobrino, a Jesuit from the UCA who was traveling at the times of the killings, warns : “…beware of the well-known mechanism of admiration in order to avoid imitation, or in religious language of ‘canonizing,’ ‘sanctifying’ in order to create distance.” If the martyrs are only looked upon us heroes, they are awe inspiring, but removed; they have little to do with how I live my life because one so small as myself couldn’t live the great life they chose.
So the Salvadorans tell stories about the martyrs: keeping them human, keeping them involved in their daily lives, being challenged to live in truth and integrity even in the face persecution. So the martyrs are a source of comfort on several levels: first that the these Jesuits would risk staying in el Salvador, risk speaking up for the persecuted poor knowing their lives are at risk—sending the message that you are worth it. Second, So the martyrs they are a present day challenge to live whole, holy, completely; to feel pain and joy, to be and to live as I believe.
Ellacuria says beautifully what it means for a university to live such a life: “If our university had not suffered we would not have performed our duty. In a world where injustice reigns, a university that fights for justice must necessarily be persecuted.”
So to the martyrs have something to say not just about how I live my life, but how we as a Jesuit university must conduct education: through engaging students beyond the classroom, through being engaged in the community in which we are situated, through living and educating in a way that fights for justice and so leads to persecution.
11 March 2010
Little Friends for Peace
Dear Friends,
I wanted to let you know of an exciting thing Little Friends for Peace (the nonprofit I work for-- go here to read more about LFFP) is doing! Someone had recommended we check out GoodSearch -- it's a search engine (powered by yahoo) and every search sends a penny to a non profit. Following this lead, we were able to register and now when you search you can be helping us out. (you can also shop online through GoodShop)
Go to GoodSearch.com or you can download the GoodSearch & GoodShop Toolbar. The GoodSearch Toolbar works with your browser to ensure that your cause earns money every time you shop and search - even if you skip coming to GoodShop or GoodSearch first! Make sure you type in "Little Friend for Peace" as the nonprofit you want to support when you first set it up.
Consider using this and passing on the word! We need all the help we can get!
Thanks,
Christy13 February 2010
The Good Teacher
So, I'm in the library on campus (exciting for two reasons: first I can still get in even though I'm no longer a student and two I can still check out books!)
Anyway, I was just browsing and the title of a book caught my eye: The Good Teacher, by Alex Moore (LB 1725.G6 M66 2004 -- anyone on campus reading this (c!) should really check it out!).
Lately I've been thinking very seriously about going into teaching. It's one of the things in 3rd grade that I had said I wanted to be when I grew up (granted also on that list at one time or another was a ballerina, or a saint ...). Yet, this past year especially when I think about what I want to do with my life, there are few things I can think of that feel worth my life. I want to teach young children, early elementary school I think, in either an at-risk school or maybe special education. Young children who need just a little bit more.
As I've been considering this, this question, posed by the title of this book, is something I've been pondering. Because while I have thought of teaching before, I also have some reservations. Can I be firm enough, provide enough structure and not just be a push over? I think one of the primary roles of a teacher, especially for the age of children I want to teach, is to create the class room as a safe space. An importan part of that is structure and discipline, that the rules are known and enforced, as well as a caring warm atmosphere. I can do the warm and caring -- and young children and I tend to get along very well with each other, but the structure and the rules I will have to be very intentional about.
Anyway, just a few thoughts. later!
Anyway, I was just browsing and the title of a book caught my eye: The Good Teacher, by Alex Moore (LB 1725.G6 M66 2004 -- anyone on campus reading this (c!) should really check it out!).
Lately I've been thinking very seriously about going into teaching. It's one of the things in 3rd grade that I had said I wanted to be when I grew up (granted also on that list at one time or another was a ballerina, or a saint ...). Yet, this past year especially when I think about what I want to do with my life, there are few things I can think of that feel worth my life. I want to teach young children, early elementary school I think, in either an at-risk school or maybe special education. Young children who need just a little bit more.
As I've been considering this, this question, posed by the title of this book, is something I've been pondering. Because while I have thought of teaching before, I also have some reservations. Can I be firm enough, provide enough structure and not just be a push over? I think one of the primary roles of a teacher, especially for the age of children I want to teach, is to create the class room as a safe space. An importan part of that is structure and discipline, that the rules are known and enforced, as well as a caring warm atmosphere. I can do the warm and caring -- and young children and I tend to get along very well with each other, but the structure and the rules I will have to be very intentional about.
Anyway, just a few thoughts. later!
08 February 2010
Where I work now, check it out!
Click on it, and in the first couple lines of text, there's a link that says "progress reportread updates from the field." Click on that for a good idea of what we do :) !!
01 February 2010
Provision
I've been thinking a lot of the beginning of my freshman year at university lately. It makes sense, I guess, at the end and so remembering the beginning. The funny thing is though that this end and that beginning, well the seem and feel remarkably similar. Similar in a way that gives me goose bumps sometimes because it taps me on the shoulder, whispers in my ear, throws me body and soul up in the air and catches me that GOD IS.
Being. I am captivated by. Being as in the Being who is I AM. Being as in the fact that I be, that each of you be. And I use "be," shortened infinitive very much on purpose because I find sometimes to conjugate it diminishes its power, it becomes a statement of status quo, the way things are, rather than dynamically and terrifyingly alive and moving and at work. Being.
I met my room mate and one of my closest friends at the Open House weekend of my senior year in high school. We met and knew we wanted to live together. Through her, I found out about InterVarsity Christian Fellowship and joined a women's small which has been, from the beginning, foundational and formational both to my time at Georgetown and my faith journey. Also through my room mate, I met an amazing group of people, discovered Father King's 11:15 pm daily mass. I did not seek any of this, but rather it was given to me. I don't know why, but am so grateful that I was given the grace to receive such a gift.
Fast forward three and one half years to today. Beginning life after graduating is much more terrifying. (There it is. That fear thing again). Or at least, its the part I'm living now and having made it through first semester of freshman year, it seems much scarier. There is no road map after university. No expected course. You go to high school, college is the next step. After college there's grad school, AmeriCorps, Peace Corp, a job, something else entirely. The endless possibilities are daunting. I feel, again much like I did first semester of freshman year, that every choice will some how determine the course of my entire life. Which of course every action I take, each decision I make, is a step of the journey, and therefore, a step towards something, somewhere. But each step cannot hold the entire weight of the rest of my life. Process, it is process.
And so I remember the provision of the One who Is. I have a job that was offered completely unexpectedly with a wage better than what I had expected or would have asked for, on campus, with other people -- feeling provided for both economically as well as relieving a fear I have had of becoming isolated. I wish I could remember, be grateful, and give thanks and praise much more than I do. To live in awe wonder reverence love thanksgiving. But paso a paso.
This passage has been in my mind all week. Comforting and challenging all at once.
Matthew 6:25 - 34,
25"Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes? 26Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? 27Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life[b]?
28"And why do you worry about clothes? See how the lilies of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. 29Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. 30If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? 31So do not worry, saying, 'What shall we eat?' or 'What shall we drink?' or 'What shall we wear?' 32For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. 33But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. 34Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.
Being. I am captivated by. Being as in the Being who is I AM. Being as in the fact that I be, that each of you be. And I use "be," shortened infinitive very much on purpose because I find sometimes to conjugate it diminishes its power, it becomes a statement of status quo, the way things are, rather than dynamically and terrifyingly alive and moving and at work. Being.
I met my room mate and one of my closest friends at the Open House weekend of my senior year in high school. We met and knew we wanted to live together. Through her, I found out about InterVarsity Christian Fellowship and joined a women's small which has been, from the beginning, foundational and formational both to my time at Georgetown and my faith journey. Also through my room mate, I met an amazing group of people, discovered Father King's 11:15 pm daily mass. I did not seek any of this, but rather it was given to me. I don't know why, but am so grateful that I was given the grace to receive such a gift.
Fast forward three and one half years to today. Beginning life after graduating is much more terrifying. (There it is. That fear thing again). Or at least, its the part I'm living now and having made it through first semester of freshman year, it seems much scarier. There is no road map after university. No expected course. You go to high school, college is the next step. After college there's grad school, AmeriCorps, Peace Corp, a job, something else entirely. The endless possibilities are daunting. I feel, again much like I did first semester of freshman year, that every choice will some how determine the course of my entire life. Which of course every action I take, each decision I make, is a step of the journey, and therefore, a step towards something, somewhere. But each step cannot hold the entire weight of the rest of my life. Process, it is process.
And so I remember the provision of the One who Is. I have a job that was offered completely unexpectedly with a wage better than what I had expected or would have asked for, on campus, with other people -- feeling provided for both economically as well as relieving a fear I have had of becoming isolated. I wish I could remember, be grateful, and give thanks and praise much more than I do. To live in awe wonder reverence love thanksgiving. But paso a paso.
This passage has been in my mind all week. Comforting and challenging all at once.
Matthew 6:25 - 34,
25"Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes? 26Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? 27Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life[b]?
28"And why do you worry about clothes? See how the lilies of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. 29Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. 30If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? 31So do not worry, saying, 'What shall we eat?' or 'What shall we drink?' or 'What shall we wear?' 32For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. 33But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. 34Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.
24 January 2010
I AM the Lord of the Dance said He
I have talked before about wisdom sources -- what a liberation that is for me to be able to name my wisdome sources -- the people, the books, the circumstances that have opened my eyes, heart, understanding, that have formed me.
I got a book for Christmas, from my dad, called "Thirst" by Mary Oliver and truly it has entered my wisdom collection. Some of the poems, well it felt like I was reading words that I had been searching for, that it resonated with me so much that at times I felt as though I could have written it for all the ways it spoke to me. She writes about wonder, faith, grief and loss, of learning to be. How human we are and how beautifully terrifyingly holy that is.
This next (at the end) is not from that book, but it is one of Mary's (Mary's ...like I know her, as if she were my friend. I do. and she is) and, having just found it, it seems to capture well this life after undergrad. I life which so far -- all 3 days of it sense my Christmas break officially ended -- has sent me reeling. I don't know what is going to happen tomorrow or the next day or the next: where I will be or who I will see or what I will be doing. But I have big dreams and that is perhaps the most frightening thing of all. Fear. I talk about it a lot. One of these days I will have to do a study upon it -- and by study I mean look up quotes and maybe some of the Bible verse ("Fear not" is one of the phrases used the most throughout, if not the Bible, at least the New Testament. Beautiful.)
Colin is in a philosophy class and was asked to write a one page paper about what it means to be human. One page! I love this assignment and almost want to write a book a treatise a poem maybe -- something! What does it mean to be human? To be alive? Dreaming, I think, has something to do with it. And joy and pain (always together, everything all at once). The ability to laugh and to cry and to scream. To feel wonder, awe, a sense of smallness in the face of the twirling universe. To think and to feel. Someone told me the other day that is is important that decisions be made with both the mind and the heart -- to engage all of myself, to integrate reason and logic with emotions and desires. How much easier it could be to just follow one or the other! to ignore my mind and follow my heart and so live blindly. Funny that I think maybe my mind might be the easier thing to ignore. But to be human, fully human, demands integrity (pulling on the "whole" "complete" definition of the word) and so I must be rational.
But! how to be rational about mystery! about that which cannot be known, data which encroaches back upon itself (as says Gabriel Marcel) and being (being human!) as one of the greatest mysteries. Ontology -- a word I learned first from Madeleine L'Engle and then further explored with Marcel -- the word about being. What does it mean for me to be? I cannot agree that what I be can be simply defined by what I do. I was a student. But am no longer. I work 20 hours a month as a receptionist, will begin working 40 hours a month with a non-profit. Maybe another 80 or so a month at a coffee shop or doing... and while the thing that I do (and will be doing) that are know, I love and mean a great deal to me, have been formational to me, it cannot be the whole answer.
I had an autoimmune disease for 5 years in middle school and high school and went to school (a little bit), slept (a lot), ached (probably more than I remember) and, maybe that was when I first thought thinking this though I didn't have the words yet, is that I cannot, I refuse!, to be what I do. There is, there must be, more to being than that. Just as there must be more to God than Church on Sunday. And this I am quite stubborn about and not only do I believe that there is more, but I demand it.
So, what does it mean to be human, this question directly related to what does it mean for me to be, who (in the biggest sense of the word possible) am I? are you? And God? God, and as I am not writing this for a philosophy paper MUST come in, because some one God, the Holy Spirit -- the ultimate Life Force--is responsible for all of this Being that is being questioned and discussed. So to question to wonder to ponder about what it means to BE inherently, intrinsically, inexplicably touches upon I AM --being itself.
It's a question that can never be answered. But the question is important, essential. It must be lived, it must be asked, and sought and somehow, and this too I believe completely, that it is the seeking (the risking hurt and pain, it is risking --because these too can be overwhelming while awe inspiring -- love and hope and faith and joy) that is what it means to be, what it means to be human. Living risky. Living with arms wide open.
Mockingbirds by Mary Oliver
This morning
two mockingbirds
in the green field
were spinning and tossing
the white ribbons
of their songs
into the air.
I had nothing
better to do
than listen.
I mean this
seriously.
In Greece,
a long time ago,
an old couple
opened their door
to two strangers
who were,
it soon appeared,
not men at all,
but gods.
It is my favorite story--
how the old couple
had almost nothing to give
but their willingness
to be attentive--
but for this alone
the gods loved them
and blessed them--
when they rose
out of their mortal bodies,
like a million particles of water
from a fountain,
the light
swept into all the corners
of the cottage,
and the old couple,
shaken with understanding,
bowed down--
but still they asked for nothing
but the difficult life
which they had already.
And the gods smiled, as they vanished,
clapping their great wings.
Wherever it was
I was supposed to be
this morning--
whatever it was I said
I would be doing--
I was standing
at the edge of the field--
I was hurrying
through my own soul,
opening its dark doors--
I was leaning out;
I was listening.
Copyright © 1994 by The Atlantic Monthly Company. All rights reserved. The Atlantic Monthly; February 1994; Mockingbirds; Volume 273, No. 2; page 80
I got a book for Christmas, from my dad, called "Thirst" by Mary Oliver and truly it has entered my wisdom collection. Some of the poems, well it felt like I was reading words that I had been searching for, that it resonated with me so much that at times I felt as though I could have written it for all the ways it spoke to me. She writes about wonder, faith, grief and loss, of learning to be. How human we are and how beautifully terrifyingly holy that is.
This next (at the end) is not from that book, but it is one of Mary's (Mary's ...like I know her, as if she were my friend. I do. and she is) and, having just found it, it seems to capture well this life after undergrad. I life which so far -- all 3 days of it sense my Christmas break officially ended -- has sent me reeling. I don't know what is going to happen tomorrow or the next day or the next: where I will be or who I will see or what I will be doing. But I have big dreams and that is perhaps the most frightening thing of all. Fear. I talk about it a lot. One of these days I will have to do a study upon it -- and by study I mean look up quotes and maybe some of the Bible verse ("Fear not" is one of the phrases used the most throughout, if not the Bible, at least the New Testament. Beautiful.)
Colin is in a philosophy class and was asked to write a one page paper about what it means to be human. One page! I love this assignment and almost want to write a book a treatise a poem maybe -- something! What does it mean to be human? To be alive? Dreaming, I think, has something to do with it. And joy and pain (always together, everything all at once). The ability to laugh and to cry and to scream. To feel wonder, awe, a sense of smallness in the face of the twirling universe. To think and to feel. Someone told me the other day that is is important that decisions be made with both the mind and the heart -- to engage all of myself, to integrate reason and logic with emotions and desires. How much easier it could be to just follow one or the other! to ignore my mind and follow my heart and so live blindly. Funny that I think maybe my mind might be the easier thing to ignore. But to be human, fully human, demands integrity (pulling on the "whole" "complete" definition of the word) and so I must be rational.
But! how to be rational about mystery! about that which cannot be known, data which encroaches back upon itself (as says Gabriel Marcel) and being (being human!) as one of the greatest mysteries. Ontology -- a word I learned first from Madeleine L'Engle and then further explored with Marcel -- the word about being. What does it mean for me to be? I cannot agree that what I be can be simply defined by what I do. I was a student. But am no longer. I work 20 hours a month as a receptionist, will begin working 40 hours a month with a non-profit. Maybe another 80 or so a month at a coffee shop or doing... and while the thing that I do (and will be doing) that are know, I love and mean a great deal to me, have been formational to me, it cannot be the whole answer.
I had an autoimmune disease for 5 years in middle school and high school and went to school (a little bit), slept (a lot), ached (probably more than I remember) and, maybe that was when I first thought thinking this though I didn't have the words yet, is that I cannot, I refuse!, to be what I do. There is, there must be, more to being than that. Just as there must be more to God than Church on Sunday. And this I am quite stubborn about and not only do I believe that there is more, but I demand it.
So, what does it mean to be human, this question directly related to what does it mean for me to be, who (in the biggest sense of the word possible) am I? are you? And God? God, and as I am not writing this for a philosophy paper MUST come in, because some one God, the Holy Spirit -- the ultimate Life Force--is responsible for all of this Being that is being questioned and discussed. So to question to wonder to ponder about what it means to BE inherently, intrinsically, inexplicably touches upon I AM --being itself.
It's a question that can never be answered. But the question is important, essential. It must be lived, it must be asked, and sought and somehow, and this too I believe completely, that it is the seeking (the risking hurt and pain, it is risking --because these too can be overwhelming while awe inspiring -- love and hope and faith and joy) that is what it means to be, what it means to be human. Living risky. Living with arms wide open.
Mockingbirds by Mary Oliver
This morning
two mockingbirds
in the green field
were spinning and tossing
the white ribbons
of their songs
into the air.
I had nothing
better to do
than listen.
I mean this
seriously.
In Greece,
a long time ago,
an old couple
opened their door
to two strangers
who were,
it soon appeared,
not men at all,
but gods.
It is my favorite story--
how the old couple
had almost nothing to give
but their willingness
to be attentive--
but for this alone
the gods loved them
and blessed them--
when they rose
out of their mortal bodies,
like a million particles of water
from a fountain,
the light
swept into all the corners
of the cottage,
and the old couple,
shaken with understanding,
bowed down--
but still they asked for nothing
but the difficult life
which they had already.
And the gods smiled, as they vanished,
clapping their great wings.
Wherever it was
I was supposed to be
this morning--
whatever it was I said
I would be doing--
I was standing
at the edge of the field--
I was hurrying
through my own soul,
opening its dark doors--
I was leaning out;
I was listening.
Copyright © 1994 by The Atlantic Monthly Company. All rights reserved. The Atlantic Monthly; February 1994; Mockingbirds; Volume 273, No. 2; page 80
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