That's Not My Name

"Alisha, Alisha!"The name echoes from across the room, but I pay it no mind. I squeeze my way through the throngs of people shouting a mixture of English, Spanish, and some kind of Northern European language over the blaring 90s rock song. I pay the bartender 5 quetzales (approximately 65 cents) and he hands me a sticky mojito to match the sticky restaurant floor.I turn to walk away from the bar and finally see the friend I've been waiting for."Alisha, hi. I've been calling you," he says."Hi, sorry I couldn't hear you," I lie. I'd forgotten I'd once introduced myself to him as Alicia (pronounced Ah-lee-see-uh) when I thought he only spoke Spanish. Later I learned he also spoke English and took the liberty to back translate my name to Alisha. I didn't have the heart to tell him my real name is Alexandra."Come on, let's dance, Alisha," he says as he grabs my hand. Alisha, Alicia, he could even call me Allison as long as there's salsa dancing involved, so I swivel on the sticky floor and let him take the lead.***I've found identity is a bit more of a fluid concept in a foreign culture. Here I'm not just Aly, non profit writer, church goer, friend.Here, I'm any combination of Aly or Elly or Aleksandra or Alejandra or even Luis (yes, pronounced like the man's name, not my own last name). I'm "the girl I see at the park" or "the girl who's not a missionary or a bartender." The girl who kind of knows how to dance salsa. The girl whose Spanish is not completely unintelligible. I'm the gringa. The canchita (slang for blond or light-haired).The foreigner.Over the last few months, I've found myself focusing on the things that I'm not anymore: a responsible full time employee with health benefits, a member of Coast Vineyard, a citizen of San Diego, a roommate of dear, dear friends.For so long I've defined myself by what I do, where I go, how I spend my time, that this relocation has done a number on my own identity, on who I believe that I am.My church here in Guatemala just started a new series called “My name is…” (o mi nombre es…), which I find ironic because I haven't even come up with a consistent way to introduce myself here.I've given myself false names, both literally and figuratively: lonely, empty, alone, too shy, too scared, unproductive.I cling to these false names, false identities, and then sit back and wonder why I don't feel like me, the Aly that I know and love.I forget the Source of my identity has not changed just because I've changed time zones and zip codes and language preferences.With the new year, I've been thinking a lot about beginnings and new things. New verses, new names, a new life, a new chapter in this adventure.I've been snubbing discipline, effort, work, wanting this time to be a season of rest and recovery and restoration. But it's honestly been torture, feeling useless and unproductive.I think it's because I've forgotten the important work, the discipline that is life-giving and restorative.In their book, Compassion, Henri Nouwen, Donald McNeill, and Douglas Morrison write about this discipline:

“Discipline is the effort to avoid deafness and to become sensitive to the sound of the voice that calls us by a new name and invites us to a new life in discipleship.”

What if I focused my efforts on avoiding deafness? On listening to His voice? Instead of on the work I am or am not producing?What if I had the boldness to ask, "What is the name you have for me?" In this place, in this time, in this town? Even if everyone else gets it wrong or can't easily pronounce it or doesn't care to remember it, What is the name you call me?I'm going to be spending the next few days and weeks and probably months really seeking the answer to this question and I invite you to do the same.What is the name that He calls you? What false names and labels is He asking you to surrender?In my favorite poem, ee cummings writes, "now the ears of my ears awake."I pray we would have the discipline and the courage to awake our ears. To listen to His voice. To take on new names like Cherished and Loved and Free. To awake our eyes. To awake our souls. To move in the joy of the life He has for us, with the identity He gave us long before we were born and with the new names He seeks to give us now, in this place, in this time, in this season.Come Lord, awake our ears. Give us new names.

Home Keeping

Today I fly back to Guatemala. In fact, I'm typing this in the Dallas airport on my layover with the smell of Auntie Anne's pretzels wafting around the corner to my makeshift workspace.I'm happy to be going back to the country that I'm currently calling home. Yet I'm sad to be leaving the other homes that have planted themselves on my heart. I'm hopeful for the next six months, for my new internship and opportunities to serve. I'm even hopeful for my Spanish. Yet I'm scared of the unknown, of missing friends and family. Of missing home.I recently finished reading Kathleen Norris', The Cloister Walk. It was fabulous. I highly recommend it to anyone with a faint interest in poetry, communal living, monastic life, or God. Kathleen spent a great deal of time in a Benedictine monastery, learning the liturgy, breathing in the Psalms and solitude, strengthening her own faith through routine and commitment to those around her.After leaving the monastery, she aches for the monastic home she left. She writes,"At times I'm homesick for a place that isn't mine, homesick for 200 monks and their liturgy. Most people have the sense not to get themselves into such a predicament."Most people have the sense not to up and move to a foreign country. Not to pledge their hearts to too many people in too many disparate places.And yet I've chosen to make a new home, or try to at least. To become an oblate of the Guatemalan community, dedicated to their rule of life for a time.Kathleen asks herself, in the absence of her new home, "What do I do now for ceremony and community?"What do I do now for my community?She answers, "My instinct is to keep as much of the monastery in me as possible."As I leave, as I fly over mountains and snow and ocean, my instinct is to keep as much of "home" in me as possible. As much of the joy of my dear, dear girl friends in San Diego. As much of the love and security of my family, zany as they are. As much of the hope and community and joy of my church community in me as possible.Today I go back to my new home happy and sad. Hopeful and scared. And fully prepared to embrace this new challenge of home keeping.

Deep and Deeply Loved

Backpack stuffed under the seat in front of me. Passport, books, backup hard drive. Sprite Zero sloshes with tray table turbulence. Mind buzzes back and forth between worlds, between lives.

Beyond the rim of window, the sun blazes across the water line, burns up the shore, la orilla, the edge between two worlds. One side smooth and calm, undisturbed, undeterred; one side dry and brittle. The waves lap so softly I can't even see the lapping. From 30,000 feet, the waves aren't waves at all, but a shimmering transition from land to sea, death to life, in harmony.

"It is I who plunge into them with my own legs and arms." It is I who chooses not to plunge.

I thrash and grasp, though the water is still. Is stilled.

I thank the painter God for sun blazing across water and sky. For a sea of cloud puffs. For the dazzlement of my soul in this moment. For the stillness He stirs in me.

My soul is calm as water deep and deeply loved.