Evergreen

Today I want to share a poem by one of my favorite poets who doesn't happen to be T.S. Eliot, but Luci Shaw.

We're on the cusp of the rainy season here in Guatemala. Last week, a thick, smoky haze settled over the sky from the pre-harvest burning of sugar cane fields over on the coast. Some days, the clouds roll in and spit out a little water, but the real downpours, the real rain-everyday-until-everything-you-own-is-moldy season hasn't started yet. But it's coming, it's definitely coming.

We've just planted new flowers in our garden, confident that they'll thrive and bloom with the rains to come. I think of the seeds I want to sow in my own life--the seeds of friendship and growth and hope--and ache to be confident that they will bloom into full-fledged flowers, too.And I was reminded of this poem, Evergreen, by Luci Shaw. It's actually a Christmas poem, about a tinsel-strewn Christmas tree and piney-scented evergreens. But she writes a phrase that rings through me here on the cusp of planting season: planted with purpose. I've done a lot of work with an organization called Plant With Purpose. In fact, I was a part of the team that helped come up with the name. I've punned and alliterated the heck out of that phrase. But I had never once thought of myself as the object being planted with purpose.I'd never thought of the phrase in the context of Jeremiah 17:8:"They are like trees planted along a riverbank, with roots that reach deep into the water. Such trees are not bothered by the heat or worried by long months of drought. Their leaves stay green, and they never stop producing fruit."Or Psalm 1:3"That person is like a tree planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit in season and whose leaf does not wither-- whatever they do prospers."Without further ado, here's the poem and an invitation to ponder what it would mean for you to be planted with purpose, tapping in to the water of life, and bearing the Spirit's sweetest fruits. Enjoy.Evergreen

Toppedwith an earthbound angel,burdenedwith man-made stars,tinsel-draped,but touched with notrue gold,cropped, girdledwith electricity—why be a temporary tree,glass-fruited, dry,uprooted?When you may beplanted with purposein a flowered field,and where,living in clean light,strong air,crowned with goldof every eveningevery nightreal stars may nestin your elbow,restbe found in your shade,healingin your perennial green,and from deep springs your rootsmay suck enough to swellwithin youthe Spirit’s sweetest fruits.Taken from Luci Shaw's, Accompanied by Angels: Poems of the Incarnation.

A still, small lantern of rising hopes

Sunday night. The sun had dipped below the clouds and the volcano, painting the sky darker and darker shades of gray as the minutes passed by until I was left, book light and journal in hand, in the calm, dark air.I can’t say why, but I felt the call. I heard a voice that said to wait, to stop, to put away the cell phone and the computer and the distractions, to ditch trivia night and salsa dancing, and step out on the terrace and just be. “Go out and stand on the [terrace] in the presence of the Lord, for the Lord is about to pass by.”Soon the lightening started and the dazzling flashes bounced off the clouds and the silhouette of the volcano.I'd been avoiding it: Reflecting. Writing. Reviewing. Examining.I’d been examining my life much like a flash of lightening—quickly and briefly and unsustained.If I really examined my life, I'd be disappointed, I feared. I thought by now my Spanish would be better and my friendships deeper. I thought I'd feel awake and alive and adventurous. Instead, most times, I feel lonely and small. Disconnected and disconcerted.So I’ve been numbing, tuning out, taking the insight to change like a flash of lightening, here one minute in radiant glory, back in stagnant darkness the next.I sat a few moments more, breathing in the cool air and reviewing my journal from the last four months, scared of what I would find—or of the changes and growth and life I wouldn’t find.And then the fireworks started. No kidding. Not just little homemade things, but Disneyland caliber explosions boomed and sizzled against the twilight sky. Like the dramatic adventure I thought my life would be. And in the darkness between bursts, weeping willow shapes burned against the canvas of the sky, burned into my brain—the remnants of the dreams I once saw so clearly—the adventure, the learning, the restoration of joy. Quick and bright and burning, and then darkness.And then the show was over. Back to silence. Back to breathing.And then, as if a lightening show and fireworks were not enough for one night, a tiny Japanese lantern--just one--with its silent, soft flame ascended into the sky, past my terrace over the rooftops and away into the distance.A small, sustained light of rising hope.

I’ve got say He pulled out all the stops to point me to the miracle, the magic. To help me realize not in a flash of understanding, but in a slowly burning brighter and brighter awareness that this was a holy moment, a magic night, a sacred space, a sacred life.

That He is here. That His voice is the one that calls with love and grace.And when I open not just my journal, but my heart to the feelings I’ve buried deep within, to the hopes and fears and disappointments, when I finally have the courage to stop and be honest, be real, be present—He will meet me in those moments.I don’t have to listen to the lies and the cries anymore that say:Don't be alone.Don't think. Don't stop. If you stop, the guilt, the sadness, the loneliness, the regrets will engulf you.“BUT THAT IS NOT TRUE”, the still small voice said as the lantern climbed into the sky.“If you stop--stop your striving, your avoiding and distracting and numbing--if you stop before me,IT IS GRACE THAT WILL ENGULF YOU.”Not guilt. Not shame. Not a voice of condemnation. But my love and grace.And it caught me between my ribs, a pinch, a pulse, and it burned throughout my being, rose up to my heart, my hopes.I am loved. There is nothing but grace for me, nothing but hope. I can’t help but write it say it shout it share it.He spoke Love. He rekindled my heart. Stirred my hopes.Not in the flashing lightening.Not in the roar of fireworks.But with a still, small lantern of rising hopes, glowing softly in the inky sky.***Have you ever experienced an invitation to stop and be engulfed by grace? 

T.S. Tuesday: A Taste of Home

"Home is where one starts from." East Coker, Four Quartets, T.S. Eliot

This week I had a taste of home. My family, complete with corny dad jokes, freckles, and an abundance of luggage, visited me here in Guatemala. And. it. was. so. GOOD.

Home for me is not a place, but people. The people who have seen all of my ugly and love me anyways. The people who laugh and cry and share life with me. And I was gifted with the opportunity to share a week with four of these people, the people who carry my heart, and give them a taste of the beautiful city and country where I'm learning to make a new home.We laughed, we cried, we ate tortillas, we haggled and we got ripped off. I got to be a tourist in my own town and was pleasantly surprised to see how much I've learned and grown in the past nine months. But mostly, we had a heck of a lot of fun. We laughed at my dad attempting to speak Spanish (to his defense, he studied French in high school). We hobbled over the cobblestones of Antigua. We just so happened to run into ten of my closest friends around town. We bought art from my friend, Joel, handmade boots from my friend, Elio, and chocolate from my friend, Pablo. We hiked, a lot. We hiked to the top of the Cross, to the office where I work, to a magnificent lakeside getaway carved into the side of a cliff at Lake Atitlan. We kayaked across the smooth as glass water to splash upon a lakeside worship service and baptism. We dipped in a hot tub heated with a wood stove. We rode in the back of pick up truck with 15 Guatemalans and sped across the lake in a water taxi regrettably named, Titanic. We were welcomed into the home of my friends and coworkers. We almost witnessed my brother knock down a tiny salsa instructor in one fell swoop because he was dancing "too sexy" with me.It was glorious.I was reminded of the beauty all around me here and the beauty in the part of me that still aches for home.But I am here. I am whole. The missing and the aching is a sign that I am whole, not that I am part, or less than. It is a testament to the goodness of the community I left and to which I will return. It's rare, this type of community, the home I have with my real family and the "family" of friends and sisters who have welcomed me back in San Diego. And I long for it, ache for it with all of my being.But I remind myself, I am here. I am whole. Today I am stopping to see the grace. What grace it is that I am here. That I've learned to navigate a new city and a new country. That I'm learning still how to love and connect and engage with people across cultures, with people who are very different from me.And thankfulness rises.In a town where I can't make it to the park without greeting someone I know, but have an exceedingly short list of friends I could really count on when things get tough, it was a refresher for my soul to be with the people who have loved me for a long time and will continue to love me for a long time still. Thank you for the taste of home, of where I started from, and the reminder that ALL IS GRACE.Here are some of my favorite photos from the trip:Don't you want to come visit, too?!