Last Weekend

Here I am sitting in Ron's office procrastinating again...not wanting to do the bills and finances. Why is it so hard to do our duty? I have had a good dose of caffeine and a great breakfast and even shed some tears as I looked over the lake and listened to Cat Stevens...he reminds me of my growing years, when my friends and I sat in the front of our house in Nicaragua in the darkness listening to gun fire in the distance, wondering what our future would be like, would we make it past the war, past the famine and suffering that guns and hate bring? Never did I imagined that 26 years later I would be sipping coffee, safe, surrounded by nature and looking forward to the blessings of spending time with my daughter Amaris. I sit here musing and thinking of the past, consumed by memories of a life that was. How many lives have I already lived and how many more remain? The past is the past, untouchable, unattainable, the essence of what makes us who we are. We are molded by it, it expands us or restrict us. It guides us into the future and we must surrender to it willingly or we remain stuck in it. It amazes me that God teaches us thru our past experiences, reveals Himself thru its deliverance. He so graciously gives and gently takes away. I sit here thanking Him for His kindness, who am I to have deserved so much? How can I not fall at His feet and thank Him, not only for my past but my present and my future. As Spurgeon once wrote, "We need clouds and darkness to exercise our faith--to cut off self dependence and make us put more faith in Christ and less in evidence, less in experience, less in feeling. The best of God's children's...have their nights..." I am waiting patiently for morning.

The peaks of the Blue Ridge Mountains remind me of a little poem by Ruth Bell Graham...

Those splendid,

soaring jagged peaks,

stripped of trees

of grass and sod

whose snow

the sunlight lingers

are but the braille letters,

where we mortals

blind and fragile

trace our finger

to spell the name

God.

I am now that blind and fragile mortal that in moments of infinite vulnerability can only trace the outline of His name. Nature does have a healing effect on me and I'm glad I'm surrounded by it, but I also need the confusion of the city, the noise, the concrete and steel...to be one among the many and be swallowed up by its fast pace.

Last weekend I was in Atlanta staying with friends and it felt good to have stepped out of life. To surrender to the business of the mall on a Saturday morning. To sip wine at a tavern after seeing a movie not made by Walt Disney and talk late into the night about everything and nothing with a girlfriend. Walking to Starbucks to get a latte alone felt like I was this carefree woman with nothing on my mind but the insignificant stuff of the day. I have needed this...can one really step out of life? Yes! My grief was on hold for just a couple of days and when I came home it was there patiently waiting for me. The heaviness of it swallowed me up and it welcomed me home. How long had I been gone? A life time?...Two days ?...enough to clear my mind, to strengthen my frame, to pretend I was somebody else in another time in another place. When I walked in the house I was surprise to realized that I had missed this sadness that defines and sustains me. It made me more sad to learn that I have come to see this as part of my construct, as part of my being. I will never be able to run away from it, grief will have to be the one to leave me, to gently walk away from me. I wonder if I will just wake up one morning and the world will be in color...now I only see black and white, my eyes have adjusted and often I forget what it was like to be surrounded by light, music and laughter...I miss the old and pray that the new will be brighter, for now I am satisfied to walk in this in between place of darkness and light, in a world of shadows undecided as to where to go. The past pulls me back and the future tugs me forward. Both scare me a bit, one because I know will stagnate my life and the other because I only have very limited visibility. I'm trusting that though I cannot see, I have a very safe and secure Guide. I feel like a blind woman walking down a crowed street afraid that the noise of life around me will cause harm. I'm very vulnerable right. Grief and sorrow are powerful emotions, that strip the heart of all defenses, of all common sense, of all protection. I should be happy to have stepped out of so much sadness...my mind speaks logic but my heart has no ears.

Thanksgiving.

Sunday, November 26, 2006

Thanksgiving.

So here I am, the Thanksgiving day of 2006 come and gone, listening to my mother's futile attempts to vacuum the house that was recently ransacked by many very-Hispanic family members; my very-American father typing away in his "mobile command center," happy that he no longer has to worry about language barriers at the dinner table; my sisters scampering in and out of the house, enjoying the very un-November-like weather; my brother playing guitar in his upstairs bedroom, putting off doing his laundry so we can drive back to school; and my anxious little cockatiel whistling away the afternoon, happy that she can be heard instead of the loud Spanish noises that have been the music of my household for the past several days. Thanksgiving is quite a to-do in this little house of mine.

I greatly enjoy Thanksgiving, if only for the pumpkin pie. I really do like seeing the family we only get to see once a year, and having them tell me how much I've grown (I stopped growing in 7th grade, I promise) and how beautiful I'm becoming. Hispanic women are dreadfully loving and sweet. No matter how much they tell me I'm not eating enough at the "Georgia Institute of Technology University," I still love having them in my house, asking them about the countless other relatives who couldn't come this year, because they always seem to know what's happening in their family, and they always seem to have the best stories. They group together and speak in hushed whispers about what will become of us, the young ones, pretending I can't understand what they're saying. I love how they refuse to speak to me in English and refuse to accept an answer from me in English--making sure I don't forget the language that's supposedly in my blood.

But, now that that family has left, returning to their own very-Hispanic homes, I can breathe and actually think about the past few days and the meaning of this hectic holiday. Gratitude and thankfulness for one's life only comes one day out of the year? I beg to differ... I would hope that it comes more often than that... however, I am glad that there's actually a time of year that basically forces me to view my life as a whole to grasp how much there is to appreciate. While I'm a big fan of lists, the list of things I'm thankful for has no foreseeable end. There’s simply entirely too much that I love. I think it’s taking me a while to fully grasp how much I’ve been blessed with… And, sadly, I don’t think I’m adept enough to express all my comprehension troubles with words. I hope it’s enough to simply state that I’m quite grateful right now, here, today, in this small cyber space.