Reflections on my new home…
When the afternoon sun streams in through my apartment window, I feel the grace of God. I’ve been living here in San Juan de Lurigancho for nearly 2 months now, and I continue to have these moments of pure gratitude where I just thank God for the little miracles that are all around me here. I thought moving here would be hard, and it hasn’t been all peaches and cream–it’s dusty and when I look out my window I gaze onto the hills that are covered with shacks, and I still don’t know how to respond. It worries me that I might just get used to it, accept it as a given that people live in substandard housing and extreme poverty. But, more than a challenge, moving here has been a grace. I walk to work in the mornings, and I can visit the churches I work with on the evening and weekends because they are close by. My downstairs neighbors brought me arroz con leche the other night–that was sweet.
By San Juan de Lurigancho standards, my apartment is a luxury for just one person. I didn’t plan on living here alone, but both my potential housemates have fallen through, and now I’m resigned to being alone here, at least for the moment. And I also believe, at least for the moment (but hopefully for longer than that) that I can live here alone without being lonely. And that is also the grace of God.
Lima is starting to sink into my bones. That is, it is starting to actually feel like home–a place where I can let my guard down, chill out, and live like a normal human being rather than a displaced foreigner. It’s a strange sensation to walk home from the bus stop, observe the neighborhood on a Saturday afternoon, and actually feel like I’m going home. I see beauty where before, in my previous visits, I saw ugliness, dirt, and underdevelopment. I notice trees and flowers and beautiful gardens where before I only noticed the lack of them. The sky is blue and smiles at me, where before I looked at the gray clouds and frowned. Lima is telling me that she loves me and she is happy that I am here, thankful that I believe in her when so many other people speak badly of her, or simply use and abuse her for their own selfish ends, so that she closes in and becomes distrustful and lonely. But I believe that this city has the possibility to be an open heart, a seeing eye, and a helping hand shared by rich and poor, Limeño y provinciano, and even extranjero.
I believe that God is able to do immeasurably more than all we can ask or imagine, and I happen to be on God’s side, so I believe that good things are in store. It is easy to feel like working for the kingdom of God to come–for justice, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit–is a labor of toil, a relentless fight that I feel like I am losing. I felt like that last Saturday after my meeting with the youth–like we didn’t get to where I hoped, didn’t have any ‘aha’ moments of new discovery. I felt so frustrated.
But, I believe that it is not up to me, and that God is at work, molding all of us into his perfect image. So my anxiety is melting into hope that you will act Lord, and make us who we are, truly–people of peace, the just who live by faith, oaks of righteousness, a planting for the Lord’s splendor.
Reflections on my new home June 11, 2009
I am a hopeless idealist June 4, 2009
At the risk of sounding cheesy I want to write about how excellent my trip to Uruguay was. There are some events in my life that stick with me as pivotal experiences, turning points that mark a new beginning in my life. My trip to Uruguay was one of those moments. Something about it was completely renewing for my soul. Perhaps it was the break from the metropolitan jungle of dust and concrete that is Lima—the novelty of waking each morning and being able to look out across the verdant, rolling landscape and walk around at dawn in the dew-kissed grass until my socks were soaked through. Perhaps it was the music, songs of el pueblo, whose words capture the reality of the fighting tender heart of Latin America and whose folkloric rhythms sent sparks through my whole body. Most definitely it was the moments of connection—the encounters with young people from all over Latin America. The diversity and passion that emerged from the union of thirteen different countries, at least 5 different languages, and one common theme, “unafraid to dream.”
I had the privilege of being a facilitator for the small group sessions that we had all week. We called these times, “mateando juntos” which means to share mate, a traditional herbal drink, together. But sharing mate means much more than simply passing a drink back and forth, it is communal ritual that elicits conversation and inclusion. It enables a circle of trust to be formed where ideas can be shared and voices heard. Through my experience as a group facilitator I was challenged to listen and respond with an awareness that each person’s contribution to the dialogue had infinite value, and that together we could create new ways of articulating a response to our reality that are coherent and relevant to our diverse contexts.
I also facilitated a “family group” which was an intimate small group where we had time to share what we were thinking about and learning, and pray for one another. It reminded me what an incredible grace we are given as children of God, transcendentally bound with one another by the Holy Spirit, that we can join together on a Wednesday with “strangers” from foreign countries, and by Friday we are sisters and brothers with bonds that will remain across time and distance inasmuch as we let them.
So, I am romanticizing everything. I have a tendency to do that. But that’s why I put the disclaimer at the beginning of this note. I don’t mind being cheesy if it means that I get to share a bit of the pure joy and freedom that we are meant to live this life with. When I was in Uruguay I felt like I was 15 years old again—that was the time in my life when I used to laugh so uncontrollably that I got the nickname, “lawnmower” for having this uncontainable laughter that would get revved up and just keep growing louder and stronger. I love laughing like that. To laugh until it hurts and to cry until there is nothing left—those are two extremes that I don’t mind arriving at, because it means that I am alive. In Uruguay, I felt fully alive, and fully aware that the God I serve is the God of life, el Dios de la vida. Everything God is and everything God does is directed toward the impartation of abundant life to all people.
Since I’ve been back it’s been my goal to remain fully alive. What I am discovering in these days, or better said re-discovering, is that abundant life is marked by growth, but the process of growing is often a painful one, as it involves pruning and requires careful attention. Human growth and character development isn’t a passive process, it’s a surrender of will and an opening up to possibilities that are out of my control. In the last month it has meant cutting things off—letting go of relationships and plans, things that I thought were solid and that I had figured out. It has meant taking initiative and making time to do the things that give me life and joy, things like writing this note, baking brownies, inviting my friends to lunch, and buying nice things without feeling guilty. It has meant facing my own fears—fears of being lonely, of living in San Juan de Lurigancho by myself, of living through another Lima winter, fears of my own shortcomings and insecurities—and actually believing that I can overcome them and thrive in my life here. It has meant living in the present and not fretting about the future, but it has also meant reawakening dreams and the desire deep within me to do great and profound things with my life. It has meant being true to myself.
So, once again, I am grateful to be alive, and grateful specifically for the life that God has given me. No one else can live it for me, so I intend to live it abundantly.
