Reflections on my new home June 11, 2009

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.