This is the helmet conch, dad explained.
To a 5 yr. old, a glassy coated shell from the ocean is treasure beyond belief. I would carry it next to my ear, listening to the sound of the ocean. I asked my dad how it kept the sound inside. He told me that when a conch is taken from the water, it dies, and it will forever holds the sound of the sea…the sound of its home.
I think this is much like each of us, our hearts carry the sound of where we belong. It may be why we believe in destiny or fate, why
I love the idea of carrying who you are deep inside of you.
For years after my dad left, I would often take the shell and lay listening to its sound. Wishing the ocean would wrap me up, wishing my father would wrap me up.
Today, Thanksgiving day, I am missing the sound of the ocean and the sound of my father. There are no oceans and no shells anywhere around.
I went up stairs to be away from the busyness and in the closet I found a box with my name, Christmas presents from last year (can you believe my life is so busy I fail to open presents, it is true) but my mom had said she had bought some things for my house one day, and since I am no where near having a house, I left them wrapped.
Is God so purposeful that today I would opened the first present a year later, and my tears brim….I was looking at a carved wooden angel with long brown hair, and she was holding a beautiful conch shell up to her ear.
Who are You, God?
Monday, November 26, 2007
Monday, November 19, 2007
burning the vows
He was holding the scissors up to one of his dreads, questioning if he really wanted to cut them.
Do they free me or keep me in bondage?
The peace came, and he cut it.
He continued cutting them off, one by one and burned them. He said they smelled sweet like incense.
This is a tradition of the Nazarite - to grow their hair out when they make a vow to God. When they have fulfilled the vow, they cut their hair to signify its completion and then burn it.
As he watched them burn, he said he felt freedom come.
Do they free me or keep me in bondage?
The peace came, and he cut it.
He continued cutting them off, one by one and burned them. He said they smelled sweet like incense.
This is a tradition of the Nazarite - to grow their hair out when they make a vow to God. When they have fulfilled the vow, they cut their hair to signify its completion and then burn it.
As he watched them burn, he said he felt freedom come.
Not the Savior
I am listening to her words on the phone….
she is asking me if she is beautiful,
she is asking him if she is beautiful,
she is asking the world is she is beautiful.
I am asking the same question.
Each woman is asking the question.
If dad doesn’t answer it, if I don’t know how to answer it, if mom answered but I couldn’t hear her, then who will tell us we are beautiful? Because society tells me to be a slut and the world asks me to be a whore…and if my breast aren’t large enough, doctors tell me they can fix it. Fix it? Like it is some deformity or disease.
How will femininity be taught if there are few women who can remember the definition? What will I tell my reflection everyday? What will I tell my daughters one day?
I ask God about it often – see, I really want to be beautiful. I want to capture men’s approval, I want to collect the world’s affirmation so that I can feel beautiful. I want my husband to think I am beautiful enough to be faithful or my father to think I am beautiful enough to love. Why does that seems so impossible?
And He answers…you weren’t made to be the Savior.
We weren’t made to save them….a woman’s beauty is not a man’s savior. A woman’s beauty is supposed to ultimately point a man to God eternal glory, the truest beauty. Thus a man’s strength was not made to be a woman’s savior, it was to draw her into God’s perfect strength.
The battle is harder now, because men and women who have little sense of their beauty and their strength are trying to save each other. Women build their beauty upon the desire to complete and answer a man’s hunger, yet she will always fall short. She will always fail to satisfy his lust and he will fail to satisfy her expectation.
she is asking me if she is beautiful,
she is asking him if she is beautiful,
she is asking the world is she is beautiful.
I am asking the same question.
Each woman is asking the question.
If dad doesn’t answer it, if I don’t know how to answer it, if mom answered but I couldn’t hear her, then who will tell us we are beautiful? Because society tells me to be a slut and the world asks me to be a whore…and if my breast aren’t large enough, doctors tell me they can fix it. Fix it? Like it is some deformity or disease.
How will femininity be taught if there are few women who can remember the definition? What will I tell my reflection everyday? What will I tell my daughters one day?
I ask God about it often – see, I really want to be beautiful. I want to capture men’s approval, I want to collect the world’s affirmation so that I can feel beautiful. I want my husband to think I am beautiful enough to be faithful or my father to think I am beautiful enough to love. Why does that seems so impossible?
And He answers…you weren’t made to be the Savior.
We weren’t made to save them….a woman’s beauty is not a man’s savior. A woman’s beauty is supposed to ultimately point a man to God eternal glory, the truest beauty. Thus a man’s strength was not made to be a woman’s savior, it was to draw her into God’s perfect strength.
The battle is harder now, because men and women who have little sense of their beauty and their strength are trying to save each other. Women build their beauty upon the desire to complete and answer a man’s hunger, yet she will always fall short. She will always fail to satisfy his lust and he will fail to satisfy her expectation.
5 a.m.
It’s dark outside and the Texas air is a bit colder than my previous Central American mornings. Seriously, who likes waking up when it is still dark, I mumble to Kinsey as we brush our teeth. I got in late last night for Thanksgiving holiday, and to my normal expectation of family ritual, we are all up early going to workout at the wellness center together.
Five of us pile into the car as I laugh out loud at Uncle Steve’s brilliant white headband that lies in a straight line across his forehead. I think to myself that if I had this entourage with me, I might get up every morning to workout. Now stretching is a great preface, but as the song My Hips Don’t Lie begins our circuit routine – I can’t help but laugh as I watch my beloved family workout in their perfect form. Aunt Nicole’s arms are flailing vigorously as she lunges up to complete her set of sit-ups, Kinsey and Alan will not be left in the dust with their elevated heart rate apparent in each jumping jack and jump rope. Uncle Steve’s headband is methodically peeping at me in the mirror with every push-up. And little old me, well, I laugh as I attempt to balance on this exercise ball, certain no one has ever mastered looking attractive bouncing up and down on a circular rubber object.
It doesn’t end there, our $10 was not well spent until we walked out of the building only to run up a hill – now the hill country of Texas is a small feat to one who lives in the mountains, but to this flat land Louisiana/Florida girl it was quite the push. (don’t worry, I was the first one back!)
My only complaint to the morning was the dissonance of the ever-still darkness we drove home in. Somehow I am not conditioned to understand how people get up and finish such a task before the sun is awake. Yet I look forward to my holiday here, because with my family, it is always an adventure.
Five of us pile into the car as I laugh out loud at Uncle Steve’s brilliant white headband that lies in a straight line across his forehead. I think to myself that if I had this entourage with me, I might get up every morning to workout. Now stretching is a great preface, but as the song My Hips Don’t Lie begins our circuit routine – I can’t help but laugh as I watch my beloved family workout in their perfect form. Aunt Nicole’s arms are flailing vigorously as she lunges up to complete her set of sit-ups, Kinsey and Alan will not be left in the dust with their elevated heart rate apparent in each jumping jack and jump rope. Uncle Steve’s headband is methodically peeping at me in the mirror with every push-up. And little old me, well, I laugh as I attempt to balance on this exercise ball, certain no one has ever mastered looking attractive bouncing up and down on a circular rubber object.
It doesn’t end there, our $10 was not well spent until we walked out of the building only to run up a hill – now the hill country of Texas is a small feat to one who lives in the mountains, but to this flat land Louisiana/Florida girl it was quite the push. (don’t worry, I was the first one back!)
My only complaint to the morning was the dissonance of the ever-still darkness we drove home in. Somehow I am not conditioned to understand how people get up and finish such a task before the sun is awake. Yet I look forward to my holiday here, because with my family, it is always an adventure.
Saturday, November 10, 2007
Burning of the Pines
We were driving through the Pine Reserves in the Maya mountains – this Reserve was once filled with acres of beautiful strong pine trees. In the midst of rainforest mountains, a wild piece of land grew with thousands of pines. Their strong backs in rows across the land.
The trees were plagued with black beetles and the entire reserve was almost lost. The only way to save it was to set fire to the trees. The fire, which stripped them of all of their glory, was actually their savior. The forest burned with brilliance only leaving small remnants of what resembles a tree. It no longer draws tourist in, the ash is all they see. But if you look close you would find deep under the burned bark, sap remains. Life is still beating deep in the roots.
The irony is chilling as I am looking for myself in this forest. Trying to find if I am still standing, if he is still standing? The disease was too deep, it had spread too far – we couldn’t catch it, all would have been lost. He dropped the match and walked away.
I wonder if God saw the light from up there? I wonder if He notices when we are burned up, if He too stops and stares? Seems our God is too wild for me. Only He would allow beauty and disaster to share the same scene. The fires take everything. Little is left.
I stare at the trees covered in ash, stare at my future and back at my past. Which one more beautiful, who is to say? Is it brilliance of glory that I am burned up by His mercy…and I am left to discover that their is beauty in what someone else said is an ugly, burned pine tree.
In a few years I will return to this forest - I will dance in its radiance, in the re-growth and the glory.
The trees were plagued with black beetles and the entire reserve was almost lost. The only way to save it was to set fire to the trees. The fire, which stripped them of all of their glory, was actually their savior. The forest burned with brilliance only leaving small remnants of what resembles a tree. It no longer draws tourist in, the ash is all they see. But if you look close you would find deep under the burned bark, sap remains. Life is still beating deep in the roots.
The irony is chilling as I am looking for myself in this forest. Trying to find if I am still standing, if he is still standing? The disease was too deep, it had spread too far – we couldn’t catch it, all would have been lost. He dropped the match and walked away.
I wonder if God saw the light from up there? I wonder if He notices when we are burned up, if He too stops and stares? Seems our God is too wild for me. Only He would allow beauty and disaster to share the same scene. The fires take everything. Little is left.
I stare at the trees covered in ash, stare at my future and back at my past. Which one more beautiful, who is to say? Is it brilliance of glory that I am burned up by His mercy…and I am left to discover that their is beauty in what someone else said is an ugly, burned pine tree.
In a few years I will return to this forest - I will dance in its radiance, in the re-growth and the glory.
Wednesday, November 07, 2007
Fighting crime and hanging hammocks
Boating to the mainland wasn't half as fun as packing into our 15 passenger rental van. After picking up a friend at the airport, we headed into the rainforest...passing everything from Taiwanese communities and the Haitesville jail, to finding ourselves a Mennonite! I must move on quickly through my story as the hitch-hiker though one of our favorite stories is one of many.
On our way to the Mountain Equestrian lodge, the Mennonite attempted to recruit us to his church - promising 20 men for every woman. We kindly thanked him for his offer as we let him out at his horse shoeing job...on to our weekend in the mountains! We spent our days cantoring horses through the rainforest (learning every plant antidote), hiking through waterfalls and pools, and our evening playing Scrabble and Texas hold'em by kerosene lamp...definitely the life!
We soon headed to Guatemala to climb the ruins and run from the "conejo (rabbit) hunters" better known as banditos! The land was beautiful...an untouched country with landscapes where huge lakes kissed mountainsides. The magnificence of a sunset over an untouched mountain surrounded by the sea took my breath away.
Since this adventure to the mainland, we have settled back into the normal. We spent our days at a fly fishing resort: kayaking to the reef, healing our mosquito bites in the ocean and still finding the occassional tick. My favorite is swimming into the middle of the ocean and letting the water carry me, the ocean seems to be the only place big enough to handle my heart. We are going to relax a few days....dad and I set up hammocks this morning and then ran to the bridge to report an attempted burglar who wears a gray hat and blue backpack...the elderly tariff collector at the bridge assured us he would keep a look out! i laugh at the simplicity of this place.
I miss my friends tons but who would fight crime here on the island if I weren't here. I am looking for a replacement so I can come home soon!
all my love.
On our way to the Mountain Equestrian lodge, the Mennonite attempted to recruit us to his church - promising 20 men for every woman. We kindly thanked him for his offer as we let him out at his horse shoeing job...on to our weekend in the mountains! We spent our days cantoring horses through the rainforest (learning every plant antidote), hiking through waterfalls and pools, and our evening playing Scrabble and Texas hold'em by kerosene lamp...definitely the life!
We soon headed to Guatemala to climb the ruins and run from the "conejo (rabbit) hunters" better known as banditos! The land was beautiful...an untouched country with landscapes where huge lakes kissed mountainsides. The magnificence of a sunset over an untouched mountain surrounded by the sea took my breath away.
Since this adventure to the mainland, we have settled back into the normal. We spent our days at a fly fishing resort: kayaking to the reef, healing our mosquito bites in the ocean and still finding the occassional tick. My favorite is swimming into the middle of the ocean and letting the water carry me, the ocean seems to be the only place big enough to handle my heart. We are going to relax a few days....dad and I set up hammocks this morning and then ran to the bridge to report an attempted burglar who wears a gray hat and blue backpack...the elderly tariff collector at the bridge assured us he would keep a look out! i laugh at the simplicity of this place.
I miss my friends tons but who would fight crime here on the island if I weren't here. I am looking for a replacement so I can come home soon!
all my love.
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