I have always had a thing for Joy. Like some kind of raucous romantic relationship where I chase it, lose it, understand it, become confounded by it, desire it with all of my being, and carelessly toss it aside in order to wallow in whatever version of selflessness appeals to me more.
There's just something so pure and lovely and un-human about Joy.
It's not an emotion. It's different from happiness. It's more than a state of mind or heart, it's a state of spirit, which are of course the hardest kind to understand. that is until you let the One who lives in your spirit explain it to you.
I learned a lot about Joy when I was in Nepal from my dear friend Meera, whose incredible story taught me of unfathomable faithfulness to God, of wisdom far above my level of comprehension, of pure and selfless service. But Meera really just exudes Joy in her faithfulness, in her wisdom, in her service, even in the way she speaks of her horrific past. She is Joy personified. More than anyone I have ever seen and maybe will ever see.
And that impacted me. greatly.
Joy became even more inportant to me after seeing it in its pure form in Meera, and I sort of claimed it as mine, as my word, my thing. I wanted to be known for Joy, to learn how to truly have it at all times, how to not confuse it with emotions, for my life as a whole to be marked by Joy in the Truth, Love, and Freedom of Christ.
And maybe I did for a while.
And then that raucous romance kicked in and Joy and I weren't really speaking for a while.
I spoke to God some, loved Jesus some, listened to the Spirit some.
but I forgot about Joy.
I realized last night that I missed praying. I hadn't stopped praying entrely, but I had forgotten how to live prayer. There have been times that there weren't times of prayer and not prayer, but my life was a prayer, my every breath was communication with God. And I was longing for that. And I was longing for Joy.
So I wrote God a letter. Just talked to him like my big brother or my boyfriend or the mysterious Thing within me. And they all talked too.
And I remebered how deeply and perfectly he loves me and how inconsistant and childish I am.
He showed me his goodness again. In Spanish, you would say "de nuevo." I really like that. of new. It's not like he isn't always showing me his goodness, but he did of "of new".
And JOY. of new.
more than an emotion or a feeling or a tear or a smile. the good kind. the kind that blossoms like a precious lily after a rain storm and fills the air with that sweet sweet aura and gets that crazy orange pollen all over everything. the kind that is like an uncontrollable and beautiful dance made even more beautiful by the toes stubbed from clumsiness and the ungraceful turns that result in falling into a laughing heap on the ground.
And now I want to chase it, hold it, and learn it more than ever. I still want my life to be marked by Joy. and it can be because I am first marked by the Blood.
So if you are reading this, pray. Write a letter. Breathe. Ask God to show you a glimpse of Joy. I want to share her with you. and then tell me about your Joy. She'll be different from mine, but I want to hear about her in your life. Leave a comment, facebook, email, or skype me and tell me about Joy in your life.
with Love and Joy of new,
Molly
Wednesday, April 22, 2009
Sunday, April 5, 2009
lots of poetry and sunshine
The sky was blue, the air cool, the sunshine warm, the breeze playful, and the day perfect. perfect for Neruda.
Pablo Neruda was one of the best Latin American poets ever and one of my favorites. I got to go to his house on Saturday. It might seem silly, but it really is a big deal. Catie and I dressed especially for the occasion. I even wore a flower in my hair in order to be more poetic. We boarded a bus as we have done so many times before while searching for adventure, and found it when we stumbled into the adventure of Neruda's world and his words. He was a very quirky man, a collector of strange things like figure heads from old ships, sea shells, bottles, ships in bottles, masks, and many other oddities. But mostly, he was a collector of words. An arranger of words. an artist. he had a way of making words more than words. something higher, bigger, more beautiful, something from the soul.
He of course had several houses throughout Chile in his life, one of which is actually here in Valparaiso, but I haven't had a chance to go there yet. This particular house we visited in in Isla Negra, a small coastal town about an hour and a half from here. It was his last house, the one in which he spent his final days and the one in which the culmination of all his artistry and quirkiness culminates. He built it room by room, adding on as he saw fit. there's a whole room just for his mascarones(ship figureheads) which range from nude mermaids to saintly figures. He built a room specially to house a giant paper machet horse, a cherished artifact from his childhood, and had a huge party to welcome it and make it feel at home. The concrete of the floor has smooth round seashells in it because he liked the way they massaged his feet. The forest was his first love, but he was also fascinated with the sea. Despite his love for the sea, he was also quite afraid of it and settled for sailing in a small boat in his garden rather than ever actually sailing. The house is built on a cliff over looking the Pacific where the turquoise waves constantly crash and spew diamond-like seafoam against the great boulders, worn smooth with the passing of so much time and water. Catie and I sat on those rocks and felt the sea spray on our dusty lips and marveled at the milky mermaids in the seafoam. It was all just a little too much magic for one place.
So we came home and ate a mountain of gelato while sitting on some different rocks by the ocean, watched as the sun sank into the sea like a great tomato into a bed of velvet and shuddered with delight as the evening tide brought enormous waves up against the sea wall where we unknowingly picked the one spot where the water couldn't touch us...most of the time. The moon came out in all her glory to shed her luminous silver garment on the sea and created a living watercolor on its surface as she mingled with the last colors of the day that hung in the dusky sky.
So there's my Neruda day. now go read some! here is the first one i ever read and one of my favorites: http://www.soupsong.com/ftomato2.html
he actually has a whole series of Odes to simple things like socks, wine, a spoon, a book, and even to the city of Valparaiso. You should google him and just read any of those...
* * *
Pablo Neruda was one of the best Latin American poets ever and one of my favorites. I got to go to his house on Saturday. It might seem silly, but it really is a big deal. Catie and I dressed especially for the occasion. I even wore a flower in my hair in order to be more poetic. We boarded a bus as we have done so many times before while searching for adventure, and found it when we stumbled into the adventure of Neruda's world and his words. He was a very quirky man, a collector of strange things like figure heads from old ships, sea shells, bottles, ships in bottles, masks, and many other oddities. But mostly, he was a collector of words. An arranger of words. an artist. he had a way of making words more than words. something higher, bigger, more beautiful, something from the soul.
He of course had several houses throughout Chile in his life, one of which is actually here in Valparaiso, but I haven't had a chance to go there yet. This particular house we visited in in Isla Negra, a small coastal town about an hour and a half from here. It was his last house, the one in which he spent his final days and the one in which the culmination of all his artistry and quirkiness culminates. He built it room by room, adding on as he saw fit. there's a whole room just for his mascarones(ship figureheads) which range from nude mermaids to saintly figures. He built a room specially to house a giant paper machet horse, a cherished artifact from his childhood, and had a huge party to welcome it and make it feel at home. The concrete of the floor has smooth round seashells in it because he liked the way they massaged his feet. The forest was his first love, but he was also fascinated with the sea. Despite his love for the sea, he was also quite afraid of it and settled for sailing in a small boat in his garden rather than ever actually sailing. The house is built on a cliff over looking the Pacific where the turquoise waves constantly crash and spew diamond-like seafoam against the great boulders, worn smooth with the passing of so much time and water. Catie and I sat on those rocks and felt the sea spray on our dusty lips and marveled at the milky mermaids in the seafoam. It was all just a little too much magic for one place.
So we came home and ate a mountain of gelato while sitting on some different rocks by the ocean, watched as the sun sank into the sea like a great tomato into a bed of velvet and shuddered with delight as the evening tide brought enormous waves up against the sea wall where we unknowingly picked the one spot where the water couldn't touch us...most of the time. The moon came out in all her glory to shed her luminous silver garment on the sea and created a living watercolor on its surface as she mingled with the last colors of the day that hung in the dusky sky.
So there's my Neruda day. now go read some! here is the first one i ever read and one of my favorites: http://www.soupsong.com/ftomato2.html
he actually has a whole series of Odes to simple things like socks, wine, a spoon, a book, and even to the city of Valparaiso. You should google him and just read any of those...
* * *
On Sunday I went with my host family to Palm Sunday mass on the beach. I was initially really excited about the idea of church on the beach, but it didn't turn out to be as awesome as i had hoped. We were facing away from the ocean and directly into the sun. I'm not sure if it's jsut because I'm not used to Catholic mass yet or what, but it was just off. Everyone, including my family, bought these funny little woven palm things with leaves and rosemary in them from vendors on the sidewalk to wave around while we sang some fun songs. I will say that is the first time I have really seen joy in mass. But other than that, it all just seems so arbitrary. I couldn't help but think that the beautiful 5 year old girl who was exploring the properties of sand, burying her moms feet, laying in it, making pillows out of it, just loving the grainy golden heat of it, was experiencing god more than everyone else there with their solemn prayers and nasty communion wafers. Then at the end the preist walked, or rather waded, through the throngs of people who were crowding around him, sprinkling the little palm things with holy water, blessing them so people can hang them in their houses for the rest of the year. weird.
anyway, after church i ate too much for lunch and went with catie to the beach closest to our houses to bask in the afternoon light that seemed to be dripping from every tree and rooftop, letting it soak into my already pink skin, thoroughly heating me all the way down to my soul and the tips of my toes.
at night after a particularly lovely once(eveining meal) catie and i hung out some more, as usual, and ended up having yet another existential-meaning-of-life-and-purpose-and-god talk/freak out and decided we want to go to Bolivia to do some kind of volunteer program in july before we come home. then i embarked on the arduous journey of figuring out classes for next semester. While navagating the complicated sea of credit hours, spread sheets and course numbers, i realized that if i don't get a second major in Spanish, i can very likely graduate in a year. So i think i'm gonna do that. which means that none of the Spansh I'm taking here really counts for anything, which means that academically I came here for no reason, which I am totally ok with! Somehow it kind of adds a little more validity to my life here. Catie and i always said that we aren't really here for school, but school is just an excuse to live here. and now that's even more true. PLUS this also means that I dont have to take that painfully difficult spanish literature class that made gazillions of pages of impossibly long and incomprehensibly old spanish hang over my head all the time.
instead i'm taking Italian Language and Culture(basically Italian I) with Catie and a Latin American poetry class with all gringos which should be pretty lovely.
so there's that.
things i've learned:
*there is a reason you are supposed to see your advisor before you leave the country. it's so you don't have to try to figure out all this crazy credit and graduation stuff through email...suuuuuuuck
*despite what most chileans(including my host family) apparently believe, you cannot get a cold from not wearing enough clothes, from being in the house without shoes or slippers, from leaving your window open, from not blow-drying your hair, etc. the common cold is a virus in the air and has nothing to do with the weather. except that cold weather can dry out your nasal passages and make you more succeptible to the virus. but it still has nothing to do with sleeping or going outside with wet hair. nor am i going to get an ulcer because i use three scoops of nescafe.
*narwhals have an oversized tooth/tusk that grows through their lip and can be up to 3 meters in length. there is no practical use for the tusk, and it's not even symmetrical(they only grow it on one side of their face!). Pablo Neruda has one in his house and catie was all kinds of confused because she didn't realize that they weren't just mythical creature, hence the google-fest that brought about this fountain of knowledge...also, queen elizabeth once payed the amount of money it would take to build a castle for a cup made of a narwhal tusk.
*NEVER make plans with chileans. they will always fall through. or if you do make them, just get ready to be either disappointed, frustrated, confused or any combination of the three.
*art projects are the best.
*the indigenous people of Easter Island(which politically belongs to Chile) are actaully descendants of ancient India/Pakistan. my professor for my history of modern india class discovered this when Chle hired him to do a study proving that Chile had a rightful claim to the island(he didn't do a very good job of that). but he figured it out because there were something like 100,000 "linguistic coincidences" between their language and ancient sanskrit. and according to him there are no "linguistic coincidences" because language is the DNA of culture. if two languages share something or have common words, it is because they came from the same place or converged somewhere. sooooo interesting! i really like nerding out in that class...
* being without a camera sucks. catie's got stolen last weekend(go read her blog!) and i think mine has sand in it or something, or at least the motor can't work. either way, it can focus on anything and makes lots of scary sounds.
*i am discovering that i am silmultaneously a lot more ready to be grown up and petrified of it than i thought...funny how that works
*i miss clothes fresh out of the dryer
*this isn't really anything a learned, but just a fun tidbit - my host dad brought home another pet turtle(we already have one, his name is Alex) for my little host sister and she let me name it! I chose Bartolomeo. i wanted Beatriz, but then she told me it was a boy...
*mine and catie's sameness of mind and soul is getting creepier every day. and yet we are growing in such different ways.
*the Chilean mail system is a lot more trustworthy than i previously gave it credit for.
ok that's enough.
PLEASEPLEASEPLEASE leave comments. even if you don't really have anything to say. they really do make my day.
besitos!
anyway, after church i ate too much for lunch and went with catie to the beach closest to our houses to bask in the afternoon light that seemed to be dripping from every tree and rooftop, letting it soak into my already pink skin, thoroughly heating me all the way down to my soul and the tips of my toes.
at night after a particularly lovely once(eveining meal) catie and i hung out some more, as usual, and ended up having yet another existential-meaning-of-life-and-purpose-and-god talk/freak out and decided we want to go to Bolivia to do some kind of volunteer program in july before we come home. then i embarked on the arduous journey of figuring out classes for next semester. While navagating the complicated sea of credit hours, spread sheets and course numbers, i realized that if i don't get a second major in Spanish, i can very likely graduate in a year. So i think i'm gonna do that. which means that none of the Spansh I'm taking here really counts for anything, which means that academically I came here for no reason, which I am totally ok with! Somehow it kind of adds a little more validity to my life here. Catie and i always said that we aren't really here for school, but school is just an excuse to live here. and now that's even more true. PLUS this also means that I dont have to take that painfully difficult spanish literature class that made gazillions of pages of impossibly long and incomprehensibly old spanish hang over my head all the time.
instead i'm taking Italian Language and Culture(basically Italian I) with Catie and a Latin American poetry class with all gringos which should be pretty lovely.
so there's that.
things i've learned:
*there is a reason you are supposed to see your advisor before you leave the country. it's so you don't have to try to figure out all this crazy credit and graduation stuff through email...suuuuuuuck
*despite what most chileans(including my host family) apparently believe, you cannot get a cold from not wearing enough clothes, from being in the house without shoes or slippers, from leaving your window open, from not blow-drying your hair, etc. the common cold is a virus in the air and has nothing to do with the weather. except that cold weather can dry out your nasal passages and make you more succeptible to the virus. but it still has nothing to do with sleeping or going outside with wet hair. nor am i going to get an ulcer because i use three scoops of nescafe.
*narwhals have an oversized tooth/tusk that grows through their lip and can be up to 3 meters in length. there is no practical use for the tusk, and it's not even symmetrical(they only grow it on one side of their face!). Pablo Neruda has one in his house and catie was all kinds of confused because she didn't realize that they weren't just mythical creature, hence the google-fest that brought about this fountain of knowledge...also, queen elizabeth once payed the amount of money it would take to build a castle for a cup made of a narwhal tusk.
*NEVER make plans with chileans. they will always fall through. or if you do make them, just get ready to be either disappointed, frustrated, confused or any combination of the three.
*art projects are the best.
*the indigenous people of Easter Island(which politically belongs to Chile) are actaully descendants of ancient India/Pakistan. my professor for my history of modern india class discovered this when Chle hired him to do a study proving that Chile had a rightful claim to the island(he didn't do a very good job of that). but he figured it out because there were something like 100,000 "linguistic coincidences" between their language and ancient sanskrit. and according to him there are no "linguistic coincidences" because language is the DNA of culture. if two languages share something or have common words, it is because they came from the same place or converged somewhere. sooooo interesting! i really like nerding out in that class...
* being without a camera sucks. catie's got stolen last weekend(go read her blog!) and i think mine has sand in it or something, or at least the motor can't work. either way, it can focus on anything and makes lots of scary sounds.
*i am discovering that i am silmultaneously a lot more ready to be grown up and petrified of it than i thought...funny how that works
*i miss clothes fresh out of the dryer
*this isn't really anything a learned, but just a fun tidbit - my host dad brought home another pet turtle(we already have one, his name is Alex) for my little host sister and she let me name it! I chose Bartolomeo. i wanted Beatriz, but then she told me it was a boy...
*mine and catie's sameness of mind and soul is getting creepier every day. and yet we are growing in such different ways.
*the Chilean mail system is a lot more trustworthy than i previously gave it credit for.
ok that's enough.
PLEASEPLEASEPLEASE leave comments. even if you don't really have anything to say. they really do make my day.
besitos!
Thursday, April 2, 2009
there's blood on my hands
I hate all your show and pretense
The hypocrisy of your praise
The hypocrisy of your festivals
I hate all your show
Away with your noisy worship
Away with your noisy hymns
I stop up my ears when you're singing 'em
I hate all your show
Instead let there be a flood of justice
An endless procession of righteous living, living
Instead let there be a flood of justice
Instead of a show
Your eyes are closed when you're praying
You sing right along with the band
You shine up your shoes for services
There's blood on your hands
You turned your back on the homeless
And the ones that don't fit in your plan
Quit playing religion games
There's blood on your hands
Instead let there be a flood of justice
An endless procession of righteous living, living
Instead let there be a flood of justice
Instead of a show
I hate all your show
Let's argue this out
If your sins are blood red
Let's argue this out
You'll be one of the clouds
Let's argue this out
Quit fooling around
Give love to the ones who can't love at all
Give hope to the ones who got no hope at all
Stand up for the ones who can't stand at all, all
I hate all your show
I hate all your show
I hate all your show
I hate all your show
Instead let there be a flood of justice
An endless procession of righteous living, living
Instead let there be a flood of justice
Instead of a show
I hate all your show
-Jon Foreman
I've been thinking a lot about liberty and justice lately. and not in the patriotic or political sense, but in a social and spiritual sense. I long for liberty for the "invisible children" of Northeast Africa and justice for their oppressors. I desire liberty for the sex slaves of Asia and justice for their pimps. I wish for liberty for the poor and homeless from their poverty and despair and justice for those who turn a blind eye. I want liberty for both my Chilean and American friends from this endless and unsatisfying cycle of partying and justice for whoever told them it was good. I crave liberty for myself from materialism and pride and also justice for myself because i believe the very lies i try to combat with scripture. i deserve justice because i forget the invisible children, the abused women, the orphans and the widows, and the millions enslaved to false gods of all kinds, be it krishna, money, beauty, allah, or the worst of all the god of self.
i sat on the beach today, spent some time alone with god for the first time in a while. and i realized, yet again, that my idea of liberty and justice are not the same as his. as much as i want to just wrap up every child soldier in loving arms and throw the men who abuse them into a pit forever, god's liberty is better. more complete. his liberty is true. and i also have to remind myself that before he condemns, he offers mercy first. the mercy that he grants me every time i believe a lie or put something as my idol above him or am ashamed of his mark on me is the same mercy he offers to the warlords, druglords, and medialords. after the mercy is offered and rejected, he judges and brings them what it owed. and his justice and his wrath will be intense. but he loves them first.
so basically i want to have hope that god can and will make even the most evil of things right and remember that it won't always look like we want it to. and i want to stop being just like those that i criticize and actually act. love the poor and the widows and the orphans and i want to to what luke 6:27-36 says:
if you havent already(and even if you have) go here :
http://www.invisiblechildren.com/marchhouseparty/index.php?id=1993739679&utm_sou
and find out how to fight for the physical liberty of child soldiers. do it for me since they aren't doing this in chile.
The hypocrisy of your praise
The hypocrisy of your festivals
I hate all your show
Away with your noisy worship
Away with your noisy hymns
I stop up my ears when you're singing 'em
I hate all your show
Instead let there be a flood of justice
An endless procession of righteous living, living
Instead let there be a flood of justice
Instead of a show
Your eyes are closed when you're praying
You sing right along with the band
You shine up your shoes for services
There's blood on your hands
You turned your back on the homeless
And the ones that don't fit in your plan
Quit playing religion games
There's blood on your hands
Instead let there be a flood of justice
An endless procession of righteous living, living
Instead let there be a flood of justice
Instead of a show
I hate all your show
Let's argue this out
If your sins are blood red
Let's argue this out
You'll be one of the clouds
Let's argue this out
Quit fooling around
Give love to the ones who can't love at all
Give hope to the ones who got no hope at all
Stand up for the ones who can't stand at all, all
I hate all your show
I hate all your show
I hate all your show
I hate all your show
Instead let there be a flood of justice
An endless procession of righteous living, living
Instead let there be a flood of justice
Instead of a show
I hate all your show
-Jon Foreman
I've been thinking a lot about liberty and justice lately. and not in the patriotic or political sense, but in a social and spiritual sense. I long for liberty for the "invisible children" of Northeast Africa and justice for their oppressors. I desire liberty for the sex slaves of Asia and justice for their pimps. I wish for liberty for the poor and homeless from their poverty and despair and justice for those who turn a blind eye. I want liberty for both my Chilean and American friends from this endless and unsatisfying cycle of partying and justice for whoever told them it was good. I crave liberty for myself from materialism and pride and also justice for myself because i believe the very lies i try to combat with scripture. i deserve justice because i forget the invisible children, the abused women, the orphans and the widows, and the millions enslaved to false gods of all kinds, be it krishna, money, beauty, allah, or the worst of all the god of self.
i sat on the beach today, spent some time alone with god for the first time in a while. and i realized, yet again, that my idea of liberty and justice are not the same as his. as much as i want to just wrap up every child soldier in loving arms and throw the men who abuse them into a pit forever, god's liberty is better. more complete. his liberty is true. and i also have to remind myself that before he condemns, he offers mercy first. the mercy that he grants me every time i believe a lie or put something as my idol above him or am ashamed of his mark on me is the same mercy he offers to the warlords, druglords, and medialords. after the mercy is offered and rejected, he judges and brings them what it owed. and his justice and his wrath will be intense. but he loves them first.
so basically i want to have hope that god can and will make even the most evil of things right and remember that it won't always look like we want it to. and i want to stop being just like those that i criticize and actually act. love the poor and the widows and the orphans and i want to to what luke 6:27-36 says:
27 “But I say to you who hear, Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, 28 bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you. 29 To one who strikes you on the cheek, offer the other also, and from one who takes away your cloak do not withhold your tunic either. 30 Give to everyone who begs from you, and from one who takes away your goods do not demand them back. 31 And as you wish that others would do to you, do so to them.32 “If you love those who love you, what benefit is that to you? For even sinners love those who love them. 33 And if you do good to those who do good to you, what benefit is that to you? For even sinners do the same. 34 And if you lend to those from whom you expect to receive, what credit is that to you? Even sinners lend to sinners, to get back the same amount. 35 But love your enemies, and do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return, and your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High, for he is kind to the ungrateful and the evil. 36 Be merciful, even as your Father is merciful.
and i want these convictions to be actions. to yield fruit. i'm afraid my fruit doesn't match all the things i say a believe. i'm afraid i might be all show. but god is good. he is merciful and strong and he likes to teach me. so i'm going to let him...if you havent already(and even if you have) go here :
http://www.invisiblechildren.com/marchhouseparty/index.php?id=1993739679&utm_source=email&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=march-party-email
and find out how to fight for the physical liberty of child soldiers. do it for me since they aren't doing this in chile.
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