stages of instability.

I’m feeling impatient. I am reminded again and again of why I am here, of how well this community fits with my questions and interests, but it often feels just out of my reach. There are wonderful things going on all around me but I don’t always have the Spanish skill or the background knowledge to understand or participate in what is happening.

I go to meetings and events excited to ask questions, to listen and learn, to get to know the people in my community. Usually, though, after a few slow, concentrated conversations, my energy begins to fade. Even when conversations go well, my vocabulary level doesn’t allow for particularly engaging discussions. Really, this is what I expected, but when talking with a woman about how the local church can provide better support around the issue of family violence in the neighborhood, or listening to parents discuss their efforts to organize a advocacy group for parents of children with disabilities, or talking to a group of teenagers about the effects of pesticides in their communities, I want to wrestle with the ideas, not with the words themselves.

Thank goodness for the patience of others. Today, as I walked home from work after a day of collecting dirt from the backyard that we will make into clay for the kids, I thought about a sermon I heard in high school. At the time, I wasn’t particularly blown away, but for some reason it has stuck with me through the years. The point was that throughout the Gospel, people approached Jesus in many different ways, but all with similar results. Some came looking. Some were sought after. Some were making a desperate final attempt at finding some peace. And some were carried. Sometimes when we are incapable and unprepared, the people around us are the ones that do the important work. Now, as I struggle to have patience with myself, I am feeling carried by the patience of the people around me: the effort of my host parents as they take the time to really talk to me, the willingness of my supervisor to meet with me after every meeting to go over everything at a slower pace, an e-mail from home that says exactly the right things.

In my human moments, the moments where I forget about grace and patience and just feel frustrated, I often make my way back to a prayer I was given a couple of years ago during another period of impatience.

Above all, trust in the slow work of God.

We are, quite naturally,

impatient in everything to reach the end

without delay.

We should like to skip

the intermediate stages.

We are impatient of being

on the way to something unknown,

something new.

And yet, it is the law of all progress

that it is made by passing through some stages of instability–

and that it may take a very long time.

And so I think it is with you.

Your ideas mature gradually–

let them grow, let them shape themselves,

without undue haste.

Don’t try to force them on,

as though you could be today

what time (that is to say, grace and

circumstances acting

on your own good will)

will make you tomorrow.

Only God could say that this new spirit

gradually forming within you will be.

Give our Lord the benefit of believing

that his hand is leading you,

and accept the anxiety of

feeling yourself in suspense and incomplete.

Teilhard de Chardin

All my love.

iguazú.

It occurred to me that you might want to know a bit more about what I've been doing here in Argentina. So, in an effort to make this blog about more than just my feelings, and in an attempt to show off the fact that I've actually taken a few pictures (something I haven't done in years!), here we go...

My first weekend here I traveled with the women of Misión Maria Magdalena to Misiones, a province in northeastern Argentina, for a meeting of Lutheran women in Northern Argentina. It gave me a chance to meet a variety of women and learn from them as they discussed what it meant for the church to be present with older women in their communities. From there we drove the extra 90 minutes to Iguazú Falls. It is the kind of place that seems too beautiful to be true. These pictures hardly capture the falls’ enormity or exceptional beauty, but they’ll give you a taste of what we saw.

All my love.

pack nothing.

I have a history of overpacking. Even going to the grocery store, I have a tendency to carry two or three books along, just in case I have an extended period of time to read. Still, during our orientation in Buenos Aires, when we were asked to share something we packed that represented what we might bring to our new communities, what of ourselves we might share or leave behind, I found myself at a loss. So much stuff, and couldn’t come up with anything that I might have to give. Throughout orientation, some of the other volunteers and I joked that the only thing we were really good at was hugging. Unfortunately, that didn’t seem appropriate for the current setting.

I couldn’t come up with any skills, any pieces of knowledge or gifts, nothing tangible that I could think to share. And really, I felt this way consistently as I prepared for the year. I expected to come and live and learn and fall in love with people and places and simply be here in Resistencia. But no part of me expected to come here and have anything to give. Nothing beyond the giving of oneself that is always a part of relationships.

Yet somehow, for now, this feels like enough. I am here because I am trying to trust in the value of simply being together, trying to have faith in the possibility of learning lessons from one another that are not intentional, but sneak in unexpectedly. I am here because of the consistent reminders that God is present with the people in Resistencia, and because of a hope that through them I might find some of the ways that God is present with me and my community in the US. I am here because I think that God is doing good things in the world, and we as people of God need to figure out how to be a part of that good.

I recently read Nadia Bolz-Weber’s commencement address for the class of 2011 at Pacific Lutheran Theological Seminary (PLTS) in Berkeley. She starts off by saying this:

Perhaps you are sitting here… thinking am I now prepared?  Do you really have what it takes to serve the church as a pastor or lay leader or educator? And the answer is: don’t be silly. Of course you don’t.  If you are worried that you have weaknesses and deficiencies and short-comings or, as we recovering alcoholics call them, “defects of character,” you can stop worrying.  You’re right.  You really don’t have what it takes. 

She then goes on to talk about how our strengths and confidence can get in the way, but our failures and uncertainties, the things we don’t understand and have yet to learn, those are the things we can bring when pursuing true service and community. Thank goodness.

What I did bring – hope for a year full of surprises and faith that something will come of it – wasn’t something I could figure out how to share. As I thought about this, I found myself looking back to Passover Remembered, by Alla Bozarth-Campbell, something we read together during the large-group orientation in Chicago. For me, right now, it is a small reminder of the importance of the journey rather than the plans, the preparation, and the specifics of what we might bring.

Pack nothing.

Bring only your determination to serve

and your willingness to be free.

Don’t wait for the bread to rise.

Take nourishment for the journey, but eat standing,

be ready to move at a moment’s notice.

Do not hesitate to leave your old ways behind –

fear, silence, submission.

Only surrender to the need of the time –

to love tenderly, act justly and walk humbly with your God.

Do not take time to explain to the neighbors.

Tell only a few trusted friends and family members.

Then begin quickly, before you have time to sink

back into old slavery.

Set out in the dark.

I will send fire to warm and encourage you.

I will be with you in the fire and I will be with you in the cloud.

You will learn to eat new food and find refuge in new places.

I will give you dreams in the desert to guide you safely home to

that place you have not yet seen.

The stories you tell one another around the fires in the dark will

make you strong and wise.

Outsiders will attack you, and some will follow you,

and at times you will get weary and turn on each other

from fear and fatigue and blind forgetfulness.

You have been preparing for this for hundreds of years.

I am sending you into the wilderness to make a new way

and to learn my ways more deeply.

Some of you will be so changed by weathers and wanderings

that even your closest friends will have to learn your features

as though for the first time.

Some of you will not change at all.

Some will be abandoned by your dearest loves

and misunderstood by those who have known you since birth

and feel abandoned by you.

Some will find new friendships and unlikely faces,

and old friends as faithful and true as a pillar of God’s flame.

Sing songs as you go, and hold close together.

You may at times grow confused and lose your way.

Continue to call each other by the names I’ve given you,

to help remember who you are.

Touch each other and keep telling stories.

Make maps as you go,

Remembering the way back from before you were born.

So you will be only the first of many waves of deliverance on the desert seas.

It is the first of many beginnings – your Paschaltide.

Remain true to this mystery.

Pass on the whole story. Do not go back.

I am with you now and I am waiting for you.

All my love.  

confession.

I’ve been avoiding this. If I’m being honest, I really didn’t want a blog. What I want is to sit with you and drink a cup of coffee and talk through the day. The thought of typing out my experiences, my thoughts, the things I’m learning, and putting them here for all to see is just a little bit intimidating. Since leaving San Francisco for Resistencia, Chaco, Argentina, so much has been new and challenging and wonderful and difficult and important that I haven’t quite figured out how to start talking about it. Not only is there a lot to cover, but I plan to change my mind consistently throughout the year. In this new context, with new people, doing new things, I am sure my initial response will often not be my final response. I hope to have your patience, to have the space to try out new ideas, to reassess old ideas, and to get things wrong. I hope that you will accompany me as I go through the days, and maybe we can learn some things together.

All my love.