balance.

When I am among the trees,
especially the willows and the honey locust,
equally the beech, the oaks and the pines,
they give off such hints of gladness,
I would almost say that they save me, and daily.

I am so distant from the hope of myself,
in which I have goodness, and discernment,
and never hurry through the world
but walk slowly, and bow often.

Around me the trees stir in their leaves
and call out, "Stay awhile."
The light flows from their branches.

And they call again, "It's simple," they say,
"and you too have come
into the world to do this, to go easy, to be filled
with light, and to shine."

- Mary Oliver

When I Am Among the Trees

I’ve been thinking about this poem a lot today. As I mentioned in my last newsletter, I’ve started to work with a group of small family farmers who host a market in a town called El Colorado a couple of hours outside of Resistencia. It’s absolutely wonderful. My main task is a series of interviews with the families about their products – prices, preparation, and presentation – pretty basic. Along with the job, though, it has been such a blessing to sit and chat, listen to them talk about their lives and families, their work and community, and in turn to share a bit about mine.

It has also been fun to start a job after 8 months in Argentina. I am not the Spanish-master I thought I’d be, but I’ve come a long way since the vaguely panicked confusion I felt during my first meeting at María Magdalena. There have been drawbacks to the slow start, though. A month from today, I’ll be back in Minnesota, so this has been a period of both beginning and ending, diving in and stepping back. Somehow or another, the scheduling worked out in such a way that my time here with the market is on the same days as my time as the children’s workshop and women’s group meetings at the church. I’m finding it hard to really commit to this new job (and finish the task at hand) while not neglecting this oh-so-important period of closing at the church.

Last Wednesday, I spent the morning at the market and then made the three hour trip to the church, knowing I would miss most of my time with the kids but hoping to at least make it in time for a 6 o’clock meeting with the women. When I got there at 5, though, I found out that the meeting had been moved to 4. I arrived just in time to hear the wrap-up and participate in some final organization of plans. I spent the first couple minutes feeling bad for myself, wondering how in the world I was actually going to be present with this community given my current schedule. Then it occurred to me that by spending the little bit of time I had thinking about all that I had missed, I was missing out on what little time I actually did have with the women. Oh goodness, so simple.

Anyway, my favorite part of my new job is the home visits. When I can, I try to come a day or two early or stay a day or two late in El Colorado. It gives me a chance to hang out with my coworkers, sit around the office and eat delicious meals of the freshly picked fruit and vegetables we buy at the market. It also allows me to visit the homes of the people we meet at the fair. The visits are spent drinking mate, chatting with the vendors and their kids, eating yummy treats, and taking walks through their land. The days are beautiful. It is a time to simply be together. They are work trips, and we definitely fit some information gathering and planning into our conversations. These visits have given me a glimpse into the importance of diversifying production and shown me the extensive amount of time and energy these families put into maintaining a relatively stable income. But for me, the trips are so much more than simple information gathering opportunities.  Today we visited two families from the market, and after all of the time I’ve spent lately feeling pulled every which way, it was exactly what I needed. The fresh, cool air and the slow pace, the breathtaking views and the baby animals, the afternoon light and the welcoming smiles of new friends, all of it helped me slow down, refocus, and simply be present for a while.

Now go back and look at the poem again. Really. Mary Oliver and I are having a “Killing Me Softly” moment right now. It’s so easy to get caught up in the complication and difficulty, to forget to notice the beauty and move away from the person I hope to be in the midst of all of this newness and discovery. And then a slow day or a long walk or a beautiful view becomes a reminder to “walk slowly, and bow often…to go easy,” because only then can the light and the goodness of the people and places around me find its way in. Wonderful.

I’m going to leave you with some pictures from my visits to the homes of these new friends of mine. Thanks for sharing in this journey with me. :)

All my love.

independence.

My host family went out of town last month. And while I was sad to be without their company, I was also looking forward to some time alone. I’ve spent the past two years living in community – moving in with a group of strangers and working to build a space that was life-giving for us all, a space where we could explore what it meant to live well in our surrounding communities. This year was different – instead of working to build a community, I stepped into a preexisting community and worked to find my place within the routines and expectations that had already been set. Because of this, I began to think of this vacation as a chance to be independent, to set my own routines and to do things on my own for a while.

And then I got mugged.

It wasn’t a big deal. There was never any danger, just a young boy who jumped off a motorbike and ripped my bag off my shoulder. I was fine. Fine, until I remembered that my bag contained all of my house keys and my cell phone. All of a sudden my hope for independence and self-sufficiency went right out the window. I was helpless and completely at a loss as to what I should do next.

I walked down the street in a daze, not really sure where I was going, and came across some neighbors who were on their way out for a New Year’s Eve party. I apologized for detaining them as they hurried out the door, told them what had happened, and tried to gather my thoughts. Was there any way I could get into the house? What was I going to do without keys for the next few weeks? Was I going to have to stay with a friend until my host family got home? Would I have to cancel my upcoming vacation plans? I had gotten to the point of feeling comfortable navigating day-to-day life in Argentina, but I felt so incapable of dealing with this unexpected situation.

My neighbors, however, were wonderfully up for the challenge. They consulted with each other and some other friends, adjusted their plans for the evening, and took me to find a locksmith. When the locksmith wasn’t immediately available, they gave me a set of keys to their house and set me up with some mate and fruit salad while I waited. They also gave me the phone numbers for everyone in their extended family in case I ended up needing somewhere to spend the evening.

After just a few minutes, the locksmith and his teenage daughter showed up. As the locksmith worked, his daughter chatted with me. After having had a moment to sit, the excitement of the past 30 minutes caught up with me and the tears started to come. The two of them sat and talked with me for a while and waited while I made sure I had copies of all of the keys so I would be okay for the next couple of days. They comforted me but also let me cry for as long as I needed – I didn’t for a moment feel like my tears were making them uncomfortable or like they were in any hurry to move along to the New Year’s Eve party they were heading off to. They too left me with their phone numbers and an invitation to their family’s New Year’s Eve party, and refused to let me pay for their help.

I spent the next couple of weeks thinking a lot about the extreme kindness I had experienced on New Year’s Eve, but I also settled pretty quickly into my previous delusions of independence.

And then I got bit by a dog.

It was just a little dog, but with fairly impressive jaw strength. I was rounding the corner onto my street and stepped off the curb (ironically, I moved off the sidewalk to avoid another group of dogs up ahead) and the combination of my approach and the group of barking dogs up ahead must have startled the little guy. I never even saw him coming, but he ran up behind me and took a good chunk out of the back of my leg. 

Once again, I found myself at a loss. It was midnight, and I had just gotten off the last bus of the night. I was sure my host family kept first aid supplies in the house, but I was a little worried about getting blood all over everything before I found it. More than anything, though, my mind was running through all of the rabies-vaccination related horror stories I had heard over the years.

Luckily, once again, my neighbors came to my rescue. An older man who lives down the street had been sitting outside his house and saw the whole thing happen. He immediately came up to me and led me over to his house, cleaned off my wound, and gave me a glass of water and a place to sit down. He then walked over to his next door neighbor’s house and a minute later, came back to say that he had arranged for her to drive me to the doctor. This neighbor is someone I had waved to on my way to work, but we had never actually met before. Even still, she sat with me while I got cleaned up and did her best to explain the things I didn’t understand.  Best of all, the neighbors recognized the dog and promised to go talk to the owner the next day to make sure the dog was up-to-date on its vaccinations.

The thing is, this whole time I’ve been trying to put the idea of accompaniment into practice (accompaniment is defined by the ELCA as “walking together in a solidarity that practices interdependence and mutuality”), but central to what we’re doing here is the idea of mutuality. I was willing to admit that I would be served here – I still seem to spend more time asking questions and being confused than actually helping with anything – but my willingness to need always had its limits. It was always controlled and superficial. I never really let myself feel vulnerable or lost, or at least tried not to show those feelings. But sitting and crying with the locksmith and his teenage daughter, or looking to the neighbor I had just met when I had questions about what the nurse at the 24 hour clinic was telling me, those experiences helped me to let go. They taught me how to need and how it’s okay to feel lost sometimes. These moments also taught me about what community actually means, what it is to be a neighbor, and what “interdependence and mutuality” might actually imply.  

All my love.