memoirs of algeisha

May 17 2013

The Writing that I Used to Know

It took me awhile to recognize you on the radio. The first few times I heard you, I probably didn’t even notice. And then when I finally matched your lyrics to your melody, I was hooked.

I downloaded you on iTunes. Listened to you on morning jogs, while typing emails, while falling asleep. I. was. obsessed.

I thought I would never tire of you. I thought you would always be my favorite.

I don’t know when the transition happened. When the first strums of “du du-un, du du-un, du dun dun dun dun dun” started to irk instead of perk.

But it happened. I started playing you less. Started changing the station when you came on. Found other songs to sweat and type to. It didn’t help that everyone else was obsessed with you, too.

Now you’re there, sharing a corner of my brain and My Top 25 with Adele’s Rolling in the Deep, Damien’s Cannonball and anything by Mumford and Sons.

You’re an old favorite song. Sometimes I listen to you. Sometimes I get nostalgic or accidentally hit shuffle. And as you do your thing, I wonder what it was I saw in you in the first place. I have a vague idea of why liked you. A sweet as cotton candy memory of when we first met. When you used to make me soar. But now, for the life of me, I can’t listen to you all the way through.

***

Sometimes I feel this way with words. With what I’ve written. With what I write.

Sometimes it feels like all the same song. The same tune. The tired fiddle.

Writing feels like something that used to be my favorite, but now makes me cringe–like my junior high bangs or Christian pop band posters from (dare I say it) college.

I’m still going to write. Like I’m still going to listen to music. But I can’t help but wonder what happened to the writing that I used to know.

***

This post is part of Lisa Jo Baker’s Five Minute Friday prompt, Song. Every Friday, we turn off our inner critics and perfectionists and just write for five minutes straight. Zero editing. Just a stream of conscious free for all. And then we all link up and encourage each other. To learn more about Five Minute Friday and how you can participate click here.

Tagged Five Minute Friday, Free write, Gotye, Music, Somebody that I used to know, Song, writing

May 15 2013

2 Comments

Poetry

Evergreen

Today I want to share a poem by one of my favorite poets who doesn’t happen to be T.S. Eliot, but Luci Shaw.

We’re on the cusp of the rainy season here in Guatemala. Last week, a thick, smoky haze settled over the sky from the pre-harvest burning of sugar cane fields over on the coast. Some days, the clouds roll in and spit out a little water, but the real downpours, the real rain-everyday-until-everything-you-own-is-moldy season hasn’t started yet. But it’s coming, it’s definitely coming.

We’ve just planted new flowers in our garden, confident that they’ll thrive and bloom with the rains to come. I think of the seeds I want to sow in my own life–the seeds of friendship and growth and hope–and ache to be confident that they will bloom into full-fledged flowers, too.

And I was reminded of this poem, Evergreen, by Luci Shaw. It’s actually a Christmas poem, about a tinsel-strewn Christmas tree and piney-scented evergreens. But she writes a phrase that rings through me here on the cusp of planting season: planted with purpose.

I’ve done a lot of work with an organization called Plant With Purpose. In fact, I was a part of the team that helped come up with the name. I’ve punned and alliterated the heck out of that phrase. But I had never once thought of myself as the object being planted with purpose.

I’d never thought of the phrase in the context of Jeremiah 17:8:

“They are like trees planted along a riverbank, with roots that reach deep into the water. Such trees are not bothered by the heat or worried by long months of drought. Their leaves stay green, and they never stop producing fruit.”

Or Psalm 1:3

“That person is like a tree planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit in season and whose leaf does not wither– whatever they do prospers.”

Without further ado, here’s the poem and an invitation to ponder what it would mean for you to be planted with purpose, tapping in to the water of life, and bearing the Spirit’s sweetest fruits. Enjoy.

Evergreen

Topped 
with an earthbound angel, 
burdened 
with man-made stars, 
tinsel-draped, 
but touched with no 
true gold, 
cropped, girdled 
with electricity— 
why be a temporary tree, 
glass-fruited, dry, 
uprooted? 

When you may be 
planted with purpose 
in a flowered field, 
and where, 
living in clean light, 
strong air, 
crowned with gold 
of every evening 
every night 
real stars may nest 
in your elbow, 
rest 
be found in your shade, 
healing 
in your perennial green, 
and from deep springs your roots 
may suck enough to swell 
within you 
the Spirit’s sweetest fruits.

Taken from Luci Shaw's, Accompanied by Angels: Poems of the Incarnation.

Tagged Accompanied by Angels, Evergreen, Growth, Jeremiah 17:8, Luci Shaw, Plant With Purpose, poetry, Psalm 1:3

May 13 2013

3 Comments

Getting Fit

A still, small lantern of rising hopes

Sunday night. The sun had dipped below the clouds and the volcano, painting the sky darker and darker shades of gray as the minutes passed by until I was left, book light and journal in hand, in the calm, dark air.

I can’t say why, but I felt the call. I heard a voice that said to wait, to stop, to put away the cell phone and the computer and the distractions, to ditch trivia night and salsa dancing, and step out on the terrace and just be.

“Go out and stand on the [terrace] in the presence of the Lord, for the Lord is about to pass by.”

Soon the lightening started and the dazzling flashes bounced off the clouds and the silhouette of the volcano.

I’d been avoiding it: Reflecting. Writing. Reviewing. Examining.

I’d been examining my life much like a flash of lightening—quickly and briefly and unsustained.

If I really examined my life, I’d be disappointed, I feared. I thought by now my Spanish would be better and my friendships deeper. I thought I’d feel awake and alive and adventurous. Instead, most times, I feel lonely and small. Disconnected and disconcerted.

So I’ve been numbing, tuning out, taking the insight to change like a flash of lightening, here one minute in radiant glory, back in stagnant darkness the next.

I sat a few moments more, breathing in the cool air and reviewing my journal from the last four months, scared of what I would find—or of the changes and growth and life I wouldn’t find.

220px-Spider-Firework-Omiya-Japan

And then the fireworks started. No kidding. Not just little homemade things, but Disneyland caliber explosions boomed and sizzled against the twilight sky. Like the dramatic adventure I thought my life would be. And in the darkness between bursts, weeping willow shapes burned against the canvas of the sky, burned into my brain—the remnants of the dreams I once saw so clearly—the adventure, the learning, the restoration of joy. Quick and bright and burning, and then darkness.

And then the show was over. Back to silence. Back to breathing.

And then, as if a lightening show and fireworks were not enough for one night, a tiny Japanese lantern–just one–with its silent, soft flame ascended into the sky, past my terrace over the rooftops and away into the distance.

A small, sustained light of rising hope.

I’ve got say He pulled out all the stops to point me to the miracle, the magic. To help me realize not in a flash of understanding, but in a slowly burning brighter and brighter awareness that this was a holy moment, a magic night, a sacred space, a sacred life.

That He is here. That His voice is the one that calls with love and grace.

And when I open not just my journal, but my heart to the feelings I’ve buried deep within, to the hopes and fears and disappointments, when I finally have the courage to stop and be honest, be real, be present—He will meet me in those moments.

I don’t have to listen to the lies and the cries anymore that say:

Don’t be alone.

Don’t think.

Don’t stop.

If you stop, the guilt, the sadness, the loneliness, the regrets will engulf you.

“BUT THAT IS NOT TRUE”, the still small voice said as the lantern climbed into the sky.

lantern

“If you stop–stop your striving, your avoiding and distracting and numbing–if you stop before me,

IT IS GRACE THAT WILL ENGULF YOU.”

Not guilt. Not shame. Not a voice of condemnation. But my love and grace.

And it caught me between my ribs, a pinch, a pulse, and it burned throughout my being, rose up to my heart, my hopes.

I am loved. There is nothing but grace for me, nothing but hope.

I can’t help but write it say it shout it share it.

He spoke Love. He rekindled my heart. Stirred my hopes.

Not in the flashing lightening.

Not in the roar of fireworks.

But with a still, small lantern of rising hopes, glowing softly in the inky sky.

***

Have you ever experienced an invitation to stop and be engulfed by grace?

Tagged Fits of Unwarranted Compassion, God, Grace, Guatemala, Hope, Japanese lanterns, Love

May 07 2013

3 Comments

Guatemala, T.S. Tuesday

T.S. Tuesday: A Taste of Home

“Home is where one starts from.” East Coker, Four Quartets, T.S. Eliot

This week I had a taste of home. My family, complete with corny dad jokes, freckles, and an abundance of luggage, visited me here in Guatemala. And. it. was. so. GOOD.

Home for me is not a place, but people. The people who have seen all of my ugly and love me anyways. The people who laugh and cry and share life with me.

And I was gifted with the opportunity to share a week with four of these people, the people who carry my heart, and give them a taste of the beautiful city and country where I’m learning to make a new home.

We laughed, we cried, we ate tortillas, we haggled and we got ripped off. I got to be a tourist in my own town and was pleasantly surprised to see how much I’ve learned and grown in the past nine months. But mostly, we had a heck of a lot of fun. We laughed at my dad attempting to speak Spanish (to his defense, he studied French in high school). We hobbled over the cobblestones of Antigua. We just so happened to run into ten of my closest friends around town. We bought art from my friend, Joel, handmade boots from my friend, Elio, and chocolate from my friend, Pablo. We hiked, a lot. We hiked to the top of the Cross, to the office where I work, to a magnificent lakeside getaway carved into the side of a cliff at Lake Atitlan. We kayaked across the smooth as glass water to splash upon a lakeside worship service and baptism. We dipped in a hot tub heated with a wood stove. We rode in the back of pick up truck with 15 Guatemalans and sped across the lake in a water taxi regrettably named, Titanic. We were welcomed into the home of my friends and coworkers. We almost witnessed my brother knock down a tiny salsa instructor in one fell swoop because he was dancing “too sexy” with me.

It was glorious.

I was reminded of the beauty all around me here and the beauty in the part of me that still aches for home.

But I am here. I am whole. The missing and the aching is a sign that I am whole, not that I am part, or less than. It is a testament to the goodness of the community I left and to which I will return. It’s rare, this type of community, the home I have with my real family and the “family” of friends and sisters who have welcomed me back in San Diego. And I long for it, ache for it with all of my being.

But I remind myself, I am here. I am whole. Today I am stopping to see the grace. What grace it is that I am here. That I’ve learned to navigate a new city and a new country. That I’m learning still how to love and connect and engage with people across cultures, with people who are very different from me.

And thankfulness rises.

In a town where I can’t make it to the park without greeting someone I know, but have an exceedingly short list of friends I could really count on when things get tough, it was a refresher for my soul to be with the people who have loved me for a long time and will continue to love me for a long time still. Thank you for the taste of home, of where I started from, and the reminder that ALL IS GRACE.

Here are some of my favorite photos from the trip:

In front of our cliffside hotel in Lake Atitlan, Casa del Mundo (pronounced Case-uh del Moonday by my dad)

Morning kayaking.

Relaxing at Casa del Mundo.

My brother clambering into a pickup truck 'taxi.'

My mom and brother clambering into a pickup truck ‘taxi.’

The hotel hot tub. We had to make reservations and it took them 5 hours to fill it up and heat it up. That’s a ‘snorkel heater’ in the tub; waterproof fireburning hot tub heater. Works great!

My brother and his girlfriend’s pose with their caricature done by friend, Joel.

Handmade boots!

Shopping!

Don’t you want to come visit, too?!

Tagged East Coker, Family, Four Quartets, Guatemala, Home, poetry, T.S. Eliot

Apr 29 2013

A Psalm and a Prayer

A psalm and prayer to move in the JOY of the life You have for me.

^{1 “}Oh, the joys of those who do not
follow the advice of the wicked,
or stand around with sinners,
or join in with mockers.
²But they delight in the law of the Lord,
meditating on it day and night.
³They are like trees planted along the riverbank,
bearing fruit each season.
Their leaves never wither,
and they prosper in all they do.”

Psalm 1:1-3

they delight in the work of the Lord

day and night, they think about His law, which is Love

they bear fruit–joy, peace, kindness, self-control, and the like

In response, I pray…

for a heart that delights in bringing glory to You

for a mind that meditates day and night on your Love

for a life that bears fruit

Tagged Bearing Fruit, Delight in the Lord, Joy, Prayer, Psalm 1

Apr 27 2013

Guatemalan Goodness

I’ve been pretty sad lately, paralyzed with missing the life I left behind to move to a foreign country, stewing in a sense of what I’ve lost, instead of soaking in the good, the gifts.

But today I choose to see the good, to bite off the tasty fruit of this life, this fruit, this place He has given me. To rejoice in what is, not pine after what isn’t. I will choose to, as Jason Todd recently wrote in an article for Relevant Magazine, “taste daily, deeply and constantly of the goodness of God.”

My new blogger friend, Elizabeth at Taking Shape Slowly, very eloquently wrote about this challenge to finding Home wherever we are,

“The challenge is to make ourselves at home, to live the life that is, rather than the one we had always dreamed. Praying over tender roots still unsure that they were meant to live in soil, unaware that the burlap was just the transition.”

I want to let these roots of goodness grow. I will not plant bad days. I will plant hope and gratitude and grace for myself in this transition, this oh-why-is-it-taking-so-long-to-feel-at-home transition.

Today I offer up a smorgasbord of the goodness of God in my life here in Guatemala, my life now, the life that is not exactly the life I dreamed, but is the life I have before me.

The goodness of God is..

a run to a cross on a hill, sweat shining, heart pounding, lungs and legs and life alive.

a warm breeze, a volcano view, and a green picnic table turned outside office

being walked home after a night of salsa dancing, delivered safely to my doorstep, no moves made, no disrespect, just a friend looking after a friend

friends and family who put up with my snotty, crying homesick skype calls

promises to flank me if I’m seen getting too friendly with a creepy guy, or a very cute, non-creepy guy that I still shouldn’t be getting so friendly with. . .

learning new salsa moves

being challenged to give a blog training workshop in Spanish to my Guatemalan and Salvadoran coworkers–and enjoying it!

being trusted to polish people’s words, to tell their story on their behalf

freshly folded laundry and a laundry lady who knows me by name

a purring cat curled in my lap

stringing together syllables of Guatemalan slang

spontaneous cafecitos with friends I just happen to see in the park

the anticipation of sharing this place and this life with my family when they visit in just three days!

What are you grateful for today? Where do you see the goodness of God?

Tagged Being Present, Gifts, Goodness, Gratitude, Guatemala, Jason Todd, Relevant Magazine, Taking Shape Slowly

Apr 26 2013

18 Comments

Five Minute Friday

Five Minute Friday: Missing Friends

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Friends.

What can I say–I miss them.

The tears pool and I think, “my cup runneth under.” In a new country, a new place, a new community where I haven’t yet found community. At least how I left it in San Diego. With friends and soul sisters and fellow travelers in the journey.

I’d trade the male attention and gawking and “chit chitting” noises from the men I pass in the street, and even the Spanish speaking, for a conversation with a real friend over coffee. For a heart to heart with someone who knows more than just my name and what country I’m from. For a reminder of who I was when I liked myself. Back in San Diego, where I was welcomed into so many circles, so many communities with love and acceptance I did not deserve. And I’m here in this town of transient tourists and do-gooders and missionaries and social entrepreneurs and travelers of every stripe, and I just miss home. Miss friends.

I miss the friends who changed my life. Who sang a song of love over me. Who loved me when I didn’t love me. Who live boldly and authentically and deeply. Who taught me to fight for my own heart. Who taught me to cradle their hearts and calm their fears. Who shifted my sarcastic spirit to one of encouragement, of uplifting, of truth telling. Who taught me how to be a friend.

And as I sit, missing and messy, I think of the people I see every day here in this town of transience. I think of their smiling and drinking and volcano climbing and volunteering and Spanish learning and how jealous I am of how happy they look, how comfortable. And I wonder if they have nights too of sitting, missing and messy.

I wonder how I can be a friend.

***This post is part of Lisa Jo Baker’s Five Minute Friday writing challenge. To learn more about Five Minute Friday and how you can participate click here.

Tagged Five Minute Friday, Friends, Friendship, Loneliness

Apr 17 2013

Making Lemonade: Sharing Sights, Sounds, and Stories from La Limonada

Unfortunately I haven’t had much time to blog this week, BUT I am super excited to share that my friends over at Lemonade International are more than making up for my absence.

Lemonade International is a really cool organization that partners with the community of La Limonada (which literally means Lemonade) in Guatemala City. I respect their thoughtful, heartfelt approach to community development and definitely think they’re worth checking out.

And lucky for us, this week a group of bloggers are visiting and writing and sharing and capturing incredible images and stories that highlight the joy and pain, the gifts and the challenges, of partnering with people from one of the toughest areas in the slums of Guatemala to foster healing and hope for the future.

I hope to one day visit for myself, but until then I will drink in the stories and details and reflections from this group of passionate and talented bloggers and artists and thinkers who are so generously giving us a glimpse into the incredible work taking place in this resilient community.

Photos from 2013 Bloggers Trip Photographer Scott Bennett

Just a taste of my favorite reflection so far comes from Katie Høiland’s post, Day 1: Violence and the Aroma of Christ:

“As we debriefed tonight, the Director of Lemonade International reflected on the ‘power of presence’ to bring healing and follow the example of Jesus. When Jesus wept, he entered into the pain of death and gave relationship. Before offering the answer of resurrection to the problem, he entered in and acknowledged the suffering. By imitating Christ in this way, Tita and her team are visible signs of the same resurrection power. They are proclaiming in word and action the love of Christ causing hate to die. As 2 Corinthians 2:14 says, “Thanks be to God, who in Christ always leads us in triumphal procession, and through us spreads the fragrance of the knowledge of him everywhere.” I could almost smell it.”

To read more reflections from the Lemonade International Blogger team (Tim Høiland, Katie Høiland, Paul Burkhart, Dana Byers and Scott Bennett) and enter into in to the sights and sounds and stories of La Limonada, click HERE.

And I actually happen to be real life friends with Tim and Katie and Scott. I love their blogs, love their hearts, and love their work. So please please please check them out and check out Lemonade International. Believe me, these stories will leave you far more refreshed then spending another evening developing an inferiority complex from mindlessly browsing wedding and baby and food photos on Facebook or Instagram. You won’t be sorry.

Tagged Community Development, Dana Byers, Guatemala City, Katie Hoiland, La Limonada, Lemonade International, LIBloggers, non-profits, Paul Burkhart, Tim Hoiland

Apr 11 2013

1 Comment

nonprofits, Uncategorized

Beyond the Buzzword: Sustainability

As many of you know, I’m pretty heavily involved in the non-profit scene. My day job, my volunteer job, my past job, all were in the non-profit sector. Most of my friends work for non-profits, and I often find myself writing needs statements, crafting newsletters, and obsessing about how hard or soft to make an ask–in my sleep.

Lately my do-gooder friends and I have been talking a lot about non-profit philosophy, asking questions like, “Why are non-profits defined by what they don’t do (make money) instead of by what they accomplish? When is a non-profit really self-sustaining? Is sustainability even the point? Aren’t we supposed to work ourselves out of a job?”

My head is swirling with unresolved questions and answers and ideas, which means, per usual, I will be attempting to work them out by writing them out.

And so write, I did. A couple days I ago I shared my thoughts on one of today’s biggest buzzwords, sustainability, on the SERES blog, an incredible non-profit where I’m spending my days here in Guatemala.

I write,

“The big buzzword in both the development world and the green movement today is sustainability.

If only we could get our development to be sustainable, our lifestyles to be sustainable, our projects and impacts and businesses to be sustainable.

But from where I live in Guatemala, I look around at the shoe shine boys in the park, dark polish staining their hands, at the families who curl up to sleep outside, at the little girl selling sweets to tourists during school hours. I look at the horrifying statistics of poverty and malnutrition in the region and wonder who in their right mind would want to sustain or preserve, protect or conserve, this status quo.

Instead of focusing on sustainability, shouldn’t we first work toward creating a quality of life that’s worth sustaining?”

Check out the rest of the post, Beyond Sustainable, here.

I’d love to hear your thoughts and ideas and non-tax-deductible two-cents on the topic of sustainability and world-building and do-gooding, whether here on Memoirs of Algeisha or over at SERES.

How do you help build a world that’s worth sustaining? Do you think sustainability should be our ultimate goal as non-profits and businesses, as families and individuals? What’s your experience with the non-profit world?

Tagged doing good, non-profits, Seres, sustainability

Apr 09 2013

2 Comments

T.S. Eliot

T.S. Tuesday: Be Here

“Time present and time past
Are both perhaps present in time future
And time future contained in time past.
If all time is eternally present
All time is unredeemable.
What might have been is an abstraction
Remaining a perpetual possibility
Only in a world of speculation.
What might have been and what has been
Point to one end, which is always present.”

--Burnt Norton, Four Quartets, T.S. Eliot

Birds called in the distance as I panted my way up the hill, hiking one foot in front of the other to my favorite spot in Antigua, El Cerro de La Cruz. It’s my favorite because there are trees and the hill curves upward and it reminds me of the foothills of Northern California where I grew up, where I first learned to pray in the hushed quiet of a forest blanketed with pine needles and smelling of Christmas. A soft haze hung over the city and my lungs burned and my legs burned and my rear end will not be happy with me tomorrow (although hopefully the stair steps will yield some perky results in the long run.) And I can’t explain why, but it even looked like a better day.

A day when God would speak. A day when light would pour in to the lonely places and the sad places and the hum drum and homesick places.

A good friend of mine was just telling me that she misses doing things with people–active things like walking or dancing or making food. It’s one of the deepest ways she connects and she feels she doesn’t get enough of it.

And it got me to thinking about how I connect. Not just with people, but with God. And it made me miss the salt and the spray and the startling beauty of the cliffs where I used to run in San Diego. Where I would pound and pant and start to pray again after a very long time of silence.

Somehow God always seemed to show up there, at the edge of the cliff, on the edge of the world, in my quiet morning workouts before the work day. He was in the lapping waves and vertical cliffs and smell of sulfur. He was in my lungs as I ran. He met me when I stopped.

I know I connect with God in nature, in movement, but I haven’t really done it here. Not in this town where the streets are ankle-twisting cobblestone and people say it’s not safe to run alone. Where the cat calls abound and I know women who’ve had their butts slapped and their dignity degraded on an afternoon jog.

But I’m sick of staying inside. I’m sick of treadmills and spraying down work out machines.

But more than that, I miss hearing God speak.

So today I ran up to the cross. Lungs burning and legs burning and heart wide awake.

And you know what? God spoke. I’ve been wrestling with the temptation to focus on the AFTER, to stew in my discontent. Lately I’ve let myself get bogged down in missing my friends and my life in San Diego. In missing my church and holding hands across the aisle to pray at the end of the service. In missing my routine and my car and the relationships that give my life such fullness, grace, and color.

I wrote it on Friday and it’s a daily surrender: Be here. Be present. Don’t miss this life here.

And as the birds called to one another and the haze began to lift and my labored breathing began to slow, I looked out at the city I have chosen to call home for now, and He whispered,

“Be here–because I am here.“

And today didn’t just look like a better day. It was a better day.

Tagged Antigua, Being Present, Burnt Norton, El Cerro de la Cruz, Four Quartets, poetry, T.S. Eliot, T.S. Tuesday