feliz navidad

i just realized today that last year when i was in Nepal i was always looking for beauty in the world around me - perhaps inspired by the depraved environment of poverty in which i was living. today i am living in abundance and i have a hard time seeing beauty in it. God, restore my vision, open my eyes.

i don't usually get one-on-one time with the kids but today for whatever reason the second van i took to school was just me and Jacob. it was me and Jacob in a fifteen passenger van on the snowy, narrow roads to elementary school. right after we pulled out of the parking lot "Feliz Navidad" came on the radio. i love Christmas music and this is one of my favorites, so i turned it up. and we just sang along with all our hearts, Jacob more confidently on the English verses. i looked back in the rearview mirror and Jacob was bobbing his head, looking around with light-hearted delight. there was no pretense, no fighting, just singing together. and then it hit me, this is it, this is my life, my lot, this is me communing with little Jacob, and this is God showing up and delighting in us. God, i long to live each minute, as a moment pregnant with life and new beginnings, give me fresh eyes and a fresh voice to sing along with you, oh God, as you did to us this morning.

warm december wind

today on my to work, the wind was warm on my face. it's the beginning of December and I live down the street from a couple 14,000ft peaks and the wind was warm today. the sky had streaks of pink and orange, spotted with sky scrapers. i spaced out and took a wrong turn and ended up running into a friend who was also biking to work so we went on together. i don't know why i never write anymore. maybe i haven't noticed enough sunsets and the wind has been too cold on my cheeks for me to look up at the sky.

if you've ever loved someone

For even as love crowns you so shall he crucify you.
Even as he is for your growth so is he for your pruning.
Even as he ascends to your hight
and caress your tenderest branches that quiver in the sun,

So shall he descend to your roots and shake them in their clinging to the earth.

Like sheaves of corn he gathers unto himself.

He threshes you to make you naked.

He sifts you to make you free from your husks.

He grinds you to whiteness.
He kneads you until you are pliant;

And then he assigns you to his sacred fire,

that you may become sacred bread for God's sacred feast.

...

But if in your fear you seek only love's peace and love's pleasure,

Then it is better for you that you cover your nakedness

and pass out of love's threshing-floor,

Into the seasonless world where you shall laugh,

but not all your laughter, and weep,

but not all your tears

Kahill Gibran from The Prophet

August and Everything After

here are some pics from the 6 day wedding roadtrip of love to celebrate B.J. & Christi in Brown County, Indiana! ((matt and i rode out with four girls, a little boy, an aunt, an uncle, a mother of the groom, healthy, tasty snacks and 2 books on tape in the family van for approximately 17 hours straight - it was amazing! - they really are incredible people and i kind of miss them now)) Turns out, Indiana was surprisingly charming with rolling green hills, cozy log cabins and corn fields galore. and Joel and Laura, we loved Bloomington - lots of exotic fare and beautiful countryside!

rehearsal dinner in swim suits and ties - with our good friend, Scotty

pre-wedding photos and fun in the sun

the lovely, sunny ceremony

view from a nearby state park - loved the Indiana sunsets


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
next trip
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the majestic Sangres of central Coloradotop of Humboldt


a taste of the Alpine-beauty
-- i had never seen anything like this outside of Alaska
and it's only 3 hours and a hike from my doorstep!--

movin' on up

yea! i've moved to Denver! and i have a job!! I'm going to be working with children in an after-school program through Americorps (www.americorps.org) // TechMission Corps (www.techmission.org) and Open Door Ministries. My official title is "school-age tech coordinator" - which is of course hilarious - but i'm willing to learn as much about technology as i can if it means providing opportunity for these children that they would otherwise not have.

i haven't even been here a full week yet, but i'm excited. right now i'm living across the street from my new church (www.odmdenver.org) in a transitional house for single mothers in crisis. i'm not a single mother or necessarily in crisis, but the church is letting me have a room here for just a tiny charge - which is so nice. my second day in Denver matt and i left Denver to go climbing in Golden Canyon. I'm not gonna lie, i had a pretty hard time on a 5.9 (which isn't challenging to hard-core people) - but everyone was so nice and talked me through the hard,technical part. i'm excited to get better at climbing! I'm turning 26 tomorrow and i'm pretty sure i'm climbing my first North American 14er this weekend!!

so, yeah, if you don't have a lot of experience with Denver, let me know, i'd love to walk with you through the city and give you a taste.

so long sweet summer, part 4

i just finished my last week of my fourth and last year of summer camp. i've learned a lot from the kids throughout my summers. this is a tribute to the scores of kids with whom i spent the past three months.

let the little children come unto me

let Mitchel come chant my name and organize a coup to throw a pie in my face, let Travis offer me his abstract pipe-cleaner-piece that i was so impressed with and let Jacey bring me drawings of hearts and misspelled words. Let Bryan gather everyone around to spray silly-string in my face, let Alyssa be always by my side making funny faces and trying to hold my hand. Let Andrew be free again and may we see love reflected on his face, let Kyle come to me with complaints about his fort and how no one is sharing the sticks. Let the little children come unto me. Let Sara come to me wanting to be held and not participating in the games, let Lauren come to me when Sara has had an accident and needs a change of clothes. Let Cindy come to me when she is dying to go canoing one last time around the lake, let Justin come to me to spin him around until he vomits. Let Shay come to me when she can't find her little brother, let Jake come to me when he gets hit in the face in dodge ball and let Cameron cry by my side when he can't seem to find the toy that's right beneath his gaze. Let the little children come unto me, help me to love them and may they be free.

The Peace of Wild Things

The Peace of Wild Things
When despair for the world grows in me

and I wake in the night at the least sound

in fear of what my life and my children's lives may be,

I go and lie down where the wood drake

rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.

I come into the peace of wild things who do not tax their lives with forethought

of grief. I come into the presence of still water.

And I feel above me the day-blind stars

waiting with their light. For a time

I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.

— Wendell Berry

::::::

Isaiah says, "In repentance and rest is your salvation, in quietness and trust is your strength." So, i'm trying to rest and not to worry about what comes next and how it's all going to work out. i feel like i'm always fighting to enjoy the "here-and-now" to be at peace today, not knowing what tomorrow will bring and i'm tired. i want to rest, today, under the trees, to learn from the lilies who never toil for their food but close their eyes and sing in the breeze. i want to fall asleep to your whispers and walk ahead with the dimmest of torches.

scent of the week:

!!peppermint!!

i rubbed some peppermint essential oil on my back this morning before heading out to the amusement park with the kids and within the hour my muscles were considerably more relaxed and uncoiled. after a long day in the chlorine i washed my hair in peppermint shampoo - all-in-one. and now i'm sipping naturally caffiene free peppermint tea as i unwind from the day.this is all code for: yeah, day camp has been pretty intense this summer and i need all the refreshment i can get from peppermint oil/leaves.


i fought a cold all last week with a lot of vitamin C, some zinc, a little sleep and some prayers. i haven't been able to sing along to anything since camp started and i sometimes forget what my normal-not-hoarse-from-yelling-at-kids-voice sounds like. and by yelling at kids i only mean in positive ways - like "way to go" or "yeah, i know you're just curious, you've already asked me that same question 17 times this past hour" you know, and other positive things like that. ok, but really i do love Day Camp - i would rather wear myself out playing with kids at the edge of the mountains than wearing myself out lots of other ways. so, sorry i haven't had a lot of time for deep thoughts, it's mainly just resting/preparing for the next day full of sunshine, water hoses, climbing harnesses, camp liability forms, looking for lost water bottles, anwering questions, giving instructions, conflict resolution, dodge ball and dancing and singing off key.

tenemos gracias.

i'm thankful for:

- my nice, fresh salad tonight with sprouts, beans, and black olives

- the 5 kids at camp that all speak Spanish and their willingness to put up with my choppy/gringa conversations over Connect Four

- the discount grocery store - and my healthy cereal with lots of fiber

- the smell of the cottonwood trees on my walk home that reminds me of my aunt's front yard in Alaska

- the sound of the rain falling on the roof of the port-o-let

- kids that want to help put stuff back in the shed

- counselors that make me laugh

- my morning-time filled with quiet, coffee, reflection and prayer

- good, adventurous fiction to come home to at the end of the day

poverty and dance

May all your expectations

be frustrated.

May all you plans be thwarted

May all of your desires

be withered into nothingness,

that you may experience the powerlessness and

poverty of a child and sing and dance

in the love of God the Father,

the Son and the Spirit.

-----

~ This ‘blessing’ was prayed over Henri Nouwen by his spiritual mentor

-----

I've been experiencing this sort of

powerlessness/poverty as of late.

and as many other themes I see in Jesus' life, the theme of

brokenness, is one I'd rather avoid. It's one I'd rather

maybe not completely understand

and only admire from a distance...

yet, i trust you God and i wait.

family, flowers, and fairfield county

ok, i feel like i didn't do my time in Connecticut justice by just briefly mentioning it as an attachment or side note to my Guatemalan experiences... i mean, it was really last minute - but we had a phenomenal four days in Fairfield County visiting Matt's family --- Frisbee golf, cousin Mike, nature walks, flower houses, salmon dinners, swinging in the shade, sipping fair trade Rwandan coffee in the sun, probably the best pizza i've ever had and bagels that are hard to beat, burgundy leaves, blooming trees, ocean smells, harbours down the street, good conversation, old family photographs, high school punk band memorabilia, pedicures with Matt's wonderful mother, the biggest houses i've ever seen and precious white wooden church steeples --- i experienced just about as much culture shock in Connecticut as in Latin America --- Fairfield County is about the opposite of "small town Northeast Texas" -

and i love it!

You always here about "Boston in the Fall," but let me tell you

"Connecticut in the Spring" is no less fulfilling.

here are some pics:

Matt's childhood home, built before Texas
ever thought about being a state

Mother's Day dinner at the harbour in Norwalk

nice walk home

walking along shore of Long Island Sound

Botanical Gardens in the Bronx with the fam

I am so thankful for my time in Connecticut - it was perfect and charming

and i'll always treasure it.

Guatemala

I left Guatemala 14 days ago, but i find that Guatemala has not yet left me, and i hope that she never will. I can't shake the faces of the villagers walking along the well worn path cut into the luscious green landscape passing by out the window, carrying precarious packages on their heads, braids in their hair, weather on their faces and bright blue and green fabrics wrapped around their waists.

here are some photos from my travels in Guatemala/Mexico:

Lake Aititlan - where hippies go to die

Lake Aititlan pier

Semuc Champey - National Park pools

Volcan Pacaya - active volcano hike

our host momin Xela, Doris - kind heart, beautiful prayers, amazing cook

viva la Mexican plazas

Along the way: we met so many interesting/amazing people, learned a lot about Central American history (and the role America played in many civil wars), we tried new foods, like bean logs and plantains for dinner, we climbed many heights and looked out over many new trees and hills, surrounded by such beauty and life and color, we asked tough questions about corruption, poverty, and injustice...

I didn't have too many expectations going into the trip - Brian Mclaren, in his book, Generous Orthodoxy, says, "I just try to take it all in, ("beholding as in a mirror the glory of God"), to receive it as a gracious gift, to let it do to me whatever it will do to me. I know that in so doing, God is blessing me, transforming me from the I who I have been, creating the I who I am becoming. To be in this creatio continua, this ongoing and emerging creation, in front of all this beauty and glory means there can be no last word..."

I think of the subtitle to the movie about Che Gueverra, "before he changed the world he let the world change him." There's still a lot i have to learn from the world, my journey is not over, my questions aren't answered, but maybe that's not the point - these feelings inside me reiterate what i've always wanted to believe, that life's not about destinations and answers - it's a journey and it's full of questions.

Lord, may i never be so settled that i stop questioning what's going on around me and how you want me to address what's going on around me. May i never be so settled, so confident, so comfortable that i think i have arrived, that i have already attained all this. May i never forget my neighbors in Guatemala, the ones i have met and the ones i know not, your world, your children, teach me to love them as i love myself. Thank you for your grace, gracias por tu amor. amen.

Guatemalteca expresiónes del día

taco de ojo
literal meaning: eye taco
actual meaning: eye candy

Eso lo hago con la punta del chile.
literal meaning: I can do that with the point of a chile.
actual meaning: That´s easy.

Es solo hacerlo y escupir en la calle.
literal meaning: You just do it and spit in the street.
actual meaning: Once it´s done, it´s done

No ser chicha ni limonada
literal meaning: to be neither corn liquor nor lemonade
actual meaning: to not be religious

Hacerse un queso
literal meaning: to make a cheese of oneself
actual meaning: to dance wildly.

like ones who dreamed

When the LORD brought back the captives to Zion,
we were like men who dreamed.
Our mouths were filled with laughter,
our tongues with songs of joy.

Then it was said among the nations,
"The LORD has done great things for them."
The LORD has done great things for us,
and we are filled with joy.

Those who sow in tears
will reap with songs of joy.
He who goes out weeping,
carrying seed to sow,
will return with songs of joy,
carrying sheaves with him.

-Psalm 126 (a pilgrim song)
----------------------------------------


i love that - "like men who dreamed"
Einstein says there are two ways to live life: as if nothing is a miracle or as though everything is a miracle. i´d rather err on the side of laughing too much or singing too much. God, give me the eyes to see miracles in the world around me, to dream and believe, to be hopeful and open to change and to new perspectives. Thank you for fresh winds and spring rains, for volcanoes on the horizons, for babies smiling in their mothers´arms, for crowded busses and forgiving friends.

lyrical portrait from a friend

-------- these are words that were given to me after i shared a vision with a friend about having a table someday where all kinds of people could come and eat and find love and warmth and celebrate our similarities rather than our differences.---------


We've grown tired in time, of endless weathered miles
Heavy footsteps slide, down this fabled path
As we heed the tale, spit loud from fathers' lips.
"Seek till searching stops, at the oldest table tree"
It's there where they once fled, left home without a cent
To the home where she has carved, a tree to eat and dream.

We each gathered 'round, and ate all her food.
Drank up the company, swallowed and chewed.
And we all came alone,
till we all bowed a head at the holy oak slab
In the beak of the earth, and the breast of the sea
Everyone's stomachs grin. She fed me.

Cracked leaves tossed high from trees, the young grass; it sprung deep
Through black field marsh's bog, past dead mango groves
Stands her slab fashioned of oak, where we drench our throats
Sprawled out in tangled branch, Take peace in sheltered grace
The song we sing, with mouths full and stomachs smiling
Food our mouths do meet, and Love; we're listening

miles and miles.

sun-shower rain-shine
six hours in a metal box with rubber wheels
i wish i had noticed when the palm trees turned into cacti
i feel like everything has worked out so perfectly - you wouldn't believe how many busses we've walked right onto that were heading exactly where we wanted to go - hardly any waiting. Thank you, God, your presence has been known here in Latin America. I found a bobby pin today under Matt's foot, right outside our hostel door - it was exactly what i had been looking for in Belize.

In Mexico City there were these purple trees, even whole purple parks, plaza violetta. I really enjoyed Mexico City - so much so that I could even imagine living there. Today Matt jokingly suggested that we should rob a local store or passerby - the guidebooks are so full of warnings about indigenous pickpockets roaming the streets - so it would be fun to mix things up, to surprise the guidebooks, kind of like it would be fun to escape Texas across the border into Mexico maybe in the middle of the night - you know, just to mix things up. I love Mexico - it was nothing like the obscured glimpse of a border town that i got in college. Oaxaca was amazing - we arrived late at night and stumbled into this little gem of a bar with 2 for 1 cervezas and an incredibly festive live band with Salsa, Mexican Polka (my favorite) and many more foreign Latin beats that the locals introduced us to.

so yeah, viva la Spanish-speaking-world, we're in Antigua, Guatemala for now - completely charming in its colonial, Latin style. Guatemala is like the home-away-from-home. It makes a lot more sense than Belize (scarcely populated Carribean nation where they speak Creole-English, no one is in a hurry, and everything is bizarrely pricey while the people live in tropical poverty), in Guatemala the people are happy and they smile when you pass on the sidewalks. maybe my next post will be in Spanish.

con mucho carina,
molly

what we possess entirely

How can we own a part
of what we only can possess entirely?

We who do not own ourselves, being free,
own by theft what belongs to God,
to the living world, and equally
to us all. Life is a gift we have
only by giving it back again.

- excerpts from Wendell Berry of Kentucky

********************

i'm leaving for Mexico on Monday. it's been a bit of a vagrant month. more than anything i've learned that i don't want to live for myself anymore. i want to give myself to something. to other people. to the common air into which we all sing and through which we all travel. to belong completely to God. thank you, God, for the entire gift of life, of air, of freedom and of love.

deserts and volcanoes

i went to the desert in march
and i'm planning on hiking a volcano in april.

*************************

i went to Utah with good friends. nice, warm camping, fine foods and little fires. there were about 36 hours when we were in the Canyonlands, we hiked for miles and looked out over more and more miles of canyons - we hardly saw any people the whole time. people always wander what it must have been like for the first settlers to stumble upon these canyons for the first time? and i feel like i can almost imagine what it was like because when i looked over my first desert canyon (no, my family did not vacation at the Grand Canyon in the late eighties) and i saw amazing shades of red on the canyon walls that seemed to go on forever and boulders the size of small houses and crevises and dry, crooked creeks, orange delicate arches and just the entire landscape, nature in one of its rawest states, yeah, i was overwhelmed - in awe of the unsuspecting, desert canvas - a lot i feel like the first desert pilgrims may have felt.

but after the experience, as i was trying to process the desert with a friend. i commented that yeah, the desert is great - it's so vast and unlike anything else, but i wouldn't want to stay there forever i would miss the green grass and rolling hills of elsewhere and matt said, well, you don't climb a volcano to build a house there. you just go there because it's important. because volcanoes and deserts are beautiful and majestic and unique and they need to be climbed and explored and appreciated but not necessarily moved in upon. so, yeah, if you ever get the chance, i recommend going to the desert and hiking a volcano because it's just important.

Ag Class

so, i'm subbing here at Greenville High School. (but only for a few more days - then it's a la Colorado!) and yesterday I was the Ag teacher. The Equine Science class was really small and i was chatting with the students, you know, like "do you have a horse?" and so on. one guy said he had a horse and the girl sitting next to him, wearing his letter jacket - class of '08, said well, it was kind of her horse too.
I said, "really, why is it your horse too?"
She said, "we have a kid."
I said, "oh, like a little goat?"
She said, "no, like a little human. We have a baby."
I was trying to be chill about it, you know, like pretending that I knew what it was like to have a baby with your high school boyfriend at the age of 16.


Then later in Welding class I overheard this one guy at a big table totally talking about drugs, and how he likes to take his coke. so I obviously interupted and asked across the room, "are you guys talking about drugs?" and of course they were scared/embarrassed. and i told them about some of my friends in Nepal and tried to convince them that drugs aren't cool. then the one main dude came up and hung out at my desk the rest of the time. I mean he'll probably still do drugs and all but my heart really goes out to him.

greetings from the friendly state

well, i just got back from the grocery store and i have to say - what a delight. i've met so many nice people waiting in the check-out lines. (for years i've been doing the self-check out, i'm not sure what that means) today i waited in a line for at least 10 minutes without any movement, but the two customers behind me in line were really chatty and just plain friendly. They weren't in a hurry or upset about anything. The girl behind me, on lunch break from the cosmotology school, was saying she felt sorry for all the celebreties, always having their weaknesses and mistakes highlighted on the front page. she said she likes to sing, but she doesn't want to deal with all that mess in Hollywood. so she said she was just fine singing in the church choir or at the kareoke bar in the basement of a local hotel.

I was really moved by her openness and her joy in the simple things like singing in the choir - i learned a lot about her story by just standing in front of her at the check out line. she didn't pretend to have anything figured out, she pretty much spelled out her weaknesses and fears in line. she was so humble it was beautiful. and she caught me off guard for sure - I'm used to just doing my own thing when i go to the store. but today i didn't do my own thing and i am so thankful. this girl's humility and kindness changed me. I wanted to invite her to go out to coffee, but i didn't...

February resolutions:
i don't wanna be just a scanner or a payer
or a shopper or a finder or a reacher or a buyer
i want to be a person and i want to be available
to other persons even at the grocery store.
i don't want to be a produce-purchasing-machine,
i just want to be a person.

less green grass

right, january, 2007, crazy... here are some pics from my time in colorado

snowshoed in to this tiny, primitive hut in undisclosed mountain valley with precious people and fresh snow - incredibly ideal, i didn't want to leave. other than snowshoeing, playing in the wilderness and hanging out with amazing people in colorado, well i've been living in small-town-East-Texas, doing what people in small-town-East-Texas do... (i don't know, don't ask me. I mean i had a great childhood, but you know, things change.) and watching college friends get married and/or move to Europe. yeah, i thought this time would be nice to take it slow, help my mom recover from surgery, perhaps process my time in Nepal... but i feel like i need just as much time to process my present life in small-town-East-Texas. So i love Colorado and i love the snow and i miss it. but i'm trying to embrace life here. yesterday i played rumikube with my grandmother and some ladies at her retirement home. i won the game after they had just taught me how to play and i felt kind of bad - i had really wanted one of them to win...