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)
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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