a big table in the sky

sometimes I let my mind ponder what it would be like if all of the people I am grateful for, all of the people who have touched my heart and my life and my mind, could gather around one giant table and share in a meal.

it would be a table that would stretch over continents and countries, mountains and deserts, oceans and lakes.

it would be a table that would hold a multitude of mother tongues, languages that hold and bear and give and take and share and receive and ultimately fail to adequately express anything at all.

it would be a table that would speak of change and transition and sustaining and falling and growing and living even when it takes us in a thousand different directions at a thousand different times.

it would be a table that would sing and laugh and cry and probably look at one other at times with confusion and bemusement and maybe even anger.

it would be a table that would hold little hands and feet, wrinkles, wisdom, naivete, simplicity, complexity, snapshots of seasons passed and seasons to come.

it would be beautiful.

yesterday was a pretty wonderful glimpse at what one part of that table would look like.

And I got to sit in the middle of it, to cook with my beloved sisters, to drink tea with women that I adore, to have a serious debriefing on the Harry Potter movie with my younger brother(a brother by life history rather than blood). To laugh over silly conversations and rejoice in the gift of being together for a few hours.

This morning I woke up at 3 am and was wide awake (thanks never-ending jetlag). I sat in our basement and looked at old pictures from my childhood and remembered.

The connections we carry are worth celebrating because they speak to the truth that we are not alone. We were created for community- to be a part of the Body and to know the joy of right relationship with one another. We were created to live life together regardless of whether the together part is done from opposite sides of the world or next door.

My heart is filled with thanksgiving because Christ reveals himself in ourselves as individuals made into a whole.

Because all good gifts come from the one who has created us for Him and for one another.

uh, in america?

I would like it to be noted that the first conversation I had upon entering America for the first time in 13 some months had me being confused for a native French speaker.

By an English teacher.

Who told me that I had a French accent.

It appears my English has declined far more than I realized.

Sorry in advance?

Also, jetlag is no good. Nor is failing to sleep on a ten hour flight from Beijing to San Francisco.

As a result, I haven't slept in many hours, it's 11 am local time and my body is telling me it's 3 am.

Time to find a corner of the airport and try to nap before my connection to Pittsburgh.

See you all soon!

jeremiah

I will give them singleness of heart and action, so that they will always fear me for their own good and the good of their children after them.

-Jeremiah 32:39

Singleness of heart and action- that is my prayer today for my life, my community and for the Body of believers all over the world.

May you, O Lord, work in me and in us.

the starkness of truth

"The truth, the whole truth, tends to be complex, its contentments and joys wrestled out of doubt, pain, change."

-Kathleen Norris, Dakota, pg 79

a man lying passed out on the ground when it's -15 degrees outside

broken zippers on little ones' jackets, no money for new ones

bread that is shared because it may be the only meal eaten all day

a stumbling drunk wandering through the dirt paths as evening is just beginning

a sister, wife, daughter trying to get her brother, husband, father home from the bar

a visit to a friend's mom who is sick, tired, scared, crying

the sadness on a friend's face after a difficult week

the words of struggle, the prayers of those who carry more than they should


and yet still we gather, still we sit in a circle with the sun rising in the oranges and reds of the morning haze outside the window and we hope.

truth carries the weight and fragility of these realities, it shines its light on the starkness of what is, the things that hurt and sting and ache.

we dance and we sing together because if we don't....

if we don't I fear we will crumple under that which truth reveals.

truth frees us, but it also breaks us.
it makes us whole while also placing us within the dichotomy of tearing us into pieces.
it is real and that makes it beautiful.

no rose-colored glasses, no shiny mirrors that reveal ourselves as better versions of who we believe we are, no singing birds making our beds.

joy and beauty still rise up out of those trenches

some days it is more of a fight to find them, some days truth is not even-handed or fair

but it's still true.

"And what of truth? We don't tend to see the truth as something that could set us free because it means embracing pain, acknowledging our differences and conflicts, taking our real situation into account."

-Kathleen Norris, Dakota, pg 82

welcome to cute

i love that when he realizes his singing is being listened to that he hurriedly stops and starts playing with the toys again :-)




morning exercises with the kindergartners...

joyful things

*snow, snowflakes, snow-covered mountains

*having a crowd of little ones come running at you yelling, "Sain uu bagshaw!" and wanting to give you a hug when you walk in the door in the morning

*giggling, helping little hands choose crayons for coloring animals

*eating mantuu byy3 with my adorable kindergartners as they each insist on one-by-one telling me to "have a good meal, Erin bagshaw."

*chatting with the female hospice staff and laughing about silly answers to our practice English sentences

*drinking tea and laughing over ridiculousness while playing cards with the women of the senior citizen group

*walking home in the snow and marveling at the gray softness of the end of the day

*feeling the familiarity of winter- in spite of all of the reasons why I shouldn't, I really think winter is my favorite season in Mongolia. It makes sense in a way that nothing else can.

needing winter

sometimes poetry is not words as much as it is the images that stretch out before our eyes, the colors and realities of what is happening forming prose in our minds, writing the words of a moving memory that will remain for as long as we let it stay.

***

i stand rooted, a few steps from the concrete shelter that passes as a landmark in the middle of nowhere, having paused to take in the place I've come.

watching the grandma and grandpa walk hand in hand in the brilliant white snow, the sun high in the morning sky, their steps steady and slow, the mountains sloping and gleaming in the background.

the snow is new and it will be gone in a few hours as the sun heats it into oblivion.
the couple are old and they will keep walking as I trail behind and then pass them.
I will think of them as I walk, of the things that life brings us and the places it takes us.
of what it means to choose one another and to walk side by side, slow and steady even as the snow melts.

it is white, it is morning, it is cold. winter has come once more.

***

winter has its place among summer, spring and fall. even when in Mongolia it lasts for six months.

I am learning that we need it just as much as we need the others. I am learning that it brings with it things we have forgotten in America.

things like living my life in accordance to the rhythms of the seasons. of understanding and growing in the knowledge that we were not meant to live unconnected and disenfranchised from the realities of cycles and movement and a time that is not found in numbers.

winter is real here. as real as it is in Texas I suppose, except this is an in-your-face-can't-breathe kind of real.

it changes daily life.

it cannot be made easier by driving everywhere or turning the heat up or pretending it isn't dark for most of the day.

winter in Mongolia means changing my life to accommodate it.

it has meant realizing that maybe we are supposed to live in these natural ebbs and flows, these times of seasonal hibernation and wind chill-enforced rest.

that maybe the world won't stop if my life moves in rhythm with the seasons instead of some imaginary threshold of productivity and accomplishment that must be met each and every month.

***

sometimes I wonder if we fear slowing down because of the space it gives us for looking in the mirror.

if winter isn't long because of the nearness it requires of us.

if the darkness of winter doesn't drive us crazy because of the stillness it asks of us.

and if maybe wholeness is knowing all of this and choosing still to enter into it.

***

there is beauty in the mountains in the midst of all of the seasons.

the white of winter reminds me of beginnings, of learning, of falling in love with this place.

the brown of spring speaks to me of the hope of new life, of familiarity, of dust and dirt and renewal.

the green of summer shouts of joy and warmth and wandering.

the orange and brown of fall whisper of change and depth and moments stolen from the quietly chilled winds.

each stand as a testament to the marching forward of time, to putting one step in front of the other and finding yourself somewhere new...

eventually, inevitably, invariably.

***

so they walk together and I walk alone and we all walk towards something in the snow. we all breathe in the cold and let out the warmth. we all squint in the sun and wonder at the footsteps we leave behind.

we all traverse the present while seeing the past and pondering the future.

a few hours later I am walking again, this time with a friend by my side. as we talk I look at the mountains that have turned brown, the snow melting and scattered, its whiteness having diminished as its covering has faded with the sun.

we hear the roar of a motorbike as its driver darts into view. Naraa shouts him our way and we pile on, the three of us settling on a small red motorbike in a sea of rocks and trash and melting snow.

i breath deeply as we navigate past the cows and dogs and sheep and over the rocky hills that lead to the road.

as we move towards where we're going without forgetting where we are.

letting hibernation be what it is and winter a salve to the soul.