It is beauty. It is grace. It is love. It is God.
God is the greatest of all "beings"
The one being who loves us far more than we could fathom.
Maybe its why being in its simplicity is so, well, not simple.
The above photo is taken in one of my favorite places in the town I grew up in on my 25th birthday, my first birthday stateside post JVC, my brothers would roll their eyes at the sound of the restaurant's name, my dad would kindly suggest other options and my mom would say her infamous line "I go with the flow" but, in the end, we'd always end up in the same mexican restaurant whose waiters have seen me essentially grow up. Frequented on my birthday after mozzarella sticks at Applebees were long forgotten (though I must go back) it also became frequented by everyone else in the extended family (side note: no one on his or her birthday was obligated to choose Casablanca)
I like to think it sort of always just... happened.
Maybe that's what being is all about, the whole come what may attitude. Go with the flow. Ride the waves. as they come.
The question these months that sometimes have felt like years to me remains the same: How is it that after all of this, I am struggling "being"???
It's funny how life brings you back to certain places sometimes.
Back to certain glimpses.
For me it's standing on the corner of el mercado grau waiting for the 35 or the 5 bus to take me home where the infamous red velvet couch in Tacbloc awaited my heavy heart, drooping eyes and all of Miss Christie in whatever state I was in. But the moment before that, standing on that corner my first months riding the waves of 1st year JV life, I longed to crawl out of my skin.
There are days I feel like a foreigner.
a traveler on the way home.
remembering the tears that sometimes streamed down my face on that long bus ride, from being a witness to the injustices of our world or simply from reveling in the abounding love I received daily that sometimes resulted in me being tackled on the floor by a bunch of 1st graders.
and I long for the relief that red velvet couch offered me.
But the truth is, I will always be a traveler, I will always be a foreigner and maybe even always long to crawl out of my skin because my home, my true home is somewhere I can't imagine, somewhere I can't grasp, somewhere I can only believe in.
Ladies and Gentlemen, I am ruined for life.
I am ruined.
r-u-i-n-e-d
R-U-I-N-E-D
I have heard it over and over again from countless missioners, young and old.
but I have never really fully understood it.
I pretended I knew what they were talking about and honestly thought I did because I felt a tiny ounce of the unsettled..
the brokenness...
you may be questioning yourself too...what on earth is she talking about?
Because to be ruined means "to reduce to a state of decay, collapse, disintegration, to cause great and usually irreparable damage or harm to, to have a disastrous effect on, reduce to a state of poverty, to fall headlong or with a crash" in Latin it was the "collapse of a building"
But, what have I collapsed to?
Have I collapsed to who I was in 2014? Have I collapsed to who I was when I boarded that plane on January 20th, 2017?
That's where faith happens.
where trust comes into play.
I am ruined because I will never be the same again. I am damaged because I have been broken. I have been broken into pieces. I have been stretched and I remained stretched, I didn't go back to the way I was, I can't go back. It's irreversible.
There is a desire in my heart many days to find a bandage that puts me back together, to find the answer, a solution, to encounter the settling.
but I can't
because
I am
ruined.
it is irreparable and can feel disastrous.
BEING ruined.
so its only human to cling to what I know, to what I long for, to what I love, to the glimpses of settling..
I read the following recently,
"Part of the complexity and pain of the missioner's life is knowing, on some deep level, that one has become a permanent "stranger in a strange land," whether in the host culture to which one has been sent, where one is a 'guest,' or in the 'home' culture from which one has come"
Once a missioner, always a missioner
("At Home in The Journey: Theological Reflection for Missioners in Transition" Jo Ann McCaffrey, 2005, p. 24)
and I don't think I believed it.
I said, what?! what do you mean I will never feel that way again? or find that something that brings me so much joy? Dios mio no puede ser!
but I know that when I set foot again in that desert my heart will be smiling so big, I'll remember why being ruined was THE greatest lesson in patience. in love. in faith.
and its one of the most beautiful, to know that what I long for isn't even earthly. It never was. As each day passes, I arrive closer to that realization and to Him who is inviting me to walk in the ruins, in the brokenness, the unsettling.
camina conmigo
walk with me.
let us remember that the mission is GREATER.
la mision es mas grande.
like snow in the south, beyond what can be imagined.
a special thank you to all those who have supported the journey and continue to do so.
