Barenaked

The women were beautiful. Naked and beautiful. Standing bare skin. Unashamed and lovely. These two gorgeous grandmothers had just stripped off their swimsuits, goggles, and rubber caps. They had been swimming at the outdoor pool in the penetrating New Mexico sun. Their brown, wrinkly, sagging skin now fully exposed to the humid, fragrant air of the women's locker room. They chatted and laughed, sharing their lives without any thought given to the fact that they were naked. Naked and beautiful. I tried not to stare, but they were just so lovely. And I thought "When I get old, I want to be her." I want to be a white haired, aged beauty swimming in the desert sun and doing yoga. I want to stand buck naked in the locker room with my old lady friend and laugh and laugh and laugh, and not care that I am naked or wrinkly or sagging.

I want to be the old woman in this photo, Noramaya, who is hands down the most joyful person I have ever met. She lives in a tiny village in Nepal, a full 2 days mountain hike from the nearest town. When I met her, we did not share a language or a history, but I did understand her words, "Dhanyabad Yesu" which means "Thank you, Jesus". Though I didn't understand her words, through a translator I heard a little about her life. Her worn skin and her humble home told me a thousand and one stories of hard labor, poverty, rough times, physical pain, and struggle. She and her husband Sunni fed us water buffalo and pigeon on their best plates. They treated me and my travel companions like honored family members. And we all just stared and hugged and touched each other and smiled and held hands and smiled some more. She had just encountered Jesus 2 years previous and was head over heels in love with Him. Completely taken by her pure blissful smile, I knew she was a new woman who had sloughed off her heartaches and stood before us wholly transformed. Her photo hangs on my bedroom wall to remind me of the absolute joy of knowing Yesu. Dhanyabad Yesu!

This week, I had a hurtful conversation where I was more defensive than I like to be and less patient than I normally am. I got caught up in my past for an evening and some old heart wounds were dredged up and brought to the conscious edge of my mind. And in the thick of heavy emotions, I received a bouquet of purple irises which I love because they remind me of my grandmother who loved purple irises. Okay, maybe they weren't real irises, maybe it was a photo of purple irises attached to one of those, normally annoying chain emails. However, these virtual purple irises spoke to my heart and made me think "What would my grandmother say to me at this very moment?" Which then actually made me listen to the voice of my future old lady self, the old wise woman I hope to someday become. What would old lady Tiffany say to me at this very moment? I read a quote this week from Ralph Waldo Emerson:

The years teach much which the days never knew

That night, as I watched a fiery sunset paint the Mesilla sky, my wise old lady future self said "You'll see. Just wait. Someday you'll understand and know." My God tells me that He's not done with me yet. That I've still got a lot of growing to do. And He's got a lot of restoring to do. In the meantime, I am moving forward one stepping stone at a time. Lead on Kindly Light, one step enough for me.

I hope to graciously receive the absolute gift of old age. When I get old, I want to be alive and I want to be graceful, generous, and kind. I want to be fearless and wise. I want to laugh loudly. I want to be unarmed and undisguised. I want to be barenaked and honest. Not only in my skin, but in my heart and mind and soul. I want to be 85 years old and falling in love with my Jesus again, for the quadrillionth time. I can't hardly wait to see what my years teach me that I do not yet understand in my youthful days.

Mesilla Junkie

I Love Mesilla Because...

1. Jaime and Derek and Mia and Brian and Brooke and John and Mike and Kristin and Eric
2. Renata, my neighbor and her hearty German breads
3. Pecans!
4. Miles and miles of irrigation ditches to run
5. Fiery sunsets
6. Roosters that always think it is dawn
7. Sheep!
8. Walking to the post office
9. El Rio Grande
10. The Bean (neighborhood coffee shop)
    
11. Church Bells
12. The Fountain Theater (Indie films, chocolate cake, and real root beer)
13. It's a developing village
14. Pastel sunrises
15. No streetlights
    
16. Gorgeous starshiny nightskies
17. The Ristramann and his chilies
18. Sonny
19. Mariachis!
20. Vintage Wine Bar
21. The Bookseller
22. Dia de Los Muertos
23. Christmas Luminarias
24. El Comedor (best green chile around)
    
25. Mourning doves and white wing doves in a joyful cacophony
    
26. Prickly pears
27. Giant Agaves
28. Barrel Cacti leaning south
29. Mistletoe infested trees
30. Taking it in...Just taking it in
    

Happy Kerouacing

This evening the phrase "so earnest and tryful" kept coming up in my mind and I felt compelled to pull out "Scattered Poems" by Jack Kerouac. It's a small book of poetry that was gifted to me in high school when i believed that the perfect man was a combination of kerouac, walt whitman, cat stevens and einstein. I would read the tao te ching on the bleachers above the football field as the sun came up. I thought this world had no place for me and was absolutely determined to become a hermit and hideaway at Walden pond. i thought i new absolutely everything and could live life entirely on my own. what can i say. the naivete of youth. i also thought it would be a good idea to eat only seaweed and pez for a whole week. until i passed out. and that smoke signals were a fine way to communicate. until i lit the yard on fire.

a decade has passed. i am now 27. kerouac still makes my heart skip a beat. but i no longer think that seaweed and pez is the ultimate brain building diet. and i am not a hermit. and the older i get the more dependent and needy i am. it's true. in my country, independence is a family value and weakness is shameful. but the older i get the more i need people to grab my elbows and pull me up when i tumble downward. the more i need people to lovingly shake me sane when i am going bonkers. the more i need to rest in the palm of God's hand. the more i need, the more love is exchanged. and that is good.
here's to being needy. cheers!

This is my favorite Jack Kerouac poem:

Hymn

And when you showed me Brooklyn Bridge
in the morning,
Ah God,
And the people slipping on ice in the street,
twice,
twice,
two different people
came over, goin to work
so earnest and tryful,
clutching their pitiful
morning Daily News
slip on the ice & fall
both inside 5 minutes
and I cried I cried
That's when you taught me tears, Ah
God in the morning,
Ah Thee
And me leaning on the lamppost wiping
eyes,
eyes,
nobody's know I cried
or woulda cared anyway
but O I saw my father
and my granfather's mother
and the long lines of chairs
and tear-sitters and dead,
Ah me, I knew God You
had better plans than that
So whatever plan you have for me
Splitter of majesty
Make it short
brief
Make it snappy
bring me home to the Eternal Mother
today
At your service anyway,
(and until)

Softer

this morning i am oh so grateful...full of grate? full of grace. and peace. and holy love. the holy love that is a soothing balm to the patches of my heart that get roughened by high velocity living and abrasive happenings. i am grateful for the people in my life who by their very presence invite me to be soft and vulnerable. the people who bring out my honesty, who want to really see me and know who i am. as a child, i thought that wisdom and living with grace would emerge naturally and effortlessly, that, like my grandmother, i would unfold wise, purple wings as i aged. now i see the choice of whether or not to engage in my life, whether or not to grow in love, whether or not to be open to learning and developing. now i see the choice...to be hard or soft, to be open or closed, to be light or darkness, to invite freedom or fear. it is easy to grow hard with time and affliction to develop a callous cynicism infects those around us. it is a call to life to remain open, soft, and innocent.

"Today, if you will hear His voice,
Do not harden your hearts"
- Psalm 95:7-8

God, i hear you this morning. i hear you in the voices of gentle friends. i see you in the pink purple golds of the sunrise. i taste you in the sweet honey in my tea. every good and perfect thing comes from you. i will not harden my heart to your kindness.

We Do

This week I had the honor of witnessing Yonchu (cutest Korean girl alive) get married to Jeff. The ceremony was short and sweet, a somewhat typical church wedding with the standard vows made by the bride and groom. What struck me was the vow that I was asked to take. The chaplain asked the friends of the bride and groom to make a profound promise of love. We were asked to make a vow to honor, protect, and support our friends' marriage. My heart jumped at this public recognition that marriage does not happen behind close doors, but rather, in the fullness of community. Marriage is hard. It's risky. It's sacred. And married people need not only the love of each other and the support of each other but a circle of family and friends to bolster them up and love on them when things get stormy. This vow, this spoken promise of "we do" has reverberated in my heart all week. When we enter into relationships and friendships that are built on real love and trust, we take a vow to honor and respect. In healthy community, we have the opportunity to bring heaven to earth by loving deeply and thoroughly. It is the "we do" of community that speaks of unconditional love, that says yes, I will be at your reception enjoying the pleasures of dancing and the open bar, but I am also here for the long haul...the good, the bad, and the ugly. It is the "we do" of community that commits and perseveres. It is the "we do" of community that is full of grace and peace, that is generous and patient and kind. I live in the midst of three amazing communities full of humans who bring joy and light to my life. It is such an honor to be able to do life with others, to walk through the seasons of each other's lives hand in hand, to be invited into not only their lives but their hearts. As I gratefully delve further into community, I want to say "I do". I do promise to operate as best I can under the canopy of grace, love, and peace. I do promise to be honest and to approach my relationships with integrity. I do promise to treat all with dignity and respect. I do. We do. I love you.

Sightless Bird

Today I was painting fascia on a construction site. I climbed on the peaked roof to be able to reach the high points with my brush. As I was up there, I found that I couldn't see under the trim to know which spots I had missed. I needed Nick on the ground to guide my brush. My vision and perspective were not enough.

While I was up on the roof, I took off my glasses as I was concerned that they would fall off my face and off the roof. So I carefully set them next to me as I worked. Well, I somehow managed to move the glasses from next to me to under me as I climbed on the roof. I totally mangle them by crushing them with my work boot. The lens and frame were scratched and one of the stems is now completely broken off. Looking at the broken glasses and knowing that my pocketbook lacks the funds for a new pair, I am aching for the ability to see clearly.

The Indian poet, Rabindrinath Tagore repititiously uses the phrase "sightless bird" in a poem that resonates with my heart.

With hands outstretched and crooning ' Come, O come !

'Still, O bird, O sightless bird,

Not yet, not yet the time to furl your wings.

The poem is about a bird that is flying over the ocean, longing for its nest and dry land, for a time to rest and fold her wings. Miles and miles and miles from home, she is sightless, without vision for her destination or what the future holds.

For we walk by faith, not by sight -2 corinthians 5:7

2009...Take 2...a day of vision and lack thereof. My sight is so limited by my paradigms. My view of life is by no means panoramic. I need the eyes of others to see what I cannot. I need the eyes of others to show me not only where I need to add more paint to the fascia, but the parts of myself which could use a little fixing up. I need people in my life to reaffirm what is good in me but also to show me where I am lacking. In relationship we gain a multi-dimensional picture of ourselves. We learn where our thinking stinks and where our vision is too small.

God asks us to seek His face always. When we are anxious, fearful, alone, when we do not have a vision for our lives, when we are miles and miles and miles from our nest, it is God's vision which will sustain us and lead us, will give us the strength to fly by faith.

With my hands outstretched and crooning, O come, O come, Emmanuel.

The Sun Rising on a New Year

It's 2AM on January 1, 2009. A new year. A new opportunity. A new light. A new dawn. A new hope.

Tonight, I had a lovely evening with my brother, sister-in-law, niece, and nephew in Arizona. Watching television in their home, the evening news had the potential to fill me with despair as I ingested images of the war-torn Gaza strip and watched the murder toll in Juarez continue to rise. However, as the night progressed, I was absolutely captivated by my ever-smiling 1 year old niece, Miya. As she giggled and danced around the kitchen, I couldn't help but feel pure joy! and hope.

Once again, I could feel it, see it, taste it, touch it…the dual presence of light and darkness, constantly at odds in a precarious tug-of-war. Faithfully, the sun rises and the dawn emerges. Courageously, the daffodil pops its bright yellow head out of the frozen snowy ground.

For me, 2008 was a year of growth, a year of growing up, a year of reconciliation, a year of peacemaking and truth-telling, a year of all things new. I travelled the world. I started a new adventure in New Mexico. I made new friends. I reconnected with old friends. I witnessed God use grace and peace to mend broken hearts and damaged relationships. I learned more about who I am and became more genuinely myself. I was stretched into becoming more merciful and forgiving. I became more capable of giving and receiving love. I better learned the steps of the dance between leading, waiting, following, and risk-taking. In 2008, I witnessed beauty in the most unexpected places and found myself in jaw-dropping awe of light emerging from darkness, of renewal and restoration.

And He who sits on the throne said, "Behold, I am making all things new." And He said, "Write, for these words are faithful and true." -Rev 21:5

The word behold is used in the bible to proclaim a miracle. The miracle is in the newness and the proclamation of hope and grace in ALL circumstances.

In August, I had an opportunity to travel to Reno to meet with two amazing people, Tamara and Steve. Tamara is a woman with whom I share a serial-rapist. Steve is the father of a woman with whom I share the same serial-rapist. Our sole connection is meeting at the trial of a man who had broken into our homes and our lives, forever changing each of us through violence and hatred. It has been 3 years since that trial. The three of us were meeting in Reno to discuss Steve's desire to write a book about these crimes and the lives they impacted. I flew to Reno expecting a weekend of heaviness, of pain, of reliving old wounds. What I found was something truly miraculous…we had become family! The weekend was full of laughter, telling stories of healing and encouragement. We shared life on a deep and intimate level. We built each other up and fanned the flaming bright lights burning in each of us. Light out of darkness. All things new.

Take your shoes off. You may not realize it, but we are on holy ground.
Something amazing happens when we invite light into the shadows, when we find the God-spark in others and encourage it to grow stronger and brighter. It is a miracle when we engage in healing and peace when faced with violence, hate, and despair. It is God’s grace, truth, and light emerging and heaven coming to earth when we choose to love each other as we love ourselves. It is the beginning of a new year and I have so much to be grateful for and so much to be hopeful for. I am declaring 2009 to be a year of hope and new life. I pray more peace, more healing, more growth, more honesty, more mercy, more goodness, more courage, more love, more generosity, more kindness, more forgiveness, more justice...more light.

The sun is rising. What will you do with this precious new day?

Joyous New Year friends! Grace and peace and every kind of good to you!

love,
Tiffany