MX norms

I feel like I want to compile a list of MX stuff. I´m already in Guatemala... good trip (long trip, good grief). But I don´t want to forget things I thought about MX while there for a month.

Mexico (Aguilar, Chiapas)

Mexico is...

-The land of many speed bumps (there are speed bumps everywhere! And you don´t slow down in advance... the driver slams on his brakes just before and then creeps over the bump. Why?)
-The land of corn tortillas. Every taco stand on the side of the road sells tacos with semi spicy salsa, super greasy, wrapped in a napkin... a corn tortilla and either carne or intestines of some sort all wrapped up for about 4 pesos.
-The currency, obviously, is pesos. During our time here it´s been about 10.74 ex rate.
-Mexicans are, as a rule, pretty friendly people. It seems rare to speak English, though.
-Mexico is low class. In general, it is a very poor country compared to other Latin countries. There is a lot of rural living that really only consists of the basic necessities of life. I wouldn´t consider it impoverished by any means but it is very minimal living. There are, however, many available European style toilets.
-Oranges. A lot of oranges. (the fruit)
-Mexicans are big on eating meat and it seems pretty accessible. The best foods I ate here were tamales (cooked in a banana leaf) and tacos.
-Plantains and bananas look very similar here. Jon had a funny incident with that.
-The Mexican church leadership seems to be vastly under trained. Few have had theological education and there seems to be a lack of unity between denominations... a very lamentable lack of support systems for pastors, especially those working in rural areas.
-Much more mountanous and gorgeous than I thought! Lush and green... we were here during a rainy season so there was a lot of mud but there are always many many bodies of water. I didn´t expect that.
-TURKEYS EVERYWHERE. Gobble gobble all night long.
-Nasty, mangy dogs roam the streets by the dozens.
-Most kids wear clear plastic sandals. Most adults wear muck boots (presumably because they work in the fields).
-There is a huge cultural norm of cabeilleros or cowboys! They ride horses with Mexican style blankets on them, wear cowboy hats and big belt buckles, play mariachi music and sleep in hammocks (we lived with one such man). It is very Mexican. Very machismo.
-Bright colors... Mexicans appreciate bright houses, signs, and clothes. Very very saturated colors.

I liked Mexico much more than I expected to.
God, I pray your divine presence settle on Mexico in a powerful way. Revive the Mexican Church. God I leave my blessing on Mexico.

To sum up...

...satisfactory first month. Soy contento. MX has been fab. Aguilar, our little town, was terrif. Mi corazon es moi triste to leave these precious ninos. I really do love them. I dove into this thing headfirst and am content.

I want to live well and love well. I did both insofar as I know how.

Here are my babies.

My favorite little girl is Juana. The boys are fab ... Nato, Idao, Jose, Migel, Luis (me amore... my nobio according to him), Pasqual, Nicolas, and on... and on... and lovelies.

Living

I just had coffee with Amanda, my mentoring partner for WR. We had a good vent. I am in Palenque (in a city) for the next couple of days after a week in a more rural setting called Aguilar out here in southern MX. I was sad to leave this morning... I love being with the kids in Aguilar.

Anyways, Amanda and I are woven of similar fabric. We both love people and traveling but rather cringe at traditional white man missions. It is bad enough to perform cultural faux paus unwittingly but even worse to impose our version of spirituality on people before whom is displayed the majesty of God in the form of mountains and rivers and skies.

I was reading in Psalm 19 about how the heavens declare the glory of God and the skies proclaim the work of his hands... there is no speech or language where there voice is not heard, their message goes out to the ends of the earth. (I cannot find quote marks on this keyboard, apologies). It makes me realize this one essential truth, especially of people surrounded by natural beauty, the innate message of creation (that there exists a personable Creator God) is louder and more meaningful than any message I could articulate with my feeble words.

I am not here to make Christians... I am here to live. As I sat on top of a hill the other day and had some time with the Lord, he kept reminding me, THIS is why you are here. To be with Jesus. To adventure with Jesus. To live with Jesus.

These people, any people, do not need my words (even less my English words, since they speak Espanol, haha), they need to know this Creator God, who has gone to such great pains to display himself and his character in their world.

My voice is so weak compared to his. The voice of the Lord breaks in pieces the cedars of Lebanon... so I will speak, of course, when I can... but more importantly, I will walk with Juana down to the river and clap for Jose as he learns to jump rope and throw the frisbee with Migel and I will go about my living... hoping never to think myself capable of eclipsing the grandeur of Gods glorious message, alive all around me, available to all mankind.

Oh, and...

Today we had a prophecy session (these crazy charismatic AIM people! They are seriously more charismatic than I AM and that´s saying something) and God was having people call out what they feel their calling or ¨inheritance¨ is.

This is what God said to me -

You will hold dying people. You will escort people dying of AIDS to the gates of heaven. You will witness, to honor and dignify, the final moments of people´s lives, pray the final benediction, and usher their spirits into the presence of God.

That isn´t appealing. But I feel it very deeply within me.

Check

I´ve spent the last like 6 months checking all of these things off my list - buy a tent, bug repellant, sleeping bag, plenty of decently cute clothes so my self esteem doesn´t come entirely unglued as I slowly devolve into an amazon missionary woman... yaknow, the normal stuff. As I´ve gotten going, tho, I´ve noticed the main check has been in my spirit. (how cool was that transition?) (ok, it´s contrived, but I seriously have way too much time to think through all these rather boring training sessions) (moving on).
I´ve realized two main things - missions is my callin (I´m alive again!) and I need daily reality checks.
I´m reading Francis Schaeffer to keep my brain alive.. and this quote grabbed me by the throat and held me up for a second of breathless self-examination -
¨Man´s attempted autonomy has robbed him of any certain reality.¨
It´s so easy for me to say that I depend on God... I don´t stress about 30 hour bus rides or sleeping on a cement floor or bugs... I´m easygoing, I want to do the Lord´s will with all of my heart, I will go wherever he says... and yet... and yet.
And yet of course there is a part of me - maybe quite a large part if I´m honest - that separates. I escape from a God who knows me too well, a God who loves me too much for comfort sometimes (I´m not worthy! says my false humility), who sees everything. And I want my autonomy. I want to be Joy. All that that is in its uniqueness and specialness. I don´t want to die to flirting, gossip, self-indulgence, pride. I don´t want to be completely honest about my past or my pain. And that is the catalyst for a life disassociated from reality.
I think I feel this most acutely because I really am most myself on the mission field. This is me, the purpose for which I was born, and my soul knows it very well. So I am confronted in that incredibly naked moment by the reality of God... and I would rather dream. I would rather think I´m great.
I doubt this is an unnatural place to be but it is undesirable. I want this year to really be totally present in every moment... without my typical daydreams or fantasies. Even if my fantasy is an orphanage with charismatic 3 year olds, that dream can still be an escape for me from the moment of smallness or helplessness that I don´t want to feel.
I want to see God´s eyes and not turn away.
I don´t want to live embarassed...
I don´t want to live escapist...
I want to really live...
And my reality check is that the only way to do that is to really die.

And More!

Jimmy's artsy B&W shots.

More

I'm starting to get that weird-somewhat-desperate-spend-every-minute-and-make-sure-to-record-it-by-taking-lots-of-pictures mode. Three days, people.

(Leah, I'm saving up until I have a lot of time because I'm having some really intense emotions about leaving you... I don't want to have just a casual conversation... but I do care... so I'll call.)

(And CW seriously call me, dude. I'm LEAVING.)

Happy Christmas! 06

PJ's, playing guitar, hiking with ridiculously enormous backpacks, practicing with all of our weapons (except Joy-the-pacificist, of course), playing basketball, grillz, dancing around like maniacs, eating copious amounts of food, stockings = McCarty Christmas.

Happy happy happy.

(Grumpy, sleepy, dopey, doc...)

A change

Well I'm kind of annoyed.

It is going to be virtually impossible to blog on two different things all year! I have this blog and my WR blog. But this blog I like because it's archived back so far. Hm. Conundrum. (ha, that rhymes).

Well, for this one at least I'm just going to copy and paste. So this same blog is on both sites. And before I put it on here let me just say I am LEAVING for a year in like 8 days... so if we haven't talked in a while PLEASE call me to say goodbye! And if I don't answer... well... you know how it goes. Leave a message. I'm going to be really really responsible this week.

Home Stretch

One by one I'm closing out the details of my life... saying goodbye to precious people, once again preparing to spend great lengths of time on anti-malarial medication... my heart is both under attack and in desperate anticipation... I'm dreaming of Africa - of hot wind and the grit of sand in my teeth... I'm thinking of the unparalleled feeling of novelty and excitement when I step off a plane into a new place...

It sounds like I'm getting ready to go on a mission trip.

As I've visited and reflected one thought has struck me. There are two very distinct versions of Christianity and I witness both in people I know. There is one version of Christianity that is very good - good church attendance, good deeds, good prayer life, good theology, good fellowship. There is nothing overtly amiss in this practice of Christianity. But there is something intentionally escapist. There is a neglect of radical sacrifice; of violence, of death to self. Sometimes I say to myself, "I wish I could be a good Christian." Those who know me know that I don't fit the stereotype well. I wish I could go through life and think God is good and do enough and be satisfied.

But I can't.

And this is why: I'm a haunted woman.

I'm haunted by the faces I can put on poverty; of the names I can put on suffering and martyrdom; of the sallow cheeks, the dry and cracked skin, the embrace, the hot breath, the flowing blood, the hate-filled eyes... these are not abstractions to me. I am haunted by the reality of the lost and dying and I cannot ignore the responsibility that this knowledge gives me.
And this is why I will go and I will live and I will die for this cause. This is why I will forego other dreams, alternative life-plans, ambitions, goals... I surrender them. Because those concepts are people and those people mean too much.

That's why I can't just be good.

"...the kingdom heaven suffers violence, and violent men take it by force." (Matt. 11:12, KJV)

Eyes

I read this book called "Lullabies for Little Criminals" by Heather O'Neill.
It was an amazingly non-judgmental, first-person narrative of a 13-year old girl living with a junkie dad, on and off the streets, practicing juvenile prostitution, run-ins with social services, etc. It's set in Montreal. It's really powerful.
I don't give children enough credit. Their perspective is so paradoxical: wise and yet naive. They see a lot and understand a lot... but their labels are so different than our own.

Here's the quote that encapsulates O'Neill's goal to me -

"He said that if you were able to look at the crows really closely, you would see that their eyes were stolen baubles, like buttons or marbles. To get real eyes, they had to steal them from children. Older people's eyes were too set in their ways of looking and would be no good for a crow. That's why people wouldn't let their children out after dark. The crow who stole the eyes of a real child was king. With a piece of plastic they could just see what was in front of them, but with a child's eyes, they could see the whole world."

I wonder what Mitchell's eyes are seeing right now -- he's coming over to me for a hug every thirty seconds. He's grouchy.

(I realize that this blog has become a book review. It's just that my own thoughts are too muddled with the stress.)

It is never fun to die.

Last night as I did devotions I picked up Tozer's book "The Pursuit of God."

This quote needs no introduction or qualification -

(from the chapter, "Removing the Veil")

"One should suppose that proper instruction in the doctrines of man's depravity and the necessity for justification through the righteousness of Christ alone would deliver us from the power of the self-sins, but it does not work that way. Self can live unrebuked at the very altar. It can watch the bleeding Victim die and not be in the least affected by what it sees. It can fight for the faith of the reformers and preach eloquently the creed of salvation by grace and gain strength by its efforts. To tell the truth, it seems actually to feed upon orthodoxy and is more at home in a Bible conference than in a tavern. Our very state of longing after God may afford it an excellent condition under which to thrive and grow.

"Self is the opaque veil that hides the face of God from us. It can be removed only in spiritual experience, never by mere instruction. We may as well try to instruct leprosy out of our system. There must be a work of God in destruction before we are free. We must invite the cross to do its deadly work within us. We must bring our self-sins to the cross for judgment. We must prepare ourselves for an ordeal of suffering in some measure like that through which our Savior passed when He suffered under Pontius Pilate.

"Let us remember that when we talk of the rending of the veil we are speaking in a figure, and the thought of it is poetical, almost pleasant, but in actuality there is nothing pleasant about it. In human experience that veil is made of living spiritual tissue; it is composed of the sentient, quivering stuff of which our whole beings consist, and to touch it is to touch us where we feel pain. To tear it away is to injure us, to hurt us and make us bleed. To say otherwise is to make the cross no cross and death no death at all. It is never fun to die. To rip through the dear and tender stuff of which life is made can never be anything but deeply painful. Yet that is what the cross did to Jesus and it is what the cross would do to every man to set him free."

A Melancholy Glamour

Isaiah 42:6b & 7 - "I will give you as a covenant for the people, a light for the nations, to open the eyes that are blind, to bring out the prisoners from the dungeon, from the prison those who sit in darkness."

This makes me think of Plato's Cave allegory - all are hidden, chained in this darkness... it is familiar and it is comfortable... the shadows seem real and satisfactory - it is enough of a life. Then, this nagging voice, this freed comrade beckons them into the unknown beyond. But it is frightening; the light outside hurts the eyes; alarms the senses.

It is so easy to sit in the dungeon - in the impenetrable fortress of my own version of truth and refuse fresh light.

I glamorize this darkness. I sit here and enjoy my agony, crying, "Why don't you take away my pain, God?" I scream, "It hurts so much!" The not knowing, the blindness, the darkness... "Why do you hide your face from me?" He's silent. So silent.

I glamorize the darkness I tend toward but even as I do it my spirit craves life.

"Ladies and gentlemen/People of the darkness/You've been running for a very long time..."
(Jason Upton - "Psalm 2:12")

Living in peace with the mysteries and shadows of life and hiding behind them are two very different things. When I choose the latter I forfeit the joy of discover and the exposure of my own soul to trasnforming truth.

"Search me and know me, O God."

It is so 'natural' to slide into easy, comforting thoughts; repetitious, logical living; perfunctory but peaceful religion.

It is completely terrifying to contemplate the reality of God.

"Some say 'I'm a man of the evening.'/Others say, 'I'm a lady of the night.'/But God says, 'I'm your Creator,'/And nobody's faster than the speed of light/I'm calling." (ibid)

I can settle down in darkness - grasping small joys - or I can brave the blinding light and receive joy that is unspeakable and full of glory.

"...he who is the blessed and only Sovereign, the King of kings and Lord of lords, who alone has immortality, who dwells in unapproachable light, whom no one has ever seen or can see. To him be honor and eternal dominion. Amen."
(I Timothy 6:15b-16)

Lingering questions

This is something I need to spew and see what response it gets.
I'm wrestling though this big-time.

(I suppose this ultimately stems from questions about the origin of evil - for background).

My thought: pre-fall creation wasn't static but dynamic, with potential to grow & reproduce. In other words, God didn't create a final product; he created the "first batch."

My question, then: did creation (animals, plants, the ecosystem, as it were) ever exist without death? Because that cycle and decomposition - fertilization - new life - is an integral part of the system as we know it empirically and scientifically (and experientially, for that matter).

(The concept of death -> life and that cycle is rife through creation... it's the very essence that allows the ecosystem to perpetuate itself and thrive.)

Unfortunately, it seems that most people's definition of pre-fall creation excludes any allowance for dynamism (especially anti-evolution thinking). Man couldn't die yet... but if man's decomposition is part of the "circle of life" - how is that possible? Can creation exist independently of human death?
If creation never existed without this death then spiritism, animism & the eternality of anything other than human beings is philosophically & logically impossible. (T or F?)

Implications: 1. spiritism ("mother nature" etc) and eternal spirits existing in plant and animal life is discredited. 2. we, as caretakers over our dominion of the earth, are responsible first and foremost (on a social level probably) to preserve and defend the *systems* and maybe not the *specifics* of nature. So, it's not so much this species or that region... it's the entire motion of creation, of which we and all living things are a part, and in which death plays an integral part.

We live in a society that is hell-bent (haha) on preventing death... but death is natural and necessary.

So where did death come from?
How did death work in the garden?
And is physical death really part of the curse?

I know this was all over the place. I'm crazy.

I have decided

to be content with the decisions of authority.

It is becoming relatively normal for me to be content with the circumstances of my life over which I have complete control. Ha ha. It never occured to me before that the discipline of contentedness might supercede that position... until yesterday.

I have been PO'd big time with certain decisions that AIM (missions organization) has made concerning my trip next year. (I've used words like "infuriated" just to shed some clarity on my feelings.) They're decisions that really matter... and I think they made the wrong decision.

But here's the rub: will I miserably rebel or joyfully submit? UGH I HATE that choice. But it's one I make either consciously or unconsciously and one that will have lasting consequences.

So last night I gave up.

It's humbling and embarassing to admit my sin but I long for a pure heart before God... and this submission is an elementary step to holiness. So I let go. Who I will be with next year is in the hands of God. I acknowledge that and receive the decision as coming from his hand.

I will give thanks to the Lord for he is good.

So. Onward.

Thanksgiving 05!

Day 1.

Irreducible?

This is a bit overdue but perhaps this thought is all the better for its percolation in my heart.
I read this book called I Saw Ramallah by Mourid Barghouti. He is Pakistani writing during Israeli occupation. He spends most of his life fleeing - a wanderer and perpetual immigrant. Because of Israel's destruction of his homeland he finds he really has nowhere to land. He marries an Egyptian woman, has a child (whose ethnicity is... what? he wonders) but is always moving away from them due to deportation issues, etc.
The unifying thread of this work, in my mind, is one statement he repeats over and over as he encounters the many threatening, challenging, discouraging, joyous realities of life.

"Life will not be simplified."

I often wish it would be. I wish there were a finite number of elements I could master understanding of and then be done with novelties. It would be so much... easier... and so much less breathtaking... if life could be simplified. It not only cannot, but, as Barghouti says, it will not be simplified. It will not be less than what it is. Lamentably, what it is includes the mountains, the valleys, the joys and the sorrows, the pain, the horror, the ecstacy...

It is the journey of life created by a God who sometimes seems cruel for engineering this version of reality, this set of unending circumstances; a journey created by a God who also seems wonderful for this version of perpetual discovery, unquenched precociousness...

Unanswered questions.
Unsatisfied desires.
Unsimplified.
(Does that require infinitude?)

"The French are ... Harry"

(don't read that "the French are hairy" because it's this inside joke... ok?)

So I was watching the movie Gigi. It's fabulous.
There is this one part where Gaston goes to his uncle in a rant after having been rejected by Gigi. He says,

"I tell you, Europe is breeding a generation of vandals and ingrates. Children are coming into the world with ice covered souls and hatchets in their hands. And before they have finished they'll smash everything beautiful and decent."

His uncle replies: "Have a piece of cheese."

That is so French. It humorously sums up so much of the way the French deal (or don't deal) with problems.

A really good book with pretty thorough insights on the French (specifically Parisian) worldview is Paris to the Moon by Adam Gopnik.

Funniest line in Gigi: Her aunt saying of her, "such stupidity is without equal in the entire history of human relations."
That's so something a McCarty would say. drama.

Glitter

At the moment I am having glitter lotion spread all over my calves by a 2 year old. I enhaled practically my weight in glitter today making fairy paper dolls (and the corresponding wardrobe). We had no temper tantrums all day. Sometimes things do seem to sparkle... even if only for a moment.

The quote

(photo by Mikhail Evstavief - of a cellist playing in a partially-destroyed national library in Sarajevo; 1992)

Well, I've kind of chosen a random quote and I'll explain why: I think the question of "what's to be done about wide-scale human rights crises?" is inevitably tied to the questions of good and evil, and, ultimately, the nature of God. Where is God present in these maladies? Why does God allow such rife, manifest evil? Why does God not right the wrongs? These are pretty basic, common questions. But I think that the best summary of Bill Carter's musing and searching in Bosnia can be found in his early ideas of looking for God. We want to see God - so we look in every nook and cranny that we can... and it discovers to us... something visceral and real and horrifying and immanent and beautiful and...

"Beginning at a young age I had a tendency to look for God in the oddest of places. It all started when the preacher said God was everywhere, he was even there when you were sleeping. Especially when you were sleeping. This kept me awake for years.

"I would eyeball the inside of decaying fruit and peer down gopher holes. I would search birds' nests, spiders' webs, and ant colonies. Sometimes I'd follow my brother when he sleepwalked onto the lawn. That seemed otherworldly.

"Then the preacher, who had fat fingers and breath that smelled like mildew said, 'Every step you take God is walking that path with you.' Every step? This made walking slightly daunting. Once after school I went into the field to find a piece of wet ground. Walking slowly, with my eyes closed, I took a few steps and stopped. I opened my eyes and spun around to watch the footprints rise up from the mud and slowly disappear. Maybe that was the Holy Spirit following me. I don't know."

(Fools Rush In by Bill Carter).

So what are we looking for?

And, more, what are we seeing?

Because it's only what you really see;

What you really find

That fuels the fire

Of inquiry, and curiosity

And compels you

To effect change

Because the face of suffering

Is not anonymous anymore

It is no less than your very own.

Fools Rush In

So the Bosnian War. Why are we so ignorant of the dynamics of post-communist countries? Well, there's the obvious answer of censorship... but I think it is more often a situation of wilfull ignorance. We choose to be uninvolved, detached from the suffering of people. That's probably just a form of self-preservation. There is an intense and troubling helplesness that can take hold of someone who is viewing large-scale human rights violations or crises. I mean, what can we really do?

So I read this book (Fools Rush In) by Bill Carter. He's the guy who made the documentary "Miss Sarajevo" - for a reference point. Most of us have heard of that. Anyway, he weaves this story of his own journey into Bosnia, his quasi-humanitarian work, his personal journey & demons... it's well done.

I'll quote from it when I get the book back tomorrow.
But the real question for today is: what can be done? What is our moral/personal/national responsibility? How can we help people (like the Sudanese or North Koreans) without it simply being self-gratifying (but ineffective). I mean, the UN, the US Gov., and probably a great deal of humanitarian aid agencies really just slap a band-aid on the scalpel wound of human suffering. They ship in food but it doesn't get to the people (duh)... so we can at least say we're trying? We do "what we can" even though it's not working (and maybe hurting) because when we put our heads on our pillows at night we don't want to dream about the starving people of Kosovo, Russia, N. Korea, S. Africa, the Congo, Sudan, Tibet, Cuba, etc. Should our troubled minds be shut off? Should we try to drown our concern because "what can I do?" Obviously not. Well, effort isn't effectiveness and people need help. So, what then?

(CW sorry I haven't called you back).