a swirling idea

I was sitting in church the other night, enjoying the pleasant breeze that drifts through the open rafters above the lit up auditorium of a holy space, when it dawned on me that love is a choice.

this seems obvious, basic to the most elementary of schools. however, somehow in my mind I was caught up in this idea that love was something God did in me, and that the more time that passed in my life, the more God would come in and do His life in me. In essence, I thought I would be off the hook. I was looking for the easy way out.

This past week I got to host my second retreat group, a lovely bunch of high school girls from Magnificat in Ohio. They were a joy, bursting with the excitement and curiosity and passion that our elders gladly smile upon to see coming up as tomorrow´s leaders.

Our reflection one night asked the question of where we see the face of Christ, and although my head swirled with images of smilling children and neighbors in Ecuador, my heart lept back to the country I left behind, where a host of people live without knowing anything about Ecuador, about this hidden part of the world that I happily stumbled into.

It can be easy to see Christ in the poor. They are the ones who know what is important in life. They are the ones who cling to God, who give what they have to others without ever counting the cost, who love without limit and without exception. They are the face of Christ to me.

But in thinking on the person of Jesus, this weak man who came to bring the kingdom of heaven to earth, I realized that His love was for everyone. everywhere. He gave us the hardest commandments of all, to love one another; to see Him in EVERYONE, even our enemies. Not just those who are easy to see Him in.

Going home will be hard for me in a lot of ways that I can´t explain, maybe can´t even imagine. I suspect that this creepy and sneaky little thing called self-righteousness will crawl up in me, that I will be very tempted to judge those who have much, knowing the people I loved and left have so little. But I think that what Christ calls us to most, is to see HIM in the brokeness and pain and sin of others. I think He calls us to see Him where we are least likely to expect Him.


I have 5 weeks left in this glorious place of love, where people are accepted for who they are and embraced with open arms. I pray that God will channel, in all His power, the love that I have experienced here into something that sticks with me and spreads to others.



Love is a choice. One that we make everyday, for ourselves and for those around us. I pray that today you experience the freedom to choose love, and to know that its the only thing that matters.

Lessons

¨Under the Cherry Tree¨

The other day I was at a neighbors house and was invited to go pick cherries from their grandmother´s tree. The kids and I popped over the 2 houses to a small, empty dark house, whose backyard hosted a magnificent array of green leaves sprinkled with red small fruits. The grandma of the little children hoisted herself up upon the rusty old trash can that sat dormant in the backyard for such occasions as picking season. With broom in hand, she proceeded to gently tap the small wonders, branch by branch, until soon enough, small red miracles were falling all around us. The boys and I scrambled to retrieve them, running under the thick green branches, tripping on the scattered rocks, reaching for heaven, hoping to catch in the air a trickle of the red shower, ducking and dodging to avoid the itsy bullets. It was so amazingly beautiful to me, the simplicity of life. Cherries falling all around, three tiny laughters floating up into a blue and white sky. The vintage worn dress of the grandma, mingled and twisted in with the winding branches of brown, the flowered pattern flapping in the wind, telling the world that life has its own breath. It was one of the moments that checked me into reality, the preciousness of life, the fraility of time and how fast we move by the true delights that God presents to us everyday.

Upon filling a basket full of red happiness, we entered into the tiny dark kitchen, where an open refrigerator door revealed the emptiness of its possessions. The small basket was quickly scooped up to be washed with a sparing amount of precious water, each drop important in its mission. With trophy in hand, we left the small empty space to head home to warm lights and open arms, for the boys to share with their mom the treasures they collected. Before I left the house, small dirty hands flooded the basket and came up bearing huge gifts. They were gathered up in a small bag, and with my hands full of gifts, my heart heavily weighed what had just been shared with me. What is mine is yours. Though we have nothing, we give. Love.

Easter

Easter was one of the most joyous and real holidays that I have celebrated in a while. Somehow the meaning of holidays and events seems to be a little shaded or tilted towards family traditions or individual preferences for me in the states, but here, it is dominately celebrated in the same union of spirit, for the same singular cause. Easter here was about Christ, walking with Him in a way that most of us never dare to outside of our daily lives. It wasn´t about the baskets of goodies burried around the house, or the special family brunches, or even different musical festivites on Sunday morning. It was about Christ, plain and simple. Beautiful.

We had the honor of being invited to paricipate in one of the renactments of Christ´s death, which meant that we would parade through the streets of Duran, following a man carrying a cross, with hundreds of witnesses doing the same. We were elected to be the town people, the bystanders that watched Jesus brutual walk up the mount. The procession started in the heat of the day, and the 3 hours that followed didn´t prove to be any cooler than high noon. We wore sheets, which looked like togas, to better prepare ourselves for the dress of the day. These proved to increase the heat, and made the journey a tad more realistic at the hint of suffering we tasted under all our layers. It was so moving, to be walking down the middle of the main street, cars haulting and stoped for blocks, and hundreds of people walk silently and mournfully behind the man carrying the cross. At times it was too bright to see anything, and in those blind moments of surrender, I felt like I could have actually been right there, broken hearted, witnessing the painful march, all done out of love, for me.

Later that night we did another procession to the church for 9pm mass. We started out a group of 30 of us, carrying candels and singing to the guitar that strummed along behind the cross. As we passed through the woven dirt roads of Arbolito, more and more people came out of their houses, carrying their own glowing prayers, their hopes and hearts. Before long, I turned around to find that there were hundreds of people, families, walking and singing into the cool April night, candles waving over the darkness. The most memorable thing for me was seeing all our of kids, all the little people that we pour our hearts to through our afterschool programs, wandering through the mountain of people, running up and grabbing our hands, walking arm and arm with us, singing and smiling together towards the goodness of God. It made me feel a familiar feeling, that of a community embraced and settled in love, reaching out and being enough.

The next night we had a mass at the larger church across town, and this one was also a candle light service, and being a part of their worship, of the lighting of the incense, of the kindling hope for what tomorrow, Easter Sunday, would reveal and change for the world, made it all seem like something very Divine, very much a part from our ordinary and human lives as volunteers.

I think that the focus on Christ, what He suffered and what He went through to deliver us over to eternal life, is what surpirsed and awed me the most. I had never put so much thought or energy into it, and it had never been displayed for me in such a community sense, where everyone worked at making it real and visible so that all might understand and live differently in light of what happened.

Christ rose. He is alive, and we are alive with Him.

That message still reverberates in me, to my bones. All of us, living as One, because of God´s love, displayed and written in death. Death turned to Life.


Peace be with you.