Awakenings

Spring Resurrected

Awakenings

April 8, 2012

(I wrote the first part of this poem during the winter – and have added to it now that spring is shyly tip-toeing in… The story behind the first part of the poem is that I was sitting in my living room on a quiet day. My soul was restless and I needed to pause and stop in the madness of my scheduled life. So I was sitting there, looking out the window – thinking – processing…when I noticed one lone leaf, very tiny, still clinging to the naked branches of a tree. This is what inspired the poem…)

Like a blank, waiting page – silent comfort.

Naked trees. Grey sky.

One leaf: black, dead…yet she clings…alone.

Shriveled reluctance…inner strength; stubbornness.

Perhaps not knowing that the inevitable will come – that the inevitable is here.

Yet alone she clings

Through rain, sleet, freeze and wind.

She shutters and dances, yet grasps to life

Alone.

There’s a sort of comfort to empty quietness

Masks are broken.

Eyes gaze at nothing really – just relaxed, and waiting and BEING.

Waiting to be filled…but adoring the empty – as if it is a sanctuary in and of itself.

Solace of quiet loneliness.

Letting be what will be.

Letting the winds rage, and the rain pound, and the winter darken the sky.

And still she clings…

Her defiance to the inevitable wind is astounding.

Her outer beauty gone, the inner strength screams

Of something extra ordinary within.

A part of me admires her

And a part of me pities her

Why not just give up the fight?

Release your hold – winter is coming – winter is here

But still she clings…

I look down for a moment, my own world spinning around me.

The wind of my schedules and expectations rip at my soul.

The darkened sky of deadlines to meet and roles to fill creep into my quiet.

Yet I pause, as if suspended in time. The lonely afternoon sanctuary of my place by the window

Calms me and soothes my human fragile soul.

And as I raise my gaze out the window once more

She is gone.

A part of me looks harder, sad I missed her final moments

Of tenaciousness against the elements…

But she is gone

Finally letting go and allowing the wind to carry her away.

…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..

Two worlds collide

Hope peaks out of the shadows

Joy tiptoes out of her place of hiding

Like a child wanting to throw a surprise party

She puts her finger to her lips and whispers “Ready?!”

There’s a twinkle in the wind tonight

As the day just can’t go to bed quite yet…too much to miss out on!

Can you taste it?

Renewal, as a promise of something beyond the darkness

Has begun to subtly paint her hues of green into our world.

Listen! Can you hear it? The rumor running on the breeze tonight?

That the dead did not win. That the grey could not hold out.

That the wind has stopped his scolding, and the rain ran out of tears.

That love, peace and laughter could not lay dormant any longer.

And the nakedness of shame has been covered with the grace of life.

Can you feel it?

The tenacious grip of hope has won.

And we are seeing this miracle with our own eyes!

Spring is resurrected.

A Different Kind of Poverty – Part 2

Awakenings

2 comments

April 4, 2012

We put on our rubber boots and showered ourselves in deet. We were gonna take a trek in the jungle surrounding our village, led by the village leader – our new friend, Walter. It was the day before the well-drilling in the village. So we packed some water and headed out, following our guide into the deep green of the Amazon rain forest.

What followed was 2 hours of some amazing sights, sounds and tastes. Walter would stop along the way, look at what appeared to us as a random root or branch, and then explain through a translator what it was all about and how it could help anyone in the jungle and world. We saw Cat’s Claw; 6 different kinds of fruits; a vine that naturally holds water; and many different animals and bugs and plants.

Walking into the jungle

Drinking fresh, clear water out of a wild vine - too cool!

Cat's Claw - a natural cancer-fighting agent

A plant that contains natural dye used for face paints and clothing dye

Our group in the middle of our trek - after eating some freshly picked jungle fruits.

Once again I was struck with the wealth of this experience and this man and his village. I was reminded with how much I trust in the supermarket and other retailers to provide for my needs…and even though it offers me convenience and I can go down and buy (assuming I have the money) anything I want or “need”, perhaps we have lost the power and awe of the sacrifice involved in hunting and gathering for our survival. And here was this man who could just walk into the rain forest and identify every branch, leaf, root, fruit, etc. and know exactly what it was for and how it could best help anyone. All the “hunting” and “gathering” I know how to do involves a 15-minute drive down to Safeway, filling up my shopping cart, then getting annoyed cuz I have to wait in line to pay for my “catch”, and then driving home. Sheesh!

What society calls “wealth” and “success” can many times be deceiving, and someone with all the conveniences and “stuff” in the world can still find themselves in the greatest poverty of all. As Mother Teresa put it:

“Loneliness and feeling unwanted is the greatest poverty of all.”

And when we look at most advertisements, they try to promise an answer to the emptiness we struggle with. If we could only buy this product, then we would finally be fulfilled and happy. Just check out the following images taken from advertisements and look for the underlying longing of the human race portrayed:

Can a diamond really bring about true connection?

Wait: is this referring to the baby or the car??

Really? Budweiser can provide me with these kinds of buddies?

And it's important for everyone to know this because...?

Is this better than transforming my real life?

So Dell can give me Beautiful, but she doesn't look too happy...

Haha - and I have to spend more money. Again.

Compared to???

I'm sorry - this is just too funny - what are they promising me here?

(Notice the fine print and the reference to "smart" women)

These images are proof that we all long for something deeper, and the advertisement specialists are trying to tap into that longing and get our hopes up that maybe this product will help deliver a morsel of what we ache for. Whether it be connection, or to be seen as beautiful, or to be regarded as smart, or to please people around us and prove to them our significance and value… Yet so many times we can find ourselves stuck in a poverty of debt, or shallow living, or loneliness caused from having to protect all our brand new stuff. Or we find ourselves trapped in the cycle of needing to buy more and more as the products become old and the “high” of a new item wears off, and so we find ourselves shopping, trying to feed that inner addiction and longing. But what if we already have what we’re looking for? Wealth is truly available for every single person on this planet – but it may mean laying down a plank or two of our impoverished walls of greed so that we can partake in the riches of love and community and grace. It may mean listening to the underlying longing of each advertisement, and then answering that longing with the real deal: To stop chasing mirages and realize that maybe the answer to complete happiness and fulfillment has already been given to us by God. That “simple” things are truly profound. The paradox is that we can lose that inner peace, happiness and love when we begin to believe the lie that we must sell ourselves in order to capture the things which we already contain within us. To identify this truth and be free from the false promises of advertisements, and to live purely and happily and freely with no attachment to “stuff”, this is what it means to be truly wealthy!

A Different Kind of Poverty – Interlude

Awakenings

2 comments

April 2, 2012

My soul feels restless today. We’ve been back from Peru now for 4 days, yet it feels longer. We got back and hit the ground running – returning to work, catching up on paying bills, checking emails, doing laundry, going grocery shopping…life as usual. I finally have a day off – first one in over 2 weeks – and I feel restless.

Dreamt last night about Peru – I could hear the jungle sounds in my sleep, and woke up thinking I would be inside my tent – only to find me inside my comfortable bed, in my comfortable house, with the clock ticking and crickets singing outside. And it was weird – I felt a tiny bit of disappointment. I should feel grateful and happy to be home – and I do – but I also feel restless, and this restlessness is deep inside my soul. And it’s hard to put a finger on exactly what it is…but I shall attempt.

It’s as if the two worlds have collided, which is to be understood, and I am in the middle, holding one in one hand, and the other in the other hand. I am the link, and I am feeling the tension of both drawing at me, questioning my identity and value, whispering at me – challenging me with the question of who am I in light of both worlds? Like the tension that arises when a storm suddenly cascades upon the reality of a sunny day, I stand in the middle of this tension.

A storm coming on the Amazon while we were in Peru

This tension all started the moment we got back, but in little ways: finishing my grading, jumping right back into work, interacting on Facebook and email with friends, playing Angry Birds, doing laundry, prepping for work. All the little “normal things” that are the day-to-day routines of “normal life”, but it all happened so fast – as if two alternate universes collided in a matter of hours, and the normalcy of both at first seemed ok, but the more they both existed at the same time, it began to rip a hole in the universe of my soul. The chasm is widening and calling out to me, haunting me with questions such as:

Who are you and what will you do with this experience?

What world do you belong to?

How will you become this new reality of both worlds – how will you make room for the collision to exist?

How will this enhance the journey you are on?

How will you be true to yourself?

You feel you need to change? No need to change – let it go!

These questions surprise me – I travel a lot… I haven’t felt this restlessness in a long time. It doesn’t happen every time I travel. Why now? Why this time around? Or maybe I do feel it every time? Maybe it does call out to me but I drawn it out in the ways I have been attempting to this time: playing silly games such as Angry Birds, exercising, checking Facebook every hour, cleaning, working, planning, listening to music or catching up on TV…and the list could go on. Yet with feeding myself this dose of activity since getting back, I’ve become more and more restless, and with it, more and more unhappy – thus widening the gap between the world I left 2 weeks ago, and the world I’ve returned to.

After living simply with spending 2 weeks in a tent, listening to the sound of the jungle at night, laughing with and loving on children who have nothing, drilling wells for people who have no water and had to haul it literally for miles, and being cut off from email and tv and Facebook…and then suddenly plunging right back into this world of activity – it makes perfect sense that I feel this culture shock on a soul level.

So what to do? How do I process this “culture shock?” A side of me feels silly, like it’s stupid that I feel this way – “C’mon Krystalynn, You’re a professional. You do this all the time! Are you really that weak?? Why are you listening to your soul? You’re thinking way too hard about this! Maybe you’re just emotional and tired. Let it go! You had 2 weeks, now you’re back. You deserve this life here and now. ” It’s the cynic that lives in my head…Identifying this cynic feels liberating. And so, my way of giving my inner cynic the finger? I will listen to my soul. I will let my soul feel the tension of both worlds colliding. I will provide myself with space and hush and safety to process this beautiful glimpse of awakening in my soul. I choose to let the kingdom make itself manifest within me – and I will stop fighting it. As the Switchfoot song puts it, this is a Beautiful Letdown.

So how to make both worlds connect? I’m gonna go process this question now – I will give my soul permission to feel and to question and to mourn…and I feel relief and peace with the honesty I am showing myself and I’m excited for the outcome. One thing is for sure – I feel like I am unmasking the poverty of my materialism and unveiling the ingredients of the wealth of what it means to live kingdom moments that liberate the soul.

Here’s the song “Beautiful Letdown” by Switchfoot:

A Different Kind of Poverty – Part 1

Awakenings

2 comments

March 29, 2012

As soon as we made our way outside you could tell it was a different place. The hot, humid air was immediately sticky on our skin, and the smell of exhaust from all the motor cars hung lightly on the air. We had made it. We grabbed our luggage, and stuffed it in the back of a truck, and made our way out to the Amazon River. After a brief stop at the Belen Market, we headed out with all our baggage to a little village on the Amazon River. The adventure had begun! I will be recounting some of my favorite moments from the trip to Peru that I have just arrived back from today. 18 of us – 12 students and 6 adults – went to Peru for the past 2 weeks. These are some of our stories…

On a jungle trek outside the village San Andreas

As we landed at the bridge of San Andreas, a small village of Bora Tribe people on the Amazon river, it began to clearly sink in: this was the real deal. This was going to be a rich and satisfying experience. The wealth of what met my eyes felt like water to a parched throat. I heard a pure, peaceful serenity that hung heavy with the sounds of the wild jungle – bird noises I had never heard; cicada bug; chickens, and the sound of children playing in the wild outdoors. It was a small village, with houses that had thatched roof, and a few that had rusted tin. We made our way to where we would pitch our tents and began to set up camp.

Part of San Andreas

After not showering for 2 days, we were ready for a good clean bath of some sort. I asked where the showers were and the woman in charge of the village looked at me like I was crazy for even asking and replied, “the river,” as if, duh, I was being silly. So, for the first time in my life, I was going to “shower” in the Amazon River! So I got the girls and the staff ladies together and asked if they wanted to join me…but where to go? My American mind raced with objections and tried to come up with more “sanitary” options, but at the same time I was angry at that side of me and wanted to prove my inner wimp – that side of my comfortable, sterile selfishness that sometimes whines and groans – that it was wrong and to shut up already! And so the challenge was on!

As we were finishing getting our tents set up, a little village girl approached me with a small green parrot. She smiled, and in her face I could see a young, mighty warrior. Her eyes shone with a deep wildness that was kind and adventurous. I smiled back and began to speak with her, using my highschool spanish skills that had laid dormant for years. I felt drawn to her right away. I introduced myself, and then asked her “su nombre?” (“your name?”). And that was the start of a great friendship – Her name was Mierta, and the bird’s name was Loleta. She gave it to me to hold, and I put my finger out, and Loleta climbed on board. She laughed as I began talking to the bird, and I could feel my soul breathing deeply as her wild kindness warmed my heart.

Mierta with Loleta

As all us ladies got our “shower stuff” and began to head out to look for the perfect, private bathing spot, Mierta came out to greet us again. One of our students spoke spanish, so I asked her to ask Mierta where the best place to bathe would be? Mierta began to talk a lot, like any 9-year-old will do, and so I asked our student to see if she would take us with her and show us in person? She quickly agreed, and off we went, following our new friend through her village. She stopped along the way and picked something off a tree and opened it up – it was some awesome tasting fruit. She gave us a handful of it, and talked away. I asked my student what she was saying, and she was talking about how she caught her bird, Loleta, a few months ago in the jungle…like how cool is that?? Finally we arrived at what looked like a pond, but with plenty of privacy. She said it was good for bathing, but we could smell feces. So we asked her if there was another spot. She quickly nodded and boldly led us to what would become our bathing area.

Walking to our bathing spot

We showed up to another clearing in the small tributary-creek that meandered through the village. There were a few huts here and there, but as we inched down to the water, there was a nice clearing that had a pool-type area with a tiny current going through. She walked right in the water and turned around as if to say, “C’mon! What are you waiting for?” Once again that spark and wildness in her eyes was so beautiful and intense and alive. So we looked at each other, and undressed as much as we dared, and stepped into the water.

The water was SO refreshing! It was cool and a few of us were caught off-guard by the slope of the ground beneath the water’s surface as we slipped on the mud. Screams of delight filled the air as we all found ourselves bathing like most of the world does: a bunch of women, some younger, some older, wearing our tanktops and shorts, with Mierta splashing us. I had brought my bar soap and washclothe, and we all shared the soap, laughing, rinsing, and delighting in the refreshing feel of cool water on a hot humid day, and the result being clean skin. In a moment we became one with the fact that we could bathe in the river – and that it actually was a lot of fun, not to mention bonding. We named our bathing spot at that moment our “Amazon Spa – by Mierta”. We dried off and sloshed back to camp in our damp shorts and tank-top, with Mierta laughing along-side us. And a bit of her wild wonder, daring spirit, and kind fierceness had already rubbed off on us. We felt like we had experienced a baptism from our spoiled, “blessed” lifestyle of “comfort” and had awakened to what it means to have community, and how necessity draws us all to be awakened to a true happiness that materialism could never afford.

Amazon Spa by Mierta

I began to feel that inner calling reminding me of what it means to truly live. In that moment of bathing, a kingdom moment occurred – a sort of baptism – a reminder that perhaps those who are wealthy in materialistic things, or those who have all the creature-comforts one could ask for – perhaps they, or should I say we, are the ones who are living in poverty? And that our friends who are living out in the huts on the Amazon River and in other places around the world – who survive off of the land and catch pets in the jungle and use a generator for electricity and who bathe in their natural Amazon Spa – those who understand that true fortune lies in community and love and taking care of each other no matter what – these are the ones who are truly wealthy! This is the treasure we should invest in…

Mierta and I later on in the week

Traveling

Awakenings

no comments

March 15, 2012

Today I am leaving for Peru for 2 weeks. Don’t know if I’ll be able to update my blog, so if not, I’ll be back up in 2 weeks.

May we all spread love in whatever corner of the world we find ourselves in. As a quote says: “They’ll call you a dreamer, a do-gooder or a romantic. Every time you stand up for a good cause – large or small – someone will roll their eyes or tell you to sit back down. Robert Kennedy used to say that 20% of the people are against everything all the time. It’s true. There will always be lots of people who can give you all the reasons why you can’t or won’t improve the world. It’s up to you to remind yourself of all the resins why you can and will. Optimism and pessimism are both choices…” (from the book “One”). And I add to that that love and a life of love is also a choice. And it is what the world is dying for. So join me in the journey. Whether it be in Peru, Tennessee, California, the city, the country, your living room, the slums, or the palace – let LOVE be your mission, your motto, and your reason for being here at this time in history! And as Richard Bach says “Here is the test to find whether or not your mission on earth is finished: If you are alive, it isn’t.”