Guatemala
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morehow to make your life an endless celebration
On Thursday, September 09 th, 2010She asks to speak at the pulpit, to say a few words, her apron still on, her eyes love worn and lined with gentle strokes. Her name is Ruth. She’s a woman who makes her pots a holy thing (Zech. 14:21), who stirs eternity at the end of her spoon. The translator serves us Ruth’s first words: “My mission is the kitchen.” Many saints have...
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what’s really muffling out the music of our lives
On Wednesday, September 08 th, 2010It’s late Tuesday night and the plane’s supposed to have turned its steel beak to the sky hours ago but we’re still at the gate waiting, waiting and making big talk about small things. “You always carry your guitar with you on trips like this?” Dustin, he’s a West Texas man moved up to Colorado to work with Compassion. And he’s asking Shaun, a Texan transplan...
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moreHow They’ve Found the Real Missing Link
On Tuesday, September 07 th, 2010Love that acts, that doesn’t shrink back, that sacrifices and stretches itself right out, fingertips reaching, this is the link that form the chain that pulls the poor from the bondage of poverty. Six farm kids are links in the love chain this morning. “I don’t want you to go, Mama….” Shalom had run to the door sobbing, her nightie flying, found...
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what to do in case of a heavenslide of blessings
On Monday, September 06 th, 2010With little less than twenty-four hours before boarding a plane for Guatemala with Compassion Bloggers, I crawl in between Hope and Shalom to whisper prayers, feel us all breathe close together. Shalom whispers, “One more night and you go. I think I might cry.” By the hall light, I can see her chin silhouetted. See her tremble. We cling. I can feel it too, the heart...
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how you might really be pregnant and not know it yet
On Wednesday, September 01 st, 2010I’m checking out sizes of socks in an aisle at Walmart when the feeling hits, a wave, and I’m washed away. I have felt this before. It’s only a fleeting moment, but I lay my hand low, where a child begins to grow on the inner walls of a woman and I feel it. I feel pregnant. I feel full of hope, heavy with child, swollen with love. The child’s name is Xiomara M...
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moreone thing you can do for your sore heart
On Tuesday, July 06 th, 2010The mercury in the thermometer rockets and tomatoes droop sad and I water the magenta geraniums in the window boxes hanging out on the picket fence. Sometimes a heart grows sore. Mine has. I weed rows of onions and pound on heaven’s door because I have got to figure out how to best spend this one life. This is all I have got to figure out. I walk to the woo...
