Photograph

Worn clothes hang from her thin frame.
Threadbare, mismatched, brightly colored, 
they are a contrast to the mask of grief on her face.
Furrowed brow. Life's toughest moments etched on her cheeks.
Her black hair, parted just where it has begun to gray,
hangs in braids at her shawl-wrapped shoulders.

I don't know her name
but this woman from Guatemala's Chimaltenango province
is cloaked with a humanity that I can relate to.
Her body bowed with resignation under the weight of her loss.
Eleven relatives washed away by Tropical Storm Agatha
Stomach protruding, she casts an unseeing glance down at the earth that took them.

A scene of destruction frozen in frame:
ravaged land, broken branches
The trees' vibrant shade of green seemingly mocks her despair
A haunting suggestion of the lives that once were there
In this quiet scene of grief, she is wholly removed from the chaos that ripples across the globe.
Right now, her shattered corner of existence is the only one that matters.

More than 1,700 miles away, a stranger grieves with her.

Photography by Ulises Rodriguez/EPA

Orb (a.k.a. Pumpkin)

She came to me in my darkest moments

When I was as broken as my dreams

She cowered under the bed with

the same fear I felt towards people around me --

avoidance I could relate to when it was all I could do

to get through another day with the pain.

She taught me that, in spite of my doubts,

I could still love and express that love.

She coaxed out my nurturing maternal side,

and little by little, as I gained her trust and respected her space,

I learned to hope that there would one day be

someone who showed me the same respect and tenderness.

Gradually, as she came out of her shell

she showed me that life after trauma

can be composed of the small silly moments

that made it worthwhile and so joyful before.

She showed me what it is to play

with the innocence and wonder of a toddler,

even after having been betrayed and abandoned

by the one person you should feel protected by.

Her snuggles brought me out of my pain

out of the loss, the fear and the darkness.

She was in many ways the presence of Christ in my life:

encouraging me to live again, restoring hope beyond the pain,

assuring me I had not been abandoned through it all

and was not alone, now or ever.

According to The Shack, God reveals Himself

in the least intimidating form for us to see.

God packaged His love for me in the form of

a scruffy, scrawny, scared little kitty,

whose two years of life had been defined by instability.

On days when I'm sad and she curls up beside me,

I still feel His love through her.

But I have also been healed to a point where

I can begin to look outside of my "safe" zone and glimpse God

in the everyday details and faces surrounding me in life.

So, tonight, like every night, I offer up my thanks to God

for the many blessings He has given me --

family, friends, faith, health, a job, the hope of a future --

and folded into that list is a precocious and affectionate cat

who's captured my heart with her zeal for life,

and restored my own with her presence.

--May 2, 2010

Attack Aftermath

I put on our class' t-shirt tonight (the one from high school with both our names on it) not knowing what his fate is -- a clammy, shaky, sinking feeling. At once numb and achy. Totally nauseous.

That death or severe injury is even a possibility for him right now has drained me of every drop of energy that overflowed my cup this morning. The spring in my step has uncoiled with the anxious dread of not knowing.

The silence.

The waiting.

Time does funny things to a person waiting for this type of news. It stretches itself to seem interminable but promises none of the speed that brought one to this stalemate.

I know what you must be thinking: "He's in a war zone; what did you expect?" But it's funny how that works, too, because while you try and prepare for these types of scares as you send them off with a hug, a mental dress rehearsal can't compare with the real thing. It's totally different when the whispered imaginings of "If ..." are replaced with nightmarish details of actual events. Bloodstain outside the T.G.I. Friday's on the boardwalk where many soldiers socialize. Details distilled in the military's slowness to release information and paired with a personal tendency to let my mind wander the "what-if" trail amount to a dance with insanity.

Try sleeping when you don't know whether your friend is in pain, conscious, dead or alive; whether he's alone in a military hospital or just reliving the horror in his bunk as his body and mind wrestle about the need for sleep.

I apologized to him - mentally - as I ate today; that my body seemingly kept ticking forward when for him the world had been interrupted so violently. The fact that my appetite was still there felt like a betrayal from my own body. I was full of dread, worry, fleeting bouts of hatred toward the Taliban, then the subsequent repentant prayers to God. Weren't all these enough to keep my body going?

In the fluctuation between panic and numbness, I got to thinking about war. Nothing in my mind was linear and these thoughts aren't either, so I won't try to string them together in a forced structure. I pondered:

• the wasted potential, the promise of brilliance bled out on battlefields where the gifted individual is hidden behind generic labels like "troop," "soldier," etc. 
• the unquantifiable senselessness of it all; the ugliest layers of Life and humanity exposed; the messes we get ourselves into for unchecked passions, lack of wisdom, and an abundance of pride. 
• the hatred I feel for the terrorists restrained only by my desire not to resemble them in any way; not to become like them by the same fatal flaw; instead, to tap into the potential nobility of a human soul and recognize the power to choose what we allow ourselves to become. 
• frustration for the moments when people reassure me there were "only injuries" reported. I know they're trying to comfort, but it sounds callused and naive to say that. "Only injured" could be a life-altering brain injury, limb or sensory loss. And, without any further information from the military, we have no way of gauging how many are "only" critically wounded, which could translate into the worst-case scenario. 

When we fight wars, we invite Satan -- in all his ugliness and horror -- to reveal his face on Earth in utter clarity. The depths to which humanity and angels alike can fall; the brutality and viciousness unleashed against each other, destroying the very fabric of our existences; reminding us -- as they are lifted from our hands -- what the most precious things in life actually are: family, friendship, love, health and faith.

"And remember, the truth that once was spoken: To love another person is to see the face of God" is a favorite line of mine from the musical "Les Miserables." It reminds me, now, why it is so crucial not to hate and allow evil another stronghold on Earth; but instead, to sacrifice our aching hearts, shattered dreams, and wounded pride on the altar of service to God and fight brutality with beauty, fear with faith.

That being said, abstract principles are little comfort to me as the silence consumes me tonight. All philosophical thought seems absurd when the concrete dangles before me.

Overwhelmed by feelings of powerlessness and exhaustion, I climb into bed.

***

Update 5/25: I heard from my friend this morning and he is safe.

A new favorite ...

I love pretty much everything about this song: the groove, the lyrics, his voice, and the production. Enjoy!

Marketers to the Super Bowl audience:

You, yes, you on the couch. We've never met. But we've been working months to show you that we get you.

If you're a guy, you're two-dimensional. You're part-baboon. You have no intellectual interests. You really, really, really like beer. In fact, that and a naked woman (together or separately) are enough to motivate you to do anything. You feel threatened by the fact that women have leveled the playing field and are asking you to be more than a paycheck. We recognize this in overt ways by telling you your best shot at holding on to your masculinity is to drive our car; or in subtle ways, by playing to your ego and casting you in the dominant role in every single commercial.

If you're a woman, you're also two-dimensional. You are annoying. You're not worth addressing with any of the millions of dollars at our disposal. You fit into this event as comic relief -- but don't expect to write or crack the jokes; the laughs will be at your expense. The only way you get to shine is if you're 88 and willing to be tackled to sell a candy bar. Otherwise, your place is in a hot tub, on a massage bed, or passively standing beside your husband as he tries to fight fees with the concierge. We are wholly unconcerned with the fact that we kowtow to the XY chromosomes in the room and flip the bird at you in the process. You'll get over it. You should be used to it by now. And you'll come back to buy our stuff anyway because, honestly, would you expect anything different from us on such a male-centric event? I mean, who do you think you are? Let the boys be boys, and let us make the money how we do. Go back to the hot tub. Oh, and on your way, get us a cold one.

A song for today

Aside from the freaky close-up and the Italian lyrics, check it out. I'll work on posting the translation when I don't have a snowbank asking to be shoveled off my car. :)



Update: Translated lyrics below

Tutto questo tempo a chiedermi cos'e che non mi lascia in pace
(All this time to ask myself what it is that's not allowing me to be at peace)
Tutti questi anni a chiedermi se vado veramente bene cosi
(All these years to ask myself if I was really doing well like this)
Come sono
(As I am)
Cosi
(As such)
Cosi, un giorno
(Like this, one day)
Ho scritto su un quaderno "Io faro' sognare il mondo con la musica"
(I wrote in a journal "I will make the world dream with music")
Non molto tempo dopo quando mi bastava fare un salto per raggiungere la felicita
(Not too long afterward it was enough that I make a leap to rejoin happiness)
E la verita e' che
(And the truth is that)
Ho aspettato a lungo qualcosa che non c'e'
(I waited for so long for something that doesn't exist)
Invece di guardare il sole sorgere
(Instead of looking at the rising sun)
Questo e' sempre stato un modo per fermare il tempo e la velocita'
(This was always a way to stop the time and the speed)
I passi svelti della gente, la disattenzione, le parole dette senza umilta'
(The quickening steps of people, the carelessness, the words said without humility)
Senza cuore
(Without heart)
Cosi'
(Like that)
Solo per far rumore
(Only to make noise)
Ho aspettato a lungo qualcosa che non c'e'
(I waited for so long for something that doesn't exist)
Invece di guardare il sole sorgere
(Instead of looking at the rising sun)
E miracolosamente non ho smesso di sognare
(And miraculously I never stopped dreaming)
Miracolosamente non riesco a non sperare
(Miraculously I continue to hope)
E se c'e' un segreto e' fare tutto come se vedessi solo il sole
(And if there's a secret it's to do everything as if you only saw the sun)
Un segreto e' fare tutto come se, fare tutto come se vedessi solo il sole
(A secret is to do everything as if, to do everything as if you only saw the sun)
Vedessi solo il sole
(As if you only saw the sun)
E non qualcosa che non c'e'
(And not something that doesn't exist)

On the lighter side ...

Loved, loved, loved this ad!



(I do not have any connection with Audi, nor is this an endorsement of their product.)