the tea field process

"Tea is the taste of my land: it is bitter and warm, strong,and sharp with memory. It tastes of longing. It tastes of the distance between where you are and where you come from. Also it vanishes-the taste of it vanishes from your tongue while your lips are still hot from the cup. It disappears,like plantations stretching up into the mist."  Little Bee, Chris Cleave


i'm home and it's good.  i arrived to mikes arms at the airport and several hours later to the soft sleeping heads of my little ones. life resumed quickly as i headed into kampala early friday morning.  the car was full of kids and the road full of traffic- but it felt different- i felt different- not in a huge way- but small small. and i think i know why.

i spent each afternoon in kenya walking those tea fields.

i had come to the conference with a question.  what am i supposed to do in uganda?  i meant it specifically.  but pretty quickly the answer i got was that i was asking the wrong question.  what i'm to do is secondary.  it comes after, who i'm to be.  so i'd walk and walk and run a little and pray a lot.  i felt this blockade inside me that i couldn't get my head around- which probably should have made it obvious and clear that i needed to get my heart around it instead.  i felt something tethering me- some restriction- a pulling- an unidentified weight.  i asked for revelation.  i asked for illumination and transformation and all the other 'tions' i could think of.

the day before we left i walked the farthest. i wanted to walk until i'd reached clarity and conclusion, but i just heard the leaves moving.  i stretched out my arms to feel as much of the wind as i could, to be open, and i waited. but it was just the soft feeling of cool air and i was hungry so i headed back for dinner.

that night we had our last service- it was just songs and communion and we sat in groups by country.  there were about 10 of us in the uganda group- half ugandans and half expats.  one of the ugandan women asked us to each share our prayer requests. now usually i have a long laundry list of requests- usually i'm embarrassed by how much help i need and try hard to whittle the list down to one or two like everyone else.  but this night i couldn't think of any so when it came to my turn, i just said what i felt, "tonight i'm just thankful".  i don't really know where it came from- but there it was.

after we'd had communion, the ugandan self appointed leader of our group asked us to pray quietly for our requests, so i did.  i began to pray a prayer of thanks.  and that is when the clarity came.  because out of somewhere deep inside me i spoke words that i never thought i needed to speak- words i'd certainly never felt, words that snapped the cords and brought release- words of revelation, and transformation.

somewhere inside of me i thanked God for the suffering of having a child with disabilities.  i thanked God for the deep darkness of the days that she would hide under her desk at school until i came to get her.  thanked Him for the days of fear in not knowing how to help her- of wondering if she'd ever feel better- if her brain would settle.  thanked Him for allowing me to feel the pain of it, to go through years of living exposed and outside of 'normal'.  and then i cried.

because after i'd said 'thank you'- i realized that i completely meant it.  i was thankful because so much of life is learned in those hard hard spots.  because painful things shape us and change us and help us know each other better.  because you can't just eat the cake and cookies in life- you need the vegetables and proteins.  because it's all part of a process- you need cloudy rainy days for the flowers to bloom, not just sun.

i cried because 'thank you' is different than acceptance.

with zoe, i've spend years working on the accepting part.  i've had some therapy and tired the ears of many friends, in getting to a place of acquiescence.  i've spent a lot of time praying about zoe and for zoe and about me with zoe, mostly in the well known form of begging, of crying out 'help!' and mumbling, 'you'd better show up because i didn't ask for this!'   and i did reach acceptance and i did get help and God has shown up for me, over and over.

but this was different.  in those tea fields, unbeknownst to me, God was showing up in a different way.  He was softening me- letting me feel the tethering- waiting for me to be ready to move from 'break through' to 'break out'.   it never occurred to me during the week that i needed to give thanks for suffering.  it was never asked of me in a message or a sermon.  but somehow in those fields it surfaced and pushed its way out.

i'm sure this sounds like a whole lot of crazy to many of you.  you're thinking, 'now she's gone over the top - this whole missionary thing- giving thanks for painful stuff- what??'  and in truth it didn't used to make any sense to me either.  but it's about trust.  it's about full immersion in the trust.  when i can embrace the life that God has given me fully, in all the ugly of it as well as the pretty parts, when i can leave acceptance and offer thanks, then i'm trusting fully, then i can be useful on a deeper level, then i can begin to know the answer to what should i do? then i'm ready to take risks. then i'm ready to be in my life, then i'm not afraid, then there is freedom.

there was transformation.  but like most things- it's the beginning- it's a process that has started and it needs to be continued in the days of my life.  it needs to start each morning when my feet hit the ground.  i will try.  i will ask for help.  i will take whatever broken pieces i've got and i will begin with 'thank you'. 

freeing the angels

"I saw the angel in the marble and carved until I set him free"

Michelangelo

  

i love this. 

the idea of identifying potential and then releasing it.  the art of removing the barriers to freedom.  peeling away the unnecessary, the excess, and allowing beauty to break forth.  seeing something with movement and meaning and expression, yet unformed inside of an inanimate object and working to bring it to being.  having vision. paying attention, imagining transformation, wings from a rock, something as delicate as cloth from a stone. subtractive sculpture.  finding the hidden.
excavation, transformation. unveiling the what lies beneath.


i think we start out as pure little clay lumps.  we are fed and held and taught and we grow and people shape us and add things. and good things happen and bad things too and we change with them,  life continues to add to us. we are additive sculptures, the product of our years, the many things we've seen and heard and felt and done.

now, we are like that block of marble.  we are covered in the stuff of life- buried in the years of it- tied and trapped by things done and things left undone, at least parts of us are.  but they are waiting to be carved out, they are waiting to be set free.

i love the image of emerging.  pulling forth, climbing out. 

it's pouring hard cold sheets of rain.  the world is tugging and carving itself.  the rain is pounding the red dirt and creating pools and rivers. it's pulling leaves off trees and making new patterns on the grass and little boats to float down those brown rivers.  the world is alive in a dance of subtractive sculpture, branches have darkened and bent- leaves are shiny, reflecting back that white closed sky and the sounds of earth and movement are everywhere.

what parts of me are tethered?
what is weighted in stone, encased in marble- what is waiting for release?

this year i want to free the angels.
even maybe today.
i can at least look. or stand in the rain and see what's revealed.
i can try to find the hidden beauty.
maybe i can chip toward it, chisel away at something blocking what could be.

 

beauty in the breakdown

it was a very wet weekend. it started friday afternoon when i was picking up the boys.  this was the drive home.  this wasn't even the bad part.  it was like driving through a river that might also have hidden pockets.  it upped the anty further in the kampala driving video game.

then we had a beautiful saturday.  beautiful.  we were at a birthday party in entebbe. on the shore of lake victoria, with a pool, and food, and new friends.  it was perfect.  in the evening, there was a homemade giant pot of curry cooked on an outdoor stove, there was a huge bonfire and fireworks for Guy Fawkes day.  we all camped out in tents on a field over the lake.  then the fun began.  it started to rain.  and it rained.  hard rain, then just regular rain- but all. night. long.   in the middle of the night i woke up wet - pretty much soaked- the tent had  reached it's capacity.  zoe and i ended up sleeping in the car, and the guys in the non- leaking tent.

after a wet morning of tea and hot food overlooking the lake, we made our wet drive home and hung out everything we'd brought, to dry in, thankfully, the sun.

i had some time during the weekend to pause alone and watch the great sunset in the southern hemisphere- those broad, powerful clouds, the levels of light, the variation.  and i was thinking about how all things break.  eventually.  how things fall apart.  even really good things.  even things that shouldn't, things we've paid more for, or invested more in.  and how we're  almost always shocked or surprised, but really, why?  this is life.

breaking is painful- we don't want it- we avoid it- hide from it- when it comes to the events in life that make us feeling like we're falling apart.  our pastor in san francisco used to say, ' breakdown, leads to break through, which leads to break out. '  out of our brokenness, we can gain understanding, insight, wisdom, clarity.  out of that break through, we can then move.  we can bloom.  we can reach new heights- we can breakout of what ever it was that caused our breaking down in the first place.

i love this.  this is redemption.  this is healing.  this is transformation.  this is not easy- but wow, imagine if it's true?  freedom.


redemption- the act of redeeming (to recover, to fullfill, to set free)

but it's hard.  we spend most of our adult lives protecting ourselves from breaking or at least making sure no one else knows we're broken.  vulnerability it outside the comfort zone.  so sitting with the breakdown, allowing ourselves to feel it, to admit it, to not run fast away from it, is hard hard.  but, this is necessary for understanding, for honest revelation.  and that part, is essential for change- growth-newness.

i'm trying to remember this.  to let go of the self righteous bitterness that can come from the cuts we get when things break.  to trust God- to trust the promise of fulfillment and freedom. to be still even when it's uncomfortable.  to be open to the clarity.  and then to be moved by the break out.

i've seen it- felt it- been there. and i will many more times in this great spinning world.

the night seems brighter in the moonlight here on the equator. the light rains down from the very top of the night sky. the stars are bright too and the sparks from the bonfire leaped up to meet them. orange and gold climbing up to join the blinking white lights so far off and high.

there is beauty - even in the breakdown.

transformation

this is an anniversary of sorts. a year ago today,  i left for ethiopia.  it was the day i said goodbye to my family- the day i pushed off the self-perceived vines of my children strangling me- the day i snipped zoe out of my brain- and boarded a plane- alone.

i remember landing in DC to meet lisa for the flight to addis ababa.  i had an hour or two to wait for her, so i went to a book store and bought 'cutting for stone' by abraham verghese, and lay down on a stretch of seats. and as i began to read, i began to breath.  i was stepping out of myself completely.  i felt for the first time in a long time- free.  untethered.  light. in a way that until i felt it, i didn't even know that i needed.  but i did.  so. badly.

one of the dangers of parenthood or at least motherhood is becoming so enmeshed in the lives of our children that we forget who we are.  i don't mean that in the 1960's women's lib movement way. and  i don't mean that in a dramatic, panicky, selfish way.  being a mom is the greatest thing, and my identity is appropriately entwined in my children and always will be.  but.  even being a physician and mom, a working mom, a mom with a very equal partner in parenting- i was allowing myself to be swallowed by the needs of my children.  okay.  really, the needs of one of my children. okay, really, my perception of her needs.  in other words, i had become so broken by my interpretation of her brokenness that i was really very sad.  i was feeling hopeless.  i had become so burdened by her needs - by my fears of our future- by the day to day unknowingness of our lives- that i forgot how to laugh, and smile, and heaviness surrounded me.  i was so weighed down, i didn't think i could get on that plane.  i thought i shouldn't go, i couldn't go.  i was afraid to leave my life- because tiring as it was- it was known.  what if i went away and things got worse?  what if zoe missed more days of homeschooling with me gone?  my perspective had become so narrow and i had become carved out and hollow.

but, i had the most amazing experience.  meeting yoyo and watching the transformation of lisa, my dearest friend of 30 years, join her life with this precious little boy.  witnessing her becoming a mama. watching him slowly come out of his shell each day- a little more- like a blooming flower. 

and my days there too were like that.  unfolding.  refreshing. reviving. and as i watched her family come together, and as i spend days not worrying about my family, and as i sat outside in the warm african sun, i began to let go.  to shed the heavy of my life.  to see the humor in it.  and as i watched the beauty come from the brokenness - parents connecting with their children- children uniting with their parents- each fulfilling deep needs for the other- i was reminded of the greater value that is birthed out of the struggle. that when things are hard, or painful or waited for, their arrival is that much more joyous. 

i began to think about expectations and how they can suck away our daily joy.  i began to rethink my interpretation of my life.  was it as weighted as i presumed?  was it dark and devoid of fun?  was it so troubled that it had changed me?  i looked in the metaphorical mirror and didn't understand who i'd become.  i'm not sour and serious and weighty.  at least i never really had been.  lisa knew this.  lisa knew me at 10 and what a goof i was, and how happy and easy and light i was and she helped me find that again.  so did the other people i met, and the kids at the orphanage.  so did the hours of time alone- to sit in the sun- and swim- and read.  and i processed my years with zoe as i read and hung to the words in 'cutting for stone'.

"The key to your happiness is to own your slippers, own who you are, own how you look, own your family, own the talents you have, and own the ones you don't.  If you keep saying your slipper's aren't yours, they you'll die searching, you die bitter, always feeling you were promised more.  Not only our actions, but also our omissions, become our destiny."

those words clung to me and ran around in my mind.  i had become bitter.  i was looking for another pair of slippers.  i was soaking in self-pity- and deflated expectations.

the name of the city where we stayed is- addis ababa- it means 'new flower' in amharic.  those 10 days were that- for me and lisa and yoyo- days of birth and blooming, unfolding and revival. days of owning the slippers i'd been given. days of transformation.  days that will sit with me always.  that i will celebrate each year.

happy anniversary!