open spaces

we drove up from the center of Zacatecas to the Texas/Mexico border yesterday. As the road became wider and the land more open, I felt my soul open up. I hadn't realized how much I had missed the clouds and the wide sky and the green-gold grass on the sides of the highway. I wished that I hadn't already purchased plane tickets but could instead rent a car and keep on driving. I'd drive right through the great plains, through Oklahoma, Kansas, Nebraska, and the Dakotas. what a way to go home. I'd see the seasons rewind, from the harvests already in progress in the south to the still growing and green oceans near my house. I could merge onto Route 281 and stay on it, jumping off right before Canada. Driving 70+ mph, watching the land unroll before me, letting the memories come back, listening and thinking and praying. That's how I'd like to go home.

We're still sitting here, waiting, on the tip of Texas. My flight doesn't leave until tomorrow but we wanted to leave time in case of traveling troubles. I'm not used to the water-saturated, super-heated air and I feel lethargic and annoyed outside. Now a tropical storm is rolling in and the rain comes in gusts and cools the air.

hot chocolate

I love hot chocolate. I grew up with it, putting mugs of 2% milk in the microwave and heaping spoonfuls of Nestle Quik powder into the steaminess. It is a decided comfort item for me, as the small amounts of caffeine won't keep me awake but the warm liquid soothes and calms. On those evenings in high school when I made my own dinner you could often see a mug of hot chocolate and a plate with eggs and bacon and toast beside my homework. That's still one of my culinary favorites.

In college I tried to like the sludge that came out of those cocoa machines and I tried to like the SwissMiss packets added to hot water. But nothing compares to hot, almost scalding, creamy milk - so hot so that the chocolate blends in with a particular rich flavor and so that you have to drink it slowly. Made on the stove also increases the restfulness of the event; slowly stirring so the milk won't burn, thinking about the day, winding down.

I remember when we got our new microwave and I put the milk in, surprised when it came out after four minutes all frothy and boiling over. I'd never paid any attention to microwave strength before but suddenly it became imperative to find the perfect amount of time to get the temperature just right.

I've tried putting in mint or cinnamon, but the perennial favorite continues to be just plain hot chocolate. So rich.

--Please remember this if you ever invite me over to spend the night.

March

I grew up in North Dakota, where the month of March is still tightly gripped in Winter. And yet it's not the same as January or February; the days are getting longer and there's a certain quality on the wind. It's almost like a kiss. A soft, gentle, kiss from Spring even as Winter continues to rule over the northern plains.

I took the kiss on the wind as a promise, that something was about to change, and I began to love March.

So all through high school, which others around me continued as in the midst of winter, I had a secret friendship with the wind and the air and the sun in March. I would read favorite authors and re-read favorite books. I would take long walks in the growing evenings. I liked celebrating the little holidays of the First Day of Spring and St. Patrick's Day. March became my favorite month.

In college, I began to celebrate Lent, and as Ash Wednesday almost always falls in February, and Easter almost always in April, March was almost always caught completely in Lent. And I was caught up in legalistically denying myself. I also missed the so-slow, ever-so-slow turning over of winter to spring. The change was quicker, somehow, in Chicago, and tulips were sometimes already peaking the beginnings of their green leaves through by the end of March.

Now I've moved to Mexico, where there is no early spring and where March is completely buried under Lenten rituals in this Catholic country.

So I find that for the last few years, I miss early Spring. I miss the awakening joy. I miss home.

Faith Indiana Jones Style

I'm struggling - currently, though it's always an ongoing struggle for me - with trusting God. I feel that he's calling me to do something, but instead of being still and quiet and humble and a willing servant, I don't want to do it, and I'm trying to rationalize or justify going ahead with my own plan.

There are moments when I say I will obey, but I'm astounded to realize that I'm still not trusting, even in those moments of surrender. I'm not quiet or still or humble. I'm rearranging my plans in my head, trying to think how it will work, what I have to do. I still want to be in control. I say I will obey God, but I don't want to trust him completely.

Indiana Jones was able to garner enough faith/courage/desperation to step out onto the invisible plank over the deep abyss, but once he got to the other side, he threw dust and pebbles over it so he would be able to see it when he came back that way. The irony of that moment has never left me, and I think of it sometimes in relation to myself. Maybe I'll take a little first step, but after that I'm sprinkling dust and pebbles so that I'll be sure to know my path, to plan my path.

MLK Jr.

I read a two-part article today in the online edition of First Things.

Here are the links:

Obama's Niebuhrian Moment Part I,

Obama's Niebuhrian Moment Part II.

The articles begin with a comparison of President Obama's Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech and the political theology of Reinhold Niebuhr. It concludes, however, with an analysis of Martin Luther King, Jr.'s Peace Prize speech and the suggestion that this may be a better pattern for us to follow than that of Niebuhr.

I recommend reading it.

Also, today is King's birthday. I think it's important to remember great men and women.

fear

I'm flying back to Mexico today after a nice Christmas vacation at home. At times, I've been experiencing high levels of worry and stress as I think about things like flying back, making the right decisions about next year, relationships. Last night, I didn't sleep very well, and worried all through my dreams.

But perfect love casts out fear, and God loves me. I can trust him because he is good. He is good in the little things and in the large things.

Sometimes life seems so long.

I'm loosing my mind - letting it loose.

Many people, close friends, well-educated, and well-meaning, use lose and loose incorrectly. More specifically, they spell loose when they mean to use lose.

Loose means, as an adjective, that something is not tight. Or, as a verb, to let something go.

Lose, on the other hand, is a verb which means to be deprived of something.

Loose rhymes with goose. It does not rhyme with choose.

Lose rhymes with bruise and with choose. It does not rhyme with nose, nor with chose.

This is all said in the best of intentions.