The Good-looking Duds

While the western world has long moved onto other things, Orthodox Christians are entering into the final week before Easter.  This year the two dates separating the same holiday are more than a month apart! One was back in March the other is coming in May!!

The western world has already ‘been there done that’. Those Lenten sacrifices, insights and resolutions for most of us are long forgotten. Chocolate’s back in, deprivation’s out!  Life settled again where it had been, the resurrection along with the colored eggs and Easter bunny a faded memory buried under the real life burdens and pressures.

Perhaps it’s supposed to be that way, similar to a flower that falls off a fruit tree. 

This reminds me of something which caught my attention on this Easter rerun. Something which, being a city girl now living in suburbia who picks apples and grapes off the Publix produce shelf and not off a tree or a vine, I don’t often think about.

Just days before the betrayal, crucifixion and resurrection, there’s a curious incident that took place on the way to the place of worship. The main protagonists, Jesus and a fig tree.

This tree apparently had everything going for it. It looked good. It was in great location. It was nice and green and seemingly quite healthy. Lots of leaves on it.

But when Jesus came looking for fruit, there was none!

I know that there could be a number of reasons why a tree doesn't produce. A worthy study for some other occasion.

But, what struck me this year was how much this tree is like some of us, self-proclaimed Christ-followers.

A lot of talk, good talk. But, nothing solid to support it.

A lot of words, sometimes even excellent words but no content.  

A bunch of great, healthy-sounding, green verbiage, but no substance. No nutritional value. No real life transformation.

Sometimes we may look so good on the outside, that we mistake the leaves for the fruit!

Ouch!

This is rather convicting, and humbling, and yes, inspiring also.  Because, I know that you and I don’t want to be good-looking duds. When all is said and done, we don’t want to be, like Spanish proverbs says, Mucho ruido y pocas nueces.

And sometimes, that’s the first and the biggest step towards some delicious, juicy, yummy fruit-bearing that nourishes the hungry souls.

How Are You?

How are you?

She looks away,

shying away

From the

I don’t know…

I remember this ‘you’

Like last year’s snow.

She is running, running,

Her PR’s good… she says,

But I wasn’t asking about ‘her’,

I press,

I was asking about YOU.

I’m running too.

Running and hiding,

From this ‘you’ you’re asking

About…

I don’t know if the ‘you’ is still here,

I must have lost it in the atmosphere.

It must be buried in the atmosphere.

I don’t know who and how I really am,

But now I’m running every a.m.

But, I was asking not

What do you do?

But simple question,

How are you?

Oh please let me go,

I want to run,

I want to run with a crowd for fun,

I want to be a part of the race

A race where I get to lose my face

In the crowd,

For fun,

I want to run.

‘Til I am a blur

Against the setting sun.

Please don’t ask me

Again

‘How are you?”

Never again

About that you!

Please…

Don’t stop…

Asking…

Even though I’m running

Even though I’m hiding…

Never stop

Asking…

How are you?

The Unexpected Journey

I’d picked up the desk from the curbside mall years ago. It was discarded most likely for its obvious imperfections. 

A wobbly back leg. 

A bleached out stain that marred its beautiful mahogany.  

Still, at least as far as I am concerned, it was a love at first sight.

The corner of our living room became its permanent home. When we originally brought it into the house, I thoroughly (or so I thought) cleaned it from top to bottom, including its carved legs and all its nooks and crannies.  Since then, I’ve walked by it several times every day. Every month or so, not to appear overzealous, I remove the knick-knacks that sit on its top and dust its surface.

With years, I’ve come to know every curve and all its imperfections, and I love it all the more not in spite but because of them.

I thought I knew this desk as well as one could know an inanimate object.

Perhaps that was my downfall.

Somewhere between all this knowledge and the resulting familiarity, unbeknownst to me, grew a contempt of sort.

Just as we were about to officially announce that the egg hunt was completed, our son walked over to the desk and with a mindless gesture pulled at its decorative bottom.

Suddenly a large drawer – the size of its entire surface - slid from the desk’s underbelly!

Where did that drawer come from?!!?? 

Mom, it’s been there all along. That’s where I keep my wireless keyboard and mouse, see?

I stare at the desk, its mouth still wide open, for something like eternity.

It preaches a sermon I may not want but I need to hear.

So many times in life I think I know.

Just as I think I know my desk, I think I know myself, my family, my friends, and what life is all about. I am so thoroughly familiar with the details of the Easter story I can predict its ending!  I think I know the mind of God?!?!!! 

And somewhere between this nook of knowledge and the cranny of familiarity, I grow contemptuous.

I become jaded.

I get smug.

Been there. Done that. Yada, yada, yada. Same old. Same old.

Until God, in His infinite mercy and kindness, pulls out an entire drawer from under the desk of life.

Surprise!

And with my eyes and my mouth open wide, I squeeze out from that tight place where love withers and contempt grows and become a Bilbo Baggins of sort,  back once again on quite an unexpected journey of life.

Never Give Up

I grumble as I stuff the pastel plastic with gummy bears, sour worms and jelly beans. No Dove chocolate this time around!

This is ridiculous! They are far too old for egg hunt. They’ve outgrown it. Tell me, which teenager’s parent is doing THIS – I point at the pile of plastic eggs and opened bags of candy, my mouth filled with sour worms – on the night when we should be thinking of Jesus and all He’s done for us???

This is not the first – or the last - time I find my parenting colliding with my spirituality.

My husband looks at me over the newspaper. Then returns to his reading.

You know, you have to make it extra hard for them to find the eggs this year, I frown.

The man of the house is the designated egg hider.  

No more easy raking of all that teeth-rotting candy, I continue. In fact, no egg should be visible. None at all. If they want the hunt, they’ll get THE HUNT. Make them WORK for the eggs.

Sunday morning, desperate for the resurrection, we greet each other with,

He is risen!

He is risen indeed, even as I wait for the second cup of java to kick in and make effectual the ‘rising from the dead’ inside my foggy brain.

The egg hunt commences without pomp. They already know what they are supposed to do.

Within minutes our house is turned upside-down in search for the hidden eggs.  They climb on top of counters, chairs and tables. Every couch and cushion moved. Every cabinet door and every drawer opened. Stove and dishwasher. Toaster oven and microwave and…

We didn’t hide any in the freezer! I shout.

They dig the eggs out of some rather difficult, creative spots. Others, which seem pretty obvious to me, they overlook again and again.

This is HARD! They moan.

This is FUN! I gloat. Are you ready to give up yet?

NOOOOO! Again they are united, so who am I to object.

The search continues on with only few more eggs left to be ferreted out.

But I don't know yet that the biggest surprise has been reserved for ... me!

The Hunt is On

For the past ten years or so, each Easter morning, we’ve had a family Easter Egg hunt. We didn’t intend to turn it into a tradition or anything remotely of that sort. I feel like already there are enough rabbit trails and distractions surrounding this unprecedented day in history. Already too much frivolity as if to sugar-coat the violence and cruelty of that day and today. No need to add our clutter to the collective clatter.

But, the kids were so adorable... they were having so much fun looking for eggs, and we were having so much fun watching them have fun that we kept doing it year after year.

Now that the adorables have overnight morphed into teenagers, the hunt feels a bit antiquated. 

They are too old for it. 

WE are too old!

On Saturday night, the eve of the big day, just to be sure, I slip in a rather self-evident statement, making it as casual as the yoga pants I am wearing.

You guys don’t want to do the Easter Egg hunt this year, right?

Nooooo!!! They cry out in unison. We WANT the Easter egg hunt!

 

The fact that they agree on anything at all during the season in life when just about everything can be turned into a WWIII-worthy argument, instantly grabs my attention.

You are way too old for Easter Egg hunt! We are too old! It’s too much hassle and you don’t even care.

We do care. We want the hunt!

Thus the decision was made and it was final.  The hunt was on.

The Useless Donkey Enters History

He would still be wallowing in the ocean of self-pity if one day, completely out of blue, he didn’t overhear a conversation between his human master and a stranger speaking with unmistakable Galilean accent.

He was so used to the big world and all its important people and events -  the real life – passing him by that he almost missed it.

The Lord has a need of him…. The stranger insisted.

The beast lifted its drowsy head, wondering what the fuss is all about.

The Lord… what??...  

The fleeting thought was so preposterous he immediately dismissed it.  This donkey has learned the lesson that life is not about him, perhaps all too well. 

Still his long donkey ears and his fluttering donkey heart couldn't rest. 

But... but... what if...?

Just then the door to his pen opened, the master walked in, untied his rope and led him out into the blinding sunlight. 

C’mon donkey.  You won’t believe it, but this is your lucky day. Out of all the useful beasts under the good heaven, the Lord says He needs you!

The Lord…?!!!

Has a need…???? 

How can the living Lord of everything have a need??? 

And that need is … 

...him?!??!!??

I remember that year as the year when the donkey - the useless, worthless donkey - entered timeless history according to the predetermined plan of His Lord. 

This same beast of burden became the unlikely courier of my personal Easter message that year.

 I’ve never looked at another donkey quite the same ever since. 

The Useless Donkey

It’s usually a good beginning. Or so I think. 

I jump-start my week with the cheering Palm Sunday crowd, the grand parade welcoming Jesus as He enters Jerusalem riding on the strangely anti-climatic beast - a donkey!

One year this is as far as I got.  It was as if the donkey slammed on his hoof-brakes, mid-parade and spoke to me, as donkeys sometimes do - although this was the first - and only time so far - a donkey spoke to me.

If you heard this donkey’s story, you couldn’t help but feel a lot of kinship towards the lowly beast of burden. 

His was an intensly sad tale of a creature who wanted so badly to be of service, to be not useless but useful. Still he remained tied inside his donkey pen day after day, chewing his hey, bypassed, ignored, marginalized and flat-out denied as his life flitted away.  

All other donkeys got to feel good about themselves and how wonderfully helpful they were to their masters.  

But not this donkey. 

Every other beast of burden could flood their Facebook wall with pictures of all the wonderful projects they’ve been a part of and all the amazing people they got to meet, important and famous people who even patted their backs in gratitude for their much-appreciated service.  

But not this donkey.

This donkey fought his valiant battles stuck inside the smelly stable, swishing flies with his matted tail.

The gargantuan battles against the onslaught of doubts.

Does the Creator even remember him? Will he die here, useless worthless donkey?

The hoof-wrestling matches with envy, and discouragement, and hoof-stomping rage, and hopelessness and utter loss of purpose.

Why does every other donkey get to live a meaningful donkey life, even FUN donkey life???... Every other stinky donkey except for him???

Alas, all the poor depressed donkey received for all his torment and all his suffering was... silence.

The Holy Week Unraveling

Every year starting with Palm Sunday I determine to re-trace His steps as I follow along through Jesus’ last week. This is the culmination of Lental season. The fulfillment of not only so many prophecies but also ageless hopes and dreams of humanity riddled with questions like, 

Where is God when it hurts? 

How can good God allow so much evil in His world? 

I feel like I’ve been sharpening my focus for several weeks now. I am as ready as I ever can be to join the writers of the four gospels who have meticulously recorded the words and events surrounding the Lord’s final moments. 

Earlier in March I even got a jpeg of the Holy Week graph - all I need to do is read through the scripture references that fit inside a given day of the week.

How difficult can it be??

Well, this year I finally figured it out.  It’s not just difficult. 

 It’s impossible!

If you’ve never tried, you wouldn’t understand.

See, there is so much compressed in this one short week.  So much love. And so much hate. There is a ton of hype. Misunderstanding. Cruelty. Intensity. Insanity. Scheming. Betrayal. Denial. More love. More betrayal. I know of no human language which can adequately express the motion, the emotion of this unprecedented week in human history.

Over the years, I learned the harder I try to wrap my mind and heart around it the more the Holy Week seems to unravel.

Stunned silence might be the most appropriate response to what unfolds before our eyes.

Broken and Beautiful

One would never know when entering the quiet unpretentious neighborhood with large trees casting giant shadows over narrow streets the magic that takes place inside a steamy garage of 905 Littlewolf Lane.

My friend Valerie lives inside the house with the garage – steamy-hot not only during the sweltering Florida summers but also during the shortened winter days when all true Floridians don their musty ski jackets to compliment their flip flops worn over mismatched ‘cold weather’ socks.

It was Valerie who first introduced me to Kintsugi, the Japanese art of fixing broken pottery with precious metals, like gold, silver or platinum.  She explained to me that in this ancient art rather than trying to effect the repair in such a way in order to minimize the visibility of the breaks, the artist actually accentuates them, considering the vessel all the more beautiful not despite of its brokenness but because of it.

The brokenness and the repair process thus become a part of its history, its beauty and the testimony to its continued usefulness despite the damage.

Such artistic approach as well as the philosophy of life is quite contrary to the imaginary standard of flawless perfection often espoused in our world.

I admit I am the first one to ditch the dinged, broken, old or simply out of style things. I’ve gotten to a place where I  simply don’t have time, energy or motivation to work on repairing anything.

It’s just not worth the trouble, I explain.

It’s cheaper to get it new, start fresh, I argue.  

Perhaps this is why the old Japanese tradition became so fascinating to me. 

I can't help but marvel who in this fast-paced, hi-tech, perfect-is-good-enough world of ours has time for such a thing??

Who possesses the patience, the thoughtfulness, the attentiveness, skill, wisdom and LOVE for such tedious, laborious, honesty wasteful process?

What kind of person do you have to be to find joy and satisfaction in the repairing what others deem unrepairable? 

Mending what most dismiss as the unmendable?

The Repair Shop of the Soul

I am rather overwhelmed by the extent of the brokenness of this place, this Nemours Medical Center for the soul. Everywhere I turn, something is broken!

Broken jars, promises and hearts.

Shattered plates, dreams and worlds and memories.

Twisted ankles, loves, desires and perspectives.  

Displaced, dislocated people.

Neither quite at home here.

Nor at home there anymore.

Sure, there is room for all of this, for all of us in this magnificent mansion of the Person, but aren’t we missing something? Haven’t you missed something, Lord? Is there not something more… something better than life – yes, it’s a very spacious, roomy, expansive life - but life condemned to perpetual brokenness – both on the inside, as on the outside…?

The questions linger in the air like partially deflated helium balloons…

It takes something like eternity to pick out amidst all this the rubble the steady rumble of the words of hope…

Not only that...

No, this is not all. There is more. Much much more... than simple spacious coexistence of all this brokenness...

Not only that, but all the broken and dislocated pieces of the universe—people and things, animals and atoms—get properly fixed and fit together in vibrant harmonies, all because of his death, his blood that poured down from the cross. Colossians 1:19-20

 

There we are!

All the broken is here!

All the dislocated, displaced are welcome here!

Not carelessly overlooked.

Not forgotten.

Not left hanging unnoticed.

Not ignored as trivial and unimportant.  

Not banned, barred, frowned upon, walled out.                    

Not tossed on the garbage heap of the world worthless, useless, because they are ....broken... because they are different, because they just don't fit in.

To the contrary!

Medical Center for the Soul

As roomy as this mega-mansion of the soul is… as wonderfully airy and spacious…. 

I can’t help but think-  if we are honest with ourselves and with others-  there are still certain realities of human condition that can’t be overlooked.

There is certain breakdown…. 

...certain rupture … 

Try as hard as you may

to ignore it, 

to cover it up, 

to pretend it’s not there, 

to mask it, sugar-coat it, glaze over it…  

...drown it in work,

wine,

words...

but something still remains hopelessly out of joint... 

God! Jesus! I want to argue...You may be so large… so spacious to contain all of us, but Lord, if you haven’t noticed, something is terribly out of joint.  We are sooo desperately broken down here.  Some of us in more than just few places… We try to fix it and we break it even further. So this wonderfully spacious mansion of our souls that is You looks to me more like a hospital than some luxurious resort…

Am I missing something?  

Are YOU missing something?

This marvelously spacious mansion 

– the door open wide to anyone - any one who wants to, who will come in – 

reminds me more of the Nemours Medical Center - filled with sick and wounded, brokenhearted than some fancy celestial Martha’s Vineyard Oceanside Resort. 

The Mega Mansion of the Soul

I was scratching the interior walls of the chicken coop of my soul looking for that one magic word that might do the trick and painlessly effect the necessary adjustment to my woefully out-of-joint attitude. It all seemed futile for quite a while, which I swiftly interpreted as a sure indication of the incredible complexity of our diversity-on-steroids situation that clearly outstripped even God’s capacity to handle….

It doesn’t always happen like this, but I was sitting on the floor in the middle of a mess of papers, and books and different mobile devices when suddenly my eye falls on the page of a letter  Paul wrote to his friends who lived so far away that he had to write letters to them rather than just send them a quick text or even Skype them….

And these were the words that gently tapped on the murky window of my despairing chicken-cooped-up soul….

So spacious is he, so roomy, that everything of God finds its proper place in him without crowding. Colossians 1:19

So… spacious…

So… roomy…

It was like this old guy, Paul, was reading pages after pages of my journal entries without my knowing it and then responding to them in a message supposedly written to somebody else...

He talks here about space. Plenty of space.

He talks about roominess.  Plenty of room.

For me? 

For us? For my outrageously diverse - multicultural, multigerational, multilingual - family?

For all of GOD! 

There is so much room inside this Person, this Jewish carpenter, Jesus, the Christ… Plenty of room, plenty of space to fit us all in, to contain not just us but GOD Himself – without crowding!

This is not some cup and saucer theology we are looking at. 

It's not some cosmic chicken coop religion we are talking about here. This is a living, pulsating MEGA-mansion of the Soul, that even Donald Trump can’t build!

And yet, it's 'container' is an ordinary flesh-and-blood human being... who was once a baby!

The Wobbling Attitude Wheel Adjuster

Whenever I hear myself talking like that  - even if no words were actually spoken out loud - I know that the wheels of my attitude are starting to wobble. You wouldn't know it from personal experience, I am sure, but wobbling attitude wheels are terribly annoying at best. 

Sometimes, not to sound like our local news anchor, they can even be deadly!

There is only one mechanic I know who can fix my wobbling attitude wheels.

Unfortunately, I have to admit here that I am not Him. And it's not like I didn't try.  

Pitiful failure as I may be to adjust my own attitude, it doesn't deter me from trying to be the Wobbling Attitude Wheel Adjuster, for a lot of people, especially my kids.  When they start complaining, for example, how un-BEAR-able their lives are (they are teenagers!), I usually say something tremendously helpful like, We should send you to Africa and there you’ll get some REAL reasons to complain about!

Surprisingly enough, that's not even remotely the kind of thing that the one and only WAWA ever tells me. He usually just waits until I have vented enough. Sometimes, when after a few hours of vehement venting I run out of steam and stop, He asks me if I have anything else to add. I would furrow my brow, raking my brain really hard to think of something else to add to my tirade, and if I can’t think of anything, I’d say I am finished.

On rare occasions, since I’ve been treated so kindly, and so respectfully, and so patiently I remember my manners and I ask Him if He would like to say something to me since now I am finally ready to listen. 

A time or two, I even made a point of actually listening to what He might say rather than assume that, 

One: I already know what's in His mind.

Two: He must be just like everyone else, too busy and too important to talk to the little nobody like me.

But, when He speaks, a single word out of His mouth carries more weight than complete works of Tolstoy and Dostoevsky (no offense to either) combined. 

The Coup Inside the Coop

It’s not like something unusual happened at the beginning of February. There was nobody in particular to blame, although there is always a temptation to point fingers. Of course, whenever we do that we tend to forget that every time we point finger at somebody else, three other fingers are pointing right back in our direction! Yikes!

But, whatever inexplicable reason, suddenly the house didn’t feel quite big enough for all of us anymore.  The house didn’t shrink.  Each of us still averaged the same square footage, which mind you, was actually more square footage per person than the size of my entire chicken coop for the whole family!

Nevertheless, the house felt cramped.  A little overcrowded.  Too tight. Too congested, like traffic on Interstate 4 during Friday afternoon rush hour. Tempers begun to flare. Opinions got aired.  

Perhaps we started doing some math...

Six people.

Two languages.

Three centuries, give or take.

One roof.

That's a whole lot of histories and a whole lot of personalities. And if you add six billion expectations, preferences, emotions, thoughts, opinions, tastes and six trillion words to say every single day 24-7... 

And thus  we began to sink.

Some may condemn.  You should be thankful.

Some may commend. You lasted longer than anybody expected!

Commended or condemned, we were sinking.

We started to sink, the way Peter begun to sink after he’d walked on water for maybe 6 or 7 minutes, I'd gather.  Just hopping along until he realized, Wait a minute! This isn't supposed to be happening.  Look at these giant waves.! Look how deeeeeep the water is under my fff.....

Yep, that's pretty much how our sinking happened.

Or, perhaps, I should say, my sinking!  

Suddenly, my little introvert felt like she had had enough of all these people all the time, bumping into people in the hallways, and bathrooms, and the kitchen, and she put her hands on her hips and was ready to announce, 

Alright guys, the party is over and now, RIGHT NOW, is the time for all of you to leave or else…

Chicken Coop for the Soul

Relative to the house where I was born - a 240 square feet (24 square meters) no indoor plumbing 'chicken coop’ as I affectionately refer to it  - today we live in a mansion.  

It’s definitely not a mansion according to the standards of the country where I’ve been residing for the past twenty years, but still in my eyes the house is plenty spacious for our family of four plus our pet guinea pig.  We even have an extra bedroom (affectionately referred to as junk... errr... guest room).  This room houses most of our useless junk until we have guests.  In preparation for visitors, we move the junk from the top of the bed and shove it under the bed, thus making the room guest-ready. We call this process ‘cleaning’.

Two months ago, we cleaned that room and it became my parents’ bedroom for the duration of their three-month stay with us.  When they arrived we went from a household of four plus a Guinea pig to a household of six plus a Guinea pig plus a rat terrier Jack we were babysitting while his human parents were away.

I still thought the house had ample room to comfortably accommodate all of us. We have lot of furniture including couches, sofas and chairs and two full bathrooms. With a little coordination we are able to take care of our cleanliness, appearance and bodily needs without too much interference and desperation.

Everything went remarkably well in our duolingual, bi-cultural, inter-species, multigenerational, ‘united nations’ household  until we started nibbling our way into the third month.

Parental Control for Parents

Cultivating cross-cultural diversity sometimes seems as easy and natural as making Russian salad by following an old family recipe. Each ingredient contributes its own unique flavor and texture while bringing the best out of the rest.  The outcome is delightful and worth every bit of effort. 

Other times cross-cultural living can be as tricky as assembling a nuclear bomb while blindfolded. When the bomb explodes, it's usually in the shape of your own head!

Still other times, this bi-focal life is downright hilarious. When you add the multi-generational layer to the cross-cultural mix, things can get quite out of control.

Case in point - back in December, I purchased a Kindle Fire for my parents as a Christmas present. It’s been my mom’s long-standing desire to have Skype and unlimited access to communicating with yours truly and her grand-kids on this side of the ocean. We understood that it would be a stretch for my technologically challenged parents to navigate a tablet, but the deal was too great to pass, and time was on our side. Practicing their touch-screen skills while under our roof would surely help them get a hang of it.

The gift was unwrapped, the beginner enthusiasm was off the charts. We hugged and kissed and toasted to the future unfettered intergalactic communication. We were off to a really good start.

I encouraged them to take every chance to play with it until they feel comfortable using at least it’s basic features.

Few days ago, I took our son to his violin lesson, and left my parents at home. While I was away my e-mail got flooded with Appstore purchase order confirmations... 

Client for imo? 

Slot Galaxy? 

Lifesum?? 

Commanders?!!??

Not all free, mind you. I was about to jump on our son, the usual suspect, for downloading all these useless apps, but he had an alibi.  He was with me!

When I got home, my mom was beaming, Kindle in hand.

I spent the rest of the afternoon with Amazon customer service, cancelling the orders, cleaning out the app mess, in a word, re-defining "Parental Controls". The Amazon Customer Service guy got a kick out of the last bit.

Ha, ha, ha... he said, Parental Control… but for PARENTS!

At least I know they feel comfortable with Kindle now... or, maybe, not quite yet.

Diversify Me!

Much is being said about diversity these days. If some are choosing to forgo the night of glamour and boycott the Oscars this year, you know it’s a big deal.  As it should be.

In an interview with Robin Roberts on Good Morning America, Will Smith said that diversity is America’s superpower.  I couldn’t agree more - that is, with slight modification (in the name of diversity :-)).

Diversity is anyone’s superpower!

We all know it. We are better together than alone.

And yet, when pain happens, when injustice happens, when misunderstandings, disappointments and heartbreaks happen, when our emotions hijack our reasoning powers, we either lash out in anger and frustration or withdraw to our self-protective shells and claim isolation as our old trusted friend.

If nobody ever told you, here it is: Diversity is also painful. Diversity hurts too.

I recall how envious I was few weeks ago as I was listening to my friends sharing about their family visits over Christmas break.  They kept those close encounters to roughly 4 to 10 days.  Anything beyond that was simply too much to handle. Actually, the 10 day relative-togetherness stint was too much to handle for one family. 

Most of us nod our heads in silent agreement.  We know what they are talking about!

I process this information inside my permanently deformed bilingual/bi-cultural brain and can’t help but marvel.  We are talking here about family members, people of the same language, same socio-economic background, and same white Anglo-Saxon culture, often similar upbringing. And we can’t handle them beyond this carefully measured teaspoonful of time.  

What then can we expect when we consider larger North-American and even global culture?

Living cross-culturally for the past 20+ years, and having my non-English-speaking parents live with us during winter months on several different occasions has taught me one thing.

Diversity talk is easy.

Diversity life is HARD.  Really, at times it’s excruciating. For everyone involved.  Nobody goes scotch free. Everyone's scarred.

Day in, day out, it’s challenging to live with a constant questioning of your beliefs, assumptions and even core values.  Those things most of us take for granted as self-evident truth and an essence of our personal identity. 

Until somebody comes along and challenges this truth with their own perception of ‘self-evident truth’.

Practicing organic bi-cultural, bi-lingual, real-time 24-7 mini version of diversity under our roof became to me a microcosm of what our society is dealing with at large. Such gritty, unedited life quickly dispels much cherished romantic notions of living together happily ever-after. When these notions wear off, each of us is left with some hard-to-stomach truths which most of us would rather keep asnooze.  

As hard and humbling as these truths may be, they are something like birth-pangs of new, genuinely better, truly diversified life. Not just some illusory version of it.  

It may take a midwife or two.  

It may take a little – or a lot! – of pushing, and some crying, even wailing out!

But if nothing else comes of it, you and I will come out on the other side a gentler and kinder person. 

Less dogmatic and self-righteous.  

Better listeners.  

More attentive and truly present. 

Maybe even a tad more forgiving! A smidgen more humble.  

Then, and only then, we might be sufficiently suited to roll up our sleeves and start hammering out organic diversity not just on Oscar nights but every night.  

Not just in Hollywood, but in our neighborhood.  

Perhaps even in church.

Now that would be a cosmic miracle in its own merit.

Sugarplums for the Soul

We put away Christmas last weekend.  Wrapped up baby Jesus in Bounty paper towels, stuffed the angels next to a glittery star and red-nosed Rudolf into a box next to all the other boxes stacked inside our attic where Christmas sleeps in our household until late November. The giant tree which occupied about a third of our living space is laid to rest in something akin to a coffin shoved against the back wall of the garage.

Our house is stripped of all the artificial evergreens, tinsels and trinkets that somehow got attached to our faith in the scandalous Almighty God who came to live among us, stinky diapers and all.

No more twinkling lights. No more egg-nog induced coma. No parties. No concerts. No cute Christmas plays.

All that is left now are bare walls, cleared out cabinet surfaces and empty floor space.

And us.

The plain, old us, unaided by staged photos, seasonal excitement, hype and ambiance fueled magic.

I look around, not sure if I can handle it.

This ordinary, grayish, bean-soup kind of day.

I feel as if a warm fuzzy coat was stripped off of me and I am left half-naked, off-centered, like a shivering addict going through withdrawal.

It’s not like I set out to feed my soul a steady diet of sugarplums at the beginning of the season.

But when all the sugarplums are suddenly gone, I wonder if any soul can thrive on a diet of sugarplums alone?

Can a soul even survive on sugarplums alone?

I stand in the middle of the room, taking in this empty, this Christmas-shaped void, savoring its gritty texture.

Perhaps it’s not what I want, but deep down I know it’s what I need.

What are you going to put there where the tree used to be? There is all this empty space now… My parents look at me, ready to pounce into large furniture moving action.

But, before their question is asked, I know it's already been answered in another universe.

I think I’ll leave it empty… I want to keep it empty for now...

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters. Genesis 1:1-2

The Year of Good Enough

It’s good.

It’s enough.

I roll the two words on my tongue, savoring their un-entangled meaning.

For someone who is so natural at finding faults, detecting imperfections, pointing out mistakes, it’s really hard to accept life as-is. To find good.  To say, This is good, and really mean it.

It’s hard to say a heart-felt, grateful, content ‘enough’ in the world whose moto is Never stop improving. When there is always something better, bigger, newer...

When each of us is experiencing pressure – as much from the inside as from the outside – to pursue the more and the better.

Better homes and gardens. Better job. Better marriage. Better children. 

The better you!

Trimmer. Healthier. More organized. More spiritual. More time in studying God’s Word. More time in prayer. More generous. More humble. More selfless, more serving….

More like Jesus!

As if as we add years to our lives we are not discovering ...

...the more we know Him...

...the more we know...

 we are nothing like Him!

But caught in that whirlwind pursuit of the better and the more, I tend to woefully overlook the good I already have. All the good that already IS.


In the endless pull for more, I fail to recognize when I've reached (and passed!) the point of satisfaction. To sense when truly it’s enough. 

Indeed, it’s plenty!

And, like a delicious meal, if I keep eating beyond being satisfied isn't going to make me enjoy my food more.
Eventually, it may make me feel quite miserable!

It appears that in life sometimes this more, this better, well-meaning as it may be, doesn’t really add anything of true value. More often than not, it detracts from our ability to enjoy the goodness in life that already is... from our ability to see that there is already enough goodness in our lives as is...

And, right now, that's good enough for me. 

Nothing we do can improve on God. Proverbs 10:22b

The Year of Doom

As if failure to select the Word for the Year isn't horrible enough, I grace the beginning of 2016. with yet another dismal shortcoming.  In all the craziness of our three-ring circus,  January pounced on me like a crouching tiger before I was able to formulate my New Year’s resolution!

No Word for the Year. No New Year’s Resolution. Does it get any more pathetic than that?

2016. must be the Year of Doom, I conclude.

 My whole year is ruined and it has barely started!

Whatcha writing about?, my husband leans over my shoulder while I glower at the screen of the laptop.  He is one of those people who doesn’t believe in New Year’s Resolutions, for which I forgive him every single year.

The Word of the Year, and how I failed miserably to select a word that will be my loadstar…

And what exactly is this ‘Word of the Year’?, he interrupts before I get too carried away.

I look at him, debating whether I should slap him or hug him.

And in that space in-between, I relax a little.  I breathe a little. And it finally dawns on me that despite all the busyness, chaos and lack of margin; despite the missing Word of the Year, and unarticulated New Year’s Resolution, the 2016. has actually been off to a pretty good start.

Perhaps not a brand new beginning.  Not a fresh start, but more of a cascading overflow of a narrative already in progress.

And, at this time, that’s good enough for me.

In fact, when I really think of it, it’s not just good-enough.

It’s actually good.

And it’s enough.

And the Word of the Year is...

A friend sent me a Happy New Year e-mail and included her Word of the Year choice, accompanied with a lovely explanation as to why this particular word was selected. It was beautiful, and spiritual, and simply perfect.

A Word of the Year!!, I thought, a sudden wave of panic sloshing over my already overwhelmed brain. Damn it! I don’t have a word for 2016!!!

Our lives have been very, very full since Baba’s and Deda’s arrived.  With countless cross-cultural, mulit-generational idiosyncrasies, there has been little brain (or any other!) space for reflective, much less proactive meditation. Our days have blurred into weeks, weeks into an entire month. The ball on Time’s Square has come and gone, all the confetti already swept off the New York City streets.

Yet, my Word for the Year basket remained empty!

That’s not a way to start a New Year. At least not for a writer.

Writers know the power of the words.  Well-chosen word can accomplish a lot more than much thoughtless busyness or rambling. I consider it not only my privilege but also my honorable duty to the rest of humanity to bring focus and clarity to life by hand-picking with laser-sharp precision a single word out of 1,025,109.8 words that currently exist in English language according to Global Language Monitor. 

 

But here we are, the 2016. shamelessly marching on, and still not a single word – out of all those aforementioned 1,025,109.8 - anywhere near my life’s horizon. 

Writer or not, I feel like a total loser.