forward regression

Thus far this week I have managed to:

 

-Talk when I should have listened

-Spend half a sermon thinking about how badly I need to go shopping and how much I hate shopping (it's a vicious cycle)

-Fail someone I love not once, but twice in the same day

-Make and break a new schedule within 24 consecutive hours

-Freak out about college applications I should have taken care of sooner

-Get irritated with the people I love most in the whole world

-Feel really lame for having these problems

 

(Hi, welcome to my life!)

 ~

As I slowly sunk into this quagmire of failure, Piper's words hit me like a lifeline:
 

"Shame is a painful emotion caused by a consciousness of guilt or shortcoming or impropriety. The pain is caused not merely by our own failures but by the awareness that others see them."

          [John Piper]

At first, the quote might seem more condemning than redemptive: **sarcasm alert** "So, not only am I guilty, but I only feel the guilt because I'm worried about what other people think? Guilty and egotistical. Great! I feel so much better about myself now!!"

 

(Actually, I felt a lot worse.)

 

 Truth has a razor-sharp edge; it pierces and burns before it heals.

 ~

 Of course, I don't enjoy messing up. But it's easy to dismiss my shortcomings as mere mistakes and to flippantly say that I'll "do better next time" - unless I am aware that others saw what I did wrong. Then, my failures afflict me. I am burdened, I feel ashamed; I might even weep. But I weep because I see myself through the eyes of other people and find I am not all I wish to be.

~

I like to play with reality. When I take walks, I spin and re-spin the story of my life (present, past, future) in beautiful words. I draw on real events, embellishing them to make myself sometimes tragic, sometimes amusing, but always picturesque. Always the heroine.

And the funny thing is, I keep telling myself those stories even though they make me miserable. They make me miserable because they never come true. I know they never will.

~

Here we come to a very quiet place.

Imagine somewhere like spring. Small white flowers are dusted over the grass, a sort of starry powder. The flowers turn their little faces to the sun and open slowly, so slowly that you would never see their petals uncurl and stretch to meet the morning. They have so recently sprung from the soil.

 

the leap,

the purge, the quick humility

of witnessing a birth

 

That’s what Kay Ryan said. When I tried to explain the feeling back in March, I said this:

There is a richness underground, a sort of historical wisdom –

         A humility in these springtime stars.

 

I like Kay Ryan’s words better, but that’s beside the point. Here’s what struck me: I’m not the only one who associates birth and humility. It’s me, Kay Ryan the poet of sunshine, and someone else…

~

…that would be Jesus.
 

“And He called a child to Himself and set him before them, and said, ‘Truly I say to you, unless you are converted and become like children, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven. Whoever then humbles himself as this child, he is the greatest in the kingdom of Heaven.” –Matthew 18:2-4.

I spend so much time trying to be a parent-figure, a mentor-figure, a hero-figure. Constantly, I seek to mold myself into someone of worth and significance. I suppose that is not all bad.

But I spend so little time being comforted because someone who loves me and who is stronger than me says everything is going to be OK. These days, I don’t often squeal with delight because “GUYSthere’saLIZARDonthewindow” (always pronounced without spacing). When was the last time I sobbed because a baby bird fell out of his nest? And what happened to the times I hugged crying people instead of listing off ways for them to fix their problems?

Peace, wonder, tenderness, compassion - childlike traits. And they come because children are small, know they are small, and are content to be small. A child is happily subordinate. A child trusts without understanding.

There is such freedom, such rest, in not being at the center of all my stories. It’s lovely to know someone much more competent than I am will save the day.

~

Here is where we find the gentle side of truth.

I have plenty of failures. Layers upon layers of them, and we’re still peeling! (I say we, because it’s a collaborative effort between God, the world, and myself). But when I can acknowledge those failures and lay them at Jesus’ feet with a spirit of genuine repentance and childlike trust, there is rest. When faith lets me see the world through God’s eyes (not others’ eyes, least of all my own), I am freed from this shackling shame.

By the grace of God, I will be a child.

 

artsy picture

artsy picture

 

realistic picture

PC to Renee, who is wonderful

 

 

“O Lord, my heart is not proud, nor my eyes haughty;

Nor do I involve myself in great matters,

Or in things too difficult for me.

Surely I have composed and quieted my soul;

Like a weaned child rests against his mother,

My soul is like a weaned child within me.”

[Psalm 131:1-2]

 

in a minute there is time...

I am sitting here with my mug of tea, prepared to work on that priority list I talked about in my last post...
except for that I realized I have things I want to write about first.

That statement probably says something about my priorities in and of itself.

Having always been a project-oriented person, it's strange to find myself suddenly caring more about the process. You know,

project (n): the sum of experiences which, when combined, achieve a desired end

process (n): the sum of moments which, when combined, create an experience

Not Merriam-Webster definitions by any stretch, but that's how I think about it: the act of painting vs. the finished picture, the practice vs. the game, the conversation vs. the application. Last year, I would have never chosen to write a blog post that maybe 10 people who already know me reasonably well will actually finish over mapping out my future. Last year, I took the PSAT, did debate research, and caught up on math homework (in my bedroom, by myself) for my birthday. This year, I went out for breakfast, hiked, and went ice skating with my little brothers for my birthday. It's like I actually prefer having fun to getting work done! I can feel you laughing at me but that, my friends, is the strange (sad?) truth. Each day, I find myself more inclined to choose the process of life over its various and sundry projects.

There are probably a lot of reasons for this, one being that I caught a glimpse of a different way of life, a grace-filled way of life, when I visited the Smiths in Mexico City. ("I know this hurts your American heart to hear, Aubrey," Naomi said to me, "But you don't have to always be cleaning the kitchen.")

God made good things to go in His good world: colors, emotions, scents, music, laughter, tastes, relationships, words, light, rest...the list goes on and on. Enjoying them is a way of enjoying God - God the Creator, God the father of light from whom every good thing proceeds (James 1:17)

Taking tea at Casa Tassel

Enjoying quesadillas in the apartment after a team meeting

Strangers socializing at a taco stand. Two things I miss about Mexico: spontaneous conversations and taco stands.

When it comes to enjoying goodness, a lot can happen in a moment. To quote that brilliant man, T.S. Eliot*:

There will be time to murder and create
And time for all the works of days and of hands
That lift and drop a question on your plate;
Time for you and time for me,
And time yet for a hundred indecisions,
And for a hundred visions and revisions,
Before the taking of a toast and tea.
~
In a minute there is time
For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse.

*Each time I read Eliot, he feels more and more like an old friend and his poems feel more and more like letters. I love it when that happens between myself and a favored author.

Choosing to have a dance party with Sean instead of getting annoyed at him for playing the Pirates of the Carribean theme for the umpteenth time while I was trying to get homework done is the decision of a moment, but it amounts to an experience that then colors the entire dynamic of my relationship with this 11-year-old boy. Making a card for the girl I hardly know might cost me the chance to get back into classical violin, but it also might win me a friend. So much hangs in the balance of split-second decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse.

And to jump from the wisdom of T.S. Eliot into a deeper and more mysterious wisdom, there is Jesus.

God could have accomplished atonement with a fire-blazing, sky-splitting, earth-shattering projection of omnipotence. But He didn't. Instead, he designated an embryo to be born as a helpless little baby, go through all the awkward stages of growing up, travel first-century Palestine as an itinerant Rabbi, and die a shameful death.

God didn't just save us with a snap of His almighty fingers. He saved us through a story, through the life of a Man with flesh like our own flesh. He saved us in such a way that we would know were being saved. By dying to save us, He gave us the gift of glimpsing the height and length and breadth and depth of His love. That is a weighty grace

I've been mulling over this paragraph from N.T. Wright (I guess I have a thing for writers who go by their initials?):

"The Cross can be seen as Jesus' final great act of love. It draws to a climax all those actions throughout His ministry - His touching of a leper, His tenderness toward the chronically sick or bereaved, His tears at Lazarus' grave - in which we see the deeply human, characteristically God-filled Jesus truly at work."

God is a God who understands the power of a moment in human existence. He is a God who cares not only about the outcome of a life, but about the life itself. I imagine that's part of why He tells us to have love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control but never gives us a quota of souls to save or prayers to pray.

I am still wrestling with the tension between my goals-oriented self and my new, oddly flexible and contented self. Undoubtedly, I still have a lot to discover about what this clever God is doing in me. But I'm writing this down to share with you all some of the thoughts that are changing me, in hopes that I am not the only person confused by myself.

It's in seasons like these that I am especially grateful God is greater than my heart, and knows all things (John 3:20).

Much love,
Aubrey

P.S.

Here are some birthday pictures, if you care to see them!

Breakfast at Panera

Hiking at Comanche

Sean decorated my room and HE SPELLED MY NAME IN STREAMERS, PEOPLE!

My boys <3

 

suspension

This picture is kind of how I feel right now...suspended above something vast and complex and unknown.

 



 
The comparison between my life and the picture breaks down when you look at Josu's facial expression: he is smiling at Mexico City. When I look down at the sprawling city of possibilities beneath me, I am not always smiling!
 
I've been excited about college for what feels like forever. Meeting new people, immersing myself in a new environment, having my thinking challenged, studying the things I am passionate about - how could I not be excited? Except for lately I've been second guessing everything I thought I knew about my future plans. Since I'm graduating this year, I feel like now would be a great time for some decision-making confidence...but I have very little. This uncertainty is giving me a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach.
 
All this begs the question: what am I supposed to do? Application deadlines are approaching; I can't afford to ignore the future until my feelings come around. Mr. Ayala, my Spanish tutor, gave me some sound advice yesterday: I need to list out my priorities and evaluate what matters most to me. Those top priorities are what I should pursue with passion and self-discipline. I'm going to make that list, pray over that list, pray some more, and hopefully get a lot of wise counsel. But even once I take those steps, I have no guarantee that I will receive a clear answer about what I'm supposed to do with my life, a sort of unmistakable directive from God. I'm yearning for certainty.
 
Psalm 95:6-7 comforted me this morning:
 

"Come, let us worship and bow down,

Let us kneel before the Lord our Maker.

For He is our God,

And we are the people of HIs pasture and the sheep of His hand."

Right now, I am not at all sure of my place in the world. But I can rest securely in the place I have in the fold of God. He is my Shepherd, and He loves me. He is going to lead me to the greenest pastures, the purest waters, the place where I will flourish. What does this truth mean for me  practically?

I need to take the next step, and the next step, and the next. I will do what wisdom suggests and trust God to direct my steps. And I need to delight in the place God has me in now.

My last night in Mexico City was perfect for reminding me of that. We disembarked from the metro and walked home after the Mexico vs. Puerto Rico basketball game, which I attended not for basketball but for the people. I love the people I met in Mexico. And the people I walked home from the game with – Joshua, Naomi, Josu, Selma, Bruno, Renee – were some of the dearest to my heart. But I did not connect with any of them on the way back to the apartment. Naomi, carrying Selma, chatted with Bruno. Renee was engaged in a conversation with Joshua, who held Josu by the hand. They weren’t excluding me, not at all. If I had joined either conversation, I would have been welcomed. Still, something held me back. I truly believe that “something” was God reminding me of this: as much as I love the community I encountered in Mexico City, it is not my community. Those people not my people. They belong to each other and I, at least for now, belong somewhere else. I belong in San Antonio. I belong at Believers Fellowship. My family, my neighbors, the people in my church – this is my community. These are my people.

As I am sure many of you are, I am at a turning point in my life. I am going to change and the people around me are going to change. I don’t know how many of those I hold dear will still be a part of my life five years from now. Each day brings me closer to a bend in the road, and I haven’t the slightest idea what lies around the bend. But that doesn’t change the fact that I am called to rejoice every step of the way. Even in the uncertainty, God has given me a place in His heart, among His people. I want to delight in every moment He gives me on this lovely, winding path.

 

Park in La Roma

 

El Centro

 

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,

And sorry I could not travel both

And be one traveler, long I stood

And looked down one as far as I could

To where it bent in the undergrowth;

 

Then took the other, as just as fair,

And having perhaps the better claim,

Because it was grassy and wanted wear;

Though as for that, the passing there

Had worn them really the same,

 

And both that morning equally lay

In leaves no step had trodden black

Oh, I kept the first for another day!

Yet knowing how way leads on to way,

I doubted if I should ever come back.

 

I shall be telling this with a sigh

Somewhere ages and ages hence:

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I –

I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference.

 

[Robert Frost]

celestial spray paint

One of my favorite things about La Roma is the street art. It's used
 

to raise awareness for Central American refugees,

to encourage the community to care for the local park,

to accrue followers on instagram,

 

to advertise for concerts,

 



 

and, obviously, to portray humpback whales for the benefit of the general population.

 





 

 

Joshua, Naomi, and I had a couple of interesting talks about art - specifically, what makes art "good" and what makes it worthwhile. As I try to keep Mexico City alive in my spirit (read: sorting through photos, painting said photos, and sharing sketches of Mexico on this ancient blog of mine), I've been thinking back over those conversations.

 

 



 

A few things stand out to me:

 

 

1. The purpose of art matters. When a movie is supposed to be tragic but ends up making you laugh, it isn't good art.

 

2. God is an artist. Why all the different shapes, sizes, flavors, colors, sounds? Why music? Why laughter? There are a million things in the world that aren't necessary to sustain life, but certainly make life sweeter. Ecclesiastes 3:11 is a good verse to mull over: "He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in their heart, yet so that man will not find out the work which God has done from the beginning even to the end." Reading those words, I can imagine art as an endless process of rediscovery - unraveling the beauty God long ago embedded in human hearts.

 

3. Art is a way to see the world through another person's eyes.

 

"We're made so that we love

First when we see them painted, things we have passed

 Perhaps a hundred times nor cared to see;

And so they are better painted; better to us,

Which is the same thing. Art was given for that;

God uses us to help each other so,

Lending our minds out."

 -Fra Lippo Lippi, by Robert Browning

 

Maybe these three thoughts are true. Maybe they are not. For me, they add a depth to the street art in Mexico City, humpback whales and all. Tracing the lines God has already drawn - that’s what we are doing with our pencils and cameras and cans of spray paint.

 

Suppose with me these ideas are true. Then God, the Artist, has wrought His masterpiece (titled “The Heavens and the Earth”) with purpose, to evince His perspective. That is a thought that makes me want to spend more time looking up at the dusky sky and down at the slender blades of grass and around at the people at my kitchen table. Strange to think that these familiar fixtures in my world may be radiating the mind of God. And here I am, wishing I were back in the city where there is more stimulation... who knows what words Jesus might be whispering in the skies and yards and humans of suburban America!

 



playgrounds, dying, and other important things

In El Laberinto De La Soledad (The Labyrinth of Solitude), Octavio Paz writes:

“Para el habitante de Nueva York, París, o Londres, la muerte es la palabra que jamás se pronuncia porque quema los labios. El mexicano, en cambia, la frecuenta, la burla...la festeja, es uno de sus juguetes favoritos y su amor más permanente.”

 "For the habitant of New York, Paris, or London, death is the word they never pronounce because it burns their lips. The Mexican, on the other hand, frequents it, jokes about it...celebrates it; it's one of his favorite toys and his most permanent love."

I believe Paz's assertion is proven by the playgrounds in Mexico City. Observe!

1. Climbing wall coated in [very slippery] moss and surrounded by mud
2. Treacherous, foot-trapping gaps between bricks
3. Partial railing
4. Flimsy bridge that a child's shoe can easily fit through (Selma figured that out for us)
5. Log that appears to be a stable handhold but actually ROLLS if you put pressure on it, leaving you the choice of falling in the mud or straddling the metal bridge (credit for that discovery goes to Malachi)
6. Thankfully, Malachi didn't discover the rusty iron nails sticking out of said log

But when you're not too preoccupied with safety, there are a plethora of ways to have fun! Like,


renting orange crates and sliding down steep concrete slopes,


 

climbing the trunks of colossal fallen trees,
 

 

finding creative ways to use the exercise equipment you're too short for,
 





 and sliding hand-in-hand into an enormous puddle (turning the heads of several Boy Scout troop leaders in the process).

 

Moral of the story: playgrounds that risk death are WAY more exciting than sterile plastic playscapes!

 

In all seriousness, though, the cultural acceptance and even embrace of death was one of the first things that drew my attention to Mexico. A major holiday, Día De Los Muertos (The Day of the Dead), is dedicated to remembering those who have died. My friends, both named Gabi, described the keeping of Día De Los Muertos to me as we strolled through Zona Rosa. Graves are festooned with flowers, altars with photographs of loved ones are set up in homes, and a special bread flavored with petals is baked and eaten. The holiday is not a day of mourning; it is a day of celebration.

 

Celebrating death is foreign concept to me. Ocatvio Paz was right when he said that the word “death” seems to burn lips in the west. Maybe our prosperity has given us too much to live for, and we are afraid of losing what we have. “La vida nos ha curado de espanto” (life has cured us of terror), Paz writes for the beleaguered Mexican. Then again, a worshipper of Santa Muerte (Saint Death) from the barrio of Tepito told David Lida that “to venerate death means that you adore life, because death is the only thing that can take life away from you.”

Día De Los Muertos and Santa Muerte herself come from prehispanic Mexica tradition. The Aztecs’ relationship with death was not love and not hatred; it was a dark infatuation.

La Catedral Metropolitana

 

La Catedral Metropolitana de México, consecrated in 1656, is built on top of the ruins of an Aztec temple. A week from yesterday, Naomi and I walked into La Catedral. (Every entrance but one was blocked off by security in preparation for a presidential address in the nearby old parliament building). Two windows of glass in the cathedral’s main plaza open to the subterranean remains of the temple. Seared in my memory is the image of two fossilized human skulls, embedded in the crumbling, golden-brown temple stones. Shoots of green sprout out through the skulls’ mouths, a strange mezcla (mix) of life and death. Those skulls are the remains of human sacrifice victims. For the Aztecs, death through sacrifice was necessary to appease the gods and maintain order in the universe – salud cósmica, Paz calls it.

The veneration of death has carried over into modern-day Mexico, not only in Día De Los Muertos but also in literal worship of Santa Muerte. In First Stop in the Twenty-First Century, David Lida describes a scene around the corner from the Tepito market:

“On the first day of each month the believers arrive en masse, setting plaster statues of Santa Muerte on tables or atop squares of fabric on the sidewalk. Hundreds of visitors walk around and leave treats for the saint at these makeshift altars - chocolate coins, fake currency, cigars, shots of rum, Barbie dolls. Others walk around with spray cans of cheap perfume, with which they literally douse the figurines. As the afternoon passes, the street becomes increasingly crowded. By nightfall when the prayers are chanted – ‘I come toward you prostrate, so that you will meet my needs; thank you for the favors I’ve received’ – there will be about five thousand people, blocking traffic on the surrounding streets…This hybrid of idol worship is a hybrid of Mexican popular culture with official Catholic dogma.”

Worship of a saint called Death, a grinning skeleton in a habit and a halo, strikes me as eerie. Maybe it makes you feel the same. How, then, does it make you feel to think that you might yourself be a worshipper of death?

Santa Muerte

 

“El culto a la vida, si de verdad es profundo y total, es también culto a la muerte,” writes Paz. “Es inútil excluir a la muerte de nuestras representaciones, de nuestras palabras, de nuestras ideas, porque ella acabará por suprimirnos a todos y en primer término a los que viven ignorándola o fingiendo que la ignoran.” The cult of life, if it is truly deep and complete, is also the cult of death. It’s useless to exclude death from our representations, our words, our ideas, because she will eventually remove us all, and first of all those who lived ignoring or pretending to ignore her.

When we live in denial of our own temporality, we are feeding an insatiable void. We our pouring our breath down the hollow ribcage of a cold, dry, loveless thing. Worshipping life – physical existence – for the sake of its own pleasure turns us into worshippers of Santa Muerte, even if the altar we have built to her is in front of our computers or in our hearts instead of in Tepito.

 

When I strolled through the streets of La Roma or stood on the apartment roof to watch the morning sun spread over Mexico City, I took it all in with greedy eyes. I tried to extract every last drop of beauty from the world around me and stuff it into my soul. But I was never satisfied. The streets blurred together in my memory; the sunrise was always too short. My appetite for life devoured every living thing it its pathway, including my joy.

 

The curious thing about life is that it will never be sweet until you hold it loosely and love it less than you love the One who made it beautiful.

 

Sunrise from the roof - Psalm 19

 

of plants and possibilities

Poetic language, idiosyncratic art, vivid history, sinking cathedrals, ruined temples...Mexico City has a lot to offer. But if you really want to glimpse the city's heart, I would recommend to you the window plants.

 

 
Plants have their own urban culture in Mexico City. Like people in the city, they are diverse, colorful, and crowded together.
 
"Cities are diverse, dense places where different types of people interact with one another. Cities are populated with people of various cultures, different worldviews, and different vocations. Cities force individuals to refine their cultural assumptions, religious beliefs, and sense of calling as they rub up against the sharp edges of the assumptions, beliefs, and expertise of other city dwellers."

-"Why Cities Matter", Stephen T. Ulm and Justin Buzzard

 
Vines spill over the ledges of apartment buildings and ivy clings to cement walls. Flowers cluster in clay pots, looking up at succulents hung from the overhead balcony. Branches from two different trees twine together as though they were holding hands. In Mexico City, the proximity of the plants forces them to interact. The city requires the same of its people. On one typical Tuesday morning, I watched Naomi converse with leaders from ReachGlobal, a restaurant owner, a shoe shiner, parents of her kids' classmates, and their favorite vendor of tacos de canasta.
 

 
Mexico City is powered by the energy created when its people collide with each other, giving off ideas, emotions, and collective action like so many sparks. The mechanism of this process is the change wrought in people as they "rub up against the sharp edges" of people different from themselves. When humans, the components of the city, are brought into relationship with each other, they change, and the city changes along with them. Mexico City's plants are a parable of this closeness, this collision, this conversion.

~~

Another curious thing about city plants is the way they sprout unexpectedly, in an accidental hole in the sidewalk or on the dirty ledge of a city-center apartment.
 

 
 

 
 
 
 
















In her book "Mexican Lives", Judith Adler Hellman interviewed 15 different people from a range of social classes, caught between political corruption and policy changes in which they had no say. She writes,

“What emerges in these personal stories is the remarkable flexibility, clear-headed thinking, ingenuity, and courage of people who take great risks to meet challenges they might wish had never come their way.”

The average Mexican faces a formidable line of giants: racism, sexism, classism, corruption, economic inefficiency, broken religious systems, a legacy of colonialism and exploitation. But they find a way for themselves. Ingenious, entrepreneurially-minded people set up shop outsides of schools, selling fruit and candy. (Not to mention outside of basketball games, pawning off tickets to those who left their own behind – that, my friends, is called capitalizing on human nature.) They repair taxis on the side of the road, appeal to amateur tourists, and form networks of influential connections. In harsh and rocky places, the people of Mexico City find ways to grow.

It is saddening to see the waste of human resources in Mexico. There is a plethora of street vendors, street sweepers, and door watchers, masses of people seeking refuge in the informal economy, who work for hours with hardly an income to show for it. But seen in a different light, the “waste” is latent opportunity. The ingenuity of these people, if combined, could be a mighty force.

And there is a personal lesson to be learned from Mexico’s perseverant plants and people: growth is always possible, if I am willing to till the soil I am given - even when that soil is asphalt and concrete.

 

"Trust in the Lord and do good;

Dwell in the land and cultivate faithfulness."



-Psalm 37:3