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A funny thing about being in Mexico: although I’m not taking a class or working with a tutor at this time, just being here is giving a boost to a longtime project, that of reading Isabel Allende’s novel El Cuaderno de Maya in the original Spanish. I started reading it in 2013, I think, and I often joke that Allende has published three books in the time it’s taking me to work my way through this one. It’s the truth.
We own the English translation (Maya’s Notebook), and I could read it in a couple of days, but I worry that that would sap my motivation, and so I plod along in Spanish. Usually I read a couple pages at a time, once or twice a week, just enough to keep ahead of my weekly meeting with my Spanish teacher. Our hour is mostly spent in my reading a paragraph aloud in Spanish, then translating it into English, then our discussing any questions or mistranslations, and going off on various tangents of language, culture, or literature. Then we repeat. It is an e
xcellent way to learn the language. Guillermo brought in a couple different novels; one by Junot Diaz was just confusing, but when I’d read the first couple of paragraphs of Maya (which you can read here, or in English here), I was so captivated by the character’s voice that I didn’t want to stop. So we knew that that was the one.
Last summer, I set myself the goal of finishing the novel by the end of 2015, but could not keep up the necessary pace of 2-3 pages per day. But here in Mexico, I am motoring through at a pace of 10-12 pages at a sitting and have read about 80 pages in the past couple of weeks. It’s just so much easier now. I love her writing, and I can’t wait to find out what happens. And I have time. And Allende’s language is all around me.
I’m sad and worried for the people of the city of Oaxaca. For weeks, the Zócalo (central square) has been full of the tents of protesting teachers and the sellers of food and cheap goods that have seized the moment. Tensions have been high, with various roads out of the city under blockade, and the state police killed nine people last week.
Now the warning is going out: at 10 p.m. (35 minutes from now), the military will sound an alarm to tell everyone to stay in their homes, and shortly after that, they will move into the Zócalo and move the protesters out. If you are a praying person, please pray for a good outcome. If you do something else to help people deal with conflict nonviolently, please put a little more into your efforts in support of Oaxaca.
One of the minor flaws of the San Francisco Bay area is its lack of thunderstorms. It is less thunderstorm-prone than almost any part of the country. I am sure this is good news for our cat, but the human members of the family love thunderstorms and those of us who grew up in the northeast miss them.
Oaxaca is coming to our aid. It rains a lot in June and July here, and the storm is often accompanied by thunder and lightning. We had lots of lovely rumbles all afternoon today, and I got out my oil pastels and drew the view from our window, looking past the curtains to a big frond-y plant and the door across the courtyard. My daughter declares me an expert in the medium, but I, who have a vision in mind, not to mention a familiarity with Cassatt and Degas, conclude that I really want to learn how to use pastels. It was a lot of fun, but the results don’t even merit the term “novice.” Maybe the next attempt will be just of the plant. It is what really caught my attention.
Between study leave and sabbatical, I will not be back at my church until January 2, 2017. I will miss the people there. And I am very busy right now purging belongings, cleaning and organizing, making arrangements, and doing everything it takes to turn our house over to renters and begin a six-month sojourn in Oaxaca, Mexico, in about a week. Just the same, I feel a spaciousness in my life that is best symbolized by this screenshot.
My period had come for Prayer—
No other Art—would do—
My Tactics missed a rudiment—
Creator—Was it you?
God grows above—so those who pray
Horizons—must ascend—
And so I stepped upon the North
To see this Curious Friend—
His House was not—no sign had He—
By Chimney—nor by Door
Could I infer his Residence—
Vast Prairies of Air
Unbroken by a Settler—
Were all that I could see—
Infinitude—Had’st Thou no Face
That I might look on Thee?
The Silence condescended—
Creation stopped—for Me—
But awed beyond my errand—
I worshipped—did not “pray”—
A member of my congregation has translated the benediction we say each Sunday into Spanish (the English version is at that link). He’s an excellent linguist, fluent in German and English as well as his native Spanish, accomplished in French also, and with a poet’s ear for language. This coming Sunday some of us will say our benediction in Spanish, some in English, and some both, at the close of our Flower Communion service:
Vete en paz al mundo
Mantén tu valentía
Sostén lo bueno con firmeza
No pagues maldad con maldad
Fortalece a los frágiles de corazón
Apoya a los débiles
Auxilia a los que sufren
Goza de la belleza
Expresa amor con palabra y acción
Honra a todos los seres.
Thank you, G.!
I dwell among words, talking fast (it’s the northeastern, Jewish heritage) and trying to listen well. I forget to make time for silence, especially when in the company of others; the rush of words flows by so fast. This afternoon I had a visitor to my office with whom I had more time for silence.
She is Deaf, and since I only know half a dozen signs in ASL and she neither speaks nor reads lips, we conversed by writing. This meant that for long stretches, as she wrote on a notepad, I set aside language and received the things that usually recede to the background. One hand rested on the page, the other wrote, and I imagined drawing them and trying to convey all that they had done and written over the decades. Her hands looked browned by sunlight, like her face, suggesting days outdoors and places traveled. Her jeans were worn to softness and I wondered if they were as comfortable as they looked. Her hair was gray–what color had it been before? And where was that girlhood spent–what memories did she carry? What did it feel like to brush that straight, smooth hair each morning, to look out from those eyes?
She wrote several sentences, pausing to consider and even erase. I had time to consider all of this before she finished and handed me the pad to read and respond. It felt like a gift: to be dipped into a quiet pool and permitted to float there for a while before the flow of words resumed.
Well, I did about 15 days of a Lent practice. About par for me.
My arbitrary and punitive rules for myself are being counterproductive again (are they ever anything else?). I keep not-blogging because I don’t want to write about any of the “big” things that come to mind. But what do I know about writing?: just write. That primes the pump. So never mind the big stuff. Here’s what my day was like yesterday, Easter.
It was one of those days that feels like three because it has so many different parts. I preached on “What Would Jesus Do?” if he traveled through the United States in 2016, observing fascism on the rise, and felt myself renewed and inspired by my own examples, all ordinary people from our own church speaking up against the domination system when it exerts itself: for religious freedom against McCarthy in the 1950s, in support of returning Japanese-Americans after internment in 1945, in solidarity with African-Americans and Muslims now. When I asked my daughter what she thought the sermon was about, she said, “Resistance,” a perfect word that I don’t think I even used once. The music was beautiful–the last note of the choir’s Bach Alleluia is still ringing in my heart, a young woman announced at Caring and Sharing that she is joining the church, the Easter egg hunt was a hoot, there were waffles and fruit on the patio for everyone, and I never get tired of hearing the Easter story as told by Dan Harper.
That was the morning. Back home, we ate lunch on the deck in the hot sunshine, and I took a nap, then someone came over who might rent our place while we’re on sabbatical. Luna seemed to approve of him, and we liked him too. We love our house and it’s sweet when someone else thinks it’s beautiful, as he did. It is never as clean and orderly as when a guest comes, and it’s a pleasure just to sit and read in the tidy house (current reading: Home, by Marilynne Robinson). The afternoon sun shone through the bouquet of oxalis Munchkin picked the other day.
We still had lots of playtime–what should we do? The munchkin suggested an Easter egg hunt. We all wanted to hide and to seek, so we did three, each in a separate room. Joy hid 13 items, corresponding to half of the alphabet, all over the living room, for me and the munchkin to find; I made six Easter-egg stickers for them and hid them around our room, along with a jigsaw puzzle of pysanky eggs that they had forgotten we own (we didn’t do the puzzle; it’s 1000 pieces); Munchkin shared some of her bounteous candy takings by hiding eggs all over the kitchen, and then felt her hunt had not been very creative. Joy and I had to get creative because we didn’t have a basket full of chocolate each. We might have an annual tradition in the making.
After dinner we played The Game of Life, which is beginning to rival Monopoly in my mind for Most Boring Board Game, but was fun anyway. Joy and I watched an episode of Grace and Frankie and talked about marriage.
And somewhere in there Munchkin and I planted poppies. A good day.
I never realized this truth until I started singing this song.
Today’s word is love. My family and I are at an annual camp weekend for LGBT parents and their children. Love overflows here: people rocking others’ babies and their own, friends reunited, couples getting some time alone while their kids have camp activities, strangers playing word games together and getting up from the table as friends, everyone singing.
And then there are quiet moments of connection within the crowd, like V braiding a Valentine sparkle into her wife N’s hair (shared with their permission).
Sermons in Stones 
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