a little reverse culture shock...

I am still in California for a couple more weeks. After being in Argentina for almost five-years, I always experience some reverse culture shock when I visit the U.S. I continue to strive for a deeper sense of enculturation, home, and stability in Buenos Aires. I still have a loooooooong way to go, but every trip to the United States reminds me just a bit of the progress I have made. Here are a few of the funnier examples….

1) Greeting and Saying Goodbye at Gatherings – In Argentina it is customary to greet and say goodbye (with a kiss on the cheek) to everyone at a gathering (within reason). It always throws me off a little when people leave a party in the U.S. and don’t say goodbye. I also feel the urge to go around the room and greet everyone with a hug when I arrive or leave a gathering. My classes in San Francisco included daily evening prayer, which was closed with “passing the peace.” I found such a sense of home in Argentina with this worship tradition of saying goodbye to everyone in the room with a hug or handshake. I did catch myself leaning in for a kiss on the cheek. Thankfully, I resisted and didn’t break any social norms.

2) Late Night Dinner & Parties – I still am readjusting to dinner at 5:00 or 6:00. Someone in my class was talking about visiting Argentina and the parties and dancing that went until sunrise. I responded, “Oh, that makes me homesick for Buenos Aires.”

3) Pedestrians and the Right of Way – Oh yah, I have the right away in the U.S. I can’t tell you how many times I have stood at a crosswalk waiting for the cars to pass before crossing the street. Drivers stop and look at me like, “What are you waiting for?? GO!”

4) Summertime in La Boca – Talking about the hot humidity of summer, I recently shared about people in my neighborhood and all the activity that just happens outside on the sidewalk and street  (asado cooking, beer drinking, kiddy pools, guys with shirts off, etc.). I said , “Yah, I will know I have truly arrived when I feel comfortable walking down the street with my shirt off, perhaps with a bottle of beer.” I got some pretty strange and somewhat alarmed looks with that one. One guy responded, “Maybe that is a sign to leave?” I say…NAH!

I Am the Kite

I am the kite:
Red and orange,
Fire in the sky,
Stunt Kite,
Cutting loops
And gashes in the blue,
My skin vibrates
On my frame with power.

I cut the cord
To fly yet higher still,
To show the rest
What freedom's all about.
I turn and twist
My fanciest curl
And set my course
For distance.

But, my mistake
Was not
To take the wind for granted,
But the cord
That tensioned me
To one I did not see
So far below.

The flyer is not me.

Lord, give me the anchor. Give me pause.
Let me know in freedom's limited flight,
The kite's first cause.

Bruce Barton Bailey
Sunday, May 29, 1994
University Presbyterian Church, Seattle, Washington

Fire

What makes a fire burn

is space between the logs,

a breathing space.

Too much of a good thing,

too many logs

packed in too tight

can douse the flames

almost as surely

as a pail of water would.

So building fires

requires attention

to the spaces in between,

as much as to the wood.

When we are able to build

open spaces

in the same way

we have learned

to pile on the logs,

then we can come to see how

it is fuel, and absence of the fuel

together, that make fire possible.

We only need to lay a log

lightly from time to time.

A fire

grows

simply because the space is there,

with openings

in which the flame

that knows just how it wants to burn

can find its way.

~Judy Sorum Brown
(Leader’s Guide to Reflective Practice by Judy Brown)

A Prayer and an Icon

"Jesus and Abba Menas. A 6th-century icon from the Monastery of Bawit in Middle Egypt, currently at the Louvre. It is one of the oldest icons in existence."

A print of this icon sits in the front of our class this week.

A Prayer of the Program in Christian Spirituality Community

Creating God:

you stretch wide the heavens

and open the human heart

to receive more and more of your love.

Your Spirit has enlarged our spirits

by drawing us together into this community

of prayer and listening,

hospitality and learning,

compassion and justice –

and we are grateful.

Keep stretching us by your grace

so that we may see, hear, and embrace

the new things you are doing.

Free us to be who you want us to be

so that we may love and serve one another,

our families and communities,

this seminary and the church,

the creation itself,

and you who are within and beyond everything.

We lean on your wisdom and grace

embodied so richly in Jesus Christ

in whose name we pray. Amen.

On Exploring and Change...

“Exploring” by Wendell Berry
Always in the (wilderness) when you leave familiar ground
and step off alone into a new place,
 there will be, along with the feelings of curiosity and excitement,
a little nagging of dread.
It is the ancient fear of the Unknown,
and it is your first bond with the wilderness you are going into.
What you are doing is exploring.
You are undertaking the first experience,
not of the place, but of yourself in that place.
It is an experience of our essential loneliness;
for nobody can discover the world for anybody else.
It is only after we have discovered it for ourselves
that it becomes a common ground and a common bond,
and we cease to be alone.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
THIS IS AN HOUR of change.
Within it we stand uncertain on the border of light.
Shall we draw back or cross over?
Where shall our hearts turn?
Shall we draw back, my brother, my sister,
or cross over?
This is the hour of change, and within it,
we stand quietly
on the border of light.
What lies before us?
Shall we draw back, my brother, my sister,
or cross over?

By Leah Goldberg, adapted; 
Mishkan T’Filah for Travelers: A Reform Siddur 
Central Conference of American Rabbis, 2009

good words for the new year...

"And now let us welcome the New Year full of things that have never been." 

~ Rainer Maria Rilke  

"… every moment is a new beginning, every handshake a promise. I know that every quest implicates the other, just as every word can become prayer. If life is not a celebration, why remember it? If life — mine or that of my fellow man — is not an offering to the other, what are we doing on this earth?"

~ Elie Wiesel from “Open Heart”

"A new beginning! We must learn to live each day, each hour, yes, each minute as a new beginning, as a unique opportunity to make everything new. Imagine that we could live each moment as a moment pregnant with new life. Imagine that we could live each day as a day full of promises. Imagine that we could walk through the new year always listening to a voice saying to us: “I have a gift for you and can’t wait for you to see it! Imagine!"

~ Henri Nouwen

"Teach me God not to wait for the sound of the arrow, but to listen for the creak of the bow. Tune my heart to your future for me."

~ Twitturgies by Gerard Kelly