'If you are humble, nothing will touch you, neither praise nor disgrace, because you know what you are.'
-Mother Teresa

on your presumption and my pride (or, the difficult task of not combatting judgment with judgment)

To love anyone is to hope is him always. From the moment at which we begin to judge anyone, to limit our confidence in him, from the moment at which we identify (pigeonhole) him, and so reduce him to that, we cease to love him, and he ceases to be able to become better. We must dare to love in a world that does not know how to love.

-Madeleine L'Engle, Walking on Water

karla adolphe / enter the worship circle

but as for me my feet almost gave out
i nearly sold my heart
it's good to be held by my father
it's good to be where you are.

"We cannot help others who suffer without paying a price ourselves, because afflictions are the cost we pay for empathy. Those who wish to help others must first suffer. If we wish to rescue others, we must be willing to face the cross; experiencing the greatest happiness in life through ministering to others is impossible without drinking the cup Jesus drank and without submitting to the baptism he endured."

-Streams in the Desert, 19 July

our parallel lives

I will confess, your unoffered friendship in these four weeks me duele mi corazon mas, aun que te entiendo. Yesterday on Main Street I saw you with your bike, and huddled closer to I & T. That's the thing with people the size of Akeen: their grid for sadness is so small. They always accept you, even want you.

Once at midnight I nearly mailed back all your wooden and penned gifts, not from spite but only the wanting to forget, when our circles are still so close.

He has already forgotten, the one whose mouth tasted of milk, of life and heat and breasts and the vacas he grew up herding. I promise not to blame you if you do the same. I am so much older and sadder than you.

And being unwanted is a strange country.

well, it's 7.13. [farther along / josh garrels]

Farther along we'll know all about it
farther along we'll understand why
so cheer up my brother, live in the sunshine
we'll understand this, all by and by

Tempted and tried, I wondered why
the good man died, the bad man thrives
and Jesus cries because he loves them both
we're all castaways in need of rope
hanging on by the last threads of our hope
in a house of mirrors full of smoke
confusing illusions I've seen

Where did I go wrong? I sang along
to every chorus of the song that the devil wrote
like a piper at the gates
leading mice and men down to their fates
but some will courageously escape
the seductive voice with a heart of faith
while walking the line back home

So much more to life than we've been told
it's full of beauty that will unfold,
so shine like you struck gold my wayward son
that deadweight burden weighs a ton
go down to the river and let it run
wash away all the things you've done
forgiveness, alright.

Still I get hard-pressed on every side
between the rock and the compromise
like the truth and a pack of lies fighting for my soul
and I've got no place left to go
'cause I got changed by what I've been shown
more glory than this world has known
keeps me rambling on.

And even when I fall I'll get back up
for the joy that overflows my cup
heaven filled me with more than enough
knocked down my levies and my bluffs,
let the flood wash me.

Farther along we'll know all about it
farther along we'll understand why
so cheer up my brother, live in the sunshine
we'll understand this, all by and by.

Every afternoon, I followed the scarred dirt road
rutted and dry, or else water-logged, thick with frogs,
an eighth of a mile from my front porch
past the houses of my neighbors
(and his house, the one for whom I left)
until the road turned right and became a trail.

I crossed the stream, water supply of the village,
where the trail began to climb and became La Culabra.
La Culabra: wilderness behind my house.

I memorized that trail like the ridges of my own dry heart
I have no photographs but memories
of greeting Justa, Marlon, y Marí, breastfeeding her newborn as she climbed
The men with machetes, sometimes drunk.
Buenas tardes, I would sternly tell them, trying to glare them off from any ill intentions.
I love you, they would say back in English
Once I came across one in a fetal-position in the middle of the trail;
he was fast asleep.

The rising trail offered a topographical look at the village,
the Great Rubber Tree marking one of many forks.
My favorite wandering place in those mountains had a view like the Rockies
shale rock, the river below, miles of sky.
I would steal away there and cry, sing, pray, sit in silence
until the light was almost gone and it was time to stumble down the mountain in the twilight.

Well I have hiked four times this week, and I am grateful for the steep, quick paths; the wildflowers and vista rewards,
the familiar land of my birth.

But it is nothing like La Culabra.

And I miss La Venta, the earth, the students I dream of nightly, the warmth of a language and a body next to mine
and I grieve the separation and loss of this 23rd year.