Strength and Stillness

I woke up Saturday morning bright and early.. my internal clock is now on Grandma time with a 10:00 bed time and a 6:30 wake up call.. and I absolutely love it. While everyone was still asleep I soaked up the quiet time and continued reading this great book Lulu gave me about a Nun's journeys working with refugees, both in the U.S. when they are resettled and later in refugee camps in Sudan, Thailand and a few other places.  The stories are beautifully written and heart breaking talking about deep deep suffering of families living on one cup of milk a day if they are lucky, a young boy walking for a month not being able to rest when he had Malaria because he would be left behind like the other dead bodies he saw along the way and children forced to kill and left completely traumatized for the rest of their lives. As I read it I felt that part of my heart that came alive in El Salvador and that I feel a little distant from here. I wondered what it means that my heart is so still here, that I'm not being rocked and I felt guilty for feeling still and distant from the suffering, when although I'm not interacting with it everyday or on the same level I did in El Salvador I know it is here. I started thinking about what this desire is to be close to suffering and what exactly it does to your heart to hear the stories of people who have seen so much pain yet can feel deep joy and have great hope at the same time.

A couple hours later I had a wonderful conversation with Cara... it is so amazing what a conversation with someone who knows your soul can do. Being here alone my thoughts sometimes get stuck, its so incredibly helpful to have someone else phrase them different, to bounce ideas off and just share your thoughts with- sometimes just saying them out loud helps them to make a lot more sense. I told her about this feeling of stillness and quiet in my heart. Something I would have never used to describe my time in El Salvador, or really any time I can ever remember in my life. "I cant tell if its a good thing or a bad thing" I told her. Hearing what I said she replayed my thoughts back to me, "I think this time of stillness is something beautiful that you need right now" And then it all made a little more sense as we talked through it. The last year has been a complete rollercoaster, absolutely beautiful but also painful. I went to El Salvador ready to be opened and opened I was.. I fell in love with the people living without enough yet so much in their hearts, grappled everyday with what it meant that this world is so unequal and started to explore some of my own personal pain. When I think about the flight home, those first weeks sitting on my couch trying to make sense of it my heart hurts- it was like my heart had been ripped out and half was left in El Salvador and half left in its case in my chest trying to continue breathing. The transition and the three months after were incredibly challenging. And I think this time of stillness and quiet is exactly what I need right now.. imagine that.  In high school I made myself believe that if I was always doing everything would be alright.. I transformed from a human being into a human doing and with a grin on my face flew through life filling every moment with something to distract me. Slowly I learned to be a human being at Santa Clara and really the most in El Salvador. I was exposed to a completely new range of human emotion, suffering, joy, hope and faith and it was the most beautiful experience of my life. Ella and I recently talked about how we all have been searching for some sort of TLC after the hard transition back, and in some crazy way I think this six weeks in Paraguay has been that tender loving care I was looking for.

I feel a new sense of strength building inside me and although I don't want to spend my whole life with my heart as quiet and still as it has been this past month I think it is an important stage in my continued growth as a human becoming. I used to think that stillness was a bad thing and here I am learning that just like feeling deep deep emotions across the entire spectrum is so important, having space for quiet in your heart is ok too. For years I was strong because I had to be and in El Salvador those "strong, independent, numb" walls were broken down with an amazing community to hold me while I ventured into the unknown area behind them, and leaving that community felt so so hard. Today I feel a new strength that is coming from a healthy place, a sense of independence and trust that is cultivating deep inside me without the desperation for that community to hold me up in the way I felt I needed them those first few months back. No question I need them and I have the support from so so many people in my life that I am coming to appreciate even more while here. Their support follows me and lives in my heart, but whether we are thousands of miles away or in the same room the support of this huge network of love I have from Leadville, Santa Clara, El Salvador and everywhere in between stays with me and sustains me.

I feel strong, stronger than I have for a long time. I feel grateful. I feel a sense of quiet observing, taking it all in but just sitting with it. I feel my heart filling out its space again more able to love, listen and be in all these different places, experiences, phases of my life a little bit more whole than I was a year ago, 6 months ago and a month ago. I feel a deep trust in the way things go and a sense of freedom or letting go- this world will give me what I need and I don't need to grasp for anything, cause its all right here in my heart and the hearts of the people around me. I feel a deep love and gratitude for every single person that has shaped me and am so excited to get home and hug the people I love, but I also feel independent, like I can be thousands of miles away on my own and still feel that sense of community and support. I have had time to explore some thoughts that had been left unsettled and have found a whole layer of new questions, but I am not anxious to figure them out or anxious about things working out... cause they just do somehow.

The last month has been challenging and completely different than what I expected it. But as I sat wondering what it all meant, frustrated in some moments and completely grateful in some moments this strength and stillness has been cultivating inside me and will only continue to grow. Its kind of a half thought still with a lot of space to explore... but it feels good, it feels right and it feels like another reminder that something greater than me exists..making this all make a little more sense. I'm excited to see what continues to come from this feeling, and ready to soak up the last two weeks here with some new perspective. Thank you, thank you, thank you.