sometimes, life sucks.

And that's okay.

Sometimes, people will say 'no' to you. Sometimes many people will say 'no' to you. Sometimes they will keep saying 'no, no, no....' You will have to fight, claw through the grime of negativity, stand in the middle of the desert and not shrink in the pounding sun. You might be the only one who believes in you. You might be the only one who is willing to see.

And that's okay.

Of course, other times people will say 'yes' to you. They will pour awards over you in recognition for what you have done and what you have accomplished. They will believe in you and encourage you.

And that's okay too.

What I have noticed, though, is that what I do during each of these times doesn't change too much. Actually, it doesn't change at all. I breathe deeply. I pray often. I listen to myself. I seek advice from as many people I can. I try to understand my blindness and protect against it. I take time. I pray some more. And at the end of the day, I go with what my gut and my God says is right.

Look, it might feel like the world is against you, or it might seem that the world is with you right now. It doesn't matter if its difficult or easy, as long as it is right. You know what is right. You know what you have to do. And you are not alone. God is with you. The fruits of peace, joy, courage, connectedness, life, and love will come. Do not shy away from what is within your very soul.

You don't have to believe me. I know it is hard. You don't have to agree with me. That's okay too. But I know where I am led. And I have God to answer to. And if God is with me, who can be against me?


"I want to know if you can disappoint another to be true to yourself. If you can bear the accusation of betrayal and not betray your own soul."  -Oriah Mountain Dreamer

when God calls...

... is it even possible for me to say no?

feet. washed.

 Last Supper, a drawing I did combining my experience now and then. Excuse the scratchy scan.

When my home parish found out that I was suddenly back from Peru, they invited me to be one of the twelve to get their feet washed at our Holy Thursday mass.  I hesitated at first, knowing that this would be a great way for more people who I don't know but who might know my sister or my mom to come up to me and ask me all about what happened. And, yea, some of that happened. But,  I accepted anyways, and got my feet washed in front of the church on Holy Thursday.

In recent weeks I have been able to articulate to myself what my deepest desire is for myself, that desire which should color and lead me in my life. And that desire is to love and be a servant. To love deeply and freely, learn how to love, choose love. To not just do service, but to be a servant. It is something I've known for a while now, but it has been good to reconnect with it, to better understand it in the light of my circumstances, as I breathe my circumstances.

Getting your feet washed is a bit vulnerable, you know? First of all, you have to sit in front of the whole church and get watched by hundreds of people. Instinct tells you to look down, but I tried to look up at people instead. You have to expose your dirty feet (of course, no one's feet here are particularly dirty... I actually imagine the apostle's feet being more like the Peruvians in the Andes in their ojotas, hence the picture) and then you have to allow someone who is your leader to wash them for you. Peter's protest makes a lot of sense, I think. But, Jesus tells him, he must wash Peter's feet if he wants to be part of his Kingdom. Because that Kingdom comes only when we serve each other. We must be servants to one another.

Jesus was a servant. He healed people, included outcasts, shared with sinners. He loved. And he bent down and washed the dirty, stinky feet of his followers. It reminds me of when, in Andahuaylillas, Father Oscar did all the dishes at one of our birthday celebrations. Everyone stood around awkwardly uncomfortable with the priest doing the dirty work. But, he didn't let anyone take his job. He served. And Jesus told us to do the same. Wash people's feet. But don't just wash feet. Heal people. Include the outcast. Share with sinners. Break bread. Get down in the dirt and help those around you. Even and especially if you are the master and teacher. Serve! Be a servant.

And that, I think, is how sin is washed away. The symbolic washing of feet, washing away our sins. Jesus wasn't talking about an individual confession, I don't think. He was talking about the sin that is cleaned by service and justice. The sin of hunger. The sin of poverty. The sin of neglect. Washed away. Only by serving our brothers and sisters. By loving each other deeply and freely. That is what Jesus taught us.

That is what I want to do.



be opened in that vulnerability of love. and now go and love.

take, Lord, recieve.

The day I left Peru, a month ago, I woke up incredibly early for me. By that I mean I couldn't really sleep, given everything, and I got out of bed after drifting in and out of consciousness at around 6am to go on a walk. Impressive, considering how the medication I was on wiped me out most of the time, too. But I wanted to breathe in the landscape. I sat in the main square in Andahuaylillas, and I wrote.

I hadn't shared these thoughts with anyone (until now) because of fear, I think. But as Yann Martel writes in The Life of Pi, "only fear can defeat life." So, here are some of the last thoughts I had as a JV, straight from my journal. Disfruten. 


"I only had 4 months. I didn't know it. But during these 4 months, I filled a whole journal of experience. I breathed deeply. I laughed intensely. I wept horribly. I ate a LOT of good food. I planted seeds. I have been touched. I played the oldest organ in the Americas. I was in a rock band. I lived in the Andes. I saw the light of life that pours forth from the smiles of children. I fed the hungry. I fought in community. I felt judged. I judged too. I made two soul sisters. I have new brothers. And sisters too. I was called Profe. I was called Miss. I was called Chilean, Peruvian, tourista, extranjera, prima, hermana. I told my life story, twice. I bought carrots straight out of the ground. I was loved. And I tried to learn to love. And I tried to actually love. I saw the brightest rainbow I've ever seen in my life. I used a machete and a pick ax. I kicked rocks for a month. I made kids laugh in the comedor. I felt deeply. I feel deeply. I journeyed with very real people. And now I'm leaving. I only had 4 months. I didn't know it. I am blessed and broken. Poured out. The sacred promise. Take, Lord, recieve all my liberty, my memory, understanding, my entire will. Give me only your love and your grace. That's enough for me. Vuestro amor y gracia me basta."

March Madness

I do love basketball. And I wish Butler had won the final, having spent some time on the campus recently and cheered on the team with the Caponis. But this post isn't really about that, as I'm sure you have guessed. Instead, it is about the blessedness and brokenness that has befallen me this March. It is about how God is calling me to new and deeper growth. It is about the love that has been shown to me by community. And it is about the hope of the resurrection. 

On March 4th I got sick. I was out with one of my communitymates and a group of Peruvians in Cusco and I started feeling funky. Fever, chills, stomach hurt some too. We decided to go home to Andahuaylillas, about a 45 min taxi ride away. Along the way, though, I started feeling worse, and at some point I fainted. Because of the high fever and lots of medication, I was incredibly confused and didn't even realize I remembered a lot about that night until recently. For example, I remember feeling like I was going to fall when the taxi driver carried me into a medical clinic in Urcos, just past Andahuaylillas. I also remember the shot they gave me was the most painful shot I've ever had. I got the shot in my upper butt area, and my entire right leg was in pain. And I got it twice. I had shaken pretty badly through it all, so I was taken back to Cusco and hospitalized until March 7th. They did an MRI on me, an EEG scan (checking out my brainwaves), and I had some GI infection. The Cusco doctors put me on an anti-seizure medication because they didn't know what the shaky convulsions were.

I went home the night before my birthday. I was scared. I was confused. American doctors I had talked to were urgently recommending I seek medical treatment in the US. It started the conversation. I was feeling really weird too. I was always tired. I had dizzy spells. I couldn't hold a conversation because it was so difficult to focus. That especially was difficult for me. I sometimes felt a kind of heat in the back of my head. Completely spacy. And shaky too. 

I was medically evacuated from Peru. I had to say goodbye to Andahuaylillas. I had just gotten there. I had to say goodbye to my life as a JV. I had to say goodbye to my community, who took care of me through the mess of it all. Who cared enough to suffer with me. And to love. I had to say goodbye to all the hopes, expectations, desires. And I wept. 

I went to Indianapolis, where my communitymate's family took care of me. I got a special MRI done, more EEG scans, a chest xray, bloodwork. I got to wear funny hospital clothes. Culture shock was immediate. Everyone was so nice to me. And they spoke my language. And they explained to me what was happening. And they had funny accents. 

And the sky looked different. The sky in Andahuaylillas is a brilliant bright blue. The sky in Indianapolis was a softer blue, beautiful in its own right, but different. The sky in Los Angeles fades into the dusty polluted horizon. The bananas in this country look perfect too. And its a bazaar experience to drink out of a water fountain after having to be so careful about boiling water to drink. 

Thank God, I got the best news possible about my health. I didn't have a seizure and I won't have one. I just had a self-limiting infection with fever that made me pass out, and now that I actually remember it, I wasn't even passed out for that long. My body shook as it was fighting the infection. I was overdosed on the medication, and that caused all the other problems. I didn't even need the medication in the first place, though we didn't know that before, of course. The level of medication in my blood was so high that the doctor called on the weekend to tell me to cut the dosage in half, even though he hadn't made his final assessment yet. And, I had forgotten to take that pill that day, so it should have been even higher. Once I got off the medication, I could think clearly again. It was remarkable, the difference. Scary, even. And I started remembering what happened the day I got sick. Freaky, what a pill can do to you. 

I'm now back in Covina with my family. I visited LMU the day I flew in. I've gotten to talk to some friends, beautiful people in my life. I went on a 5 day silent retreat. As they say in sanskrit, sukha, sweet. 

I said this post was about blessedness and brokenness. I think you get the brokenness part. My life was literally flipped upside down. I thought I had 2 years in Peru. I only had 4 months. I've wept through that loss. I've held that pain. It's the kind of thing that tests your inner strength. Actually, it tests everything about you. You must ask yourself what you believe in. Who you are. It demands your most disciplined self to do what you must.  I'm struck by my own resilience. I've been through shit before, I knew I could get through shit again when it came. And it did. I guess I was right. 

The blessedness is more tremendous than the brokenness, though. Thank God. Just pure gratitude. To my community in Anda, for being with me through the suffering. Especially to Cara, who stayed with me through the nights, and sang with me. To Margaret and the JVC IPO, for doing everything they could to take care of me. To Margaret especially, for honoring my pain and listening. To the Caponi family for taking me in and getting me to the best doctors there are. To all the jesuits and nuns I have talked to in Indiana and back here in SoCal, who have offered their wisdom and help. To all those who found out what had happened in some way or another, and who have added their prayers to my life. For my health. For life. For freedom. For love. 

Through it all, though, I'm actually doing well. A lot of people have asked me how that is possible. The spiritual director I saw during my silent retreat was so surprised when she realized I have only been back for 3 weeks that she almost yelled at me, "you should be depressed!!" But, I'm not. I'm not even in denial. I'm not in shock anymore, either. Instead, there is actually a deep current of peace moving through, that I've been doing the right things. I think they call this grace. I've had deep confirmation that I am going in the right direction. I feel myself opened. More trusting. I realized more deeply how much I believe in the values I tried to live as a JV. And how I want to and will live those values now and every day afterwards. I guess that's part of what they mean when they call us "ruined for life."

I don't know what will happen now. But I do know that, especially in this time of Lent, there is a promise of resurrection. That through the desert, through the journey, the struggle, even in the joy and peace, there is more to come. There is resurrection. We risk the dying that leads to rising. God comes and raises us up to new life. But until I get to see the empty tomb, I wait. I pray. I search. And I trust that God is already and always with me. 

Go in peace, your faith has saved you.

seeing again.

Computers here in Anda are a bit slow on the upload, so sorry these are few, but here are some pictures.

In Tacna, saying goodbye to Fancy Carmen and Charo, right before we left. Mateo and Sam are sporting Mes de Mision facial hair, and my hair is long enough to put back too. Weird.

First Andahuaylillas Community Picture. We all smell from the 19 hour ride there.

One of the oldest organs in the Americas, that I will get to play.

View in Cusco.

prayers

I live in the frikken Andes mountains.

Take that, biotches.

I have made it to Andahuaylillas, finally. And this place is gorgeous. Mateo called it the emerald city (and I started singing Wicked. haha). The town is tucked on the side of a mountain situated in a valled about 45 minutes from Cusco. The clouds are the whitest I have ever seen. And its just gosh, so gorgeous here. I hope I never get used to this kind of beauty, that it strikes me with the wonder of God every day.

Bad news is that we have no phone line currently (hopefully get one soonish... peruvian time). And the only internet here right now is in a small cafe and the internet is very slow. I´m currently taking advantage of the Jesuit Res in Urcos for this update. So, well, the moral of the story is that I dont know when you will hear from me next. But know that I am thinking of you and praying for you all the time. No exaggeration.

I´m going to work for the parish here. The church is so cool. And it has the oldest organs in the Americas. No joke. AND today in the morning, the only organ restorer in Peru came to Andahuaylillas with an organist to check out the organs again. AND they taught me how to use them. AND i got to play them. That was literally one of the coolest things I have ever done in my life. I´m going to learn to play them for my two year here and teach a peruvian to play them after I leave. On top of that, I am also going to be working their library and game room to help the kids do their homework and improve on their fine motor skills, which is an issue for the children here. And I´ll probably be doing a ton of other stuff too. It sounds like every day will be new and crazy and learning.

I hope I never get used to this beauty.