Value in Dust

The only thing I could see were her eyes as we passed each other on that busy street in Dhaka. Horns blared and rickshaw bells called out in warning to passerby's of their rushed pace and our eyes met for a few seconds. Although her eyes were the same color as the black Muslim scarf covering her face and head, they were pools of wonderment, desire, and questions she dared not voice. Venturing a smile in her direction, the woman quickly averted her eyes out of respect and culture and brushed past my shoulder as I made my way up the street.

Glancing over my shoulder at her retreating figure, I felt pain and a sense of extreme inequality pass over me. We were supposed to be the same. We are both women, about the same age, and walking the same street on top of the same substance God made us out of: dust. We are all dust. Equal. And yet, here I stand without a black scarf to cover my face: I am free. Free to drive a car, love who I choose, and exist in this world as an individual who has the power of choice. She does as well, but not without repercussions from her cultural background. She, as many do, lives in fear. Fear of rejection and disappointment. Fear had diminished the value of her existence. Her eyes told me this much.

Service is deeper and more personal than signing up for Service days and flying across oceans to live among other people. Service is giving life to the value in which that person was made with. Value which was breathed into us from the beginning.

The black-scarved woman never looked back, just down, clutching her grocery bag tightly between fingers and I too turned and walked on with eyes now filled with wonderment and awe. He who has breathed life, value, into me has given me a great gift and responsibility: to bring the light of value to the eyes of this world through the reflection of Jesus in my words, in my actions, and in my eyes. Oh, how great is a God who is gracious enough to love me and extend His love through my dust-filled skin to the eyes of this world. For it is in His eyes alone where value is fully manifested and freely given.

Craving of Creation

Sunlight cascades through the wisps of evaporating fog and kisses my face as it rests against the woven mat I lay on. I turn and another face is next to mine with eyes full of innocent-mischief that can only be found on the face of a two year-old as a grin spans her little face. Giggles of abandonment bubble out of her as she touches her nose to mine. Just as quickly as her nose touched mine, she is gone; on her tiny little feet running as fast as her body can manage while wearing my size eight flip flops.

And though it only lasted a moment it was her response to my existence that made me want to hit "pause" and grasp the beauty just a bit longer.

Eyes closed during prayer and I lean my head against the three year-old standing next to me with her hand resting on my shoulder. Ever so slowly her back slides down the wall and I feel her warm cheek rest against my head. A smile works its way through me from the deepest parts and with eyes closed still I've experienced its purest form: Response.

It plays hide and seek, beckoning me with every glimpse I catch to pursue again, to live in awareness of the Love and fulfillment experienced in moments of response. Describing it as hide and seek is only from my eyes borne of dust. It really is there all of the time like the constant eb and flow of a river winding it's way to the ocean, somewhere greater.

A smile greets me in passing as I move towards the classroom and a moment of all-consuming love overtakes me as it hits me head-on how much I love these faces around, how much He loves me. And not twelve minutes later do I resent my very dust-filled skin as I enter the classroom and tell these children the need of listening and respect for the seventeenth time this week and its only Tuesday as my crossed arms betray the confidence in the them to learn. I'm dust and I know it.

Even still it finds me again as I walk home and glance up from hands held tight in discouragement and eyes rest on the little boy sitting quietly on the bench. Scooping him up, I sit and hold him close as he chatters to me with that big broad smile smeared with dahl from lunch. He quiets and soon we are sitting in quiet contentment of each others presence. For this is the craziest, less-than-yielding child of the little boys. The one whose clothes never stay on and he is sitting here in my lap; still and happy.

Medicine for my soul. Reminder of response. Response of Jesus being in the faces around. Is that why I crave good conversation, time, and laughter? The soul craves response! The Creator's response to earth was to breathe into dust. This is why grace is etched into our souls like the scars on His wrists: He craves response too! And I am humbled.

"My face is shining upon you, beaming out Peace that transcends understanding. You are surrounded by a sea of problems, but you are face to Face with Me, your Peace."

-Sarah Young Jesus Calling

The Calling Light

Light.

Warmth soaked its way through me as I sat with my back to wall, sitting on a mat outside watching the caregivers embroider new shirts. There are many things that trigger the senses with memories such as taste, smell; but today I experienced it in light.

Sauntering with little brown hands in mine across campus with a full tummy from breakfast, I walked to the place where five ladies sat embroidering on a mat. Stopping to watch I sat down on the mat to learn from their handiwork. As my observing turned into first thirty minutes then one hour, my gaze drifted to the wall where two of the ladies sat with their backs to it, stitching. Studying the light cast on the wall as it played with the overhead branches of the shade tree, my mind was catapulted to places and seasons of home.

The angle of the sun lit up the wall and the ladies embroidering with the same color that shines during the morning in Northern California's wintertime. Memories of family vacations and Christmas' spent in the Sunshine State flooded my mind. I've come to the conclusion: it's okay to be homesick once in awhile. In fact it is necessary.

Sitting there in the sunlight, I was amazed and in awe of how the angle of such light could trigger my memory in such a profound way! Is that what happens when His light is on me? My desire for places I've never known is heightened? Made in the the image of Creator (of dust no less), designed for another place with grace etched into our soul like the scars on His wrists. Who is such a Being who makes us out of dirt with a heart beating out the rhythm of another culture?

What happens when we encounter His presence in another face, words scrawled across loose pages, or with our face to the ground? Something calls deep within us when Light falls upon us and our hearts scream with elation and desire; praise. It is good. It is okay to be homesick when it instills within us a desire for something more, Someone Greater.

"When I can no more stir my soul to move,
And life is but the ashes of a fire;
When I can but remember that my heart
Once used to live and love, long and aspire-
Oh, be thou then the first, the one thou art;
Be thou the calling, before all answering love;
And in me wake hope, fear, boundless desire."

-George MacDonald

Arms Bent

8 month old baby Kenzie

It's three days later and tears still blur my vision every once in awhile as the day rolls on. It happened again as I walked out of the middle of the New Year's day worship with Lucy clinging to my shoulders, her eyes heavy. Reaching for a fleece blanket, I dropped down into the rocking chair of the baby room and let the dark, silky-curled 18 month old lay her head in the bend of my arm. Her big glassy eyes stared up at mine and a trace of a smile played on her lips.

Four days earlier I had held eight month old Kenzie in my arms and she had done the same: looked up at me with an unwavering stare with those big brown eyes and smiled her toothless, all gums smile. And she had fallen asleep holding her hands together just like she had since the day we brought her to Bangla Hope a month and a half ago.

Cradling Lucy, coaxing her to sleep I felt the water brimming my eyes without warning as I realized I wouldn't be able to walk over to the little brown cradle, which use to sit across the room, and pick up Kenzie to hold in my arms. The cradle is no longer there and in its place is space: bare, cold floor tiles.

Walking back to my room after putting Lucy in her bed to nap, hesitantly I passed the garden where a fresh mound of dirt sits with a simple cross protruding from the top. Three days ago a group of us had stood around that spot and had all contributed a handful of dirt to the hole in the earth. We sang songs, prayed, and said goodbye to the youngest of our children hours after breath had ceased flowing from between her tiny lips.

And I sit on the ground; low, wondering where the glory of God will take place. Will it be in the lives of the family of our Kenzie who witnessed our songs, our hope in Him as we said goodbye? Or, will it be in the filling of a now empty cradle?

Or, have I witnessed His glory already in the beautiful smallness of a baby's smile who touched my heart? Yes. I say yes for only His glory has come and has yet to come. Amen.

Breathing to Believe

December 14, 2012

Eyes closed by arms traveling the path of a pendulum. Tiny brown hands lay on mine as I sway back and forth. Cradled close I feel the breath of life entering and out of her mouth. Somehow watching a baby fall asleep in arms bent makes us feel secure. All is right in the world in that moment: breath exists! Life. Hope.

Humanity everywhere is breathing to believe; to hope.

"...then the LORD God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature."

When Breath filled the dust of the ground there was our Hope! Hope revealed as breath, life, alive. And we were filled. Then we tripped and fell on our own hunger to be filled by something we thought was missing, but it wasn't! We were full. Full of life, purpose, and the snake couldn't stand it. He was the one who was hungry. We are full, but we are also blind. We think we are hungry or we can survive without the food. "Am I always the atheist in [His] Arms...?"*

But we are always filled!

And we are not blind with the lens of thankfulness. A lens that can only see Jesus in the end. A lens seeing in others the face of Jesus. "...Jesus...has sent me so that you may see again and be filled with the Holy Spirit."(Acts 9:17)

Tonight I am thankful for breath; beauty from dust as I examine the intricate designs of tiny brown fingers, little boys who fall asleep on my lap in church, and the peacefulness of a baby's closed eyes amidst a world broken by the same hands I examine.

My belief rests on the peacefulness of this little one in my arms: as long as a baby can sleep breathing peacefully in the midst of a hurting world then there is hope. Hope in the One who breathes life into the lowest of places and creates beauty.

"God created the world out of nothing, and as long as we are nothing, He can make something out of us." -Martin Luther

*Quoted from One Thousand Gifts by Ann Voskamp

Smudged Humanity

Sometimes I forget where I am. It happened again today. Sitting on the back of a rickshaw van with two of my fellow teachers and friends here, Shuma and Tuli, being pedaled by a man back to Bangla Hope through the late afternoon fog I saw the scene before me with new eyes.

Dozens of rickshaws weaving their way along the street between trucks, goats, and people. Children laughing and turning from their tasks; yelling their greeting to me while waving wildly (Oh yeah, I guess I am the only white girl for miles around.) Hundreds of cows and people dot the horizon as they finish up the last of the rice harvest.

Maybe it was the weather today. Waking up to fog so thick you could only see 10 feet in front of you and a temperature more like the climate I experience at home in the Pacific Northwest. Although 70 degrees with 88% humidity is quite different and a lot colder here than at home. Or, maybe it was the sight of the man wearing a lungi I sat knee to knee with on the rickshaw. Friendly with black hair, whiskered face, speaking nothing but Bangla. Today, I saw again: where I am now will change me. Where I've been is still with me. My physical location on this earth or chosen profession doesn't change the fact that I am human. No matter where you go or what you see we are all the same. Humanity everywhere is breathing to believe; to hope. It may not be the same hope, but we are all desperate for something better. We were created this way.

"There is a desire within each of us, in the deep center of ourselves that we call our heart. We were born with it, it is never completely satisfied, and it never dies. We are often unaware of it, but it is always awake...Our true identity, our reason for being, is to be found in this desire." -Gerald May The Awakened Heart

Bangladesh is my home. And even though I came here to serve others my priorities still get mixed up. Sometimes I forget where I am, because on the inside I am still Mackenzie no matter if I am at home being called "Macca" or here being called "Kenzie Teacher" by 130 children; I am still a being whose humanity smudges the beauty around me despite my best intentions. What I'm finding in spite of my shortcomings is before I leave my apartment to serve others I need to spend time with Jesus in solitude. Otherwise, my service is nothing. "Without Love..." (aka Jesus: 1 Corinthians 13).  Easy to say, huh? So hard to do!

The SM office sent me a devotional book a couple of weeks ago. In the past I haven't been a huge fan of devotional books in my own life, but I decided to give it a shot to keep myself accountable. How's it coming you may ask? Well, I got to day 10. It's day 12 and the book is sitting unopened beside my bed with the marker still on day 10. So, I'm still working on it. But, what I'm finding through various failures is I still succeed at the end of the day when I can count Jesus' appearances in various gifts throughout my day. Jesus then becomes the victor of my day; not my fallen, broken humanity.

Change takes time, but remembering where we are in the here and now and where we have been is important to the process. Being present is being in communion with the One who is from beginning to end.

Teacher Who?

Quickly I turn my eyes to the whiteboard; allowing only the inanimate object the dignity of seeing my frustration run its course. I am not a teacher and yet here I stand in a classroom with 17 sets of big brown eyes awaiting my poised marker to make a move to give them their next math problem to solve. I refuse to blame their previous and current teacher for their classroom manners (or the lack thereof), because in this moment they are my students. I hold the responsibility of nurturing their learning capabilities. And in this moment I struggle to find control and composure for a group of students who refuse to simply listen for 2 minutes. Choice. I have a choice to make. They have a choice to make. Do I take away part of their recess or will they choose to be quiet and finish their math problems? And a thought enters my thick, stubborn head, "Am I going about this the right way?" Learning to first respect the student is sometimes a challenge. Respect is a give and take concept. It requires of me to have perspective. Or, in my case, the strife for perspective, because I am not sure I have reached that pinnacle of concept just yet.

Walking out of the classroom once I was finished teaching I was called to the office to retrieve a package sent from the SM office at WWU. Cutting the strings which bound the objects inside I found my answer to classroom management. Inside the package was candy and some homemade pencil holders. On top was a note explaining if you can't use the items in the package then give them to your students as prizes. Aha!

Entering the classroom this morning I was greeted by a chorus of voices almost shouting, "Good morning Teacher!" Responding politely as I quietly raised my hand and waited. Slowly hands went up and mouths were closed. Explaining to them their new challenge (they are competitive children): "At the end of each week until Christmas break I will give a prize to the best listener and quietest worker in the class." And with that proclamation the rest of the class period went by with only a few reminders to listen as we went through the math lesson together. I'm hopeful and confident in their ability to succeed at this learning opportunity. Even if it takes a couple of trials and errors on mine and the students' part. I may never be an elementary school teacher, but each morning asking Jesus to be the strength in me to deal with these challenges in a fair and pure way is a good reminder and lesson I am learning slowly. If this challenge presents me the need to talk with Jesus more then I am thankful, because as a broken human I am in desperate need of a Teacher.

Jesus, may I have eyes to see the sanctuary of your love and teaching amidst the challenge before me.

"For this reason I kneel before the Father...I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power...to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge-that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God."

Ephesians 3:14-19