Category: Poetry & Words

Poetry & Words, Theology

2014

Gina @ Oaxacaborn

January 2014 - Oaxacaborn blog

We’re starting off 2014 with all kinds of 3’s. Right away, this month, it’s three and thirty for the three of us. Three for her, and thirty for Josiah and me — and my birthday is even on the thirtieth.

Beyond that, I really have zero idea what’s going to happen this year. And that’s kind of exciting! Especially when it’s the Lord of the universe who guides our way.

“By day the Lord went ahead of them in a pillar of cloud to guide them on their way and by night in a pillar of fire to give them light, so that they could travel by day or night. Neither the pillar of cloud by day nor the pillar of fire by night left its place in front of the people.” (Exodus 13:21-22)

No better place to be, don’t you think?

Poetry & Words, Theology

The Snow Covers It All

Gina @ Oaxacaborn

Upper Michigan Blizzard

This is it: the great frozen north, separated from the great white north by an icy body of water that the Song of Hiawatha calls “Gitche Gumee, that shining Big-Sea-Water.” For me, it’s a land of family history. My parents grew to adulthood here, as did their parents before them. When you climb the branches of my family tree, the only place that comes before the great frozen north is the Old Country itself — or countries, rather — Italy, Slovenia, Russia, Finland, Sweden, and Poland. Between the Old Country, and me, there is nothing but this great frozen north.

Even I lived here; not for long — just two years — but I did it. And I was cold. From the upstairs of a 1920s house, I was within earshot of the shining Big-Sea-Water, within earshot of the fog horns and the ice-breaking tugboats and the winds that pulled the water from the Lake and twisted it and stretched it and smoothed it like a icy blanket over the naked branches and undulating streets.

But the Lake isn’t all of the north. Like Longfellow wrote,
Dark behind it rose the forest,
Rose the black and gloomy pine-trees,
Rose the firs with cones upon them…

And it’s these inland woodlands that grew up around my parents as children, that grew around me summer after summer and that grow up around my own child now as we visit. It is these woodlands and these tired old towns, once humming with industry and iron mines, but now battered and listing, with every winter leaning further away from the future. It would be wrong to say time has stood still here, for had it stood still it would have left a kinder mark on the crumbling foundations and the aging rooftops.

Stepping here feels like stepping between the pages of the National Geographic photo essays I loved as a child; in the glossy photos I see the live bait and chainsaw repair shops, the blaze orange, the Stormy Kromers, the ice augers, and chatter about choppers (not airborne flying machines but leather-and-shearling mittens).

Here is where we Christmased, this year; here in the waves of gray that slowly sweep from sky to earth in great snowy sheets that obscure the horizon, layer after another until there is no more sense of up or down but only a single color painted in a single swath.

And in that horizon, I see only the lights of Christmas and hear only the laughter of everyone I know, and I forget the heat and forget the noise and forget the traffic and forget the tropical gales.

The snow covers it all.

Poetry & Words

I sit, wrapped in my thoughts moreso than anything

Gina @ Oaxacaborn

Poetry on Oaxacaborn - I sit, wrapped in my thoughts moreso than anything
tonight,
wrapped
in the blanket of red
and green
that only sees use on those
rare days when
the temperatures deign to lower
themselves to us,
i sit.

i sit,
wrapped in my thoughts
moreso than anything;
wrapped in the memories
of thanksgivings past
of home and laughter
of tall pines and
rivers
of turkey leftovers
always finding their way
into a tortilla
on a bed of
cilantro.

tonight,
i ate my leftovers with black beans
and kimchi
and laughed.
everythingandnothing
has changed.

i sit,
wrapped
in the glow of tiny lights,
next to a toy elephant and
three dozen crayons
and a hula hoop.

i sit,
wrapped in the sound of endless
automobile engines, humming
outside
through the exit ramp
like messengers
announcing
they will not sleep —

but i will,
wrapped in words
and thoughts
and near-silence,
enveloped in this warmth
and this home
and this hope
and this light,
tonight,
wrapped
in this old blanket of red
and of green.

—

“Sometimes our life reminds me
of a forest in which there is a graceful clearing
and in that opening a house,
an orchard and garden,
comfortable shades, and flowers
red and yellow in the sun, a pattern
made in the light for the light to return to.
The forest is mostly dark, its ways
to be made anew day after day, the dark
richer than the light and more blessed,
provided we stay brave
enough to keep on going in.”
-Wendell Berry

Poetry & Words, Theology

It’s Okay to be Happy with a Calm Life

Gina @ Oaxacaborn

It's Ok to be Happy with a Calm Life by Julie Kuberski

(Print via Julie Kuberski on Society6)

Are you comparing your life this morning with someone else’s? Perhaps you’re comparing yourself with someone you don’t know, except through perfect(ly edited) peeks (via social media). Maybe you feel discouraged this morning because, compared to all the pins and posts, your life is boring. Flat. Not bursting with adventure.

You’re not jetting off to some corner of the world. You’re not having your coffee in a wood+brick+ceramic cafe in the Pacific Northwest or brunching on a Mediterranean veranda. You’re not doing anything exciting. There’s nothing wrong with your own set of circumstances this morning except for the fact you feel they’re a bit…boring.

Don’t be discouraged.

There are a seasons of whirlwind and seasons of calm; there are people who need 4 hours of a sleep a night and people who need 9, and there are those who are called to be surrounded by others, and those who are called to seasons of repose.

Don’t let comparison steal away your joy.

Don’t be dragged down asking, “Am I doing as much as ___ is able to accomplish in a day?”; but rather, rest in this: “Am I doing what He has called me to do in this moment?”

Be encouraged.

“For as his share is who goes down to the battle, so shall his share be who stays by the baggage; they shall share alike.” (I Samuel 30:24)

It’s ok to be happy with a calm life.

Poetry & Words, Theology

1997-2004 :: On Grief and the Golden Thread

Gina @ Oaxacaborn

Oaxacaborn - Gabriel B. - On Grief and the Golden Thread
Gabriel B. - On Grief and the Golden Thread
Oaxacaborn blog - Gabriel B. - On Grief and the Golden Thread

God, who are we
to moan and weep
when it is not he
but we
who sleep?

GABRIEL B., NOVEMBER 12, 1997 – JULY 10, 2004

I remember where I was sitting when I heard it was coming, and how I got up out of my chair and ran down the hallway, blind from hot tears, not knowing where I was going, and I remember how the sun burned down when I stood there on the porch, and I looked up, and knew in an instant he was gone. It felt wrong for the sun to be so bright, it felt wrong to be breathing; and later, it felt wrong for berries to be so vividly blue, it felt wrong to taste their broken sweetness, twisted as they were into the batter of the pancakes we ate out back, under the deep-rooted oak.

But color doesn’t fade when grief comes; it is only blurred for a moment because our vision trembles. But it doesn’t fade; it doesn’t rust and it doesn’t crumble, because “we are not of those who shrink back and are destroyed”.* It shines, and it is brilliant in color, and it is love, and “Love is what carries you, for it is always there, even in the dark, or most in the dark, but shining out at times like gold stitches in a piece of embroidery.”**

My vision trembles from time to time, again, even now over the years; I see the blur in a memory, in notes of a song, or in the way sun shoots down through the woolen clouds even when it’s most dark. I see the blur, and I know it is well with my soul.

Today is different than that day because I’ve learned it’s not wrong for the sun to be so bright, it’s not wrong to revel in the taste of the blueberry or the way the daffodil splits the earth in the spring.

“The living can’t quit living…They can’t because they don’t. The light that shines into darkness and never goes out calls them on into life. It calls them back again into the great room. It calls them into their bodies and into the world, into whatever the world will require. It calls them into work and pleasure, goodness and beauty, and the company of other loved ones.”**

*Hebrews 10:39
**Wendell Berry, Hannah Coulter

Inspiration, Life in Photos, Poetry & Words, Theology

You Have A Voice. Use It.

Gina @ Oaxacaborn

Since I was a little girl and first began to know of wrongs, I have been burdened. I look around me, I listen, I see, and I am weighted down.

There is so much need, so much injustice, so many faces that stare back at me from across the world, so much I cannot do.

But then I hear a voice, speaking to me, saying:

You have a voice.

Use it.

Else you are like a camera which does not see…

You have a voice. Use it.

…a strap which does not carry…

1000 px - 4 - You have a voice. Use it

…instruments which do not write…

You have a voice. Use it.

…stars which do not shine light.

You have a voice. Use it.

Speak up for those who are voiceless, those who cannot tell their story.

They have a story waiting to be told.

Tell it.

Speak.

Do not always remain silent.

“Learn to do right; seek justice.
Defend the oppressed.
Take up the cause of the fatherless;
plead the case of the widow. “-Isaiah 1:17

“For if you remain silent at this time … you and your father’s house will perish. And who knows whether you have not attained royalty for such a time as this?”-Esther 4:14

How will you use your voice today?

Life in Photos, Poetry & Words

POETRY & WORDS :: Public, Private, Charter, Home…Oh My!

Gina @ Oaxacaborn

IMG_5419

Menagerie on Toddler's Desk

Seashells, brown and green bottles, twine, and an antique tray

Books

Lace, Roses and Coffee Hearts

Aveline’s growing up. I can see it in this photo, especially. She is just 3 months away from 3 years old.

And suddenly, I’m thinking about school, an aspect of life I thought was further away than it actually is.

School is a complex topic, isn’t it? It’s a bigger issue than I can delve into in one blog post. Both Josiah and I were home schooled from PreK-12.  For me, home schooling was a positive journey, and I am thankful for the experiences it brought me. (My parents’ story of why they choose to educate me at home is a unique one. We were living in communist Europe at the time, and they didn’t wish to send me to Karl Marx Elementary.)

There really isn’t a one-size-fits-all approach to education. Every child is so different. Every living situation is different. Everyone has different school options at their disposal. And the reality is, there are good and bad things about every kind of schooling; whether it’s public, charter, private, at-home, or some combination thereof.

As Aveline gets older, Josiah and I are talking a lot about what kind of school experience we’d like her to have. 

What about you? What was your school experience like as a child? If you have children, what decisions have you made about your children’s education?

Life in Photos, Poetry & Words

LIFE IN PHOTOS :: But now I am mostly at the window watching the late afternoon light…

Gina @ Oaxacaborn

1000px - Barefoot on a wooden chair, Late Summer

1000 px- Looking out the window in late summer

“…You tell me it is too early to be looking back,
but that is because you have forgotten
the perfect simplicity of being one
and the beautiful complexity introduced by two.
But I can lie on my bed and remember every digit.
At four I was an Arabian wizard.
I could make myself invisible
by drinking a glass of milk a certain way.
At seven I was a soldier, at nine a prince.

But now I am mostly at the window
watching the late afternoon light…”

-an excerpt from Billy Collins’ On Turning Ten