Tag: poetry and words

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.

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?

Poetry & Words, Theology

Let the words fall again

Gina @ Oaxacaborn

Technology as a hindrance to overcoming writers block

Mason Jennings has a new album, due out November 12 (11.12.13). I haven’t really listened to any of the sneak peeks yet. But I am struck by the way he wrote this album.

“After nearly a year of writer’s block, Jennings holed himself up in a cabin with only a handful of tools at his disposal: a guitar, electric piano, bookshelf, notebook, tape recorder and one 90-minute cassette.

…’I was overwhelmed by all the technology,’ Jennings says, ‘and it was getting in the way of the true core, the mystery of songwriting.'” [via this article.]

I love that.

Maybe when the writing stops coming, maybe it’s because I’m letting things chase the words away. Maybe I need to chase everything else away, and the words will return.

I want the words to fall again, like delicate leaves, slightly broken, let loose from an autumn tree. I want them to fall again, to gather around my feet, to follow the path they were meant to flow in the middle of the silent forest.

Maybe I need to chase away the howling wind.

Poetry & Words, Theology

Rivers of Light

Gina @ Oaxacaborn

August 2013 - Aveline's tangled hair looking out window in morning lightThere’s something so pure about the morning light. It falls through the sky in a way it does no other time of the day, it falls and dances and pulls the air around it into gossamer waves. The early hours pull and push and twist the light into an opaque filter that infuses the morning in possibility. Awash in new mercies, morning light stands up  strong against uncertainty and tugs my eyes and heart upward, to the Light, to the Giver of light, to the Hope of all living things.

Jobs, plans, circumstances — these offer no promise of constancy, but Jesus does. When the future looks as temporary as words etched into sand at high tide, when faced with uncertainty, there is a Rock. There is an Anchor.

And there is morning light, a tiny glimpse of light eternal, to spring up each day and remind us all that He is constant, He is never-changing, He is rivers of light.

“You’re in a cosmos
star-flung with constellations by God,
A world God wakes up each morning
and puts to bed each night.
God dips water from the ocean
and gives the land a drink.
God, God-revealed, does all this.”
-Amos 5:8, The Message translation

Life in Photos, Poetry & Words, Theology

Spelling out hope in all kinds of ways

Gina @ Oaxacaborn

June 2013 - Aveline waking up near window
June 2013 - Aveline looking out window

We wake up slowly this morning, the hum of the air conditioner and the dehumidifier a constant reminder of the tropical climate. They are the new silent, the steady noise which blends into the background and becomes a part of these walls and this life.

Outside, the landscapers’ lawn mowers rattle across the sidewalks and through the landscaping mulch, sending a spray of pebbles and bark across the bottom third of the front door. I cringe a little, thinking of the helpless, newly-transplanted moss rose and marigolds in terracotta pots on the front stoop.  The new pinwheel, whirring happily to the blast of mower exhaust, doesn’t mind. It just spins and blends the colors into a sphere anyway.

Aveline wants to see it all, and settles in by the second-story window to watch. It’s a Monday-morning routine, at least when the rain stays away long enough for the landscapers to trim and edge and cut and sweep.

Maybe later, we’ll spread out a towel on the narrow strip of sidewalk in front of the door, and sit side-by-side in the sun to “make ABCs” on the concrete, until our fingers and knees are covered in dusty blue and pink and yellow.

She wants to “make ABCs” with her pens and crayons and chalk, this one, not houses or trees or little boys and girls. She flips book pages and pretends to read, and screeches “TWO A’s!” whenever she spots a word which has, indeed, two letter A’s. She can’t pronounce her own name, but she can make a letter “T” from pretzel sticks, and she turns her felt number 2 upside-down to “make Z”.

I don’t know where she gets these crazy ideas. I know how it feels to love letters, though.

I love letters. I love the words you can make from them. I love that 26 characters can be scrambled and pushed into thousands and thousands of different orders to spell out love, or fear, or hope, or happiness.

May she grow up to spell out lots and lots and lots of hope.

Poetry & Words, Theology

I no longer take fresh air for granted

Gina @ Oaxacaborn

Curtains, bunting, and lanterns in the corner of Aveline's room

One doesn’t open the windows, often, here, in this place where the air holds a strange combination of constant heat and dampness.

Most times there’s barely a difference in the numbers telling us the temperature and the percentage of water in the air.

Most times the air outside smells thick and old, as if it hasn’t moved in hundreds of years; it’s clinging to the trunks of trees, inching down the crevices in the sidewalk, barely keeping itself afloat, pouring itself into your lungs.

Inside, we empty the dehumidifier, over and over and over again.

But then, sometimes, ever so rarely, there comes a day when the dampness leaves momentarily and the humidity dips down, just a tease, just for a handful of hours. And I run to fling open all the windows, and shake out the blankets and rugs, and turn up the music and laugh and breath it all in and think of Pablo Neruda, who said —

“Walking down a path
I met the air,
saluted it and said
respectfully:
‘It makes me happy
that for once
you left your transparency,
let’s talk.’
He tirelessly
danced, moved leaves,
beat the dust
from my soles
with his laughter…
the day is coming
when we will liberate
the light and the water,
earth and men,
and all will be
for all, as you are.
For this, for now,
be careful!
And come with me,
much remains
that dances and sings,
let’s go
the length of the sea,
to the height of the mountains,
let’s go
where the new spring
is flowering
and in one gust of wind
and song
we’ll share the flowers,
the scent, the fruit,
the air
of tomorrow.”

And I am happy, with this one short gust of fresh wind.

Life in Photos, Theology

Looking to the New Year

Gina @ Oaxacaborn

1000px - Aveline with messy hair and pajamas
She wakes up with rosy cheeks and tousled hair, and a heart full of fresh expectation. Everything is exciting again. Everything is possible.

New mercies, oh, that’s not just a theory to her. It’s not just a nebulous concept. Mercy washes over her — over all of us! — every single morning, and she lives this, through and through.

Let’s be like her.

Let’s have childlike hearts.

And let’s walk into the morning of this New Year joyously, our hearts bursting with hope.

Poetry & Words

WRITING & WORDS :: I don’t have to be able to see clearly for it to be beautiful

Gina @ Oaxacaborn

She was desperate to look outside. She pulled at the shades, tangled herself in the curtains, and whined, impatiently dancing on her tiptoes.

I understood. I understand.

I swept the curtains aside and tied the gauzy fabric into a loose knot. Tugging the braided cord downward, we watched as the slats slid upward, pouring sunshine over us.

She was instantly silent, instantly still.

She rested her fingertips on the wooden sill, the wooden sill which has seen more tenants than just us. It’s buried in coat after coat of sticky white paint, and not all of them had been evenly applied. She doesn’t notice this.
Toddler looking out of apartment window - Black and white photo via Oaxacaborn dot comShe is still, transfixed, mesmerized by what’s beyond those two panes of glass.

For a moment I feel sorry for her. She looks at the grass and barely knows it beyond something that’s labeled “Keep Off”, “Pesticides Applied mm/dd/yy”, “Clean up After Your Pet”.

But this does not trouble her. She is quiet and calm, lost in her own little world of thoughts.

In this moment, I feel that her world is much deeper than I can begin to imagine.

She places her small hand on my arm, and my precarious camera-toting, nearly-kneeling balance is lost. She pats my arm reassuringly, and looks up at me from her squatting position.

I click the camera button, and glance at the screen.Toddler in Black and White - via Oaxacaborn dot comYou can’t really see her face clearly.

And then it hits me. That’s ok. I don’t have to be able to see clearly for it to be beautiful. I don’t have to have a perfect exposure, a perfect view.

I just have to be here — here in this quiet moment, kneeling in front of the low window with my daughter, quietly watching the trees and the sky, washed in His redemptive Grace and Peace. Here in gratitude, here in thankfulness, here in the kind of perfection that I can’t create, but can receive, with arms open wide and eyes fixed on my  great and wonderful God.

My arms of full of blessings; my heart is full of peace.

“So, my very dear friends, don’t get thrown off course. Every desirable and beneficial gift comes out of heaven. The gifts are rivers of light cascading down from the Father of Light. There is nothing deceitful in God, nothing two-faced, nothing fickle. He brought us to life using the true Word, showing us off as the crown of all his creatures. … In simple humility, let our gardener, God, landscape you with the Word, making a salvation-garden of your life.” -James 1:17+, the Message version