heathergoertzen's Xanga

Its Snowing!

Wed, 11 Jun 2008 09:45:33 GMT

A rare day in El Alto, despite the reality that we never really get warm.
Snow somehow gives meaning to the cold. Every one is a bit friendlier with white flurries on their shoulders.
I sit with my Tazo Passion tea (still working on the Christmas stash), a heavy sweater, scarf and hat.
I'm happy.

Resistance

Mon, 26 May 2008 11:32:54 GMT

Some say that living, walking and working toward the Kingdom is and should be marked by peace and joy and affirmation (see Job's friends, popular theology, all things Christian hedonist).

My aunt once told me that her experience - and her theology - is pretty well the opposite, that its right about when you're about to touch the very thing that is closest to the heart of God that evil makes its biggest plays of resistance, speaks its most persuasive lies.

The question (and its answer) has terribly fatal implications. Do we give up, go home, wait it out? Or do we push through, claim victory and move ahead? I have a strong sense (esp. this round) that its the latter. I sometimes wonder how Job and Paul and the rest kept their certainty and resolve in the midst. Its exhausting.

Days of Recollection

Mon, 05 May 2008 11:31:39 GMT

That is why- as soon as possible- primarily for myself, I will try to organize days of recollection. I will not be able to stand the impact of the world otherwise. We can do nothing without saints, big ones and little ones. The only weapons we will develop will be prayer and penance. The world will leave us along, saying, "After all, they are not doing anything. They are just a bunch of smug fools praying." -DORIS DAY

Irreligiosa Solicitudo Pro Deo. (a blasphemous anxiety to do God's work for Him). -HILLARY of TOURS

Wars and Rumors of Love

Mon, 05 May 2008 11:30:43 GMT

Wes and I arrived home last night after spending the weekend with friends. There was an election yesterday regarding a new constitution, autonomy of states (which favors the rich, and ultimately hurts the poor- especially the district of La Paz), etc. all of which is shady bureaucracy, one government accusing the other of illegal illegitimate laws, votes, and being. Its a bit interesting. We watched the news as stone wars went on in Santa Cruz. We waiting to see if our neighbors would riot. We returned last night to quiet streets, our cold house, and staff meeting this morning. I muttered as I got ready for bed last night, "I don't think many would understand what it means to prepare for civil war and have nothing to show for it but an all-too-heavy backpack." Its a volatile place to live and its hard to know just how and when it'll go bad.

Elizabeth and I spoke of reconciliation yesterday in her kitchen as we prepared lunch. I thought much of Volf and his theology of reconciliation, his brave calling out of the sin of the oppressed, their need too for repentance of the hate, anger, vengeance that is bred from the underside. That without a new order of Love, there is no peace, no freedom, just changes of power, someone different with a different name and color of skin becoming the very oppressor they hated. It has to be about more than power. Freedom even is hard to make sense of. Whose freedom do we fight for? At what cost to whom. "There is too much injustice in the fight for justice," he says. And can a war be won justly, without hate. I only know that I pray love and choose love. I don't know any other way.

Earth Day

Wed, 23 Apr 2008 15:54:47 GMT

Yesterday was Earth Day.

Wes and I celebrated by planting a patch of grass in a metal wash bin, which is now sitting in our sun room. Grass is rare in El Alto. Green is rare in El Alto. Oxygen is rare in El Alto. I'm happy to have a place to stick my bare feet in and breathe.

Luke (almost 2), Elias (5), and Andrea celebrated by picking up trash on their short street. Apparently half the block filled half a large trash bag. Elias is forever changed and burdened to save the planet. Trash is not rare in El Alto. Eli has his work cut out for him.

The Casa de Esperanza celebrated by initiating a recycling program. We now have 3 large baskets marked: papel, plasticos, and otros.

I've been thinking a lot about the garden, land, its significance in Scripture. What kind of restoration might come about for our women through buying a patch of land and working there together. What it would mean to plant and water and harvest together, to bring our first fruits to the altar in offering, and celebrate there His faithfulness.

Books we've read that are moving us back to the land...
1. Sex, Economy, Freedom and Community by Wendell Berry
2. Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver

Thirty

Mon, 14 Apr 2008 13:00:48 GMT

I was just remembering last year's tragic birthday entry and exhaling HUGE at the thought of where this year and this decade has brought me. A week ago Saturday, I turned 30. We had a rocking party, danced like crazy, and at one point, like at all great parties. A chair was placed "center stage" and I was told to sit. I know how these things go, but as I prepared myself to be completely embarrassed, I scanned the cramped crowd and smiled, thinking (as I had thought repeatedly in the days and weeks going in) that I was happy. That all of the fear and dread and treachery that these days are supposed to cause, was hard to muster. I was exactly in the place that God's faithfulness had brought me and what better thing to celebrate? It still may hit me. I've spotted my first gray hairs (more than 1) in recent weeks and feel like they've been placed there to taunt me. I'm trying to ignore them. Only my kid brother can tell you how terrible I am at ignoring taunts. Once the dance floor cleared, having heard plenty of ABBA and MJ, Cake and Fleetwood. I sat down, drank a glass of wine and started packing. Monday morning, Wes, Amanda (my dear friend who made the trip from Seattle), boarded a bus and 8 hours later arrived on the shores of the Pacific where we spent several glorious days sunning and swimming, reading and reminiscing, drinking coffee and mojitos, eating seafood platters, and watching dolphins and surfers ride the waves. It was perfect. I'm facing a bit of culture shock on the return (this IS the life I was chosen for. THIS is the life I was chosen for.... I miss the beach.)

My birthday often falls on the fringes of the resurrection and this year I'm feeling the significance of the season. Life shines dimly on the horizon just when you're feeling most heavily in the throes of death and darkness.

He is risen. He is risen indeed.

Lists

Fri, 28 Mar 2008 14:11:39 GMT

I have an unhealthy fascination with lists. I'm the only J (remember the Meyers-Briggs personality tests from college?). And when I get busy my lists hit an all time frenzied high. I write them everywhere. Copy them over. And take GREAT JOY in checking boxes. Like I said, its unhealthy. Especially in a culture where the common shared wisdom given to N. Americans is to plan each day to get ONE thing done. Now then, there is very little joy in checking one box per day. So, my lists have gotten more detailed, include more smaller things I CAN control. E-mail Grandma. E-mail office. Write prayer letter. Call contact A, B, C. With these small, manageable lists, I can check more boxes! But my perfectionistic, type A, box-checking tendencies are far from conducive with Bolivian culture. My husband kindly (although I sometimes interpret it as tauntingly) reminds me that I tend to make unnecessary stress for myself around these things. I don't always respond well and just a couple weeks ago, we had a discussion around such themes, after which I stopped by Cara's who was meeting with her Servant Team in time for a Lectio Divino reading of the Mary and Martha passage.
"she has chosen a better way... it will not be taken from her." I'm trying to loosen my grip, sit longer with Jesus even if it means I can't check as many boxes and the meal isn't as complete and my house remains cluttered and dusty.
I'm still not as okay with it as I'm pretending to be, but the therapeutic process takes time.
Yesterday, I had an incredibly successful day yesterday. My most proud check was finding a new bathing suit for our Chile beach vacation (10 days and counting!) in the only landlocked country in the western hemisphere. And its cute!

Friday, March 07, 2008

Fri, 07 Mar 2008 10:34:58 GMT

Inherent in a fast is a feast. When we fast from food, we feast on prayer and God’s bountiful love. When we fast from divisive patterns of relating with others, we feast on the amazing awareness that each face we see is the face of Christ. When we fast from building social, economic, and political walls, we feast on our universal oneness with the One.

- Marilyn Brown Oden
Wilderness Wanderings

There was a day when I was better at fasting, in the going hungry sense. In my early twenties, it was a discipline I practiced regularly, often individually, sometimes communally, and really drew rich communion from. What I am more and more aware of is the intentionality that it requires, not just to deal with the weakness, the hunger, the discomfort, what have you. But to enter in. To worship there. To touch His broken body. To let Him touch mine. To be healed there. And to let that healing be poured out in a true fast on behalf of broken others.

Whiney Prophets

Fri, 29 Feb 2008 15:47:34 GMT

I, for one, have had my own encounter with Jeremiah, several years back and my own pleas of not wanting to be him, nor share his call. God and I continue to go round about this. And I continue to whine as I go. But I loved this ordination speech and thought you may be encouraged as well, just in case your life, like mine, tends to go the sad way of the prophets' lives.

from:http://blog.beliefnet.com/godspolitics/2007/12/ordained-to-prophetic-ministry.html

ON BUYING A FIELD IN ANATHOTH
A mentor's reflection upon the ordination of Gini Lohmann Bauman
by George Williamson, Jr.

Gini said for me to speak to prophetic ministry with reference to Jeremiah. Okay. Jeremiah clearly says prophetic ministry's a damn fool thing to do. It's certainly not something you choose to do. You get chosen - like being entered against your will in the divine lottery, and losing. In which case, he would have you beg to get out of it, and failing that, whine and complain to God.

Jeremiah, you know, was not a happy man, because the depth of human wretchedness revealed itself to him. He was not a married man, because who would marry him? He was not a pretty man, or pleasant to know. But he had a huge voice, like a volcano, stored in soul barrels between eruptions. His images got under peoples' minds and gnawed on them. He was a prophet. Everybody knew he was a prophet, and mostly left him alone.

Jeremiah never did any good. His first prophecy was of invasion by a mysterious "foe from the north," which never happened. He joined King Josiah's religious reformation, whose politically appointed revolutionaries didn't need him. Anyway, he decided it was a cover for rampant injustice, and as it became law, he came out against it. He got ordained, but was defrocked and disfellowshipped for preaching unbearable sermons. So he preached from the temple steps, and was jailed.

The king made war with Babylon, ancient Baghdad; its king, Nebuchadrezzar, an ancient Saddam Hussein. Jeremiah called Saddam/Nebuchadrezzar "servant of God," not because he was good, but because, like Saddam Hussein, he stood up to the self-proclaimed "people of God" - who, Jeremiah said, had forsaken their calling. Jeremiah fastened an ox yoke to his shoulders, a bulky new appendage to an already considerable frame, and for three years jostled irritated passersby on narrow streets with four extra feet of shoulder, saying they were "yoked" to Saddam/Nebuchadrezzar because of their moral apostasy. And when the Babylonians surrounded Jerusalem, Jeremiah made daily rounds about its wall, calling to soldiers to surrender! He was clapped into the stocks; then in prison; then, finally, now aging, was dropped unceremoniously into a clammy cistern, the stone lid clapped thunderously closed on light and day forever, the three cannibals - hunger, thirst and creeping mud - let loose to divide the spoils of his sorry life.

He almost had one success. Zedikiah, a later king, was awestruck by Jeremiah, even in his ultimate insurrectionist and swashbuckling treason. As the Babylonian siege tightened, Zedekiah secretly hauled Jeremiah from the cistern and asked how to appease God. Free the slaves, Jeremiah said. So he did. But the slaveholders were apoplectic, Zedekiah relented, and Jeremiah's one prophetic achievement was revoked.

Sick of a long life of failure and abuse, Jeremiah resolved to quit making prophetic outcries, but even failed at that. He said the divine indignation was like a fire, shut up in his bones, and he couldn't keep quiet.

Gini, Jeremiah would say, you don't have to do this. You went to law school and have something to go back to - unless, he'd say, like him, you have the fire in your bones and are weary from holding it in. In which case he'd say,
God help you.

Buy a field in Anathoth, he'd say. Here's the story about the field in Anathoth. The Babylonians had long since laid claim to Jeremiah's home town, Anathoth, and had destroyed it. Nonetheless, he hocked everything he had and bought his cousin's abandoned field. He said, in God's surely coming, eschatological future, the reign of God will come in this land. And sure enough: 2700 years later, despite our violent, greedy, ecologically disastrous age, at or near Jeremiah's field is a socialist kibbutz doing subsistence farming.

Gini. If you persist, against Jeremiah's advice and mine, in this insane calling, you'll be buying a field in Anathoth; cashing in a perfectly decent life to live, not according to the realisms of frustrated and frustrating history—but after the siren call of God's surely coming future.

"I set you this day," said God upon calling Jeremiah to prophetic ministry, "over nations and empires" - the company, we might point out, of world-conquerors and megalomaniacs. Jeremiah would know nothing at all sophisticated about nations and empires, nor set foot in any of them. But his name - Jeremiah - would become a title, worn by a very long succession of Jeremiahs dogging the rulers of nations and empires for 2700 centuries. King Saddam/Nebuchadrezzar, the most powerful ruler of his time, never even heard of Jeremiah. But I'll say this. Twenty seven hundred years later, we would never have heard of Nebuchadrezzar, except for his minor role in the story of Jeremiah the prophet, of whom we've certainly heard.

Gini, unlike most prophets - who generally rejected priests - Jeremiah was ordained, as you are about to be. So we, in the name of God, will set you over nations and empires. We'll commission you to the success record of Jeremiah, who didn't accomplish a thing - except to leave the echo of unavoidable, unsilenceable, undeniable, uncompromising truth in the lying cacophony of political history.

Among the prophets, Jeremiah is most famous for his eloquent whining at God for getting him into this. From your new perch up there, over nations and empires, you're entitled to whine at God. As a text for your whining, I recommend the powerful, self-pitying prayers of Jeremiah.

Body Broken

Mon, 25 Feb 2008 12:55:40 GMT

Our bishop has been teaching a series on liturgy & worship this month, which means we've been sharing the Eucharist regularly the last couple weeks. Last Sunday as he lifted the sacramental elements, I was newly struck by the words "body broken," and how clearly, deliberately and continually Christ identifies himself with our friends. How fleshy and carnal a broken body really is- the violated nature of it, and how quickly we try to clean up the image by making it something its not intended to be. So many of our sacraments are that way though. Deeply physical, messy movements. We pretend in our practice that they're clean and angelic, but maybe holiness isn't so much that at all. And maybe if we really saw Christ's body as mangled, we'd have something different to offer the other broken bodies we come across.