bukid clean

It’s time to read Isaiah again.  For some reason reading that book connects me to who I am, like it’s an old friend I’m glad to visit.  Of course, it does connect me to who I am, deep down, in the core of my flesh: the rebellious Israelite who can’t seem to catch on that if I keep walking like I’m walking there’s no healing going to happen except through dark times.

I was walking with Josiah’s sweet hand in mine on the way to Tita Edna’s this afternoon.  He wanted to be held but I was able to keep him walking for most of the time.  Tita Edna lives out near the bukid, the country, with rice fields in her back yard.  So walking to the edge of town you can see the almost other-worldly green of the Filipino countryside.

And I caught myself asking myself, “What is a little Mississippi-turned-California-girl doing out here, in the Philippine bukid?  What in the world kind of turn of events got you here?

And yet, despite all the things that you’d think would make me discontent here (namely, driving through jungle mountains to get here so you feel like you’re about to fall off the end of the world; making do with a tiny variety of vegetables and fruits, most of which have to be bought 2 hours away; terrible internet connection and thus scant communication with my family)…despite all these things I see approaching in view that peace that has been so illusive the last 3 years of my life.

It rains daily here, which I’ve just learned isn’t normal for January in Catanduanes.  But I’m thankful for it because the rains brings cooler breezes, and I don’t feel so bad staying inside being “lazy” (if you call making everything, including my bread, from scratch, “lazy”).  Because for me, the rains are like a prescription from heaven.  They are like the long shower my soul has needed after two years of culture shock building up on my heart, like the Manila pollution that I had to scrub off our kitchen table.  I’ve had grime in me, waiting to be extracted, but I haven’t had the time.

The kind of time that walking with my toddler with neon green rice plants welcoming us into their slow and steady world gives me.

I’m amazed at how the pagan kings used by God in the time Isaiah were just that, used by God.  And I’m humbled, because I realize that God isn’t going to always rescue me from the grime that builds up in my soul.  But he may just use a year or two of loneliness on the edges of the bukid to clean me out.  I wouldn’t go so far as to say that I’m in exile, for the life we have here is under God’s leadership, and I’m glad to be in the place He has me.

But I think there’s something like exile occurring in the recesses of my heart, and God is using all these things to love me in His brilliant way.  Because discipline is an act of love.  And I can feel him calling out to me from the rain and the green and the clean wet puddles that my son loves to splash in.  It’s clean here, and God wants to use this, I know in my bones, to clean me, too.

trepidation

How many transitions can you squeeze into a decade…or half a decade?  I think our family may be going for a record.

I don’t know if it’s so much that we’re adventure seekers as that we live our life by our ministry, and we are both heavily weighted with the apostolic gifting, which is “Start new!  Start new!”  It’s an exciting way to do life, but draining.  And when you see a million projects all at once that would be awesome ways to get churches started, all over the world, it makes some steps in life feel like they’re not going fast enough, and others as if you don’t have enough time to enjoy them.  We are truly hopping across the ocean of life on stepping stones, and sometimes I’d like to step on a continent.  Of course, that metaphor takes on meaning when you consider that we’re moving to an island on the edge of the Pacific Ocean this coming January…five months away.

So, take motherhood, for instance.  I’m loving the season of Josiah’s early years, and yet I find myself having to stop to enjoy our time together, because I have so many projects going on in my head.  Of course, once we really are settled and not in transition, I think I’ll be able to focus more on being a mom.  The full first two years of Josiah’s life I’ve lived with the notion that “this home isn’t where we’re staying,” which is hard when you want to stop moving stuff and actually be able to set up learning spaces and play spaces to help your little one learn, not to mention keep your own life in order.  And of course, we’d like to add another to our brood as soon as God will allow, and so if that happens any time soon that will be another transition to add on top of moving to the scariest place I’ve ever moved to.

We’ve heard from others that Josiah is an amazing baby (we agree).  Of course, his being our only one we have no one to compare him to.  But he travels well, can sleep almost anywhere, eats many (although not all) things, hardly fusses…I’m so thankful for him.  He’s got a heavy dose of his daddy’s good nature, which I credit to his being so easily adaptable.  I’m looking forward to how he’ll take on island life.  I imagine he’ll not skip a beat, although I anticipate a long season of adjustment for myself

I mean, there’s no fast food, folks.

None.

(They’re building a Jollibee, though, in the town next to us, so there is some free airconditioning relief on the way!)

Which leads me to consider how comfortable life is in the States.  Even families who don’t have a whole lot still are living in relatively clean and comfortable environments compared to how so many people live here.  We’ve had a few battles with cockroaches lately.  And really, they’re battles in an all-out war.  I grew up in Mississippi, so I thought, “Oh, I can handle these roaches.”  But that was before they FLEW at me!  So now I’m scared to death of them!  And we’ve heard that they bite, which is just horrifying.  The other night I heard Edwin in the bathroom making a lot of noise and he came back shivering the “I’m grossed out dance” and said a roach had lept off the wall, hit his body and crawled down his underwear!  Then the next day, there was one that I got out of our bathroom only to have it chase Edwin into the bedroom.  We lost track of it until Edwin felt it in his underwear!  Ha!  Who has a roach invade his underwear two nights in a row!  (And these were different roaches!)  Then the other night I was going to give Josiah a bath and a massive roach (they’re all massive) came scurrying from under the mat…I knew this was war b/c there was no way I was leaving that thing to potentially fly into my face while I was in there with Josiah, so I took the Raid and tried killing that thing by spraying.  It was like a marathon roach!  He ran around the bathroom for laps before he finally succumbed to the poison!  I was worn out!

So all of that is livable, but I found myself thinking of the people who don’t have proper roofs and walls and ceilings, and how they must deal with these flying roaches all the time.  And I felt so blessed to be in our house that has walls and ceilings.  And that’s something I never thought about in the States.  It’s taken for granted that when you move into a house it’s going to have walls and ceilings.  We take so much for granted.

And we can think of faces to the statistic that many people around the world live on less than $2 a day.  We do ministry in a community where that is a daily reality.  How do you deal with that?  How do you adjust to that?  And I’m struggling with my desire to go back home this Christmas because, besides, of course, being with family, I look forward to being in a place where everyone is comfortable, so that I don’t have to deal with, emotionally, the reality that so many people live daily lives of discomfort.  I wish that weren’t the case but it’s the current psychological struggle I’m dealing with as we do life on this side of the world.  And I’m honestly jealous of those who don’t have to face these questions…who live life not realizing what we see every day.  Because ignorance is bliss.  And I’ll never be ignorant again.

I just finished reading David Platt’s Radical.  It’s a great book for churches to read together and assess whether or not they are doing their part to help their brothers and sisters around the world.  If you haven’t yet, read it.  But be aware that if you read it with an open heart, you’ll have to do something as a result of your reading.

I’m glad we live life the way we do.  I don’t truly want to be ignorant.  I want to find the balance of simplicity that I believe Scripture calls us to.  But my desire to do that and my human will are fighting against each other.  I’m not afraid to admit it.  I’m going to the mission field kicking and screaming, but submitting at the same time.

I’m read the Samuels, this time with the Message translation.  And at this season in my life, I’m thinking about how David must have had such a hard time, being driven from the life with the king that he knew, the life he enjoyed with his soulmate friend, Jonathan.  Yet he stayed in the desert for a season of his life, and it was that season that developed him and prepared him to be king.  I submit to God that I will let him do with me what he wants in this season.  He’s God.  I’m not.  So there you have it.

 

 

 

for the record

MUST record this for the record, b/c I have been terrible about keeping track of Josiah’s adorable doings:

Tonight after our dinner prayer (for which Josiah folded his hands and waited for it to end), Edwin said, “Amen,” and Josiah said, loud and clear, “AMEN!”

Then tonight, we marched around our downstairs singing “Father Abraham” for about, I don’t know, 20 rounds of the song.  Daddy led with the tambourine, and Josiah sometimes played second fiddle or caboose.  He did his signature “I’m shaking my hands b/c I can’t hold in my excitement” dance, which always tickles me.

July 29 was a good day.

~a

living in God’s country

In his introduction to the books of Samuel, Eugene Peterson talks of Hannah, Samuel, Saul, and David as people who lived in “God’s country.”  I love this idea.  I often have to remind myself that heaven is my true home, since even though I’m going “home” (the States) in December, I will be laying my head in places under no ownership of my own; and what I call “home” now is a loose concept, since I’m living in a foreign country and about to move from the urban culture I’ve finally adjusted to out to a rural culture that will likely throw my head into loops and spins.  But still I’m living in a time and space that is not yet heaven, so sometimes the looking forward to it as home doesn’t really satisfy the here, the now.

But to think of God himself (or, if you wish, his kingdom) as a country, and to claim residence there in this current reality of my lifespan…that is a concept I can grab hold of.  A concept I can relish, absorb, and spend a lifetime getting to know.

So it was in the midst of this lovely contemplation that I began reading 1 Samuel.  I have in struggles past looked to the story of Hannah’s pleading for comfort.  But I would emotionally stop short of the part where she gave up her son.  It was enough to be happy about God answering her prayer to give her a son, Samuel.  But today, as I read, I wasn’t identifying with Hannah’s prayer, because with great joy I can say my Hannah prayer has been answered.  He was playing loud and happy as I read.  And although I wanted to read right over the fact that she gave Samuel to serve God just after he was weaned (probably around 3 or 4 years old), I knew that if I want to live in God’s country, I have to let him teach me from all of Scripture.  So I sat still in the difficult story.

I thought of Josiah, who is not yet 2, and how he is so much a part of me.  I haven’t yet spent a night away from him.  He loves and trusts me…I know, because he kisses me and hugs me when I don’t ask him to, and he throws himself on me like a skydiver, knowing I’ll catch him.  And I love him…I’m trying to come up with words but I can’t.  The best way to communicate what I’m feeling is that besides Edwin, he’s my best friend.  He fills my days.  He’s my companion.  I joy in caring from him.  I love him.  And he’s not yet two.  I started to imagine how much Hannah must have enjoyed and relished the answer to her prayer, how much she must have savored every day with him.

And then she had to give him up.  It was a promise she’d made, and she was true to her word.  She gave him to God, to serve in His temple.  And we know from the rest of the story that he was a righteous man, a tried and true prophet.  He found David and anointed him.  But that doesn’t make it any easier…in fulfillment of her promise, she had to walk away from her baby boy, her little friend, her pride and joy.

And he, oh, he had to say goodbye!  How do you explain to a toddler that mommy has to leave you to serve God in a temple!?  But God met the needs of Hannah, and he filled her void with three more sons and two daughters.  And he met the needs of Samuel, giving him a father in Eli, the priest, and calling him to deliver His messages to the people of Israel.

My mother’s heart breaks at this story, but in God’s country, this story was necessary.  This story was God’s to write.

When Josiah was born we dedicated him to God.  Buts since Josiah came into my life, I have worried that either something tragic would happen to him and I would be left without him; or that something would happen to me and he’d be motherless.  But through this story about Hannah and Samuel God told me today to rest calmly, that should anything happen to either of us, although I don’t want to live without Josiah, and I don’t want him to live without me, God will meet our needs.  He took care of Hannah, and he took care of Samuel.  He’ll take care of me, and he’ll take care of Josiah.  And I need to give up that fear.

So I did that today.  I gave God my future, and Josiah’s.  I took another step into God’s country.

passed over

There are times in my life when I reconnect with grace.
I guess the hope is that I’m connecting with it everyday, and of course even when I’m not acknowledging it, God’s grace covers me.
But what I mean by reconnecting is that sometimes I recognize my incredible need for it, NOW, because I’m so grace-less myself.
Today Edwin and I had what we call a “bad culture day.”  It’s one of those days when the things around us just rub us the wrong way, and we find ourselves grumbling and griping.  But today I couldn’t get too far into my own anger, because I kept thinking the question in my head, “who are you, anyway?”  I might think they need to change things about the train system in Manila (more signage, please!), but the train in Manila wasn’t built for me.  And I’m not a regular customer.  And it serves a good purpose.  And so as I battle, the self that wants to be angry and, let’s face it, prideful and selfish; and the self that wants to live out the Gospel of peace, I just end up all humbled.  And that’s when I reconnect with grace.

Sometimes I think about how frustrating it must have been for God to deal with life on earth.  Then I think about how frustrating it must be for him to deal with life with me.  But he doesn’t just deal with me, he loves me.  He doesn’t just love me, he sees me as clean.  I mean, the grumbling, selfish, judgmental girl of today, in the eyes of God, is clean.  Because Jesus steps in front of me when the eyes of the Great Judge pass by, and I am judged clean.  I was reading Josiah the story of the Passover tonight.  The wording was just perfect to remind me of the sacrifice of Christ.  I can’t remember it just now, but it was something like, “…the lamb’s blood showed God that a lamb had been killed in the place of a person.”  In the place of a person.  Me.  The Lamb was killed so grumpy little Amy could be passed over, saved, redeemed, washed, and robed in righteousness.

That is the work of a gracious God.  That is the grace I reconnected with today.  That is the grace I pray will be manifested in my actions to others.  I have a long way to go, but I know the God of Grace lives in me.  What a sobering and exhilarating thought.

~


picture from http://www.skyscrapercity.com/showthread.php?t=189728

planes fly over our house

On days like today I feel like Superwoman b/c when Edwin told me the news reported that the heat index was 105 degrees today, I said, “Oh, really?  It doesn’t feel that hot.”  And I go back to my work.  I’m on the flip side of last year b/c last year I would have thrown a dramatic arm to my forehead and melted into the pool of sweat that gathered at my feet after rolling down my back.  I was a bit dramatic about the heat last year.

Last year we were still new here.  Last year we could say we arrived “this year” to the Philippines.  I realized today that now I can officially say I’m out of touch with my American culture.  I am sure I know nothing about the styles people are wearing (especially if they have sleeves on them).  Today I was listening to Edwin’s streaming country radio (sometimes I subject myself to that b/c it just feels like America) but I have something to say about country music in America right now.  What is it with trying to make southerners look like idiots?  As Edwin listens to this music frequently, I have heard several times a song that says:

You know I’m chilling on the back roads,
Laid back rollin to some George Jones,
Smoke rollin out the window,
An ice cold beer sittin in the console

I’m sorry, did it become ok to drink and drive in America since I was last there, or are people idiot enough to think these lyrics are worthy of being celebrated and broadcasted on the radio?  I’ll admit the tune is catchy, but the guy loses me when he attempts to rap.  Yes, rap.  The song is called “Dirt Road Anthem” if you don’t believe me.

Perhaps I should be more ashamed of my husband, who, when I told him of my distaste for this song (despite the fact that I probably (sigh) know several people who really do sing this as their anthem), exclaimed, “Oh!  Isn’t that song great!?”  He responded before he caught the ire in my tone.  (Note: Edwin, like many men, I’ve found, rarely listens to lyrics, but rather gets grabbed by the tunes of songs.  So, I can excuse his poor taste, at least in this case.)

I’ve watched American Idol for the first time this year.  I’ve really enjoyed it.  I never got to vote, though, which makes me sad b/c they just voted off the sweetest guy on the show: James Durban.  Would someone vote for Scotty for me?  I’d love to see him win.  He’s a good ol’ boy that I think I can trust not to record songs like anthems to unpaved roads and drunk driving.

Not to make light of drunk driving, but sometimes I feel like that’s the best description of how Filipinos drive, which I guess is giving me practice in case I return to the States and everyone is trying to live out the song I so dislike.  You never know.  It’s nice to be prepared.

All kidding aside, my heart is with my southern brothers and sisters who are fighting back flood waters this week.  MissLou, I love you!

Couple notes about Josiah:
He’s got several more words, and is starting to imitate more:
moon
wala (a Tagalog word which means, “none”)
no (he likes this one, and says it when he starts to do something he knows he’s not supposed to)
hi

Planes fly over our house, and you can hear them.  When Josiah hears them he wants to be picked up so he can be closer to them, and he says, “Byebye.”

dread

When you grow up in relative prosperity, a two-car garage, filled, and a family pet, poverty strikes you hard.  Times were lean for my family sometimes during my childhood, but lean for middle class America is ultimate riches for shanty-town children.  There’s a weight I’ve been carrying, a constant awareness of the injustice of poverty, especially the poverty that strikes whole communities of people.  It’s unfathomable, and it’s bitter.  It’s bitter to those who drink it with their contaminated water and recycled trash meals, and it’s bitter for those who, having, let the reality of injustice sit in their mouths for a while.

It makes me ache.

Because while there are things I can do, things we can do, to combat destitution, there is nothing I can do to eradicate it.  The poverty I’m speaking of I’ve not even yet seen with my own eyes.  Edwin has brought home pictures and stories from his recent prayer walks at the trash dump at Payatas.  He told me today that there’s even a deeper level of poverty he’d never seen before.  While some squatters (people who don’t own the land they live on) are still able to acquire cinder block building materials and make sturdy homes for themselves, there are poorer squatters at the dump.  They build their houses out of whatever scraps of tin or board they can find.  Edwin said they live in such deplorable conditions that their skin is full of pox marks from festering skin sores that never fully heal.

Their food is sold to them out of what is gathered from the garbage, and if they can’t actually afford the gas to cook it, they eat it “raw.”  Edwin was told that doctors have warned these people they’re going to die from eating the refuse, but, he was told, they’d rather die with full stomachs, whether or not the food in their stomachs is what will kill them.

I just ate chocolate chips for my “something sweet” after dinner.  I fed my boys a fresh dinner of fresh vegetables stir fried.  All the while I’ve had the “untouchables” on my mind.  For that’s really what they are, in this covert caste system that I’ve observed in the Philippines.  Or perhaps they’re really more appropriately called the forgotten.  To get to their trash dump home, several layers of society are crossed: first the upper class Fil-Invest homes; then the community of Veterans, a just-above-squatter community of the urban poor; then a squatter community of narrow cinder block-lined allies; and finally, the trash-heap dwellers.

And so, what do I do?  There are the obvious answers: pray, help those who you can.  But I still have this lingering heaviness in my gut.  Why am I living in relative wealth while there are people living in such filth?  Sometimes our actions get ourselves where we are, but sometimes we have nothing to do with getting where we are.  I could do a sociological survey of poverty through history, and the sins of culture and country that lead to such overwhelming poverty.  But that would only ease my intellect, and not my feeling.

Yet I’m afraid the feeling is only going to get worse.  Edwin has lined up another prayer walk this coming Thursday.  He wants me to go.  I’ve been able to, honestly, hide behind Josiah to keep me from confronting this deep angst, but I have no excuse this Thursday, as Edwin thinks we can bring Josiah along.  There’s a side of me that doesn’t want to go because I don’t want to come across as a gawker, but since we’ll be praying, and more specifically than I could do away from the site, I feel compelled to be there to pray.  I want to be there to carry, even for a few minutes, their burden on my spiritual shoulders.  To stand for those with whom I have nothing in common.

It’s a strange and difficult feeling, because we are here to serve the people of the Philippines.  And yet, I do not want to go this deep into poverty, to face injustice that I can’t change.  It’s a feeling of helplessness that could paralyze action.  But I will do something.  I will go, because the people at Payatas dump are loved by God.  And we don’t know what He wants to do there.

Josiah’s words

Josiah has been slow to speak, which I have been reassured by many-a-mom and internet article is perfectly normal for boys his age.  But lately, he’s had a few words creep into his vocabulary, something this lil talkative momma is super excited about.  I mean, in a few months I’ll have a new constant talking companion!  I’ll soon say sayonara to lonely days.

So among those words that are slowly making their way into our comprehension (because, really, he has a huge vocabulary, it’s just not English):

kahk = truck (which really means “car,” b/c almost all of his toy cars are trucks, and so I have always called them trucks.  Of course, this is perfect for a boy who’s dad’s beloved Rosco (aka Ford F150) is still his dream car (truck)).

chees = please.  This word has pleasantly made its way back into Josiah’s vocabulary, after a two month hiatus.  It was really his first word, unless you count “dada.”

dada = dada.

bau = ball

baba/mama = mama.  Of course, this is the most pleasing word I can imagine.  He isn’t using it regularly, but enough for me to love love love it!

bahbah = byebye.  He regularly uses this little phrase, waving his little hand and blowing a kiss.  He does it when one of us leaves him to go upstairs, or from the living room to the kitchen (all of five feet around the corner).

We were recently looking at a picture of NaeNae and Papaw (my parents), and I thought I’d try out his ability to imitate.  He did!  He successfully got out a NahNah and Pahpah!

It’s so fun watching his language develop, to see him start to communicate in the world.
What stories will you tell us, Josiah?

the world between cultures

I was reflecting this past week about, well, many things.  On the front of my mind has been culture…the depths of it, the intricate layers of it, the impossibility of defining it.  February 18 marked our first year in the Philippines.  In the past year we have done more thinking about culture than ever before, and we’ve begun to observe that culture is really a flexible and active entity.  One can’t really say they know ALL of a culture, even their own, because there are always different variables at play, depending on who, what, and where, or the angle from which any of those is being observed.  For instance, there’s culture related to one’s country, and then there’s culture related to one’s religion, there’s culture related to one’s socio-economic status, and culture related to one’s level of education; there’s culture related to race and ethnicity, and culture related to one’s geographic location; there’s culture within one’s politics, and culture within one’s music or artistic tastes.  And then, there’s culture within one’s family.  All of these cultures are constantly in flux in each person.  We may be related to one another in a general framework, like American culture or Christian protestant culture, or Filipino culture or Islamic culture, but when you get to the core of culture, it’s impossible to pinpoint.

Filipino culture is, in my observation, a constant contradiction of values.  Yet I humbly take the position of a learner.  I would be dishonest to deny that I haven’t stood in judgment at times (which is normal in the process of cultural adaptation).  Most of the time that judgment comes out in traffic.  But I have also begun to step outside of my own culture and see the world through different eyes.  I recently heard someone talking in a way that sounded very ethnocentric, and I thought, “Don’t say that about the Filipinos!”  Like I was defensive, because these people, and their culture, are working their way into my heart.  That, in fact, is the Lord’s doing, an answer to prayer.  To love a people is a choice, but the feeling of love must come from God.

Our family went to Hong Kong this past weekend.  We flew out early Saturday morning and got back late late late Monday night.  It was as if we’d been gone a whole week, we saw so much and enjoyed ourselves so intensely.  It was the break we really needed.  It was thoroughly refreshing to be back in an efficient city…the most efficient city I’ve ever been in.  We road the subway, a bus, a tram, a trolley, a ferry, and a cable car, and not once did we sit in traffic (come to Manila and you’ll understand why that is SO refreshing!).  But while we enjoyed the efficiency and the lack of attention on our baby (again, just bring a young child to the Philippines and you’ll understand what I’m saying), we also missed the friendly service and general helpfulness of the Filipino people (that’s not to say those in Hong Kong weren’t helpful…they were great!).

I think the most revealing thing to me about our trip was that I found myself not knowing how to behave.  When we first arrived I tried to wave down a bus that would take us where we wanted to go, because that’s what you do in Manila.  But the bus was going and we would just have to wait in line.  Now, we actually are more comfortable with the line system, but I realized how adjusted I’ve become to the way things work here.  Then we found ourselves with a fussy toddler in a restaurant.  In the Philippines, the good side to the constant attention on Josiah is that we know people like him, and so if he’s being fussy sometimes they help out by talking to him or helping us.  But in the foreign culture of Hong Kong, we didn’t know…are people annoyed with our loud child?  These are small things, but when you’re not “in the know” in a culture, when you face the issues that remind you you are an utter outsider, that’s when you start to examine your own culture deeper.

So what I’m getting to is that I found that I have adopted some of the Filipino way of life, their culture, into the way I live.  Life here, although it can still be trying and difficult, makes sense to me.  And that…that is a big thing.

Edwin said the other day, “I should have been a sociologist.”  And I responded, “You are…we are.  We’re missionaries…we have to be sociologists.”  And this is true.  We aren’t just here to adapt to and live in another culture.  We’re here to make a difference in this culture.  To do that, we have to be living in it, a part of it.  And to live in it, we have to understand it, and realize that “it” isn’t accurate…it’s more “they.”  The cultures, plural, of the Philippines…those are what we are learning.  We have to get to the core values and worldview of the people.  And that’s what we’re doing, one day at a time, living in the world between cultures, and wearing a new one for a while.

 

 

she once was Sarah

Verge of tears
for the life she had
and the life she’s gaining

yeses and nos
stay heres and gos

perched on the
peak of certainty,
convictions winning out
over personal desires

and longing for conviction
to become desire.

Life is a series of heres and theres
that become there and here

and she’s in the ring,
struggling to win over
envy and discontenment.

She learns by giving,
but lately wants to take.
and she’s still in the ring.

Dreams fulfilled become roles
and she feels lost
in the commitments

Lost between the
yes and the not yet
longing to see the lesson
while she lives it.

give and take,
the tension rising,
making itself a home in the
back of her brain.

valleys become campgrounds
that become villages
and she’s building a city,
the preparation for the climb
lost somewhere in between
a softer mat and
a sturdy wall.

She sees her convictions high
beyond reach
and waffles between going
and gaining.
Is she Lot’s wife?
she once was Sarah.

She once was Sarah.
~

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