Story Time

I was just explaining to a friend that the only time I blog is when I have a story to tell.  It has to be something that sticks with me, I said, something that shakes me in some way.  Though quite honestly, it’s usually pretty safe.  “Intellectual analysis” has been my predominant way of learning for years, but expressing how these experiences really affect me…. THAT is what this semester has been.  Yes, I “work” teaching English classes in communities on the volcano.  Yet the things that I know are most challenged there.  In a sense, I learn far more than I could ever hope to teach.  Yes, I “don’t have” a lot of things like TV, internet, and hot showers in my house.  Yet I have the incredible opportunity to build relationships with people who inspire me to live intentionally and to be the most me…. the most fulfilled and liberated me.  It’s scary and beautiful.  This journey here is such a multifaceted one for me, and it is unfair to present it in any other way.  Saying that El Salvador is great just doesn’t cut it.  It is more than I could have expected in ways that I never anticipated, and it’s a little uncomfortable sometimes.  But it is real.

During a little cita a few days ago, a friend suggested that I read the following poem, Wild Geese by Mary Oliver.  It really spoke to me at the time, and it continues to do so.  In case you’re wondering, it’s now on my wall… I hope it speaks to you and wherever you are on your journey.

 

Wild Geese

You do not have to be good.

You do not have to walk on your knees

for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.

You only have to let the soft animal of your body

love what it loves.

Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.

Meanwhile the world goes on.

Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain

are moving across the landscapes,

over the prairies and the deep trees,

the mountains and the rivers.

Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,

are heading home again.

Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,

the world offers itself to your imagination,

calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting–

over and over announcing your place

in the family of things.

–Mary Oliver