"Time keeps on slipping...

...slipping, slipping/Into the future." ("Fly Like An Eagle," Steve Miller Band)

Today marks 4 weeks before I fly to Pennsylvania for the East Coast summer months. The remainder of the school year is shot full of holidays…leaving me with less than 10 instructional days with each of my classes. Oh, how can time be so short?! Squeezing out transformational sections of my Night (by Elie Wiesel) study with 10^th grade is driving me crazy!! Yesterday, I sat down at my desk wracking my brains for a way to fit it all in—what happens when you simply do not want to cut ANYTHING out?! Well, you cut it out anyway. Time provides some limitations that can’t be overridden.

How often does time provide sweet, unexpected moments…like the 3 minute interaction I had yesterday as I bought chicken pate from a woman I’d only bought it from only once before. Time can bring to mind past experiences and interactions…create the space for relationship as interaction after interaction is repeated or added to.

Then there was the 10 minutes I lost when I scrolled down my Facebook home page in the midst of trying to finalize my lesson plans for this semester. Geez. Sometimes I reconsider the age-old temptation to quite my life on Facebook. I can make it into a huge time waster. *Click.*

Counteract: the 1-hour long Skype conversation with my older sister who makes fun of me as I explain my spider-fears and empathizes with me as I share my struggles.

Afterwards, there’s the 15 minutes I indulged in online shopping before reading my book, before settling into bed last night. I rarely do so, but now I’m wondering if I really need to go through with ordering that dress??

Today, my to-list is marked with writing a update about my life. J Check! Also, the returning item: write down my week-long hour-by-hour schedule. I want to be more accountable with my time. My friend who challenged me to get back into the habit of doing this, had her schedule ready to share with me 3 weeks ago. I, on the other hand, still haven’t accomplished the task. My to-do list has many items now crossed off but this item returns again and again. Why is it so difficult to set an accountability schedule for myself? Of course, it must include margin. A lesson I totally missed for the better half of one year of my life. Time is precious, and it is limited, so the value I have placed on this task is huge. However, somehow it keeps getting knocked down in the priority list in my head. Maybe it’s just a daunting task?

Wasting precious 15-minute increments on Facebook after classes have finished for the day. Checking my email and online communication programs repeatedly to find out the latest updates and to keep in touch with friends on other islands, in other parts of the world, become impulsive priorities. Kreyol lessons that I want to invest time and mind space into fall off the cliff of my to-do list day after day.

It’s time to buy back. Hourly-schedule for the week—here I come!

As this school year proclaims its closure, I want to fully indulge in being fully present in each hour of each day. I don’t want to look back at half-finished projects, half-accomplished goals, and half-completed conversations. Father, help me to do everything with all of me and the best of who you’ve created me to be!  

Mesi Jezi! 

Tribute

Stealth.

It comes in the night.

It comes when we look for it;

It comes when we don’t.

In the midst of laplis anpil (much rain),

A mixture of shouts and tears

Pierce through the downpour,

Mix themselves in.

Next door a life is taken.

Next door a loss is mourned.

At 9pm on a Monday night,

A body is driven to the morgue.

I was in the bathroom,

Reading how Saul’s jealousy 
Drove him to order his son to

Assist in Jonathan’s BFF’s death.

From outside, the soothing sounds of

Steadily stampeding raindrops

Were overpowered by bloodcurdling screams,

Pouring out their love on the lost.

I walked outside and called for John,

Hoping that this loyal guard would know

Something I didn’t know.

Mouri, he pronounced: Death.

Just a month ago, this letter combination,

Meant nothing to me as Venise uttered it.

My moto driver explained that

Lamar had died, was murdered.

Two weeks later I found myself

Pressed beside familiar people from Swasant-Kenz,

Paying tribute to their beloved friend, father, lover.

He’d been murdered by a hired hit man…

…over a plot of land.

His widow is pregnant with his 3^rd child.

John now tells me to wait while he

Peers over our wall to see who has passed,

But when he returns, he announces the

Body has already been covered.

Breath fills the lungs, oxygen knows

Where to go.

When the heart forgets how to beat,

It’s hard to accept the lifeless body left behind.

Into what eternity has this soul been swept?

Into what destiny will this loved one ascend?

How can we reach out

And pull lives towards the grace-rooted tree of life?

How can the night be transformed into light?

Resurrection has brought everlasting life.

Three and a Half Days

Three and a half days without a mirror, electricity, internet, or computer. Three and a half days of peace, community, rest, reflection, worship, mountains, and cool air.

Saturday marked the beginning of a week-long vacation from school. My work hiatus started with a relaxing 3 ½ hour trip outside of Port-au-Prince to the forested mountains beyond. Each day hearkened a unique rest that I hadn’t imagined going into this trip. There were no feelings of missing out on something or not fully meeting potential or expectation. The time was completely removed from limitless options to “do” stuff and to achieve things.

It was purely a time of rest. Each day I fell asleep in a hammock strung between two pine trees. I wrote down reflections, dreams, emotions, notes, and things God spoke to me. I began reading the Book of Numbers. I began reading a new book, Dealing with the Rejection and Praise of Man by Bob Sorge, that was lent to me by a friend. This book is steadily convicting me at the point of the journey I am on and where I have been in the past with this issue of relying on man’s acceptance to determine my emotional wellbeing.

 

Here are a few selections from Sorge’s book:

“Now it’s nice to get acceptance from other people. But for the believer it’s not necessary when we realize we are accepted and embraced by the great God of the universe. The acceptance of people becomes secondary. All I really need is His acceptance. When I have that, I can face rejection from anyone and everyone else.” (28)

“Many people are touched by people’s acceptance and thus they are touched by their rejection. Their lives can become like an emotional roller coaster. Say something nice to them, and they’re riding high; say something the wrong way to them, and they’re devastated.” (30)

How often in the past I have relied on the praise of man to measure my aptitude, giftings, success. Somehow, those around me always sung choruses of praise to me. How often in my current season have I faced rejection from man; I have quaked under the words, the hurt.

I am reminded of how fortunate I am to hold so many precious gifts from my Father. He has provided in ways beyond measure, and when I take the time to write them down I am amazed at how faithful He has been throughout my history. Even on this journey of learning the proper place for praise/rejection of man, I see His graciousness as I stupidly find myself on that “emotional roller coaster” time and time again. I am thankful that He has continued to provide for each part of my being in ways that I could not begin to measure.

 

As Thomas Obediah Chisholm wrote from experience:

"Great is Thy faithfulness! Great is Thy faithfulness!

Morning by morning new mercies I see;

All I have needed Thy hand hath provided

Great is Thy faithfulness, Lord, unto me!"

Thank You, dear Father for drawing me close and inviting me in. :)

The Moment

 What did you do with your 24 hours today? Did yesterday spill over into today? Was today like going through the wring cycle in a washing machine or was it peaceful and refreshing like sitting down to share your heart with someone who knows you and loves you well? Was it a little bit of both?

In the passing moments of this life, I am learning a bit more of what it means to live in each moment. I’m finding a bit more joy in events as they come and go. I’m stressing a little less about how things will play out. When I’m in the middle of one of my 9^th grade classes making connections between the power structure set up in Lord of the Flies and how it is no less real in our lives; when I’m making dinner with a good friend and talking through pasts and ups and downs of being teachers; when I’m taking a ride to church on the back of Mark’s moto—wind and fresh air blowing over me; when I’m talking to my sister across the ocean because Skype tells me I can…these are places where I am savoring time as it passes. As I confess sins and receive Grace, I am given new revelation on true repentance. As I sit in my room and enjoy the space I have here, I am rejuvenated. As I realize that our electricity situation here at the house has drastically shifted for the positive, unexpectedly, I am reminded how good I have it right now. Thank You.

I’m not always in the moment though. Sometimes I’m minutes behind—agonizing over something that was said (to me or by me) and trying to get a grasp on how to treat the exchange. Sometimes I’m hours ahead—imagining my next meal. Sometimes I’m days ahead, months ahead, and sometimes I am even years ahead.

Someone told me today that God is exactly where we are right now—but He’s not in the hypothetical situations we are playing out in our heads. He is here. He is now. When those future hours, days, months, years arrive, yes, He will be in those, too. But not until they come.

I have a good Dad, and I want to trust Him more. I want to find Him more readily as the seconds pass by before me. I want to be living where my breath is—where His breath is, His Spirit.

Rest

When was the last time?

The last time for what?

Well, when was it?

When was the last time I realized the beauty of rest,

That it was divinely created,

And that it leads the way to more fullness?

Rest.

There’s not a need for justification,

Or a reason to explain

Because it was publicly sanctioned

By our Creator, as a “thing.”

A built-in kind of thing

And not a “if you feel like it,”

Or “If you can get the time off,”

Kind of deal.

They say in teaching that modeling

Is one of the most important aspects

Of getting students to understand something.

God must’ve thought the same thing

Because He demonstrated what it was like

To take time “off.”

“And on the seventh day God finished his work that he had done,

And he rested on the seventh day from all his work that he

Had done. So God blessed the seventh day

And made it holy, because on it God rested from all his

Work that he had done in creation” (Genesis 2:2-3)

And I don’t think—as big of a job as creating

ALL things is—that He needed to sit down

And take a breather.

I don’t really believe that the Creator & Sustainer

Would’ve been hard up if he’d have continued

Working.

What I think is that He is a good teacher,

Just like His Son,

And He knew that someday someone like me

Or someone like you, might need to

Get the picture

That stopping.

Pausing.

Resting.

Is a beautiful and necessary part of our

Existence.

Oh, the things we can do

By the work of our hands and the imaginations

Of our brains!

They are absolutely glorious and reflect

A Majestic, Dream-Schemer!

But my hands have overworked for days,

And my brain has burned holes in my skull

As analytical battles have ensued,

And I am thankful that built into the best

Way of living is time to

Stop. Reflect. Listen. And simply be. 

Lead Me, Faithful One

Count me faithful,
Praising You from the inside,
I am Your temple,
Make Your home in me.
I will remember that You are
My faithful One.
I will listen as You lead,
and pull me closer when I
strain away.

Make me willing to go with You
to the grave, into the darkness to bring the light.

I believe, I believe,
Father help me in my unbelief.
Let me drink deeply of Your hope,
Your truth.

Close Call

Woven like a basket in and out of

Machine openings

Dodging past ditches, diving

Below ground level.

Dwat (right): past the National

Petrol station on the corner.

Through the street with pedestrians, merchants,

Mangos, fig, banan, eggs, fried food delights.

Revved engine, Bwini alerts, warns, intimidates

Crossing women, men, and children—not

Slowing down, but taking the right away.

Stuck between tap tap and wheel barrow

Overflowing with sugar cane—some sliced, others

Whole, long, uncut.

Inwardly, I perk up. Secretly craving a “close call,”

What a fool I am to seek such a thrill.

To my delight, my leg, my thigh brush up against

The barrow of sweet fibrous branches

Of sugar cane,

And I am instantly alive,

And I’ve had a close call, a touch with the street.

I know I’m a fool, but in the moments in between

Predictability and control,

My heart throbs to reach out and touch the

Edge, in small doses

Even though it might not be wisdom that entreats me.