In case you were wondering...

Here's a small bit about where I live.

It's really amazing how different this place is from anything else I've known. It reminds me a little bit of parts of New York I've seen, but when it comes down to it, this place is completely unique. The first few days here, I was asking questions non-stop, trying to understand why things are the way they are.

Here is a little bit of what I've learned about this place: The neighborhood I am living in is East Ham in the Newham Borough (which is also known as the Olympic Borough, and the Olympic Stadium is only about a 15 minute drive north). This is the poorest borough in all of London, because it's made up mostly of immigrants and the working class. When people start earning money, they move somewhere nicer, so the borough remains populated by the poorest people in London. For the most part, the only people with college educations who live here are Christians or other social activists who want to see improvement in the borough.

Because this is the Olympic borough, however, a lot of money, time, and thought are being invested here, which is helping to generate local interest in and care for this place. The Olympic committee is hoping that the Olympics will be a catalyst for revitalization and long-term social changes in this borough. The Christian communities are praying for a huge spiritual revival as well, and it's really just an amazing time to be here...it's like we're on the threshold of something huge.

As I mentioned above, this borough is filled with immigrants, and I can walk down a crowded street and not see a single white person, hear ten different languages and accents as people pass me by, and pass droves of women dressed in saris. My neighborhood is mostly populated by Asians, which is confusing because that means Indian, South Indian, Indonesian, Saudi Arabian, etc., but also means alot of excellent food for very cheap (as well as a lot of really disgusting fried fast food). What we call Asian (i.e. Chinese, Japanese, and Korean), British people call Oriental.

The main religions here are Islam, Hinduism, and Sikhism, and it's not rare at all to see women walking down the street wearing burkas, so nothing shows except their eyes. I've also heard stories of men who refuse to shake hands with women because their religion won't allow them to.

What I've seen already about the Christian church here (particularly with the church I am working with--Plaistow Christian Fellowship) is that it seems to have more purpose and is a lot more missional than churches back home, probably because the Christians here know that they're a minority and can see in real ways every day how legalistic and destructive other religions can be. My church in particular is like a little family--they all take care of each other and know everyone's business and have all known each other for years and years. One new and really exciting and beautiful thing that is happening here is that four of the main churches in this area are seeking unity by having joint services every few weeks, and encouraging the people to pool resources in our work towards transforming Newham.

wow. this is what creating art is all about.

so beautiful it makes me want to weep.

Makoto Fujimura: A Letter to a Young Artist

Well, here I am.

London.

Technically, East Ham.

Some things of note:
It's definitely not as cold as I was expecting. Apparently we're having a bit of a warm streak: 54 degrees today.

Sitting in the wrong side of the car on the wrong side of the street is WEIRD. From what I remember from my last visit here, it wasn't strange at all in a bus. But navigating these narrow narrow streets in a little car from the other side...so weird.

There are so many beautiful people here, so many different cultures, so few white people. The neighborhood I live in is inhabited mostly by Indians and black people, and walking down the street with my supervisor Jo we definitely stuck out--white and Chinese. So many different kinds of food to try also! Saudi Arabian, Indonesian, Lebanese, the list goes on and on.

Summer 2011: beekeeping! my supervisor has a hive in her backyard. excellent.

My American accent sticks out like a sore thumb, and every time I hear myself speak I cringe and stumble over my words because of how awful I sound. Also, British people sound smarter and have bigger vocabularies in general, and I have heard the words brilliant, jolly good, sorted, and reckon more times in the past 24 hours than I have in my entire life.

Homemade shepherd's pie for dinner last night. Delish.

Spotify: the British version of Pandora/Grooveshark but way better.

My supervisor's sixteen year old son Adam is precious. He talks and talks and talks, even with his slight lisp which is simply endearing. He's absolutely obsessed with Relient K these days, and yesterday was playing some old school songs on guitar I haven't heard since early high school. He and eight other kids in high school (or college as I think they call it here...) are starting a youth church program where the second week of each month they go to one of the four churches in this area and lead the service to promote youth involvement and unity between the churches.

Finally putting my English degree to good use! I'll be writing articles for a website that the crisis pregnancy center is launching later this year.

I haven't gone into the city yet, but tomorrow I have the day to myself: sleep in, explore the neighborhood...it will be lovely.

It's a bit strange to simply step into these people's daily lives like this. This is such a giant change for me, but just a small disturbance in normality for them. I've already been to a prayer meeting and spent seven hours at work today. And here I am, eating dinner at their table, hearing Adam talk about examinations and his mother worrying that's he going to fail Physics. What a strange little slice of life I've been witnessing.

Some things I had forgotten: the loo, radiators, take away, celsius...

Currently reading: Rilke's "The Book of Hours" and Donald Miller's "A Million Miles in a Thousand Years."

traveling on

this is my last day in santa barbara.
all my worldly possessions are packed up in my car, ready and waiting for the four hour trip north.

the sun is shining. the sky is radiant deep perfect blue.
aka perfect walk weather.

I have two and a half wide-open hours before I leave.
and I am sitting here writing instead of taking one last look at my dear friends or campus or the ocean or any of the other places I have loved so deeply for so long.

strange.


I am not very sad at all about leaving.
it is time.

yes. very strange.


a week ago I was thinking about sight and the leaving and the living and then the coming back. how your sight changes each time. how no matter how often you revisit a scene and linger there, looking long, breathing deep, committing the curves and angles and colors and faces and laughs to memory, there is always something hidden that emerges from the woodwork and reminds you of how little you actually know of this place and people.


I haven't even left yet but what I miss is not this place or these people but the way we lived, all the promise and the hope. the time when all things were new, before the tired repetition and reenactments of the old things. what fills me with sadness is not the leaving but this feeling I can't shake that I am not leaving much behind.

good thing, at least, that I am traveling to a far distant land where no one knows my name and where I can start all this over.


and yet a friend of mine told me some things: to stop running away before I run out of places to run to, and even though the grass may seem greener on the other side, it's only greener where you water it.
true.
but the grass really is greener is England.



"Nothing Gold..."
Marilyn McEntyre

The road not taken is taken. Beyond the bend
it stretches on in the mind, well-traveled
as the one on which we set our feet.

An untold, imagined story
mingles with memory; actual
and possible paths cross and at each crossing
we pause, not to regret, but to remember
that to choose is to keep choosing.

The after-image of a face beyond a half-open door,
the felt warmth of a room beyond an uncrossed threshold,
the lingering sounds of a conversation that never happened,
leave their record, too, on the heart and in the bones:
fourth dimension of the life we choose and live.

You can lose what you never had--
mourn the unborn child,
the unspoken confession,
the friendship foreshadowed
that drifted away on the next tide.

You can lose what you only imagined having:
evening hours sipping wine over an open book;
walks that wind beyond the routes of responsibility,
the luxury of dailiness: "Oh, it's you again--
I wondered when you'd come."

The good-bye hard upon hello,
the embrace that renounces even as it receives,
the same breath caught in anticipation released
in resignation, confuse the opening heart.

By a strange mercy we are allowed
to practice the final paradox--to love and let go,
learning in each release to listen to the voice
that asks, "Do you see yet?" Do you see
how to love the wave already breaking
because it is a wave?
because it breaks?

The Song of No Coming and No Going

Thich Nhat Hanh


When I left home, I was a child.
Now I return an old man.
Villagers still speak with the same accent,
but my hair and beard are completely white.
The village children see me but don't recognize me.
They look at each other and giggle,
"Where have you come from, old sir?"

Where have you come from, old sir?
"I have come from the same place you have,
yet you don't know there is a link between us."
I stroke my snow-white beard this morning.
The young leaves on the trees are new and green.
They see no link between themselves and the seed
that took root so many years ago on this very land.
Villagers still speak with the same accent,
but after so many years, the village has become your village.
To your puzzled eyes, I am only a strange, old visitor
arriving from some unknown world.
To come or to go, to depart or return--
who among us is not a wanderer?

Where have you come from, old sir?
You don't see. How could you?
Even if I sing to you the old songs I learned in the village,
I would still be a stranger in your eyes.
When I tell you, "This is my village,"
your eyes dance and you laugh.
And I laugh too, when you say I am just telling a story.

The bamboo trees, the riverbank, the village hall--
everything is still here.
They have changed, yet they haven't.
A new bamboo shoot, a new red-tiled roof,
a new small lane,
a new child--
What is the purpose of my return?
I don't know.

There is a haunting image of the past.
The traveler has no real point of departure
and no point of arrival.
Who is he, this explorer of the triple worlds?

As if to a former life--
the sweet potatoes and turnips, the hay, the cottage--
I come back to my village.
But those with whom I worked and sang
are strangers to those I find today.
Everywhere are the children,
the red-tiled roofs,
the narrow lanes--
The past and the future look at each other,
and the two shores suddenly become one.
The path of return continues the journey.

today I am a quintessential old woman

sitting on the porch with aching muscles, a blanket spread across my knees, and needlework in my hands

Getting It Across. U.A. Fanthorpe.

‘His disciples said unto him, Lo, now speakest thou plainly, and speakest no proverb. Now are we sure that thou knowest all things.’
St. John 16:29-30



This is the hard thing.
Not being God, the Son of Man,
—I was born for that part—
But patiently incising on these yokel faces,
Mystified, bored and mortal,
The vital mnemonics they never remember.

There is enough of Man in my God
For me to construe their frowns. I feel
The jaw-cracking yawns they try to hide
When out I come with one of my old
Chestnuts. Christ! Not that bloody
Sower again, they are saying, or God!
Not the Prodigal fucking Son.
Give us a new one, for Messiah’s sake.

They know my unknowable parables as well
As each other’s shaggy dog stories.
I say! I say! I say! There was this Samaritan,
This Philistine and this Roman…or
What did the high priest say
To the belly dancer? All they need
Is the cue for laughs. My sheep and goats,
Virgins, pigs, figtrees, loaves and lepers
Confuse them. Fishing, whether for fish or men,
Has unfitted them for analogy.

Yet these are my mouths. Through them only
Can I speak with Augustine, Aquinas, Martin, Paul
Regius Professors of Divinity,
And you, and you.
How can I cram the sense of Heaven’s kingdom
Into our pidgin-Aramaic quayside jargon?

I envy Moses, who could choose
The diuturnity of stone for waymarks
Between man and Me. He broke the tablets,
Of course. I too know the easy messages
Are the ones not worth transmitting;
But he could at least carve.
The prophets too, however luckless
Their lives and instructions, inscribed on wood,
Papyrus, walls, their jaundiced oracles.

I alone must write on flesh. Not even
The congenial face of my Baptist cousin,
My crooked affinity Judas, who understands,
Men who would give me accurately to the unborn
As if I were something simple, like bread.
But Pete, with his headband stuffed with fishhooks,
His gift for rushing in where angels wouldn’t,
Tom, for whom metaphor is anathema,
And James and John, who want the room at the top—
These numskulls are my medium. I called them.

I am tattooing God on their makeshift lives.
My Keystone Cops of disciples, always,
Running absurdly away, or lying ineptly,
Cutting off ears and falling into the water,
These Sancho Panzas must tread my Quixote life,
Dying ridiculous and undignified,
Flayed and stoned and crucified upside down.
They are the dear, the human, the dense, for whom
My message is. That might, had I not touched them,
Have died decent respectable upright deaths in bed.