Days of Miracles and Wonders

Day: 50, October 12th – October 26th

“’I used to think everyone believed in God,’ I said.
‘There are many gods,’ Cico whisphered, ‘gods of beauty and magic, gods of the garden, gods in our own backyards – but we go off to foreign countries to find new ones, we reach to the stars to find new ones.’”
~ Rudolfo Anaya in Bless Me, Ultima

In the last few weeks, I’ve woken up to an ongoing conversation between my head and my heart. Each morning, I wrestle free from anxious dreams and slip into yesterday’s resolution to be better, wiser and kinder. Each evening, I settle down to my laptop, determined to drag these mustang thoughts out of the corral and send it bucking and braying across the bleak beginnings of a blog post. I’ve since learned that a spirit in conflict with itself will rarely entertain a ceasefire long enough to sneak some creativity past the remains of fallen deities and through the labyrinth of false walls and barricades. Here’s a few of those thoughts that I started then and have just barely concluded:

--> Of all the need-to-have gadgets I lugged six thousand miles from home, I wish I had brought a bible. Mind you, this is a very awkward confession seeing that both my mother and my priest will read this and wonder what insignificant object replaced the bible in my suit case. The answer: my ego. Last Saturday, we traveled to the spiritual center of the Christian world and to the history-heavy ruins of my family’s faith. We band of tourists held our cameras close and strolled quietly through a tangled forest of mosquitoes and Tamaris trees (supposedly the same kind of tree Abraham planted as a peace offering). Eventually we emerged from the Shire-like thicket and came upon the baptism site. As is reflective of my current relationship with God, the site was a large, unadorned, vacant and muddy pit sculpted by a few men with pick axes attempting to salvage any relics before the winter floods reverse all of their work.

The throng of tourists left the site and rarely strayed from the well marked trail leading to the Jordan River. A local group of Orthodox Christians have erected a gorgeous church directly beside the twisted green river (the word Jordan literally means “twisted” or “winding”). The walls and high arched ceiling are draped in the iconographic and brightly colored dreams of hermit saints and virgin mothers. At the river, my peer and I split fresh pita and performed the Jewish tradition of casting our sins embodied in the bread upon the slow-moving water. In retrospect, the performance invoked a sense of spiritual cognizance that had not been present before that point. At the time, it seemed like a waste of good pita and a bit of an eye soar when one looked upon our penance strewn across a dying river.

At that moment, I realized how much I missed blind faith. There are so many fewer questions when you can explain away car bombs and barefoot babies with a solemn prayer and the will of God. I miss the finality of a Calling that will end up in one of two ways: a seminary or a minivan.

I suppose it’s appropriate that I left the resting place of saints and gods more than a bit conflicted. The search for answers from silent heaven-dwellers is often cumbersome but it helps to use what you know. I know stories of a man named Jesus who came to separate the sheep from the goats (why he preferred that docile, cowardly and fairly stupid creature is still a point of tension between him and me). Regardless, I know that he carried a message of courageous Love.

I know he jammed cultures and scriptures, rarely wore shoes and appreciated good red wine. I assume he smiled with his eyes and exhaled deep and uproarious belly laughs that excite the spirit and ease the heart. I imagine that he would tear down heaven’s gates because it gets lonely on celestial thrones.

My father once introduced me to the power of place. It seems that the spiritual weight or condition of one’s geography will often overtake one’s own spiritual person. Conflict is as much alive in the land as it is among the people. As a result, Jordan is both beautiful and hostile, a dichotomy that has seeped into my thoughts and dreams in the last month.

Thankfully, I found solace in the memoirs of a cultural deviant and the grandiloquent prose of yet another Latino author. Ayaan Hirsi Ali’s Infidel rekindled the passionate voice of a truth-bloomed woman. Please look her up. She is a very controversial character in terms of her opinion of Islam as an inherently violent religion. Although I disagree with her on a very fundamental level, her life story is a clear example of how faith can act as the justification for the worst human atrocities (ie. femal circumcision...a reality for over 6 thousand girls everyday). She brought me a profound sense of solidarity and offered a new regard for someone associated with a neoconservative American think tank (yes, Pop, neocons occasionally make sense). I closed that book and immediately picked up Rudolfo Anaya’s Bless Me, Ultima. Anaya tenderly lured the sacred feminine and garden gods from their hiding places in New Mexico and painted them circus-tent colors in the autumn skies that billow over Amman.

Anaya and Hirsi Ali didn’t provide me with answers, but they diverted my wayward heart and reunited her with a childhood friend; Hardheaded Hope.

“Her hand touched my forehead and her last words were, I bless you in the name of all that is good and strong and beautiful. Always have the strength to live. Love life, and if despair enters your heart, look for me in the evenings when the wind is gentle and the owls sing in the hills. I shall be with you.’”
~ Rudolfo Anaya

At peace.

Photos for you!

Postcard Companions

Day 32: September 24th, 2008

The stars had only one task: they taught me how to read.
They taught me I had a language in heaven
and another language on earth.
Who am I? Who am I?
I don’t want to answer yet.
May a star fall into itself,
And may a forest of chestnut trees rise in the night
toward the Milky Way with me, and may it say:
Remain here!
~ Mahmoud Darwish

Lately I’ve been wandering along my memory bank and rediscovering the value of so many moments in the company of genuine and tenderhearted people. And while my eyes translate the poetry etched in rock faces and my fingers trace the footprints of vagabonds and unsung artists, I’m convinced that when I turn around I’ll find my mother, my father, my lovers and lovelies just as dumbstruck and awe inspired as I am. Thus, I’m constantly disappointed that you are not there beside me and that I could never fully articulate the wonder that is sun and sand kissed gorges or calm waters dividing and uniting conflicted nations. We have yet to invent a lens that captures the taste of a breathless heart when the rose rock tomb suddenly emerges from its disturbed resting place. I don’t have a word in English or Arabic that describes newfound peace in the echoes of silence while lying on star studded sand. How do I squeeze former ocean floors, table top mountains, the intoxicating rhythm of a camel’s steady pace and the sand dunes in my shoes into a tidy three by five?

In the midst of all these wonderful sights and ponderings, poverty and the deterioration of land, language and culture lurk not-so-quietly in the background. As is custom with globalization, the Bedouin in Petra have their children sell jewelry and postcards to tourists for the “pity buy” that it will inevitably acquire. Each stall sells the same assemblage of Chinese beads and fake turquoise that we demand, consume and pawn off on unknowing relatives and friends. “It’s Bedouin silver,” we’ll say, “Got him to give me a 75 percent discount!” What is the cost of a bargain to the sixteen year old saleswoman? How much is a seven year old entrepreneur with functional English, attitude and a touch of basic math? How much is heritage and hospitality to a people devoid of culture?

Mind you, that last note was not intended as a lecture for other travelers as I am no genuine authority on the subject. It’s more of an inward-bound reprimand for what I did not resist when faced with the choice to consume or to question.

I should mention that I am convinced of the blanket of soul matter that wraps all beings in a web of electric thoughts and sensations. When we pull the memory of a loved one toward the center of our hearts, we embrace whatever part of their soul we’ve acquired and surround them with all things warm and splendid. The other person experiences that ecstatic embrace in a stranger’s smile, in open arms, in unprovoked giggle fits and in the sudden awakening of a misplaced memory. So, I suppose you’ve been there all along exploring Petra, Aqaba and Wadi Rum with the same wild-eyed spirit and love for life that surrounds my favorite memories of you.

Mom, Pop, I miss you.

Peace.

P.S. Happy Birthday, Papa! I beg the world and God grants you a great many more years to spend in the wild world of new dawns and never yet seen horizons. Everytime someone hands me Turkish coffee, I think back on how you sip it at home and dream of your days in Gaza. Then I think on how blessed I am to be following in your Titan-sized footsteps. My Papa, it's a new dawn, a new day and I sure as hell hope you're feeling good. Happy Birthday, you delightful old fart. :)

The Politics of Blood, Faith and Revolution

Day 21: September 13th, 2008

“Peace will come suddenly, we won’t understand when it does – see, man?” ~ Jack Kerouac

September 11th was a blur of slowgoing Arabic classes, smoke and mirror politics, giggles and doodles and magic eyes. Someone identified September 11th as the end of our childhood…and perhaps the beginning of a new age of adult-sized children.

In the U.S., Obama and McCain called off the campaigning for a 24-hour moment of select silence. In Jordan, taxis honked their horns and hurled insults as viciously as before, the streets howled with business and pleasure just as it did the year before. Politics and terrorism remained just as taboo and distant as the hidden horizon.

Later, I had a conversation with a friend about Catholic doctrine and the overlooked musical superiority of metal bands while watching an Arab shepherd herd his flock of goats and sheep away from their grazing patch by the newly built, million-dollar Orthodox church. I feel this trip is not so much about my development as a “grown up” as it is an ongoing collection of textured thoughts.

Wondered why Jesus commanded we choose him as idealistic and doe eyed children rather than almost conscious, discerning adults. Wouldn’t the return of the latter feel far more rewarding?

Saw the end scenes of the movie, “Messages.” It’s a fantastic film documenting the spread of Islam. Mohammad [peace be upon him] is never seen or heard but the camera acts as his eyes. The ending scene is the successful takeover of Mecca and closes with a call to prayer. A deep, throaty voice recites the first verse in the Qur’an and the camera pans across the tearful crowd. The people react to the Message with smiles, tears, laughter, shivers and heaving bodies.

Seems that God is a many faced, many named, many armed creature that has captivated our imagination and eluded our full understanding for many millennia. Will we/have we seen the end of prophets that carry this Mystery God’s message? Will prophets of the future hurdle rocks into civilization’s playground or wipe clean our feet and faces?

In peace.

Days Written by and for Nina Simone

Day 18: September 10, 2008

“The kiss of his memory made pictures of love and light against the wall. Here was peace. She pulled in her horizon like a great fishnet. Pulled it from around the waist of the world, and draped it over her shoulder. So much of life in its meshes! She called in her soul to come and see.” ~ Zora Neal Hurston in Their Eyes were Watching God

It’s not so hard to romanticize a place that has so successfully edited out physical affection. Magic, or the sparks of light that sprinkle our favorite memories, dart in and out of their hiding places in moments that I would otherwise consider commonplace. Magic appears in the preparation of Iftar, when the knee buckling aroma of mansef mixes with pining tummies and tongues. It’s in the constant wafts of coffee and cologne that visit foreign nostrils even without a clear source. It’s hiding away in abandoned classrooms to sneak sips of water and chunks of heaven sent falafel. Sparks fly in the forbidden looks of tenderhearted lovers and their equally restless counterparts. Love may be forced out of sight in this part of the world but she is most certainly alive and thriving in the shadows of the everyday. People here tend to shuffle all things political and sexual under the rug below the coffee table. While I appreciate this newfound silence, I also question its efficacy and sustainability.

As my host mother quips, “Americans are very straight [she means direct]. Here, not so.”

Throughout all this business, I find that I may never “arrive” here. My heart too readily explores and embraces the “routine” as something altogether different and blessedly polymelodic.

Peace.

The Sand in my Shoes

Day 13: September 5th

Hey lovelies. I touched down in Jordan about two weeks ago so I guess it’s only appropriate that I try to document the new but oddly familiar textures and tastes that crowd my days. Amman is a city caught between traditional symbols and symptoms of globalization. She swirls in an overabundance of stiff smells, stifling heat, guttural psalms and little sparks of magic. Cab drivers hurl past one another in their sparkling Toyota Corollas, conservative women in black burqas flit between Safeway and Forever 21 and the towering minarets are lined in bright green neon lights comparable to old Las Vegas.

Admittedly, it’s been a messy transition both physically and culturally speaking (my bowels have yet to agree with the diet of lamb and soupy cheese. Surprise!). Within my first few hours in Amman, I’d already learned a valuable lesson in cultural assimilation: some men consider a smile an open invitation to grope your ankle. Have since practiced and nearly perfected my “fuck off” scowl. Still haven’t decided whether or not or how I should hide my skin (story of my life).

The next few days were a jumble of Byzantine churches, Ummayad palaces and fallen citadels situated at the heart of a restless economy. As we stood amidst the hilltop rubble we learned of the legacy of heroes and gods that walked the same ground centuries before us. Some of the Americans wandered off in thought while others stood on pillars and mimicked the forgotten deities.

We also toured the gigantic King Hussein mosque erected in the image and memory of the late (and widely beloved) king. We women donned full black robes and covered our hair before entering the mosque. Standing among these newly concealed American women was quite the sobering experience. It felt strangely comforting to be faceless, nameless and generally unrecognizable except unto the all seeing eyes of God.

On the first night of Ramadan, a group of us gathered to break the fast and while the evening call to prayer rang out from the nearest minarets, one of our Jewish companions ceremoniously broke bread and we exhaled guilty little giggles. A short while later, I moved into my host family’s three story mansion in a “quiet” neighborhood that’s reminiscent of Albuquerque’s Northeast Heights. My host mother immediately grabbed my hand and excitedly ran me up and down the house. Mom, she cooks, looks and even makes honey and lemon concoctions just like you. It’s uncanny and frankly, a bit unfair J. I gather you arranged that one with God. My host father is a bit skinny and shifty and we have yet to make eye contact. The young brothers are twelve and fourteen and refuse to act any older. Occasionally they try out the “protectorate” role especially on night walks around the neighborhood. One night, a car full of rowdy young twirps attempted to run me and two other girls off the road (TWICE!). Zaid, the youngest, puffed up his chest and accompanied us down the street until the car showed up a third time. Without a second thought, Zaid booked it back to the house leaving us to the mercy of a smelly mess of testosterone, big cars and fire crackers. I learned later that this is a fairly common practice for young men seeking the company of young ladies. Dating in the Middle East is beyond me.

So, I’ve heard from some but not all of the people I miss most. Please keep me updated on all of your latest schemes and dreams. I’ll try to put this blasted blog to good use. Know that I’ve thought and prayed and giggled about your goofy faces every damn day.

Peace.

God by Kahlil Gibran

In the ancient days, when the first quiver
of speech came to my lips, I ascended the
holy mountain and spoke unto God, saying,
"Master, I am thy slave. Thy hidden
will is my law and I shall obey thee
forever more."
But God made no answer, and like a
mighty tempest passed away.
And after a thousand years I ascended
the holy mountain and again I spoke unto
God, saying, "Creator, I am thy creation.
Out of clay hast thou fashioned me and to
thee I owe mine all."
And God made no answer, but like a
thousand swift wings passed away.
And after a thousand years I climbed
the holy mountain and spoke unto God
again, saying, "Father, I am thy son. In
pity and love thou hast given me birth,
and through love and worship I shall
inherit thy kingdom."
And God made no answer, and like the
mist that veils the distant hills he passed
away.
And after a thousand years I climbed
the sacred mountain and again spoke unto
God, saying, "My God, my aim and my
fulfilment; I am thy yesterday and thou
art my tomorrow. I am thy root in the
earth and thou art my flower in the sky,
and together we grow before the face of
the sun."
Then God leaned over me, and in my
ears whispered words of sweetness, and
even as the sea that enfoldeth a brook that
runneth down to her, he enfolded me.
And when I descended into the valleys
and the plains God was there also.