Move 3

I Won’t Look Away. for The Mudroom.

Our eyes grew wide in disbelief at the yelling, shoving crowd. We had been warned, to be fair, that our trip to the Mogamma, the towering government building in Tahrir Square, would be difficult. But this was something entirely otherworldly. We clutched our passports to our chests and braced ourselves against elbows to the ribs. Everyone there needed to get to that one plexiglass window at the front of the room. On the other side were the stamps that would allow us to stay in the country.

We came to Egypt on tourist one-month entry visas in faith that the system would work and we would be allowed to stay. We didn’t act like there was any other option when we signed a two-year lease and enrolled in Arabic classes. But we needed someone on the other side of the mob to take our papers and give us final permission.

We tell our immigration stories fondly now from the other side. They felt like harrowing experiences while we were in the middle of them though. We hounded the guy at the Bangladeshi Embassy daily. He could have denied our visas because of a changing rule we didn’t know about. Instead, he gave us a call and a chance to make it right. Our entire life was already packed up in ten suitcases and the one-way plane tickets had been purchased. Yet he held the power to deny us entry into the new life we sought. In the end, we got the highly-coveted five-year permission that others told us they were jealous of. “How easy it was for you,” they would say.

I’ve been an immigrant twice and I’ve served with an organization that worked in relief and development amidst one of the largest refugee crises of our time. I’ve helped bring aid to those who fled. I listened to and wrote stories so that donors would hopefully continue to help. I stood looking over the vast rolling hills of the world’s largest refugee camp and thought I knew something about the vulnerability of a transitory life. I knew nothing.

When I started listening, really listening—I realized how one-sided my knowledge was of why people leave and why people need sanctuary...

CONTINUE READING AT THE MUDROOM

February 11, 2020 Books to read, Listening to God:, The wilderness

Anchoring Ourselves to the Truth. A Review of Making Peace with Change.

When we settled back in the U.S. last year after our living in South Asia, it felt like the world had moved on without us while we occupied another plane of existence altogether. We might as well have been returning from outer space. My family got used to living in partially packed houses or out of suitcases in someone’s guest room. We spent the last four years of our lives in one form or another of visible transition. out of suitcases in someone’s guest room. We spent the last four years of our lives in one form or another of visible transition.

When we stopped long enough to deal with how all the change had given us many gifts but also many scars, we opened our eyes to those in transition all around us. Ours was obvious because it included suitcases and tearful goodbyes.

But what about the friend who went back to work after years of staying home with the kids? There was the recently retired family member and a friend coming to grips with the limits her chronic illness gave her. We saw parents struggling with children’s learning difficulties or developmental stages, young adults stuck between college and “real life,” marriages falling apart and new families blending, moving between foster homes, adoption, leaving home, and returning to faith after years of anger with God. And these were just the people in our immediate circles!

I snatched up a copy of Gina Butz’s book Making Peace with Change: Navigating Life’s Messy Transitions with Honesty and Grace because I knew I needed it. It was obvious I was in the definition of a messy transition every time someone asked me how I was doing and tears started running down my cheeks. Having read some of Butz’s work before, I knew she also had lived overseas.

Making Peace with Change takes us through the often hidden parts of transition: hard, loss, desire, expectations, and grief...

CONTINUE READING AT THE MUDROOM

October 15, 2016 Noticing (Everyday life)

Move

31 Days of Practicing Faith

In October, I am free writing for five minutes a day—raw and unedited—on practicing faith in the every day. Each day is based on a different prompt from 31 Days of Five Minute Free Writes.

{Day 15} - Move

I don't know if movement feels so freeing to me because I am a dancer or if I became a dancer because I was born with something inside of me drawn to the freedom in moving my body through space. I have loved dance since I was a little girl and as much as I enjoy watching a beautiful performance, nothing compares to being in the studio or on the stage myself.

I can't explain the way time and everything in the world falls away when I dance. Some people talk about the fourth wall needed as a performer. That is where you train yourself not to see the audience so that you can focus on the performance. That was never an issue for me. When I was on stage it was like everybody else in the world melted away and it was just me and the music.

I don't dance much these days except for fun in my own home. But I have found that I am still drawn to many other types of movement. The rhythms of yoga and pilates stretch me to my limits and I look forward to pushing past them. Walking becomes my communing with God in nature as I speak to Him and admire His handiworks. Don't laugh - zumba is my dancing these days and I love the way I can easily pick up the patterns and fall into them, feeling a certain control over my body that feels less controllable as I age.

In my life movement has been for me, for the audience, for God. It has been a past time, an idol, and finally a conversation with God. Whether I was created to move or I found it on happy accident, I am grateful.

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