Today I awoke to flashes of lightening followed closely by growling thunder. Then came the rains and the outlook for the day took on a beautiful shade of grey.Here in Bolivia the number of children and young people with HIV / AIDS is increasing. The numbers are still quite small and one would think “manageable”; however, when such is the case we tend not to do anything with the thought that since it is small either (a) there are more important and pressing matters to address or (b) someone must already have taken care of it.
The problem here is that only recently has the awareness of the lack of services for these children surfaced and to date, though there are some things “in process”, there is not centre nor organization focusing on the specific needs of children with HIV / AIDS.
The foundation I am working for has made it a priority to investigate the situation on a local and national level and seek support in order to open up the first centres in Bolivia for these children. The problem with AIDS is that it is a “growing” problem in several ways and the more time that passes the more difficult and expensive the response will be.
I enjoy my work. It drains me and at times makes me ask all sorts of questions – mostly concerning faith – yet this is healthy living. For me it is important that what I do is part of who I am and that I do not draw divisions where they really do not exist. That way I can hurt when something sad is going on in the lives of one of the children we are taking care of, and I can rejoice when one of these children is rejoicing.
I am not sure the point of this post, except to express that I am being effected a lot lately by by my work for the better or worse I cannot judge myself. I try to avoid judgment of myself and others, yet our world is quite ill and sometimes it is hard to ignore the dying. I am being elusive, I don’t really want to write about some of the things that are getting to me, but things have me asking a lot of questions, that’s all.
10 years now lost to find shes been born a different kind
cant keep ever in here so small
cant leave cant stay cant rise cant fall…
sweetness of that which stands between
to shed a soul of darkness lies
now to start beauty lets splayed across most holy frets.
is this not all of us . trying . living what we think and hope . scraping making shaping . i cannot shake what i will not be . we three talk so much . how i want to stop . to start . shhhh
there are those who become tired of religion and leave it, and those leave religion because it does not fit nicely into what they want to be real. then there are those who lose it. i feel like i am losing it, in the process of. ironically, this has nothing to do with a losing of faith or feeling of distance from God. rather, as one draws closer it would seem that things are just unable to stick and fall away. we are arriving naked, something impossible for the ashamed.
practically, i am finding myself confused and not able to understand talk i once very much enjoyed to enter into. talk about God, about the Church. it is feeling like times when due to lack of sleep or exhaustion my ability to communicate in spanish slips and i feel like i did in my first days here in bolivia – completely foreign to the conversation.
some of the thoughts in my head make me laugh for how ludicrous they seem. i hear God laughing with me, which is encouraging, but still makes we wonder what this is all about.
anyways. hello and love after a spell away.
the most interesting people in a temple and church are not the clergy but the parishoners, for they tell more of the Truth that exists in that temple and more of Holy Presence than all the words of its leaders combined.
on a night heavy with stress, under a sky painted with clouds that tried to hide the splendour beyond, i sat eyes up and melted. there is Love in the air; that night i stole the chance and breathed it in deeply, but it is always there and i needn’t have been so greedy in the moment. it is a Love that a woman cannot give a man, nor a man a woman, but only a God who is Love the Beloved – which i am, which we are. space is vast, the stars mark measures we cannot fathom, yet across this infinite God is, and we are made to feel the Nothing and All at the same (time). this is a great Love, which recognizes the obscure plain nature of is, which Loves us in and as this obscure plain soul.God, are we all not the work of your hands, yet who among us loves that which we have made as you? how can I love you with a love even faintly similar to that great Love with which you love me? You who have numbered the stars and the sands, who have walked with prophets and kings, who hears all the prayers of all the souls always, how is it that you hear me now, so small and simple and hidden amongst this great mass? I love you, I love you …
photo from our house, taken by Corry Flatt
