I decided that it would wonderful to start using my blog like I said that I would (because I had some encouragement from a friend that called me out of the blue this morning). Also, I passed my probation period at work.
Lesson 1. Enjoyment. I am learning to enjoy each moment of life and not just wishing that I was at some point of my life in the future. I mean sometimes, actually as far back as I can remember-with exception of college and desire for life long singleness-I would long for the time when I was married with children and settled in practical job of teaching at the neighborhood elementary school because then everything would be familiar. I wish regularly, and ever since I was a kid, that I was older and more mature and loving God and people more deeply. I am usually never satisfied with the moment. Though I am learning to be. I am afraid that I will lose my whole life to wishing everyday was tomorrow until I have no tomorrows left. I learning to enjoy each moment, even if it is difficult because, at least, then I am fully in each moment and drinking deeply the juice of life.
Lesson 2. Professionals. I am not professional and I think that is why the patients that call love talking to me. I identify more with them as I have been a patient longer than I have been a professional with my hospital's organization. When I answer the phone, the other person often hears my emotions at that moment and ask how I am doing, we chat a moment and then I tell them their appointment date. I also walk around the office smiling because I have job in time when many are unemployed and love those I work with when many people do not work with gracious and merciful supervisors and co-workers. Professionals normally do not smile and often comment when they see me because I am smiling. They tell me I'm cute.
Lesson 3. Anxiety is not helpful. My first day of work I was so overloaded that I went home with a headache and went right to sleep. That was not the last time I choose to do that either it has happened quite a few times in the weeks that followed. For the next six weeks I semi-permanently terrified that I would get fired because the person before me was fired. I would awake up in the middle of night sweating because I forgot to put something on the calendar of one of my doctors that was three months away from the day before. This made the next day at work worse because I was tired. I am learning to take contemplative life with me to work and as I live in LA; it is not just isolated to Santa Cruz.
Lesson 4. Friends. Moving to LA with a boyfriend it is odd. (And beautiful...though that is not a lesson that is new to reflect on.) He has become my best friend because we have so much in common through this transition. I go to him because I know he understands because we share Santa Cruz in our past, which feels as though it is separated by schism from the difficulty moving to LA, working full time the first time in our lives, adjusting to a new community from the same old community, and learning to live in a small household with three other people we yet do not know well. So it is easiest to go to him, but one of my commitments to myself moving into the internship is to make and keep friends that are women. I learned to call my friends from college and talk with my housemates to discuss the difficult things of life and this transition. It is a good to have many different perspectives reflect with me on things.
Lesson 5. Home. I realize that I do not really have an attachment to the sense of home that would lead someone to feel homesick. Home is whatever I lay my head to rest at night. Other interns cry for their families and homes they miss and I feel that I may know that feeling at the end of the internship...otherwise people are just a phone call away.
Lesson 6. God with me. In college I read this incredible book called The Practice of the Presence of God by Brother Lawrence. It is book about living life in the truth that God is always with you in each moment and that each moment we are able to savor God and that very moment because it is time with Him. I constantly wrestle with this reality. How can every moment be holy? Hallowed? Beauty? They can be even when they are ugly and painful because God is using it to shape us in Him the image of his son, the Messiah. Even mundane, common, ordinary interactions of life and work and people.
Saturday, January 31, 2009
Monday, September 8, 2008
Week 1 In Botocan
Magadang Tanghali! (Beautiful Afternoon! in Tagalog)
Today is my day of rest in the Philippines so I wanted to write you all who have supported in some way for me to get to this place.
I am living the next 2 1/2 weeks in the Botocan, Manila, a slum that is separated from the wealthy class by a wall in the Philippines. Usually, the Servant Partners internship that I am a part of goes to Balic Balic, but the Philippine government recently demolished this slum community. Those leading our team are
We have been for 4 days now and each day I am better able to adjust to the more accurate reality of the world that so many people know. More than 1 in 6 people live in a slum and for each city dweller the number 1 in 3 for those who in a slum. We take bucket showers, squat to go bathroom, and our domesticated pets are flying cockroaches, spiders the size of my hand, and (luckily) mice (instead of large rats). The Filippinos laugh at us (Americans) because we scream and jump at the sight of these little ones. I combed through a few teammates hair yesterday for lice because thier heads itched.
The grace of Filippinos towards us is amazing as we try, usually making fools of ourselves, to speak Tagalog yet at times I am shocked at the comments that are made since we were told that they are indirect.
Pray:
-For our team, we complain a lot.
-For my patience, the humility is irritating.
-For the Filippinos, the justice would rain like the waters and that this city would be a place where God name dwells.
-For us and the Filippinos, that both of us would understand that we are there to be trained by and learn from the Filipinos, not the other way around.
-On a personal, I went on this trip with the understanding that I would retreat in an area where people won't expect people of our team's wealth to retreat, pray that I would live as this is a retreat and seek God, not so much replying on my strength but His.
Sige (Bye),
Sierra
Today is my day of rest in the Philippines so I wanted to write you all who have supported in some way for me to get to this place.
I am living the next 2 1/2 weeks in the Botocan, Manila, a slum that is separated from the wealthy class by a wall in the Philippines. Usually, the Servant Partners internship that I am a part of goes to Balic Balic, but the Philippine government recently demolished this slum community. Those leading our team are
We have been for 4 days now and each day I am better able to adjust to the more accurate reality of the world that so many people know. More than 1 in 6 people live in a slum and for each city dweller the number 1 in 3 for those who in a slum. We take bucket showers, squat to go bathroom, and our domesticated pets are flying cockroaches, spiders the size of my hand, and (luckily) mice (instead of large rats). The Filippinos laugh at us (Americans) because we scream and jump at the sight of these little ones. I combed through a few teammates hair yesterday for lice because thier heads itched.
The grace of Filippinos towards us is amazing as we try, usually making fools of ourselves, to speak Tagalog yet at times I am shocked at the comments that are made since we were told that they are indirect.
Pray:
-For our team, we complain a lot.
-For my patience, the humility is irritating.
-For the Filippinos, the justice would rain like the waters and that this city would be a place where God name dwells.
-For us and the Filippinos, that both of us would understand that we are there to be trained by and learn from the Filipinos, not the other way around.
-On a personal, I went on this trip with the understanding that I would retreat in an area where people won't expect people of our team's wealth to retreat, pray that I would live as this is a retreat and seek God, not so much replying on my strength but His.
Sige (Bye),
Sierra
Monday, June 23, 2008
First Week in Los Angeles, Second Week as a Graduate
It is my first week in Los Angeles and I am already terrified about not having a job. I feel like I bombed my first interview with the job that I was most interested in (Children's Hospital Los Angeles). Also, last week during the interview, I realized that I am not a good applicant to any job because I don't know what my goals are, professionally anyhow.
When I was growing up, I pictured myself married with children at a very young age, making tailored clothing from my home business. (I didn't realize that in the real world you need some type of marketing to own a personal business.)
Then, in high school, I realized how much public education draws the life out of the community's youth and leaves them despondent, hopelessness about their future when it hasn't even begun. So I wanted to be a teacher, one of that would help students see the big picture of the reality that creates the barriers they so often face and aid in developing a negative attitude as a reaction to the reality. Big Picture for me: I wanted to stop the blame game that I knew unfairly favored me.
About mid high school, I felt that God wanted me to go a missions trip to Scotland. (I never considered missionary work before because I equated missionary work with the wiping out of Native Americans and the attitude of superiority.) I cried when I first heard it. I was in a car with one of my friends and she was telling me how she felt called to go back to Scotland on a second mission trip with our church. In middle of her telling me about what lead her into doing this again, I felt a sense (the closest that I have been to hearing God audibly) that she wasn't going to go and that I was. I thought that was rather arrogant of God to tell me since he interrupted my listening to her to speak me rather than waiting his turn to tell me this. I refused at first because 1) I was young, 2) I didn't want to make a scene about applying since it was closed at this point, 3) I didn't want to be a missionary, and 4) Scotland is more of a vacation spot than a mission spot, how was I going to get funded for something like this?
Well, my church pushed back the deadline. I got accepted (as the youngest person on the team). Funding came miraculously and anonymously.
Because of the crazy circumstances, ever since this trip, I guess that I must have reasoned that I would be a missionary, though never consciously because I still went to college (the university nonetheless) where I majored in social justice and bringing the community knowledge to the university (Community Studies). Since I have always reasoned that I would be a missionary, I've focused on developing integrity as a follower of Jesus and not as a professional.
When I was growing up, I pictured myself married with children at a very young age, making tailored clothing from my home business. (I didn't realize that in the real world you need some type of marketing to own a personal business.)
Then, in high school, I realized how much public education draws the life out of the community's youth and leaves them despondent, hopelessness about their future when it hasn't even begun. So I wanted to be a teacher, one of that would help students see the big picture of the reality that creates the barriers they so often face and aid in developing a negative attitude as a reaction to the reality. Big Picture for me: I wanted to stop the blame game that I knew unfairly favored me.
About mid high school, I felt that God wanted me to go a missions trip to Scotland. (I never considered missionary work before because I equated missionary work with the wiping out of Native Americans and the attitude of superiority.) I cried when I first heard it. I was in a car with one of my friends and she was telling me how she felt called to go back to Scotland on a second mission trip with our church. In middle of her telling me about what lead her into doing this again, I felt a sense (the closest that I have been to hearing God audibly) that she wasn't going to go and that I was. I thought that was rather arrogant of God to tell me since he interrupted my listening to her to speak me rather than waiting his turn to tell me this. I refused at first because 1) I was young, 2) I didn't want to make a scene about applying since it was closed at this point, 3) I didn't want to be a missionary, and 4) Scotland is more of a vacation spot than a mission spot, how was I going to get funded for something like this?
Well, my church pushed back the deadline. I got accepted (as the youngest person on the team). Funding came miraculously and anonymously.
Because of the crazy circumstances, ever since this trip, I guess that I must have reasoned that I would be a missionary, though never consciously because I still went to college (the university nonetheless) where I majored in social justice and bringing the community knowledge to the university (Community Studies). Since I have always reasoned that I would be a missionary, I've focused on developing integrity as a follower of Jesus and not as a professional.
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