José Martí

Todo es música y razón
   Todo es hermoso y constante
Y todo, como el diamante,
   Antes que luz es carbón.

All is music and reason
   All is constant and beauty
And all, like the diamond
   Before light is coal.

José Martí

Traveling by Wendell Berry

Traveling 

Even in a country you know by heart
its hard to go the same way twice.
The life of the going changes.
The chances change and make a new way.
Any tree or stone or bird
can be the bud of a new direction. The
natural connection is to make intent
of accident. To get back by dark
Is the art of going.

—Wendell Berry

Little Piece of the Sky

Highlands of Paraguay,
   Butterfly garden, giant wings of blue and black.
Deep orange patterns painted on mushrooms.
   Pearled weavings of spider webs stranded
Across green grass and red mud paths.
   Wind whispering in palms,
Emerald parrots screeching above the distant
   Rumble of trucks.  I look down, down,
Down to the distant valley.  Smoke from
   Clearing forests for soybeans and cattle,
Patches of yellow fields fallow, foreign pines
   And eucalyptus plantations.  Here up, up, up,
above, I rest in
                 A little piece of the sky.

Elena Huegel
July 2015

Dignity

Dignity:

I recognize the "you" in "me" and the "me" in you.
Common humanity.
Frail yet strong.
Surviving, even thriving.
In the midst of the past
of the past
and the future
of the future.
Wonderful and full of wonder.
Created and creating.

EH
June 2015

No need for wings, to take flight

NO NEED FOR WINGS TO TAKE FLIGHT.

Graffiti on a wall in Resistencia, Argentina.

Open Hearts

Sharon Kimball

MACUCC

Feb. 2015

Jeremiah 29:13  You will seek me, and you will find me when you seek me with all your heart.

I believe that God is omnipresent.  He is present in my waking and in my sleeping.  He is at my left hand and my right.  He is my sun by day and my moon by night.  However, I do not take God's presence lightly.  I believe we must invest ourselves in our relationship with God.  We are the ones who must seek God.  We must listen for God's word and look for God´s guidance and be thankful for the gifts God gives us in and through others.

I cannot just assume God will knock on the door and say, "Sharon, I am here!" though I do believe that is exactly what happens sometimes.  As followers of Jesus Christ, as children of God, we must work to seek God every day.  We must open our ears to listen and to truly hear his word.  It may be the word a friend, a pastor, a child, a stranger.  How will we hear if we are not listening?  We may find it in the silence and meditation and I truly believe we hear it in prayer.  We may hear it as we struggle with our labors and personal challenges.  But first we must listen, we must be open to listening.  If we simply set our minds firmly on one path or one idea - we may not hear what God is saying.  This week we have heard God in so many ways.  In what ways have you heard the voice of God this week?

 Jeremiah reminds us to open our eyes to see, and open our hearts.  It has warmed my heart to experience to kinds of open hearts this week.  One heart is open to give love - to share a hug, to share a home, to share a meal, to share a faith, to share a concern, to share a worry, to share a hidden prayer o secret. The other open heart receives this concern, this generosity with love, with care, with an open mind and willingness to share the other's burden and a commitment to pray for the other's need.  These two hearts exist within one body, within our own bodies and within the church body of Christ.  And individual needs as much to love as to receive love.  The Psalmist  writes: ”I lift my eyes to the hells, from where does my help come?  My help comes from the Lord who made heaven and earth.” 

We in the MACUCC delegation are so blessed to have been able to lift our eyes unto the hills this week.  We with your youth were surrounded by the beauty of the Shalom Center of the Pentecostal Church of Chile.  There it may be easier to realize how very close to us God really is.  There, working, singing, sleeping, eating, laughing, praying, paying and worshipping side by side, it is easy to feel the presence of God.  But none of us need leave our homes and travel thousands of miles to know that we may seek God wherever we are.   We must only open our hearts. We must look into the eyes of another and follow the commandments of Jesus:  Love the Lord your God with all of your heart, and all of your mind and all of your soul and love your neighbor as yourself.

How is it that we can come from the North and South and East and West and find community and peace?  We can seek Good with all our hearts.  May God´s blessing be with all of you as you seek God every day with an open heart.

The Shalom Center Staff 2015-2016