Pica

One of the most useful phrases in Mexico is "pica mucho?"  Picar means to bite, but in reference to food it means spicy. As someone more accustomed to browned hamburger than hot spices, this is a question of vital importance, a defense tactic against what I consider to be unnecessary sweating and nose-running.

But those spices have a way of finding their way into things you wouldn't think you'd have to ask about--like candy or, as I recently discivered, Cheetos. They lure you into a false sense of security by the familiar packaging, the color, shape, size--even the initial whiff of buttery cheesy crunch that you know will find its way to your midsection.

Then you bite down. And it bites back. You keep eating, hoping you just found a bad one and it wasn't 20 pesos ill-spent, but each piece tastes more disgusting than the last, and you begin to realize that it's just more foreign food skillfully disguised as your favorite comfort food.

I stared at the still-full bag, feeling sick just thinking about eating more. That was Sunday. Monday left the same bad taste on my heart.

Normally I enjoy visiting cathedrals. I can feel the joy of the engineers and architects who designed the intricate details of the building to bring glory to God, to remember the great things He has done, and to turn our eyes heaven-ward. Light and life stream through multi-colored windows, and the collection of history's most faithful remind us of the cloud of witnesses that surround us in our daily walk.

Instead of a cloud of witnesses, however, this cathedral was surrounded by a cloud of darkness. I had been warned ahead of time, but that didn't make it any easier to swallow.

Idolatry. Massive idolatry in the name of the mother of Christ. Here she goes under many names: Guadalupe, Maria, the Holy Virgin, and sometimes even under the old Aztec name of the goddess of fertility. Christian symbols like the fish, the dove, and the cross are found there too, but for every one of these there are 50 virgins to look at. And as Jesus is left dying on the cross in the corner, Guadalupe is the one recieving prayers and praise.

Catholicism didn't conquer the religion of the Aztecs; it only gave them a new vocabulary for it and a few new stories and holidays. Signs of the zodiac are found superimposed on the image of the virgin--who almost always appears accompanied by the sun and moon, two celestial entities worshipped by the Aztecs.

I would have enjoyed joining in fellowship with Christians there, marveling at the way God speaks to different cultures, but with each step I became more and more disgusted by the works-based righteousness and misplaced worship. This is a completely foreign religion.

No, in Christianity we know that the righteous live by faith, and, spurred on and encouraged by the cloud of witnesses, we run the race of faith with eyes fixed on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith.

I can't pretend to have all the answers or a perfect understanding of the gospel, but I know if we lose sight of Christ and the power of His resurrection, we are fooling ourselves and it will make us sick.

Purepecha

I'm not a linguist...not yet anyways, but I hope to be one someday, and I can't help but comment on language every once in a while.

I encountered Purepecha about a week ago when I spent four days in the village of Quinceo, Mexico. They referred to it as a dialect. "A dialect of what?" I asked. Spanish apparently. False. At least by my understanding of a dialect. A dialect is variation within a language. A language is a common form of communication where the speaker can be understood by the listener. In order for something to qualify as a dialect rather than a new language, it should be comprehensible to the majority of the speakers of the language as a whole. I very much doubt that any Spanish speaker who comes across Purepecha for the first time would be able to understand more than a few words.

I suspect that it is considered a Spanish dialect because of the large number of words that have been taken from Spanish. I could understand a few here and there, but these were still engulfed by Purepecha morphemes.

I didn't learn any words, but I distinctly remember hearing "maestroka" over the early morning vender intercom. I think this was the combination of the Spanish word maestro (teacher) and some kind of Purepecha suffix -ka. 

The last thing I took note of we're the sound did the language. One man there who grew up speaking English and Spanish and learned Purepecha later in life said that he didn't have much of an accent in Purepecha because it sounds similar to English. Since I don't understand Purepecha at all, I was a little skeptical of this remark, but I did hear the -sh sound, which is rare in Spanish. Additionally, I think I heard some clicks...or maybe they were abnormally strong -k sounds. 

I wish I could say more in depth or more profound, but this is it, and I felt it would be good to record my observations of my short encounter with the Purepecha language.

Quinceo

Backpacking lesson #5586: you don't have to go backpacking to feel like you're roughing it; all you need to do is get rid of running water and air conditioning.

Strangely, those are the two thing I hear people complaining about the most back home (because I work in a plumbing shop). We do that a lot: receive blessings, grow content with them, and then throw a huge fit when they break down or get taken away rather than remember that they were remarkable gifts in the first place.

Last week, I spent about four days in Quinceo, a mountainous village in Mexico populated by 6,000 indigenous people and standing at about 8,000 feet elevation. The people there speak Purepecha, which, according to the Ethnologue, has about 55,000 speakers worldwide. Many people also speak Spanish, and a handful speak English, so although communication was sometimes a bit difficult, it was never impossible.

We were received with open arms and eager generosity. They offered us their best, which meant making sure we had toilet paper and constructing a quick make-shift door for the bathroom. Although the church there had experienced some persecution, its members were full of grace; everyone wanted the chance to show their hospitality by giving us a meal--so much so that we struggled to force ourselves through five full meals one day in order to not appear ungrateful.

The people don't have air conditioning at all--and probably don't need it because they are high in the mountains--but they also don't have heating, and houses are by no means tightly sealed from the outdoors. The family we stayed with had electricity; I honestly have no idea how many other houses did. They pulled their water from a well and spent at least an hour a day hand-making tortillas with comfortable expertise. (Indeed, one lady, whom I had hardly seen smile in our four days there, bust out laughing at our feeble attempts to imitate their culinary skills.)

Most people there are Catholics (whether by practice or name only, I don't know). The pastor of the Protestant church had grown up there, moved to America for about 10 years, became a Christian, and felt a calling to go back to his village to minister to his people. Unfortunately, his family experienced some measure of persecution at the leadership of the catholic priest. But the church has grown, little by little, and its members live with great energy and enthusiasm to spread the gospel. Nearly every evening after the church service, one or two of the women would ask us to go with them to evangelize to one of their neighbors or relatives.

They all seemed happy, although of course people often smile extra for guests, so my point of view might not be the best gauge. Our last day there, we were informed of the family's plans to make another bathroom, this one complete with a door, running water, a sink, and a shower. We all rejoiced, thinking how nice that would be for future visitors. But then I felt a twinge of guilt: how much time had we spent there lamenting the comforts of home? Not the whole time (we spent much time being grateful and building relationships), but probably more time than we should have. And how much more, when we're back home, surrounded by all those comforts, do we spend our time wanting more?

That's why I love 'roughing it' every once in a while. Lose the comforts we have grown accustomed to and remember that they are blessings--gifts. Remember there are more important things to spend our time thinking about. Remember that God, who sees to the needs of even the sparrows and the flower, also looks after us, no matter which corner of the earth we are found in.  And He certainly has been looking after the people of Quinceo. Although they live with less, they were not starving; their basic needs are met and more and more are coming to Christ all the time, giving them--and us--something we can really rejoice about.

Made for Pain?

Semis overturned.  Trees uprooted. Houses shredded to pieces. Mementos litter an unchartable land.  Tornadoes remind us of the fragility of life with their wails like train horns blasting through the turmoil, quoting Matthew 6:19, "Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust (and turbulent winds) destroy."

We thought we had built immovable structures. With hours of planning, careful precision, and meticulous maintenance, everything was perfectly in place--accessible and aesthetically pleasing.

But then the storms came.

The winds clawed their way in, snarling.

We discovered boards were made to snap, roofs were made to cave in, cars were made for crushing, clothes were made for rips and tears, bones were made to break, skin was made to be punctured, and hearts were made for sorrow.

Why wouldn't God make things a little stronger? Why couldn't He make bones unbreakable and skin tough? Why did He create such a monster that could destroy a car, a house, a life? Why does God make things so fragile? Why was it all made to fall apart? Were we just made to feel pain?

No!

We were made to heal. Even a pile of rubble can be reused, recreated into something new. And our bodies! Oh, what marvelous pieces of creation! New cells come to life all the time, bustling with energy, renewing life within us.

God created amazing things, but all physical things are temporary and subject to fall apart. Evil is in the world, and sometimes it feels like everything we thought was secure is caving in around us. But keep reading, because the story doesn't end there! After the terrible storm tells us not to store up treasures on earth, the winds die down, the clouds thin, and a brilliant display of colors streaks across the sky, declaring that life goes on. There is a Healer; indeed, God has always made a way for healing--although not always in the way we expect. Through this Healer, we can store up treasures in heaven, "where moth and rust do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal" (vs 20).

The question of evil in the world and God's role has always been a tricky one to answer. Scripture makes it pretty clear that God is good and created things that are good and that mankind is responsible for the Fall. But--not to gloss over that--the great truth is that God, knowing we would Fall, created a way to renew life through His Son and we were made to heal.

Writer's Block

I am so happy that I am literate.  Not only does it open up thousands of doors of communication and knowledge and preservation, but when I hold a pen, my clever hand takes charge over my problems.  Once tangled and overwhelming, the stresses, questions and confusions now shrink back and fall into Roman formation along the lines of my page.  Solutions, though not always easy, shyly present themselves in the course of my scripting.  I write to ease my mind, to figure things out.

Even when I am assigned to write a paper, I (as I'm sure my professors intended) am forced to think through the issues and present a logical conclusion, even if sometimes I do so rather grudgingly.  I enjoy writing, but aside from my personal journal, it is very difficult for me.  When I write in my journal, I just take down the thoughts as they come.  But when I write for my teachers, I must have focus and direction.  For this reason, I usually have to rewrite my papers at least twice, and most paragraphs three or four times before I'm even close to being satisfied.

This blog is not an online personal journal (that would be stupid), and although it began as a class assignment, only the first few posts were grudgingly written.  Since then, I have used this blog to figure things out.  Not private issues, but questions about life.  I see the puzzle of the universe scattered into a trillion tiny pieces, and when I find one, I sit down at my computer, describe it, and try to put it in its place.  I will never be able to finish the puzzle, but even completing a small section has its rewards.  Seeking truth is a worthy task, and truth, once found, should not be hidden, but set as a light on a hill, for all to see.

I do not make bold statements to stir up controversy like many other bloggers, but I earnestly remain loyal to the truth as best I can understand it, which often leads me to a middle ground.  As we liked to say in one of my classes, instead of an "either/or" approach, we needed a "both/and" approach.  The middle ground is not the fence; I do not stand here due to indecision.  I stand here because sometimes the opinions that war against each other both have merit, and need reconciliation.

Sometimes I think the reason it is so difficult for me to write papers for my professors is the fear of their red pens.  Not for grammatical reasons.  I do well enough with grammar (yes I do realize the previous sentence was not complete, but I take certain liberties in my blog posts).  No, I fear their red pens because many times I am uncertain if what I am saying is the truth, even if I came to the conclusion in a logical manner.  I fear they know the truth and will expose me for the fool I am.

So it is with this blog.  It is public not for attention, but so it may be tested.  I write about the mysteries of the universe, and I believe what I write.  Sadly, it is easy to lie to yourself, but I work hard to avoid making heretical statements to all of humanity.  Therefore, if there is any falsehood about what I believe, if my logic is faulty, I want it to be corrected.  Above the pride of believing I have something important to say, I want to hold pieces of truth in my hand.  I want to tenderly fix them into my worldview.  So, during my college years, as my beliefs are tested, stresses mound up, and troubles bombard my steps, I write.  I blog.  I organize my thoughts, find solutions, and moll them over in my head for days as I try to find logical ways of expressing my discoveries and renewed understandings of the truth.

Life is NOT a Box of Chocolates

Language is amazing in the way it can be mixed and matched and rearranged.  Words like "run" and "put" are among the most widely used words in the English language, however, the more meanings a word has, the less it means-the less weight it has.

A ship runs aground, a stocking may be full of runs and the fence runs around a field.  The bus runs its route, while the train runs on the track, the car runs on gas, and the iPhone runs apps.  You can take the money and run, but you'll run into trouble if you start running on empty.  You might run a fever or have a running nose-and that might run in the family.

"Run" can be used to convey a general sense of motion-whether that be literal or figurative-and depending on what other words "run" is paired up with, people will get very different pictures in their heads.  "iPhone", on the other hand, has a fairly specific meaning, and therefore has more weight in the sentence, "the iPhone runs apps", than the word "run".  Therefore, in semantics (meaning of words), less is more.

That's not to say we should completely do away with the word "run" simply because it carries little weight.  Languages are meant to handle ambiguity.  We couldn't possibly have a word to describe every little instance of life, and several words are often necessary to explain one object or action.

And yet, we often find ourselves using little words in big ways, trying to define complex issues using small catch-phrases.  I have no problems with philosophy in general, but I get worried when people try to sum up something as complicated as "life" in a simple sentence, like "Life is like sailing; you can use any wind to go any direction" (Robert Brault), "Life is like a box of chocolates: you never know what you're going to get," (from the best movie ever) or "He who has nothing to die for has nothing to live for"  (Moroccan Proverb).

While some aspects of these statements might ring true and be useful in certain circumstances, I don't know that we should paint them on our walls as a reminder that "this is what life is all about".  Analogies always break down somewhere, and if we choose to live our lives according to a few well-chosen words, we may still miss out on some big ideas.  These philosophies should not be used as driving forces, but rather guiding lights of truth-if they do, in fact, contain truth.  They can't take us to our final destination, but they can get us back in the right direction.

The word "life" is like the word "iPhone", in that people know exactly what you're talking about when you say it, but like the word "run", it may be difficult to picture, and needs several definitions.  We can't rely on short, simple sayings to tell us what life is; we need a whole book...say the Bible!

In closing, here is some food for thought from Christopher Morley in his book, Thunder on the Left: "Life is a foreign language: all men mispronounce it."

How to Use Up Old Art Supplies: Crayons

So it's clear that there's a slightly philosophical, overly-analytical side to me.  But there's also a creative side and I love making crafts of all kinds.  Most commonly, I make paintings, but I've also tried my hands at drawing, weaving, sewing, basket-making, jewelry, Chinese lanterns and ornaments (I've also attempted knitting and sculpting, but those were such dismal failures, I prefer not to mention them.)  Today, I followed the trend of creating art by melting crayons.

This was a great project for many reasons:
1. Cheap and easily obtainable materials
2. Vibrant colors
3. Can use up all those old crayons we were required to have for school but never finished off
4. Semi-fast results
5. Childhood memories

I ended up making two pieces of art, both abstract because it's a bit difficult to control exactly where the wax goes.  The first was like many you see on Pintrest and Facebook, a row of crayons laid out in rainbow order on a white canvas and melted downward.  The materials I used were:
50 or so crayons
hot glue gun
old newspapers
stack of books
hair dryer
16x20 white canvas



Instructions
1. Choose your crayons.  It's easiest just to buy a box of new crayons, but since I was trying to use up old ones, I went through my pile to find ones that were still fairly long and not too dirty.
2. Arrange the crayons.  I chose rainbow order to use up a variety of colors, but other ideas would be warm colors, cool colors, reds, greens or blues (works great for a rain scene).  I put a brown with my yellows and also put some whites and a black in the mix to try and get some interesting streaks.  Crayons on the edge may leak off the canvas, so if you have a really cool color you want to show off, place it at least two or three spaces from the edge.
3. Prepare the crayons.  I think keeping the wrapper on the crayons gives off a nice professional look, but just make sure all the labels are facing the same direction.  If you prefer not to have labels, the easiest way to take them off is to use a utility knife and make a cut down the side; if it cuts into the crayon, place this side down when gluing.
4. Secure the crayons.  If you don't mind having the crayons as part of your final product, use hot glue to secure each crayon to the canvas.  If you don't want the crayons interfering with the piece of art, one idea I've heard is to use masking tape across the whole row of crayons or gluing them to a separate piece of paper or cardboard.
5. Set up the workplace.  Ok, maybe I should have done this before using the hot glue, but oh well; I didn't make a mess there.  With melting crayons though, don't take chances.  There will be some splatter if your crayons go all the way to the edge.  Put newspaper along the wall and on the counter/table/floor.
6. Angle the canvas.  You want a gentle slope so the wax will drip down, away from the crayons.  Depending on the kind of dripping and dispersion you want, the severity of the slope may need to be different.  I leaned my canvas against a stack of books (covered with newspaper) about 6-7" tall.
7. Melt crayons!  You want high heat and low blowing.  I tried using the low setting on my dryer, but it wasn't hot enough to make the wax run, so I had to change to high heat.  Run the dryer over a section of crayons.  Depending on how you want the wax to run, either fan the head of the dryer back and forth (colors will disperse and run together more), or hold the head straight and move the dryer as a whole from side to side (colors will run straight down).  You can push the wax drippings as far down as you like; they stop running once the heat is removed.
8. Admire.  You're basically done; just take off the crayons if that was your plan, clean up your workplace and show off your design to your friends!


My second work was a bit more abstract.  I used:
5 crayons
hair dryer
old newspapers
small canvas
utility knife
old pencil or stick


Instructions
1. Choose your crayons.  I chose along the blue color scheme, mixing in a green and white as well.
2. Prepare your workplace.  Set up newspapers on your counter/table/floor.  This one is not quite as prone to messes as the other one, but it's still better to be safe than sorry!
3. Cut pieces of crayon.  Remove the wrapper by cutting a slit down the side with the utility knife.  Then cut the crayon into several small pieces, about .5-1cm long.  Put the wax chunks in piles off to the side, sorted by color.  (You want them a little ways from the canvas so they don't blow away when the hair dryer is going.)
4. Melt large pieces.  Using the pencil, hold down one piece of crayon against the canvas with one hand and melt with the blow dryer in the other hand.  When liquid begins to pool, turn off the blow dryer, and use your finger to press the half-melted wax into the canvas.  Now you can continue melting the wax without having to press down with the pencil. Do this with several colors in various places.  Don't worry too much about dispersing the first few; they will continue to disperse as other pieces are melted onto the canvas.  The wax will look kind-of like watercolor as it thins out in some areas.
5. Melt the small pieces.  When the canvas is mostly covered with wax, take a small chunk of wax and press it against the newspaper with the pencil.  Heat the wax until just before it would begin to liquefy and turn off the dryer as you take the small piece and push it onto the canvas.  Heat for a couple seconds and press again to secure the piece to the canvas.
6. Draw.  The crayon can look cool against the texture of the canvas.  Instead of taking a regular crayon and just drawing, I took a small chunk with a flattened edge and heated it for a little while.  Before liquefying, I took the piece in my hand and rubbed it against the still-warm canvas to add just a bit of color to some of the white areas.
7. Admire.  You now have a piece of crayon art that looks something like a splatter painting.  Enjoy.  Perhaps if you left some white space on one of the sides, you can paint a small figure or set of words.

Sunday

"Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy.  Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh is a Sabbath to the LORD your God" (Ex. 20:8).

Of the Ten Commandments, the fourth one seems to be the least honored, at least in my own life.  Sure, I don't go to work and don't have classes and attend church to worship God, but do I truly rest from my everyday life?  Sundays are still filled with occasional chores, shopping trips, meetings and last-second homeowrk assignments.  My legs might take a break, but my mind is still focused on my task list.

The Israelites were commanded to abstain from collecting manna on the Sabbath and the assembly stoned to death a man who had gathered wood on the Sabbath.  Yet in the New Testament, Jesus' desciples picked grain and Jesus healed on the Sabbath.  When the Pharisees questioned him about this, Jesus replied that it was lawful to do good on the Sabbath.

As with giving tithes and offerings to God, giving a day to be holy to the LORD is an act of faith and requires responsibility.  The Israelites were responsible to gather twice the manna the day before the Sabbath and had to trust that it would be enough to last through the Sabbath.  The man who was stoned should have been responsible in gathering wood before and should have trusted the God would provide.  I should be repsonsible by getting homework done before Sunday, and depend on God, not my own works.

Another point Jesus made to the Pharisees was, "The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.  So the Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath" (Mk 2:27).  Like other holidays, the Sabbath was made as a reminder for us, to give us rest and keep us focused on the most important thing: God.

We all need the Sabbath, and we need it regularly, not just those days when we're feeling extra spiritual.  This past semester, I got too busy for the Sabbath.  I skipped church occasionally, filled my Sundays with homework and other assignments and even neglected my daily devotions.  It had it's side effects.  I slowly checked out spiritually and I searched for other ways to take my mind off of school-work, like computer games, food and television.  I don't believe it's a sin to do any of these things, but I needed a vent from the stresses of daily life, and was devoting time to meaningless things instead of God.

Life is stressful and full of task-lists.  There's always something else to do and we're always looking for a place of refuge.  The Lord of the Sabbath says, "Come to me, all of you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest" (Mt. 11:28).  I believe we need to give time to God not only weekly, but daily, to give us rest from our work (even if missions), and remind us of our purpose.