Second day home and I still feel kind of tender and bruised all over. Hope I am not getting sick! (lol, I don’t think so.) Haiti has a way of beating you up: I am pretty sedentary at home and there is a lot of  lifting, schlepping, bouncing around on the tap tap, hoofing it up concrete stairs, etc. It makes your skin sensitive with the sun, wind, dust, charcoal smoke. I also think it makes your soul more sensitive, tender, and bruised. Haiti cracks open our protective shells to access the real self inside.

 

In the united states we are cocooned in our houses, cars, protected from the sky and wind all the time. We are guarded and protective of our real selves and our souls.  “How are you?” “Fine.” Even when you are far from fine and it is a dear friend asking. In Haiti I have a dear friend, I have written of him before, Pierre/Junior, one of the translators. As I was leaving I told him you are a friend of my heart, my brother in Christ. I would never say that to anyone in the US, they would not get it. But with Junior our conversations flow easily from how do you make that chicken thing you are eating to what does it feel like to ride on an airplane to how do we be like Christ in the world of Haiti and at home. There is no difference in the comfort level of these conversations. And so I feel cracked open, raw and exposed, and tears flow easily. I feel as if I have to put my shell and mask back on to survive my modern life here. And that breaks my heart, I want to be my real self all the time.  I want to show the world what I have learned in Haiti but I can’t even begin to know how.

“How was Haiti?” “Amazing.” And move on to the weather, sports, all the conversations we have daily that have nothing to do with our real selves and the state of our souls. “How is your soul?” “Joyful. Sad. Beat up. Raw. Exposed. Terrified to have seen the face of God a little in myself and others.  Filled with the Holy Spirit. Renewed. Coming into Holy Week not sure I am ready to face the immediacy of Jesus’ sacrifice for us and His immense love for us.”

How is YOUR soul? Can you even access it? Feel the wind today, even if it is cold. Feel the sun today, even if it is weak. Turn off the TV, ipod, computer, radio, and listen for the still small voice that is God. It is there. Listen.