July 28th to August 25th

I found this crushed piece of paper next to my expired malaria pills this morning. It was a prayer or maybe a mini persuasive essay I had written exactly a year ago. A week before leaving for Africa. It was on this makeshift flyer and memories flash of the desperation I had to write these thoughts down anywhere space permitted. 

"It's hard to hear over the noise of this world. The noise of expectation, the noise of titles. The noise of consistent wanting, of consistent running toward a non-existent entity. It's hard to see over the elusive mirage of reason. The voices that say you're never enough. The constant clanging of greed and satisfaction. The need for more and yet the sneaking desire for less. 

It's hard to hear the silence of truth. The nothingness of the answer. The simplicity of it. The fleeting beauty of the realization that the answer will never be in front of us, but always within us. Our purpose is not to seek truth, but be truth. Our purpose is not to preach truth, but live truth."

After reading it, I laughed to myself because I just spent one month in the country I was born in and yet more than ever this noise, the noise I write about above, was so loud, it almost consumed me. There's a way in which the beauty of simplicity in my homeland is being attacked by this competitive need for comparison. It attacks the simplicity that makes Sri Lanka most probably the most generous and hospitable nation. 

My country left me broken and yet renewed. Most of the time I felt like I was naked in the schoolyard and everyone was pointing and laughing. But they weren't laughing at my nudity because ironically enough, they were naked too. My country broke me, leaving me this shell of a woman grasping desperately for anything to define me. Anything to hang on to. And yet I don't regret my trip in the least. I don't regret the feeling I got as I walked through its streets and smiled at my fellow Sri Lankans. I don't regret the feeling I got as I held hands with my loved ones during my grandfather's memorial. 

There were many fleeting moments of beauty, ways in which God reminded me He was watching out for me: 

Mr. G. and his gift, Fr. G. and his unwavering enthusiasm for the Lord, my beloved cousins who became my brothers and sisters, our makeshift prayer group in Israel, my aunts and their unceasing need to give, my uncles and their incredible generosity, K. whom we met on the beach, the Don Bosco boys, M. who came across the world to see me, D. who became my lifeline, my friends here who replied to my frantic texts before i realized the expense, A. who wiped my tears as I cried in Capernaum, H. our Jewish tour guide who knew the Bible 10 x more than me, J. who without question always showed me love, S. who became my dear friend, N. who remembered me more than I deserve, and of course Jesus whom I met intimately as I went through Jerusalem, Bethlehem, Nazareth and Galilee, walking on the same earth He walked on. 

What I learned...yet again:

For when we are weak, then we are strong.