Mission Year Curriculum Book List

I no longer need these books, but I am leaving the list up for a bit so the people who are sending them to me remember which titles they are sending!

My email: tarrinloves@gmail.com

Walking on Water: Reflections on Faith & Art, Madeline L’Engle 

Ragamuffin Gospel, Brennan Manning

Jesus and the Disinherited, Howard Thurman

The New Jim Crow, Michelle Alexander

Simple Spirituality, Chris Heurtz

Welcoming the Stranger, Matthew Soerens & Ginny Hwang

Flat Broke with Children, Sharon Hays

The Re-Entry Team, Neal Pirolo

I Don't Want to Reason Anymore

I have found myself enthralled with Life of Pi by Yann Martel. I didn't give much thought to the book when I first heard about it (mainly because I thought it was about math...) but when my friend asked, "Are you sure you didn't write Life of Pi? It just seems like you." I was intrigued. Since then, he has let me borrow the book and I have seen my own thoughts scrawled across the page. It's surreal.

Here are a few gems:

...atheists are my brothers and sisters of a different faith, and every word they speak speaks of faith. Like me, they go as far as the legs of reason will carry them--and then they leap.

Time is an illusion that only makes us pant. 

Faith in God is an opening up, a letting go, a deep trust, a free act of love--but sometimes it was so hard to love.

Despair was a heavy blackness that let no light in or out. It was a hell beyond expression. I thanked God it always passed...The blackness would stir and eventually go away, and God would remain, a shining point of light in my heart. I would go on loving. 

If you haven't read the book, I highly suggest it. Don't bother with the movie. Read the book.

And I'll leave you with a song I've fallen in love with. Unity by Trevor Hall.

Take me to the table where we all dine together

And pluck me from the crowd and return me to my sender

Whatever path you follow push on till tomorrow

Love all serve all and create no sorrow

So many rivers but they all reach the sea

They telling me he's different but I just don't believe it

Love is the glorious and everyone shall reach it

Who ever seeks it

Seen and unseen

I don't want to reason anymore about the one I love, the one I love

I don't want to reason anymore about God above, God above

I just want to melt away, in all His grace

Drift away, into that sacred place

Where there's no more you and me, no more they and we, just unity

Yeah yeah, just unity yeah yeah, 

Just unity yeah yeah, just unity yeah yeah

Well I don't wana count the leaves of the mango tree

I just want to taste it's sweetness

So you can defeat this above and beneath this

Yeah

Come one and all, come stand tall

And whatever your approaching dance or meditation

If you got love along than you shall reach the station

You find a road, the supreme abode

In this city all hearts shine like gold

Me and Jesus, Buddah, Moses, and Gouranga

All dance around, dancing on your thunder

Drunk on the wine of love for thee

Well tell me when will I be blessed to join the bliss of your company

Blissful company goes from sea to sea

From the depths of the valley to the mountain peaks

So many stories and so many fables

Of how the king sings of how the wall wails

Jerusalem to the Holy Himalayas

From Mount Zion to the hills of Jamaica

All land is holy, all land is sacred

All shall leave this world completely naked

Completely naked, completely

I don't want to reason anymore about the one I love, the one I love

I don't want to reason anymore about God above, God above

I just want to melt away, in all His grace

Drift away, into that sacred place

Where there's no more you and me

No more they and we just unity 

Church on the Mat

I have not felt like myself lately.
A little less secure.
A little smaller.

Today I went to church.

Maybe you think of a building, a gathering, a congregation.

When I say "church," I mean I went to a warm upstairs room, the sun shining through the windows, sat on my yoga mat and conversed with the Divine, surrounded by other seekers doing the same. I found my flow, moving with the Spirit, praying without words.

The instructor talked to me afterward. I told her I was only in town for a few more weeks, visiting family.

She laughed. "We all think we're enlightened...until we visit family."
Tell me about it, sister.
"We lose ourselves, our patience, and need to be reminded of who we are. We are not who we were with them before, but we revert back. It's hard to hold onto who you are now... So, I understand. Everybody feels this way sometimes."

She took the words right out of my mouth.

I haven't seen my parents for three years, haven't grown and changed with them, haven't been able to share my new experiences and revelations with them. It's very strange feeling like such a different person, then suddenly shrinking back into my old self because that's who I was the last time they were around. This has definitely been an opportunity to seek peace and determine how to remain "myself" in the midst of emotional confusion. Lots of meditation. Lots of yoga. Lots of nature walks. Reminders of things that never change: God.

I love my crazy family. We've all got our quirks and things to work through. But I'm taking advice from The Beatles: Let it be.

Choosing My Future Self

"In the end, only three things matter: how much you loved, how gently you lived, and how gracefully you let go of things not meant for you." ~ Buddha

“More important than winning is getting better.” – Commentator of the Lions game

I don’t think we become the people we want to become without doing it intentionally.  Who you are is largely about where you’ve come from, what you’ve gone through, and how you were raised. But who you become, from this moment forward, is completely your choice. Once you are aware of who you are now and why you are the way you are, you are now aware enough to choose who you will be in the very next moment. You can choose hate, or you can choose love. You can choose frustration and anger, or you can choose joy and acceptance. If it doesn’t seem like a choice you can make, you may need to sit a little longer with yourself and find out why you feel what you feel.

Over the past few weeks I have found myself remembering my friend Bev’s words to me during her yoga class. “The heat of life is unrelenting, but not life threatening: a perfect place to practice peace.” And with this advice in mind, I have decided to choose how to respond to each circumstance only after analyzing the initial reactions that rise in my mind. Why am I angry about what this person said? Why did I suddenly want to defend myself? Why did what that person said make me so sad? Why am I frustrated in this situation?

Only after asking myself those questions and really being truthful with myself about the answers can I choose my response. And often, I’ve found, my response must be silence. In that silence, as I process and choose, I meet with God and bring my thoughts and feelings and all my messiness to her feet, asking permission to let go.

I give myself permission to feel, to hurt, and to cry. And then I give myself permission to let it go. I give myself permission to let go of anger, frustration, bitterness, and control. I give myself permission to love through pain.

And it is a choice. It is always a choice. 

What's So Great About Michigan?

On Wednesday July 31st I caught a flight to Midland, Michigan to begin a five week adventure with my family. I arrived at about 9pm on the 31st, after being stuck on a runway in Detroit for an hour as the plane burned fuel trying to get us to a proper landing weight to arrive in Saginaw airport. Since that night, it has been nonstop movement.

My siblings and I picked up my parents from the airport the day after I arrived. My parents have lived in Kenya for the last three years running an orphanage in a village called Joska. This is their first trip back to the US since they've left for Kenya, and my siblings and I were able to be there to pick them up from the airport.

The first thing we did the day after they arrived was go to a Loons game. The game ended up being canceled after three hours of waiting for the field to dry after a random downpour. But we had an awesome time anyway.

I was also pleasantly surprised when my grandmother gifted me with a handmade quilt. I sent her a bunch of my saris and materials from my visit in India, and she put them together on a quilt. 

That weekend we had our McDonald family reunion where my parents were able to get reacquainted with their family who they haven't seen in over three and a half years, especially my great grandma, the matriarch of our family. 

My mom and I spent another day thrift shopping with my Grandma Rusty in her Lady truck. 

And of course at some point I had to walk down to the Tittebawassee River to find peace and do some yoga. 

My brother, Mark, left today to head back to Phoenix. I'm really bummed about it because I know I'm not going to see him for at least five months. My mom and I were introduced to Duck Dynasty as we sat watching tv here in Midland, and we realized we were watching a show about my brother. So, my grandpa bought him a Duck Dynasty shirt. My brother looks like he belongs on the show. 

Even though my brother left today, and my sister will be heading back to Phoenix on Thursday, I will be hanging out in Midland, Michigan for the next month with my parents and extended family, baking cookies with my aunt, thrift shopping with my grandma, and getting my great grandmother's life story. 

Leaning on Kachina Woman

I have been blessed to live in a beautiful part of the country, a life-giving desert full of energy and vitality. The other day, my friend and I decided to explore this desert by visiting Sedona, a hub of natural beauty and spiritual seekers.

A brook ran behind one of the new age stores we stopped at, the meditation garden intentionally conducive to quietness, stillness. I stared at a cross on the ground shaped out of rocks, with a crystal sticking up out of the center.  I wasn't looking for anything. But there, in a moment, I felt the ground I stood on was sacred, that all of this earth was holy. I pressed my palms together at my heart in gratitude for the sacredness of the ground, of nature, of life.

We walked a ways down to meet the brook that ran through the town.

I'm pretty sure that when you look for God, you find God. When you choose to find God in your surroundings, you will find God. The Presence of God was everywhere, manifested in the life energy of the trees, the flowing water, the swimming fish.

"This is God," I thought, immersed in the wonder of it all.

“I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived." - Henry David Thoreau 

To dry our feet after traipsing across rivers and balancing across fallen logs, we went to the red rocks.

There is healing and peace amongst those rocks.

There are "vortexes" throughout Sedona, places at which the physical energy is high, places people say are conducive to spiritual discovery.

I believe this earth was made with glory and power within it, made beautiful in mind bending ways that Nikola Tesla was only beginning to understand. So, I believe in forces created into the earth, not present in and of themselves, but placed there for seekers, to draw people to God. And that is where we went, drawn to the red rock vortexes.

We hiked up Boynton Canyon to sit between two knolls, one of masculine energy, the other feminine. A man met us as we were on our way up and he on his way down. He had been playing a flute, guiding seekers to the vortex. He told us about the twisted tree, the place between the two knolls where feminine and masculine energy meet in perfect unison, like a dance. We thanked him and he turned to walk back down the path. He stopped, turned to us again.

"Hey," he said, and handed us each a heart shaped red rock, "This isn't just a place to receive. It's a place to let go of anything you're holding onto."

We watched him turn around and walk away. Our temporary guru. And I thought of a quote from Elizabeth Gilbert:

"If you're brave enough to leave behind everything familiar and comforting, which can be anything from your house to bitter, old resentments, and set out on a truth-seeking journey, either externally or internally, and if you are truly willing to regard everything that happens to you on that journey as a clue and if you accept everyone you meet along the way as a teacher and if you are prepared, most of all, to face and forgive some very difficult realities about yourself, then the truth will not be withheld from you."

We wandered up to the twisted tree. My friend sat down at the mesh of the energies. But I was drawn elsewhere. I looked to the knoll on the right, Kachina Woman, named after the Hopi legend of Kachina Woman who was sent to earth to mediate between humans and God, watching over them. 

I took off my shoes, knowing I stood on holy ground. I leaned against the smooth red rock, closed my eyes, and practiced stillness. In the quietness of my mind I heard a whisper, like a breeze. 

Pay attention. 

Pay attention to the subtleties. 

God is there. 

I sat in peace with God for an hour. 

There are "mountaintop" moments, moments in which one is filled with wonder and awe, a feeling of being full of God's Presence. A feeling of oneness. A feeling of being. 

The challenge is bringing that moment off the mountain with you, into the daily grind, the messy beauty of humanity. Find the beauty in the people around you, in each moment, in architecture, in poetry, in art, in acts of love both big and small. Search for beauty and it will not be withheld from you. Search for truth and it will not be withheld from you. Search, search for God like a man with his head on fire searches for water. 

And perhaps take a trip to Sedona to lean against Kachina Woman. 

Looking For Guanyin

From my notes where I was this time one year ago, living in a guesthouse with a rented bed in the sweltering Kolkata summer.

For a while my interior monologue had a British accent, like the ones I was surrounded with. Now it speaks to me in Spanish and I understand only fragments. 

There is a sound like a 1930s radio blaring just down the street, like a weird Hindu carnival calling all the insomniatic devout. 

The Mexican girls think Gotham City is a real city in America. I didn't correct them. 

You don't argue with darkness. You just shine a light. - Indian Pastor Ben

"Make a wish," Ahad says, "wish...like you wish on a broke star."

The less we have, the more we give. Seems absurd but it's the logic of love. -Mother Theresa

If you'd like to read more from my time spent in Kolkata volunteering with Missionaries of Charity, you can click here. 

   

Today I went in search of Guanyin, Goddess of Compassion found in Taoism, Buddhism, and Hinduism.

In one legend it is said that Guanyin reincarnated as the daughter of a cruel king who wanted her to marry a wealthy but uncaring man. She refuses until her father finds a way to alleviate the suffering of the people of the world. He cannot, and he punishes her, making her do manual labor. He finally is fed up with her insistence and orders her to be executed. According to legend, the executioner tried many ways of killing her: his axe shattered, his sword shattered, his arrows veered away from her. Finally, in desperation, the executioner uses his hands to choke the life from Guanyin.

The Princess, realising the fate that the executioner would meet at her father's hand should she fail to let herself die, forgave the executioner for attempting to kill her. It is said that she voluntarily took on the massive karmic guilt the executioner generated for killing her, thus leaving him guiltless. It is because of this that she descended into the Hell-like realms. While there, she witnessed first-hand the suffering and horrors that the beings there must endure, and was overwhelmed with grief. Filled with compassion, she released all the good karma she had accumulated through her many lifetimes, thus freeing many suffering souls back into Heaven and Earth. In the process, that Hell-like realm became a paradise. It is said that Yama, the ruler of hell, sent her back to Earth to prevent the utter destruction of his realm.

If you want to read more about Guanyin, you can read about her here. 

It's interesting, when you start looking for Jesus in places you've never looked, you find Him. 

Elephant in the Dark

Some Hindus have an elephant to show.

No one here has ever seen an elephant.

They bring it at night to a dark room.

One by one, we go in the dark and come out

Saying how we experience the animal.

One of us happens to touch the trunk.

A water-pipe kind of creature.

Another, the ear. A very strong, always moving

back and forth, fan-animal. Another, the leg.

I find it still, like a column on a temple.

Another touches the curved back.

A leathery throne. Another, the cleverest,

feels the tusk. A rounded sword made of porcelain.

He is proud of his description.

Each of us touches one place

and understand the whole that way.

The palm and the fingers feeling in the dark

are how the senses explore the reality of the elephant.

If each of us held a candle there,

And if we went in together, we could see it.

- Rumi

Is our experience of God the only way the Divine can be experienced? 

If not, why do we act as if it is? 

Why do we try so hard to get others to experience Divinity in the same ways we do?

If we listened more, and talked less, we would know God better. 

"Silence is God's first language; everything else is a poor translation." 

-Thomas Keating 

Like Neon Laughing

We climbed to the peak, setting out a blanket, arranging our journals, bibles, backpacks, and instruments, preparing for the moon.

As the clouds diminished, a yellow glow appeared behind the last wisps. She rose, confident and steady, the way she does every night, bright enough to cast my shadow behind me.

We watched, letting her draw us in like the tide. Sometimes we were silent. Sometimes we spoke. Sometimes there were no words, only rhythm and vibrations. Sometimes we wrote. 

City Lights
like fireflies in jars
like a disappearing mirage
like neon laughing

The Soundtrack:
beyond the click and chirp
of mountaintop life,
the city rumbles

The Freeways
wires in my brain
firing synapses and neurons--
convincing me this all means something.

Out of our confinement,
we howl for freedom--
in words, rhythm, vibration, and spirit--
for new moon phases
to bring in the tide
and wash us away
to undiscovered depths.

The moon casts my shadow behind me, a shadow that is not me, a negative, empty outline of me.

"These are a shadow of the things to come, but the substance belongs to Christ." - Colossians 2:17

Follow truth where you find it, and you will be led to more truth. 

Battling Demons

When you think you are strong, satan will attack with everything he has. He waited, waited until I was just tired enough, just weak enough, just exhausted enough from being so strong. He doesn’t attack like this often, but when he does, he really does.

Over the past month, I have been shrinking inside myself, playing with shadows of the person I used to be, the things I used to do, the chaos and darkness in which I used to exist.

I wanted to get in the car, buy a pack of cigarettes, smoke them with the windows down until I wound up somewhere without streetlights, without moonlight. Complete darkness. I wanted to be engulfed by the night, with everything that goes with it.

I wanted to give up.

I wanted darkness, like a junkie wants a fix.

I glanced at the keys on the counter.

It would be so easy. I (or something else) told myself.

You know people. You know who to go to. No one would have to know. Just drive.

I walked past, into my room, locking the door behind me.

I can’t do this.

I can’t be strong anymore.

Suddenly it hit, like waves, like an undercurrent, like being wrecked.

I wanted darkness. I wanted to get away from the light, from the truth I KNOW. I wanted to give up being strong, give up trying, and satiate this desire to return to chaos, self-destruction, emptiness. Darkness is easier. Forgetting is easier. You can lose yourself again. You don’t have to be strong anymore. It’s ok. Give up.

This moment will never end. I heard myself say.

This confusion is too overwhelming. The desire to give up is too strong.

I can’t take this. I can’t do this anymore. I can’t be strong.

I felt demons laughing over me, convincing me they had won. They had won. I was ready to let them win.

GOD HELP ME.

And, as I do when I can no longer hear my own thoughts, I put my finger in my Bible and opened to the first verse my eyes landed on.

And tears burning and piercing my eyes fell down my face as I read My Father’s words.

“Finally be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might. Put on the whole armor of God that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil. For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places. Therefore take up the whole armor of God, that you my be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand firm.”  Ephesians 6:10-13

FOR AT ONE TIME YOU WERE DARKNESS, BUT NOW YOU ARE LIGHT IN THE LORD…TAKE NO PART IN THE UNFRUITFUL WORKS OF DARKNESS, BUT INSTEAD EXPOSE THEM.  Ephesians 5:8,11

And as my breathing returned to normal, my face red and puffy and still ridden with drying tears, I knew.

This is battling demons. This is being strong. This is overcoming.

The battle will come again. I will be attacked harder, fiercer, with more persistence.

But I AM NOT DARKNESS. I am Light in the Lord.

And He will fight my battles. And He will win. He will always win.

And while I do not want to share this, for fear of judgment, others’ opinions, and the shame that comes along with not being perfect, I know the only way to expose darkness is to bring it into the light. Darkness has no power in light.

And I refuse to chain myself up again. Because Christ has set me FREE.