Learnings from Hogar de Amor

I spent the last week leading a team of volunteers and loving on the kids and caregivers at Hogar de Amor orphanage in Colima, Mexico. This is the 13th year we have traveled to Hogar de Amor, and I learn something different each year. I also learn many of the same lessons year after year (because I need a lot of repetition!). 

Every year, I am reminded of how sweet it is to take things a little slower and focus more on people and less on doing. This is not my default state or that of my culture; I am generally focused on "doing" and efficiency and accomplishment. Over the past years, my perspective has slowly shifted to taking more delight in slowing down and savoring the relationships. 

As the trip leader, I find this especially difficult, and all the more important. My days can be overwhelmed by the details: schedules, shopping for the next meal, picking up needed supplies, answering questions, and figuring out where we are supposed to be, when, and how to get there. It is tough for me to savor the moment when I feel the week's weight on my shoulders. 

And so it is all the more sweet when I can put all that noise and busyness down for a moment and just be in this place I love so much with people I treasure. My primary job for the week is to handle the details to facilitate those moments of connection for each team member... so my primary work is in the logistics of the future. Yet I also get these beautiful pauses where I sit in the moment's sweetness. I treasure that, and I love that I am getting (slowly, progressively) more practiced at finding and savoring those moments of presence. 

Spring

Last week I shared my wintering lessons, and now as temperatures get a little warmer and the very first early blossoms are peeking out, let's talk about spring. 

I recently re-read Parker Palmer's Let Your Life Speak and especially appreciated Palmer's musings on the seasons. In writing about spring, he points out the we all love to celebrate the jubilant awakening of spring - riotous blossoms, new life bursting all around. 

But before all of that budding and buzzing, spring is really messy. Early spring is wet and muddy and mucky and pretty gross. It's cold and damp. It's unpredictable. 

Eventually, the flowers, buds, and leaves burst out and carpet the earth, and we all celebrate the renewal of life. But don't forget - it was messy before it was beautiful. And, in fact, the messiness is necessary to create the beauty. Without the wet and the decay and the mud, spring wouldn't have the ingredients it needs to bloom. 

We need decay to fuel the blossoms. Spring is messy before it's beautiful - that's not an unfortunate side-effect but a requirement. It's part of the design. 

So, if you're feeling muddy and mucky right now, maybe it's all fuel and preparation for the blooming.

Winter

I have been doing a lot of thinking and reading and musing about winter lately. One, it's winter. Two, this is a challenging transitional season full of a lot of inward focus and less outward blooming. So, the focus works on both the allegorical and literal levels. 

Two major influences for these musings are Parker Palmer's Let Your Life Speak and the less creatively named Wintering by Katherine May. 

The takeaway is that all seasons matter - we need them all, and they all carry their own lessons. 

Palmer says that winter is clarity. Everything's out there in its stark nakedness. It's hushed; it's quiet. Winter has its own beauty, and it's a crisp one, sometimes desolate. 

In winter, all the growth is on the inside, under the surface. Roots grow deep, and trunks strengthen. The world is healthier for winter, but all of the external growth that comes as a result happens in other seasons. Yet, without winter, the external outpouring of energy of the showier seasons could never be.

We get social messages that our lives should be all summer all the time - all fun, all productivity, all blooming. But there is no summer without winter, and the needs and growth we experience in winter are profound and essential. 

What are your lessons in the clarity of winter? This winter, I am taking in the truth that blooming all the time is unhealthy. It is healthy and necessary to rest and grow deep roots and gather strength. That outward stillness has a beauty all its own. That's the beauty of this winter to me.