Searching for the light

Hello and hi from a girl on the move! I write today from my grandparent’s lovely abode in Huntington Beach, my first stop of a long pilgrimage I have only slightly planned. I come from 2 years and 2 months of delight in San Diego, a city I discovered is my favorite (!) in the whole world. 

My experience living and working in San Diego is so treasured – I loved my apartment, located in a bustling family-filled immigrant neighborhood, centrally located with easy access to all of the lovely, beautiful, and exciting places around the larger metropolitan area. I fell in love, there, with the place, the people, the sounds, the sights. I began an 18-month leadership program called the “Contemplative Leaders in Action” as a virtual cohort member, which I am still loving and learning from. I started learning Haitian Creole as I worked for 18 months with Catholic Charities, I started painting (by numbers, hehe), started learning to roller skate, donated my hair, went dancing a lot!! I took an online language course in Maya Kaqchikel, an Indigenous language to Guatemala. I visited friends in Florida, Denver, Maryland, Washington DC, Philadelphia, New York, El Paso, and Wisconsin, and made new friends in San Diego (thank you, Hinge!!). I worked the 2022 midterm election in the ballot remake department, and made lots of lovely connections, and sang karaoke at the end! I fell in love with being alive in a different way.

Somewhere along the journey in 2022, I began to feel the tugging at my heart to uproot myself again. It started in the first days of 2022 when I was driving through Arizona back to San Diego after spending New Years in El Paso with Annunciation House (my second home). Traveling through the endless hills of Saguaro, I was moved by the hope that I would be able to return to the desert and participate in desert aid (traveling into remote areas to leave life-saving supplies for migrants who may be crossing in need) (In 2021, the UN recorded 728 deaths of migrants crossing the U.S.-Mexico Border). 

As the months of 2022 unfolded, my ideas around this planted seed began to unfold as well, and soon I began telling people that I was going to start traveling again, and this time for a slightly indefinite amount of time, and specifically to discern my vocation, to try and cut out some of the noise so I could hear more clearly the call that the Spirit has for me, the invitation towards what kind of work I ought to do with my life. 

I was recently blessed with a send-off reflection from a community of mixed-religious women who are an important part of my spiritual community in San Diego, and one of the beloved Sisters of Mercy, Mary Kay, shared with us an excerpt from an Easter homily given by an Irish priest, poet, and writer John Donahue:

“One of the wisdoms of living a full life is to try and sense what it is you were sent here for and let the hindrances that block you from that fall away so that you can claim completely the life that was so generously offered to you…There are limitless possibilities within each of us and, if we give ourselves any chance at all, it is unknown what we are capable of.”

The story goes now that I am embarking on a cross-country pilgrimage through the Southwest, down to South Texas, and over to Florida. I will be visiting any and all loved ones that I know along these paths, and also meeting new people through my various networks of beloved community 🙂 and also spending time volunteering with different organizations along the way – offering the little help I can with the hope of learning so much more about community response to community challenges. I am always so deeply inspired by really radical shifts, radical ways of being, and so I hope to encounter that and live that as I move through this next year.

For any whose heart this may touch, I leave with you a prayer:

Loving Creator,

First, always, thank you for this day – another day of life – to experience laughter, to experience awe, to feel. I am so grateful to you for the blessing of now and the many treasures that lie here. Even the frustrations, challenges, disappointments – they don’t really stand a chance when I stop and look at the hummingbirds fluttering around, or the bright pink sunset, or the way some songs just make me dance. The bitterness of feeling sad, powerless, inadequate, alone, or frustrated is so easily sweetened by your grace, which warms my freezing heart, which softens my gaze, which opens my soul to being true, somehow. I love you and love how you accompany me always. It never ceases to amaze me if I just pay attention!

Even just feeling feelings is a blessing that I remind myself of frequently. Excitement, giddiness, sadness, compassion, determination, anger, sorrow, those are all signs that I am alive. I just want to show you how much your love and life mean to me – I don’t want to waste a moment of my precious time on this earth doing anything but what you desire for me, God! Of course, I do waste my time… I fail all the time, as the temptations to distract and wallow are plentiful…but what I really desire is to surrender my life to you, God. I will go wherever you send me, do whatever you want me to do. I pray that I can use my gifts to plant even a small seed, lay a small brick for the love story that is your Heaven, a place where the last are first, where love and justice reign. 

May I be sensitive and responsive to your whispers into my heart, Mother God, and may I continue to learn the way!