a new year

dear friends and lovers,

i hesitate to update write another update, only because i often feel i have nothing to share--nothing from my body, my experiences, my feelings, but only my thoughts that are self-centered and based on theories, not experiences, but as natalie goldberg said, and i paraphrase, just keep writing anyway. we have been moved into the house for a while, and things are settling sort-of. today we did our first official chores, and you better believe that the bathroom is sparkling. josh and adri brought us home groceries, matt took out the trash before i was awake, mary whipped that kitchen into shape and margienuzz is working her way through the living room. as she said, "i've never really mopped before." i wonder how many firsts we are experiencing without realizing it, and yet its things that have always been present, like mopping, yet that we've never done or experienced that catch us off guard the most. of course most of my generation has been babied and kept in a constant state of adolescence until post college. that, i think, is why post college is sometimes referred to as "the real world." not because work is more real than studying, but because we are very close to reaching the limit of when other people will take care of us and we must fight off the ever collecting dust ourselves--a very scary thought for those of us raised in suburban upper middle class lifestyles. but we give margie enough trouble for being from long island while the 3 boys are all midwest raised and corn fed. so many differences. americans think of ourselves as part of one great state, (or country as it is called sometimes) but it would do us well to remember we are from many states that are haphazardly united, and depending on how one defines nation, we are hard-pressed to fit ourselves into that category also. so our cross-cultural experience in a foreign state-nicaragua-is accompanied by cross cultural experiences with our house mates. east coast, west coast, south... but even these are, in a way, just arbitary groupings in a way for there are individuals in all of those places, working, raising families, supporting troops with yellow stickers or meditating their lives away. my freshman year philosophy teacher had us write a paper on community vs. individual... i think i would disagree with my paper from 4 years ago, but moreso today than ever, i don't know what i think.

i found out that the 8th is my first day of teacher training, but i may not start teaching until the 1st of february which seems pretty far away. my real prayer for myself right now is that the teacher training has me well prepared. sometimes i wonder what i'm doing here, not in the sense that i feel as if i'm in the wrong place, but more like, "how did i convince someone that i could be a teacher?" doubts are a normal part of life right?

since christmas we have been to a bar, a pool, and a volcano... simple living is a breeze. all of us have had some form or another of diarrea... when i was tested i had no parasites, margaret, however, has the eggs that hatch into ringworm, which is a rough one to have if you wanna look it up. if not, a highlight is that if it lives and gets big enough it can move to your lungs and crawl out your mouth. mmmm. but we nipped hers in the bud with some tough pills. some others of us have been experiencing slight constipation, and its hard to say what thats from... i'll be sure to let anyone that wants to know find out when we find out, but its probably best to move to other topics. we've had some bug issues, with a scorpion in the shower and a 3 inch beetle in the bathroom too. along with that, our mosquito population is getting a little out of hand. i think the transition is a little rough for matt and adri who were both used to have 4 older jv's take care of them, and now they are left to guide this mess of a group that we are. they need your prayers more than i do, i promise.

i'm currently reading 4ish books, but i've kind of given up on one for a while. and one of which, a year with thomas merton, i won't start until jan. 1st for practical reasons. blindness, by jose saratoga something or the other, is one of the more disturbing books i've ever read, and the other one, "living buddha, living christ" is a book i once bought for my sister, although i harbor doubts that she ever read it. thich nhat hanh has a simple way of writing that puts a lot a lot of meaning in just a few words, so i sometimes wonder how much i'm absorbing. he encourages me to deepen my realtionship with my own religion so that i can better dialogue with others, that and be aware and present in every moment. when i sit, know that i am sitting. how can we be open to accept others if we are at war within ourselves... cultivate peace. challenges no doubt, for a young american boy, raised to be more active than reflective. still, i keep coming back to the prayer we attribute to st. francis of assissi--the one who ignored many social conventions, and lived a simple lifestyle to the fullest--that said, to understand, rather than be understood. how often do we work harder at getting others to understand us? HERE I AM. here are my beliefs. this is important to me. understand me. preists preach from the pulpit so that we understand their perspective, their interpretation. but we sing and pray the opposite. how much pain and death has misunderstanding at the root of it... how much more willing would one who feels understood be to move towards understanding. yet we're so afraid to think for a moment that we may have false beliefs. that we believe things are good that are really at the root of destruction and hatred. holding on tightly to our thought patterns gives us some kind of certainty and strength... opening up to what others think, trying to truly understand others requires some vulnerability... which is scary. and holy. i'm sure this all relates to my feelings towards those who speak "authoritatively" or those who make claims to any sort of absolute truth... but hey. as a final thought, that crossed my mind as i just layed down to rest my eyes, in heaven, does God rule all, or is God the servant of all. i'm sure some will point out to me that God in all of that glory manages to be both, but i have my doubts.

james