jamie's wanderings

 This blog is not necesarrily a manifesto, but this words have definetly rung over and over in my mind again and again the last several months. I've offended some with these words, and others have affirmed them. So here goes this post. It is my convicted belief that the Kingdom of Heaven began and will be completed at a table, and not a temple, or cathedral, or mosque. It's humble beginnings are first in the 6 banquets Jesus particpates in in the book of Luke, the 7th the momement as Jesus sat and broke bread and drank wine with his disciples, the 8th when he breaks bread as a resurrection Jesus on the road to Emmaus,  and finally,  will be completed when we all sit together with Jesus and finally do the same at the Feast of the End of It All. And, to expand on this theme, another thought has surfaced. Jesus was found on the road to Emmaus, not in a temple, or synagagoe or mosque, but rather walking as a traveler and no one realized who he was, until he sat at the table w...

 In my dashboard, I have three unfinished blogs that are too angry, too over the top to be published and I've let them block my writing, as I have moved through so many emotions and processed through so many situaitons in the last two or three months. When you write a blog that is deeply personal, deeply introspective, this happens. It's not a diary blog of cooking, family life, vacations, travel, but rather, a blog of the experiences of someone who has lived very far from her home and worldview, and has watched the definitions of home and worldview change and evolve and maybe even warp a little over the 20plus years of living not in my passport country. And watching the current events unfold in my passport country have made things even more facinating in the last couple of weeks....I refuse to be political, or at least avertly so in my publishings, but it is easy for me to state at this point, fo the first time in my adult life I'm deeply considering not voting. I sat on t...

 For the second time this month, for a long weekend, I sit in a quite place. The first one was for our anniversary, and we relished being meters away from the coast and hearing the waves crash upon our rocky beach as we sat on the balcony, or merely just opened the door to our bedroom. The bed wasn't anything to write home about, but the small apartment with a balcony, big comfy sofa and nice tv, and a kitchen equipped to do what we needed, is all that we really wanted for those three nights. Today, my views are birds and sky, sheep and rolling olive groves and pretty Spanish villas that used to be second homes. The two dogs alternate coming out on to the terrace to sniff the air, lay in the sun or shade, and make sure we are still around. The pool glistens underneath me, matching the blue of my aptly named Aygo, Blueberry. This weekend we are house sitting and after a long stretch of a lot of work, and some really tough emotional moments, this is respite. It's all I can do, ju...

  A long time ago, my aunt and uncle lived in Granada and we lived in each other's back pockets. They held our hands in language school and those first 10 years as we figured out Granada and culture and life and love and happiness and grief. I will never forget those days. Even though they now live between two other worlds, I know they left a chunk of their hearts here and we talk regularly, sometimes more and sometimes less. This week, as we walk through a family crisis with my dad's health, we have spoken a bit more. They left me, probably without meaning to, a book called L'abri, which discusses a long ago refuge created by the Schaeffers in the 1950s in Switzerland. They were in another time and another place and a different way of communicating, but God provided. They chose to step out in some crazy decisions, but God was there. And so, at my lowest moments, I pull out the book and reread the passages. Last night after shopping, I drove up to the edge of our property. ...

 I don't always publish back to back days, but I've run across a few interesting quotes on the state of life in general and wished to put these thoughts down before they flit across my brain and we are done.. I've again found a fascination with e.e.cummings who broke poetry rules and wrote as he felt, without caps and punctuation. In recent moments I've adapted something of my own of the lists of things that rollout of me without commas or periods so that you can follow where I'm really going. See what I just did? But, he, cummings, is still the King. And when the winter turns to spring far sooner here than the northern reaches of this planet, I remember his simple turns of phrases that suddenly cause us to remember spring pasts. I told Miguel Angel last month that I'm team Spring. So many people crawl out of the woodwork in August longing for cooler weather, and I shake my head at them, because, I'm team Spring. With the almonds bursting into bloom as we wo...

 My super young (no age to protect her innocence ) at heart relative called me today, we talk at least once a month about various issues, sometimes cry, sometimes laugh, usually both, and I feel so blessed to have her. See, her story, just like all stories, has its share of violence, but she abounds in grace. This phrase is stolen from a dear professor of mine from my undergrad days, who needed to show a conservative Bible school that it wasn't just about memorzing theology and verses, but that story is what shapes who we are. So, she had a literature course that dedicated itself to the theme of violence and grace. Those of us who took it drank it in like water from a fire hose and some of the themes I learned almost 30 years ago, echo in my mind time and time again. These moments of violence, be they true violence like disaster, destruction, crime and more, or violence of the heart and emotions, are evil. Being unkind is just as evil as other bits of evil you can imagine, as bones...

 I have been overwhelmed as of late of the deep intense unkindness that has seemed to ooze deep into our society. But, I am reminded of those kindnesses give towards me as well. One does not preclude the other, but sometimes the unkindess has felt echoey, loud and reverbating that I find myself choking back tears late at night wondering what the world has gotten itself into. I am an intense fan of the goodness that we have, both inherantly and also given to to us by God. I believe that many people in this world do not knowingly commit evil, but rather are motivated by selfish desires. I do believe that people can change, and not always say the same, but I believe we can do so because we have been empowered by God, and not only from ourselves. All this to say, I acknowledge the brokeness, the evil in the world, but I hesitate to meditate on the depravity of man. I believe that when we focus on our collective and personal evils, we do nothing but feed them, and allow more evil to per...

 One of the journey's we faced last year was to put it mildly, unique. Back in August of 2022, I found an apartment for an older gentleman named Bob, and I know the landlady personally.  A few months later, Bob phoned me and asked for someone to go with him to the emergency room to translate as he wasn't doing so well. Bob was cool, an old rock and roller, a writer, a scholar, and just a cool guy. But he had struggled with a lot of mental health issues and just needed someone to help translate. Andrew ended up in the ER with him for several hours got some much-needed meds and said, See you Monday Bob, and that was that.  We never heard from Bob and then on that same Thursday, the landlady called me anxiously. Bob hadn't moved around his apartment in days, and his window was on and his light was open. Andrew went a few hours later, and found Bob by his bedside, not having moved from it for 5 days, semi conscious, having suffered a stroke. For months Bob moved around variou...

      For my MA and then my unfinished PhD theis, I wrote about how the emotion we label as Shame can affect us in speaking our second languages. It's a lot more complicated that than sentence above, but more or less that's what I wrote about.     Reading all the materials I did, papers, books, talks and more, I realized how much shame, named or unamed, is a motivating factor for so much what we do or do not do as adults. And, I can remember intense moments of shame in my own life, that have somehow defined who I am, or am not.     One of the fascinating elements of faith, and especially if you are not focused on the Christian institutions, but rather Christ himself, is His whole ministry focused on love and not following what a shame-based culture said he should and shouldn't do.     He should have never touched a woman who was bleeding, dead bodies, lepers, and women in general. But he did. And they were made whole, healed, raised from the ...

 It has been decided, from this blog and other musing, that I'm going to write a book this year, and see where things go from there. I've had some really interesting encouragement to do so, mostly from people who just don't know me, and only have ever read what I've put here or on social media. The best encouragement comes from a very prolific author of over 40 books who told me she's not really a person of faith but has enjoyed my writing the last several months. I'm, as the Brits say, gobsmacked, and truly delighted by her praise. Since 2012, my writings have been mostly either academic or deeply personal correspondence, and as of late, more business correspondence. More and more, my time has been dedicated to social media, rather than long format, so the last three or so months of stretching my legs out on this blog writing what I want to say has felt rather delightful, and incredibly therapeutic. I think some of the most important things to keep in mind, and...

 When I studied theology and the bible for my university years, I don't think I would have ever imagined sitting here today in Spain, clutching my laptop on a Sunday morning, telling you about what this strange life is like.     This last week, I found myself wandering the coast of Spain in two different directions with my reluctant-to-be-called boss, Miguel Angel. The first journey on Wednesday took us to a town called Albunol, where we finally signed in the notary for a home that we initially began selling in February.     Like many country homes, it had been added to, and it was not reflected in what we call the nota simple, or simple deed, that is reflected in the public record. In order for a home sale to occur, this doesn't usually present a problem, except when the buyers wish to mortgage the home.     Even though these buyers were already in their 60s, they felt the need to take out a mortgage and thus began the months of descending into the Sp...

 Almost three years ago, Andrew and I were shocked to hear that Jose and Sara got into their car to do some last-minute shopping and never came home, killed by a drunk driver in Texas that day before Thanksgiving evening. It stung and ached then, and it still does. A couple of months ago I drove over by their old flat and I suddenly could hear Jose's voice peal with laughter and it was as if he told me how proud he was of Andrew and I. I burst into tears and missed them dreadfully. Backing up, Sara and Jose were here when we first arrived in 2003 and stuck around for a year or so after we came. He was from Granada, she was from Texas and Andrew and Jose practiced their languages together. We were part of a rather scrappy bunch of 20 and 30 somethings and ate a lot of bad food and laughed alot together. But, Jose wanted to stretch his wings and so they moved to Texas, they made a life, had two boys and would occasionally come back and visit. I always assumed that they would come and...

      One of the things I've promised in this blog of ramblings is to cover more of the last several years and connect the dots between my earlier posts from 2007 to 2015, to suddenly appear on the blogger map again in 2023. For many reasons, 2020 was a massive year of upheaval and change, and for my husband and myself, it affected our lives physically, emotionally and spiritually. As Covid began to take its toll on the world, we found ourselves packing bags for my brother's long awaited wedding. We went, we danced with a feeling that it was the end of the world as we knew it, and then we faced 4 months of living with my parents as the world turned and burned. We said sad goodbyes to my uncle as Covid took his tired, worn-out body from us. We cooked a lot, waited a lot, and talked on the phone a lot with people in Spain as I watched my business implode and then surprisingly restart, but only to succumb to second lockdowns and curfews imposed in October of 2020. And finall...

Olive oil makes the world go around where I live. Property is measured in how many trees it possesses, how many kilos of olives it produces, and its subsequent liters of liquid gold. This year, one of my learning curves, is about this element of olive oil, and how it makes the world go around in Southern Spain. For the last two years for Christmas, my landlord has brought me a bottle of olive oil from Montefrio, and it is some of the best. It's so good, I use it for tostadas and salads, and never for cooking. The other day I finally ran out and it was a sad moment. And I asked God for more. See, I think God cares about the tiny details because that's what life is really made up of. The oil, the parking spaces we need in the city, the daily bread, that's why in what we call the Lord's prayer, He tells us we are to ask for it. ...give us our daily bread... In the midst of Covid, Andrew and I lost the whole business and a lot of hope. Just as we lost the business, someone ...

 I wandered this weekend to just a few meters from my own home, and went to a conference meant for real estate agents. Since 2021, I've found myself counted in this group of individuals, and I've attended meetings, parties and gatherings, but on a local level. This time was national, and as a linguist I was both overwhelmed and fascinated by the dozens of accents and ways of speaking just in Spanish alone, let alone the few of us foreigners that have infiltrated the scene. It was to put it briefly, overwhelming. Even though I am 20 years immersed in this Spanish speaking world, I still find myself in situations that I have no effing clue, or that I feel I've been thrown into the deep end or a very rough sea, and made to survive. Although the crowd was probably around 30 percent women or more, I still found myself at a table full of men for lunch, and in both languages I can hold my own in those situations. However, even though I've been here a very long time, I've g...

 The unholy holy....a phrase given to me by someone whom I respect very much...and it's rolled around in my head this weekend and today again. My current home city has been that for almost 20 years, this week in fact we complete 20 years here. I've grown nostalgic on another post, so I won't do that here, but instead I will wax eloquent about it. It's one of the most beautiful cities in the world, so much so song, poetry, dance and more have been created about it. Conservative and elegant, yet cutting edge and growing, it still never ceases to amaze me. But compared to where I grew up, it's a different world. I've been catcalled and chased after asking if I want boyfriends. Recently in a street in one of the nearby towns, I was presumed to be a prostitute, in the middle of the day, the men in the car were insistent that I join them. Once, a few years back ( long time actually) I wore a beach dress into the supermarket and even though my beach dress was modest on...