naturaleza

I have never lived near mountains before. I remember being dazzled by the Rockies while on a family vacation in Colorado years ago. My dad jokingly told me he wouldn’t let me visit Colorado University as a prospective college because he knew I would choose it based on the sheer majesty of the view alone. There is something about nature that feeds my soul in a way nothing else does. Richard Rohr writes, “Somewhere each day we have to fall in love, with someone, something, some moment, event, phrase, animal, or person.” The Andes have captured my heart. I have fallen in love.

Snapshots of NATURALEZA


Peering out the window of my bus after a long night of bumping around on narrow winding roads to be confronted for the first time with the Andes. It took my breath away and my jaw fell open.

Walking to work every day … I am often thinking about family, praying for Luke, coming up with ideas for work … and if I happen to glance up, I stop short. How can the mountains look different each day? I could never memorize the patchwork greenery of chakras (farms) dotting the steep peaks. Light falls differently moment to moment, it seems. As tiny figures work endless hours, coaxing the earth at different times of harvest and planting, its appearance changes. Clouds move, the sky darkens and lightens, shadows fall on some chakras and not on others. Rain pitter-patters or sometimes assails. Every day a new postcard-perfect picture.

Impossible colors of the sky. Every hue of the rainbow. Every one. And sometimes multiple colors. One moment I will never forget is stepping out of a nursery school in Chaccrampa to find that it was raining ... in my particular square meter of the earth. The mountains on the other side of the valley were living their own lives. As lightning streaked across my sky, snow was blanketing others in white. And in other patches, sun was blazing. All at the same moment. And I could see it all.


Later that night ... I thought I would be swallowed up by the stars. Not only were there more than I've ever seen before ... The sky was alive! It was moving. Twinkling. Blazing. Shifting. I felt it. I could only stand in the field with my head wrenched back as far as it goes. I was swallowed by the stars, and it was breathtaking.


Laguna Pacucha on a sunny day. The whole staff ate lunch there yesterday. As we rounded a curve and it came into sight, my throat emitted involuntary sounds in response to the beauty I was seeing. My heart was bursting. The waves made tiny bumps on the surface of the bluer than blue water. The wind was blowing. Just the sound calms my whole body.


Animals in everyday life. Walking to work last week I did a double take and realized I had just passed an ENORMOUS hog that would LITERALLY be my height if it could stand. It was too fat to ever think about dreaming about imagining about knowing what standing would be like. On the side of a city street. Right in front of the courthouse. And how many times have we had to stop the car to wait for horses, sheep, pigs, goats, chickens ...


And the natural beauty of humans ... Watching Julio hold his 1 month old infant daughter. He can't hear anyone else talking. He can only stare at her face in wonder and amazement, speaking a language only she can understand. He is in awe of this miracle ... Watching 7 month old Rodrigo laugh. He is most often serious-faced. But sometimes something tickles him deep in his chubby belly and his lips start to turn up. Suddenly he just can't stop giggling. He wants so badly to tell you what he's thinking, and is overtaken with "DADADADADADA!!!!" ...


i want to put pictures to show you ... but it would not even begin to do this subject justice. suffice to say, i have been appreciating God's creation in a new way here. life is beautiful.