The Mermaid

I know. This doesn't look like a mermaid. In fact, it's a momma manatee and her baby, floating near the building that my daughter-in-law manages in North Miami, where she snapped this photo. 


Manatees are gentle, slow-moving aquatic giants. How in the world they were ever mistaken for mermaids is confounding. You'd have to be at sea a long, long time in order to mistake this massive, whiskered-face mammal for the beautiful, seductive Little Mermaid of film and literature. However, there's no accounting for a young sailor in love--or at sea.  Legends don't need a whole lot of substance to get started.  It just needs to be a good story.



As with all legends, there is a sliver of truth hiding beneath the surface. Manatees bob upright on the surface of the water cradling their babies, much as a human would, face-to-face, as they suckle their young. Their eerily human-like faces, albeit whiskered and wrinkled, resemble a woman's--OK, not a very pretty woman, but remember--if you're an adventurer out at sea for months on end, you might just be a little desperate. If manatees are startled, they can move surprisingly fast, often slapping their fish-like tails on the water as they submerge. At least one old salt had a mammoth imagination, fell in love, and a legend was born.



Once, as a child, when I was in Sunday school, we were making a mosaic art project, gluing beans and seeds on construction paper to form Noah's Ark.  As I glued, I asked my teacher a question: "Is the story of Noah true?" The answer I got reverberated in my head for years to come. She said that it was a fable, a legend, much like the bedtime stories my parents read to me at night. That, I believe, was the beginning of my spiritual walk out the door of the church. I didn't return until years later, after much soul-searching in other religions, other cultures and alternate lifestyles.


At the heart of the cultural revolution of the 60's and 70's was a search for 'truth, peace, and love' without the trappings of the social mores of the previous generations.  I was one of those seekers, and followed my own path in pursuing truth. Thank God, He spared me the heartache that experimentation with psychedelic drugs and rampant sex left in its wake. Instead, my quest for truth took me through the study the world's great religions, in the awe-inspiring art and architecture of Europe, and in discovering new ways of looking at the world through the eyes of people from other cultures.


When I had exhausted those avenues and came away with more questions than answers, I turned back to my roots. I figured that someone had believed all those stories in the Bible, enough to produce some of the greatest art that the world has ever known (. . .a far cry from my bean mosaic of Noah's Ark).  I decided to give it a second shot.  I was given a Bible and began to read the stories of men and women who were much like me--flawed and broken, but with a kernel of faith.


The stories were thrilling and inspiring--Abraham, Moses, Noah, Jonah, David, Paul, Esther, to name a few. They fought, swore, killed, lied, cheated, you name it. Nothing was sugar-coated. Some of them fell away, some grew like solid oaks.  But they were real and believable. At some point, I began to believe in the truth of what I was reading, and it rocked my world.


Unlike the fables and legends of my childhood, the deeper I dug into the Bible, the more truth I found, and the closer I got to the real treasure: the Author of the Book, the Captain of the Ship--the Way, the Truth, the Life. 


My search was over, my question answered. I had come home to port.
But the adventure had just begun.


 "Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” John 8:32

The City

I did not take this photo. My son's friend, Ryan Holloway (PictureHousePhotos), took it of our Miami skyline. Through his professional eye and from this vantage point, Miami looks stunning.


I have called many cities around the world 'home' for a time so far in my life: Chicago, Manchester (England), Managua (Nicaragua), Newark, (Delaware), Boston, Miami (twice), San Francisco, and Tegucigalpa (Honduras). Every time I move, I have accumulated added 'baggage'--more suitcases or furniture or boxes or . . . kids! Even after a hurricane destroyed our house and almost everything in it, we managed to fill a container of stuff for our next move. (I am convinced of spontaneous generation--stuff begets stuff and just multiplies behind closet doors).


When we moved to Miami in the early 90's, we came kicking and screaming. We had already lived in Miami once during the 80's, and we all know what Miami was like during those years: drug raids right in our neighborhood, FBI shoot-outs just down the street--we lived the episodes of Miami Vice! When my husband was offered a position in San Francisco, we shook the dust from our feet and gleefully boarded the plane for the 'City by the Bay'. Four years (and one earthquake) later, we were back.  


Miami has become home in a way that no other city I've ever lived in has. At first, it was hard, as it always is--making new friends, finding a church home, adjusting to new schools and jobs. But as the years wore on, we put down roots and embraced the diversity and blended cultures of this tropical, cosmopolitan, very Latin 'City-by-(Biscayne)-Bay'. As a family, we have marked countless birthdays, anniversaries, graduations, and sadly, funerals and sorrows here. Amazingly, a few of the same children who were the most devastated by the original move here, have decided it's THE place to live and wouldn't dream of leaving, at least for now. And as long as they are here, I wouldn't either.


An old (and maybe a little tired) cliché says "Home is where the heart is." And it's true. Home is not a mortar-and-brick building in City X-Y-Z, filled with possessions that you've accumulated along the journey, but a place where you and the most-loved people in your life reside. And yet, neither Miami, nor any other city on this earth, is actually my true home. I am here on earth temporarily, just passing through, a traveler in space and time. And one day it will be time to move on.


I'm not ready for that move yet, but I hope I don't go kicking and screaming. There is a part of me that looks forward to the day when I will be reunited with loved ones that have gone on before me to a Holy City filled with the glory of God, abundant peace, and stunning beauty beyond what I can possibly imagine. I'm sure the only thing that I will struggle leaving behind will not be my ever-expanding mound of accumulated possessions, but my precious loved ones here on Earth.


When God calls me to my true home, whenever that may be, I won't have to pack, thank God.  


But if I can, I'll send a photo. 


And it will be stunning.


"For there is no permanent city for us here on earth; we are looking for the city which is to come." Hebrews 13:14

The Rainbow

Spotting any rainbow usually stops me in my tracks, but this one took my breath away. It was very early one morning when I stepped out onto my balcony, saw the rainbow descending on El Cristo del Picacho, and quickly snapped this before it faded away. Everyone in my house was still asleep, and I'm pretty sure I was the only one who saw it. 

One of the most popular tourist attractions in Tegucigalpa, Honduras, is the statue of Christ at the top of the barren, deforested mountain, El Picacho, that overlooks the twin cities of 'Tegus' and Comayagüela. The statue is enormous, although it looks like just a speck in this photo. Christ's arms are outstretched, beckoning the inhabitants of 'Tegus' to look up and get a different perspective-- a calmer, gentler, more loving perspective, perhaps. Unfortunately,Tegus happens to be one of the most congested, poverty-stricken, and crime-ridden cities anywhere in the world.


However, at night, the darkness hides the slums and the blight, and the lights of the city twinkle on the mountainside. The Christ is lit up and can be seen for miles. We would often lean over that same balcony at nighttime and marvel at how peaceful it all looked, defying the harsh realities of the daytime chaos.


What surprised me up to the very end of my time living in Honduras was the contrast between so much violence and so great faith. Many of the citizens of Honduras live 'close to the edge' of life and death--they die of diseases that are uncommon in the 'first world'--dengue, cholera, dysentery, typhoid; or, they get run over by a bus as they walk along the sides of congested thoroughfares; or they get kidnapped or killed by a gang of thugs over a petty theft of a cellphone.


Yet their faith in God is not just refreshingly honest and sincere, it is downright inspiring. No separation of church and state here--people openly pray, even at public meetings, and take it for granted that you believe in God. Even their speech reflects their basic belief--most people when planning a future event, finish it off with, "Si Dios quiere"--God willing. Even "Adios!" means "Go with God". When my husband tragically passed away in a terrible plane crash just under the Christ's gaze several years ago, I was comforted and calmed amidst the chaos by countless mourners who whispered Bible verses into my ear, one after another.


El Cristo del Picacho represents hope for this life here on earth and for the life beyond. The rainbow confirms it. God has not left us alone, but has reached down and touches our lives in ways we cannot even dream possible. Even in the midst of the chaos, violence, and poverty of our souls, God promises a peace that will calm us and comfort us and give a new perspective.


All we need to do is look up and see it. And, when we do, it will take our breath away.

"Whenever the rainbow appears in the clouds, I will see it and remember the everlasting covenant between God and all living creatures of every kind on the earth.”  Genesis 9:16