This Blog is Moving!

Friends! For any of you who follow this blog, I've officially moved the content over to www.sarahbollinger.net. The new site now hosts all of the current blog posts on this site, and will also host all future posts moving forward. As I transition to my new position as the Director of the Social Work Program/Assistant Professor at Trevecca University and leave the Mozambique Initiative, I'm upgrading my website! You can subscribe to my new blog by clicking here.

Learn more about this transition on my latest blog post called Harrowing.

Thanks so much for following!

The Margins

On Saturday I woke at 6am, wedged myself into a packed 4-wheel drive vehicle, and proceeded to travel to a village called Cuamba located in the Niassa District of Mozambique. Cuamba is accessible via passages that I can only vaguely compare to "roads". A distance that might have taken us 4 hours in the USA took literally 10 hours on these muddy, safari paths. The rain continued to pour as we forged rivers and slid through mud for the entire day with the goal of reaching this village by nightfall. There was only one time that we had to be pulled from the mud with a chain and a good-Samaritan-like passing tractor, and I consider us extremely lucky. 

Casting Visions, Lighting Fires

I'm bad at details. I hate the excel sheets, the line items, the itty bitty teeny weeny to dos, the nuts, the bolts...the details. I can do this stuff if I have to, and I often do, but I loathe this type of work and I quickly get bored. Now, I have tremendous respect for folks who are gifted in this area and I could not function without these people in my life, but I'm just not that person.

Despite these flaws, as it turns out, I do have a few strengths. And one such strength lies in being a big picture person. I am a dreamer of dreams and I can almost literally see them coming to life in my mind's eye. I see visions, and I know how to talk about them in such a way as to get people excited and interested, passionate and engaged. I'm a hopeless optimist and an endless believer in the human capacity for love, change, and growth. How I actually take the tiny steps to live out these awesome visions that I cast is often inconsequential to me in the moment, but I believe in them so much that it almost doesn't matter. Silly, I know, but true.

5 American Habits I've Changed Since Working in Mozambique

I've been in my position as the Associate Director of the Mozambique Initiative for just over three years now, and I can't even begin to describe all of the ways that my experiences in Mozambique have changed my life. As I contemplate the new year ahead and attempt to incorporate the lessons I've learned during this time, here are 5 key habits that are significantly changing in my life since taking this job:

1. Obsessing About Time: Am I going to be on time? How long will this last? When can I move on to the next thing? Is there time to do this if I do that first? Are we running over time? Being so time conscious is a luxury; it's a luxury to have reliable vehicles, and gas stations on every corner...not to mention watches. My desire to control time is fostered by these luxuries that allow it. And with all of these luxuries, I gradually started convincing myself that it was through my fingers that the sands of time fell. Not that we should be flippant about getting to work or school or important meetings, but how we orient ourselves around a clock is purely an expression of American excess and our desire for control. The sting comes when I realize the implications of this habit - that I move on to the next thing in my head and in my heart before even taking in where it is that I am standing, or who it is that I am standing with. Mentally, spiritually, emotionally, we are gone before we even arrive. What are the long term ramifications of this on our psyches? On our spiritual lives? Life is short. All we have is this moment. Mozambicans realize this in a  way that is humbling, sobering even. I'm reminded again and again to just. be. here. now. The next thing will inevitably come. No need to rush.

The Longest Night

Today is the winter solstice, the darkest 24-hour period of the year, where night settles in, hunkers down, and exerts it's stubborn refusal to be shooed away. It is dark. And our immediate reaction is to turn on all of the lights and hide from all that scares us out there in the long and terrifying night.

This has been a year of extreme darkness in many respects for me personally. Great loss compounded upon great loss resulted in heart-heavy weeping in the middle of long and fearful nights. I have longed for the light of day this year, but the nights only became longer as the year stretched on. I ached for that sunny, solar religion where everything would be just fine if I only prayed enough, if I just said the right penance and attended enough feel-good, Sunday worship services. "There's always a silver lining," or "keep you chin up" were the cliched phrases of well-intentioned parishioners. But grief is not like that. Things aren't always just fine in the end. It was only dark, and the grotesquely bright sunshine of the Sunday, solar experience made my grief feel like a circus and sucked the legitimacy out of my pain.

Showers are Overrated

Friday! It's almost Friday, ya'all!! Eeek! This Friday I'll pick up my hiker's backpack, into which I've packed my little life, tent and all, and head back to Mozambique for some serious camping adventures. Yeah, that's right...CAMPING. IN MOZAMBIQUE. OMG. What's the purpose of this craziness, you ask? Manchester UMC, in it's total awesomeness, funded a primary school in the middle of the bush at their partner church, Mabumbuza UMC. The building was recently completed and we are going to both dedicate the building and engage in conversations with the Bishop of Mozambique, the leaders of the Mabumbuza community, and government officials about the next steps in increasing access to primary education in the country. Because of the great travel required to Mabumbuza, camping is sort of our only option in achieving our goal of spending significant time with the community...showers are overrated anyway, right?

Life Abundant

"Don't ask yourself what the world needs. Ask yourself what makes you come alive and then go do that. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive”.  
-Rev. Howard Thurman

I talk a lot about how hard I work and how this job is a lot to keep on top of and how I'm exhausted a lot of the time with all the travel...and all of this is true. But when it gets down to brass tacks, mostly, I do this job because it's SO MUCH FUN!! Like, I really super-duper love it. And it makes me so very happy. It's where I shine.

I've been doing a little personality exploring and took this awesome, super quick Meyers-Briggs-ish test. I landed with the following results: ENFP. Nailed it. This description completely nails it. They sort of sum this personality type up with this oh-so-true statement, "ENFPs are fiercely independent, and much more than stability and security, they crave creativity and freedom," which could not be a more accurate description of me. I also found this little gem describing the 25 Struggles Only ENFPs Will Understand. Brilliant!

A Year of Yoga (Recovering from Post-traumatic Church Disorder)

As I walked into Urban Breath Yoga Studio last week, like I do roughly 3-5 times per week now, I realized that this month marks my one year yogiversary.

Last year at this time I randomly stumbled into this yoga studio searching for a little peace of mind and some exercise just in time for the beginning of what they called the "Omtober Challenge". I was intrigued. If you signed up (30 days for $30 as a new student), you got unlimited yoga classes for the month, and if you managed to complete 30 classes during the month of October, you had the opportunity to win a drawing for a free yoga membership. I thought to myself, "what the hell", and signed up without much thought.

And I went to yoga class that day. And then I went the next day, and the next day after that, and although I didn't quite make the 30 day challenge, I came close.
And so I signed up for an ongoing membership and have been going regularly ever since.

What was it about yoga that hooked me?

When Singing is not Necessarily Prescribed

“I believe in kindness. Also in mischief. Also in singing, especially when singing is not necessarily prescribed.”   ― Mary Oliver

Why This Stuff Works

I believe in the work of the Mozambique Initiative with all my heart. Not just because it's my job and I'm paid to say that. And not because, in theory, it sounds like a great idea to help people who are poor in the remotest parts of Sub-Saharan Africa (although it does) ...but because what we do WORKS. What we do is actually impacting lives and changing communities. And not just in a temporary, band-aid-on-a-gaping-wound kind of way, but like, really, truly, helping communities to become healthy and self-sustaining. You see, our ministry is HOLISTIC and LONGITUDINAL. It looks not just at the individual, but at the health of the entire community. And instead of expecting a one-time gift before getting the hell outta dodge so that God doesn't acidentally call us to Africa or something crazy like that ...we actually expect engagement in partnership with our brothers and sisters in committed, long-term relationships. And it turns out that long-term, holistic investment in people and their communities actually changes stuff!! Here's is a perfect example of why it works and what I'm talking about from my last trip:

Surrendering to the Great Abyss (by Adam Miller)

I saw a video a month or so ago showcasing one of my favorite filmmakers, Salomon Ligthelm. In this beautifully-shot short narrative, Salomon talks about his experience as a filmmaker in the secular world, and how the talents he's been given is not for himself, but for others. The point of creating, building, making, is not for the artist, but to serve everyone else. That is something I must continually remember when shooting, editing, directing, etc. Any gifts God has given me is not for myself, but for other people. It is a surrendering of those gifts. Salomon would ask it, "Have you surrendered yourself to the Great Abyss?"

Create

"In the beginning, God created..."
The opening line of that well known and little understood book...drum roll please...the Bible. I think this text often gets lost in the whats and whos and whys and hows, "...the heavens and the earth," or "...Adam and Eve," or "...that gosh darn, pesky apple," etc. and I think we often lose the impact of that first line: In the beginning, God CREATED. The action. God created.

cre·ate \krē-ˈāt, ˈkrē-ˌ\ : to make or produce (something) : to cause (something new) to exist :  to produce (something new, such as a work of art) by using your talents and imagination    

God created. Creating. To create. In the beginning, that's kinda what God was up to, and it's kinda what God keeps being up to in our lives. Imagining, plotting, dreaming, producing, making something from nothing. Creating.

A Trio of Heartbreakers

If you've been following the Mozambique Initiative's goings ons in the last month, you've probably heard about this jazz trio that was here visiting all the way from Mozambique, bumping around the state in a church-van-turned-tour-bus. For three weeks my mission was to cart around three amazing musicians and one full-time representative while not losing any of them or accidentally driving off of a cliff. Mission accomplished! My job duties ranged from band manager to bus driver to translator to lead singer depending on the circumstances. Easy, right?

What if?

What if we've got this all wrong?
What if it's about becoming small instead of becoming big?
What if we actually need less rather than more?
What if the least is really the greatest?
What if success is measured by stepping down the ladder rather than climbing up it?
What if we became acquainted with the poor rather than with campaigns with pretty pictures of the poor?
What if we spent time with our neighbor rather than theologized about our neighbor?
What if we lived where we could make a difference rather than where we felt the most comfortable?
What if we chose to be participants rather than consumers?
What if the one guy in the front who talks the most really doesn't have the answers?
What if the one talking doesn't have to be a guy at all?
What if the last one was first?
What if we have big questions and live them out loud?
What if we've been lulled to sleep by the drone of mediocrity?
What if we wake up?
What if we wake up?
What if we wake up?

Education Station

I'm a huge fan of education.  Like in a big way. Clearly, I would never have endured the lunacy of getting a doctoral degree if I didn't feel a deep commitment to the educational process for better or worse...and it IS sheer madness to even wade into these dark and dreadful academic waters (anyone who tells you differently is trying to get you to apply to their doctoral program). My love of education is not about the degrees that ensue or the letters I find strung behind my name like some unintelligible caboose at the end of a train.

Because it's Funny

I posted something snarky on Facebook the other day after receiving this nasty and biting email (names and identifiers have been changed):

Sarah,

How many times does it take to get you to change my e-address from this one to iamajerk@gmail.com???? Maybe "third times a charm."

Curmudgeon

<><

The Light of the World

I spent an hour on the phone yesterday with a foul-mouthed, rockabilly, former-comedian-turned-pastor who does church by feeding homeless people in a park and having drinks with the local riffraff in neighborhood bars. I was at the end of my rope with many things about how people do "church" and "christianity" and needed an infusion of reality. Ask and ye shall receive.

We talked about how sermons suck and how neither of us could give one hot damn about what some white, middle-class dude says from a shiny pulpit. We talked about how we don't want to hear about Three Steps to Finding Your True Self, or Why Jesus Wants You to Have a BMW, or How To Feel Comfortable in Suburbia. It's empty. And our generation knows this in its core, but it seems that our lethargy and desire for comfort get the best of us.

You see, everyday I work with people who are literally, LITERALLY fighting for their lives because they lack safe water and food. Because their government is corrupt and 13 year old children carry around guns. Because they are ridden with malaria and typhoid and hepatitis and HIV/AIDS and there is no medical care. My job centers on not only helping to provide water and food and safety and medical care, but also asking WHY these people don't have water and food and safety and medical care, and working to change this system. One step at a time. My sincere hope (and ALL of my eggs are in this freakin' basket) is that our FAITH tells us something about how to do this. That the Spirit is the catalyst to changing our world. That somehow, light will shine in the darkness, and darkness will not overcome it. I need a faith that speaks to these realities. I need it. I'm desperate for it.


What I want to see from our "churches" is how faith compels us to live differently. I want strategies for loving radically and living out loud. I want people to learn not just how to give their money, but their lives, and their hearts, and their time, and their energy. This world is dark, where is the light? How, in God's great name, do we shine??  What does this man called Jesus, who hung out with sinners and drunkards and prostitutes and people who are poor have to say about all of this?? My hunch is that I'm more likely to find answers to these questions while talking with a foul-mouthed pastor who hangs out in bars than in a pew in suburbia-land.

Between F-bombs and crass jokes, my rockabilly pastor-turned-dear-friend seemed to be on to something. Maybe it's not about a new flat screen TV, and light shows, and great sound boards, and perfect sermons. Maybe it's more about simply hanging out with people who are lonely and poor. Maybe it's about being church, as opposed to going to church. Maybe it's about living church, as opposed to attending church.

When Wrinkles are Roads

Here's a selfie taken just one day ago.  I snapped this pic in the midst of a mini crisis that I was having as I observed in the mirror the newly developing crows feet around my eyes as I prepared to go out for the evening.  One more year passing.  A few more wrinkles.  Sigh.  But in this moment, I opted not to let vanity get the best of me, but to turn it around...I realized in this moment (captured here by my iPhone) that the lines forming, ever so faintly, at the corners of my eyes and around the edges of my mouth are facial records of all of those unforgettable experiences that have found themselves lining up to be counted on my skin.  The deep belly laughs that have danced their way across my face over the years.  The countless times I've furrowed my brow to think deeply about an issue that I needed to wrap my mind around in new ways, the kisses of the sun on those warm and rare days when this landlocked, Midwestern girl gets lucky enough to be caught up in the beauty of a sandy beach.  These lines are my personal road map available for all to see.  These are the visible impact of the roads I've traveled.

And this year of journeying was no exception.  2013 brought with it a number of significant wrinkles that I have incurred through what can only be counted as an extremely strenuous but memorable year.  And so if we cross paths this year and you notice my newly acquired wrinkles, here is a little legend, a legend to the map of where I've come from this year, and where I am headed.


The Furrowed Brow:
This year, I kicked my dissertation's ass and came to the end of five long years of a doctoral program, which I am still seeking to understand.  Ultimately, I am grateful for the experience, I learned a lot, including the fact that I would like to stay as far away from the academic ivory tower as humanly possible.  I fought, tooth and nail, to survive the beatings I received by power and ego, and I struggled with everything in me to rise above the system of control.  Not because the work was difficult per se, although indeed it was a challenge, but the shock of how power is abused for personal gain left my soul reeling a bit.  I was scarred by what I can only call abuse upon reflection, and I lost a piece of myself back there.  But I also gained resolve that they cannot take away from me.  I learned about priorities.  I learned about right.  And I learned about wrong.  I learned that I like getting my hands dirty more than I like thinking about getting my hands dirty.  I learned that God is among the poor more than among the powerful.  I learned that every valley will be lifted up, and every mountain and hill will be made low.  I learned that the length of your CV does not matter, but in fact, the last shall be first, and the first shall be last.  And I survived.  And I am thankful.  And I know what is important, and what is not important but guises as such.


The Passion Pleats:
This year, with the help of my amazing producer, Tony Esterly, I recorded, mixed, mastered, and sent to press my very first solo album.  I poured my heart and soul into this project over the course of months and months and months.  This project was my creative energy, my outlet, my first masterpiece, and this year was made epic by the completion of this work.  The time and effort that I invested into this was huge, and the feeling of living into an artistic calling caused elation that I cannot even describe.  I have always know that music is ingrained in who I am called to be in the world, but I found a new part of this voice for the very first time through this album.  I came to know myself in new ways.  I was also lucky enough to have the album discovered by a small label out of Tokyo and the album, Both/And, was distributed across Japan.  This led to a music video and all kinds of fun adventures that involved toting a piano around the city of St. Louis. I'm not sure what else to say about this process other than it was worth every line of passion that it etched across my face.  This was an experience that I will never forget and only the beginning of the exploration of this piece of my heart.

The Sun Spots and Laugh Lines:

There are lots and lots and lots of these, but most of them this year come from my journey around the world this summer, where I spent time on the beaches of Pemba, Mozambique, the cobblestone streets of Seville, Spain, and the warm patios of Faro, Portugal.  And I was blessed to travel alongside some of the most amazing people in the world.  I had the amazing privilege of traveling for 40 days and 40 nights, and I reconnected with parts of me that had been lost.  I grinned from ear to ear as I realized that I have the best, most meaningful job in the entire world, I laughed deep belly laughs as I reconnected with my best friend from New York in a beautiful Spanish city, and I felt the elation of making music with new, lifelong soul mates.

And so as I watch another year fly past me and I think about the impact of these years on my body, I choose to not look down upon the wrinkles with vain judgement, but to thank God for each one.  To attribute each new line to a path that I have traversed, to trails that I have had the privilege of blazing.  The wrinkles are roads, and I am the humble traveler with a map.

Chicken Bones and Sea Urchins

On this cold and snowy day, my mind wanders back to a warm, beach afternoon in Mozambique, where I sat content, eating a home-cooked, picnic lunch of chicken and rice and drinking 3/4 of a Coke before becoming too full to finish.  Only minutes after tossing my trash, I saw this little boy rooting through the garbage to salvage and eat the meat left on my chicken bones, and drink the swallow of cola that I had neglected to finish.  We locked eyes and we both felt embarrassed for being found out by one another.  Me being caught in my gluttony and waste, he being seen in his hunger and poverty.  I immediately felt like a selfish asshole for leaving this little boy to wallow in my waste as opposed to seeing him, being aware of his need, and being willing to share.

But more than this, what killed me, what absolutely slayed me dead, was that after "stealing" my garbage and being discovered, the little boy immediately felt the need to return the favor and repay his "debt".  He took off down the beach on a short jaunt, only to return with a small gift presented to me in exchange for what I had considered my garbage.  He extended his hand and bowed his head in a humble offering, the deep violet spines of a sea urchin in the palm of his hand, as a small token of his appreciation.  Glancing up, we grinned at each other, laughed a little, and shook our heads in recognition of how life is brutally unfair but unexpectedly beautiful, and how we can be gifts to one another if only we open our eyes and make ourselves available.  The spines of the sea urchin were a representation of his gratitude-laden heart, my chicken bones a symbol of indifferent excess.  His was, without question, the greater gift.  The two of us gestured and nodded our agreement to walk down the beach a bit together, him showing me all of the unseen beauties lying beneath the sand and hidden just under the rocks, gifts waiting to be given, reflections of his huge heart waiting to be revealed to others.

This Christmas, as I ponder the idea of giving, I am convinced that the gifts that really matter aren't those found in a mall or on a shelf.  They aren't things that can be bought or sold.  I want to give gifts like this little boy gave to me, wide-eyed, in gratitude, and in recognition of the beauty that is hiding just below the surface, peeping out between the nooks and crannies of God's great big world.  I want to stop giving the "chicken bones" of excess sold on commercial shelves that cost me nothing and are given as a last thought, but instead, give genuine reflections of my heart that portray openness and gratitude.  I learned what it is to give from this little hungry boy on a beach, and I will never give the same again.

40 Days, 40 Nights

"Earth's crammed with heaven, and every common bush afire with God: But only he who sees takes off his shoes..."        
-Elizabeth Barrett Browning


I've recently returned from a 40 day journey around the world.  A journey about intentionally taking time to stop, breathe, and reconnect with my heart.
I had intended to write a lot, everyday in fact, but I found myself so caught up in unwinding the cobwebs in my head that I was rendered almost completely unable to put words to the experience, which is not like me.  And I apologize to all those who were hoping to follow my blog during these travels.  #fail.  From meeting Mozambican mamas to taking long Spanish siestas to playing music on patios in Portugal, I was unable to write or say much of consequence in response to these experiences other than the occasional quiet mumbling of gratitude-laden mantras under my breath...simply thank you, thank you, thank you....

This year has indeed been an epic one.  I was looking back through my earlier blog posts and saw the January post entitled A Year to Harvest, which detailed all that was to be finished, completed, tied up this year.  After successfully defending my dissertation at the end of June, sending my debut album off to press in July, and completing the second of two epic trips to Mozambique in August, I can say with confidence that the harvesting happened.  And I was left standing speechless and in awe of the beauty that permeates my life.  At the dreams realized.  At love, and how it sparks, catches, and sets the world ablaze at every turn...and it's really an issue of opening our eyes to see the fire, and taking off our shoes in humble awe.

This was a summer of taking off my shoes.  You see, I'm a doer.  I get it done.  I accomplish.  I reach goals.  If it's hard, or if someone says that I can't, I'm all the more likely to try.  So when I couldn't write, at first I felt as if I was failing.  This was amplified by the fact that I had no deadlines to meet or goals to achieve for nearly six weeks.  It felt like detox in some ways and I wasn't quite sure how to handle myself.

But a wise guru reminded me that we are human BEINGS.  Not human DOINGS.  In the words of the brilliant (and somewhat hippie-ish) Franciscan Father, Richard Rohr:

"God is always choosing people.  First impressions aside, God is not primarily choosing them for a role or a task, although it might appear that way.  God is really choosing them to be God's self in this world, each in a unique situation.  If they allow themselves to experience being chosen, being a beloved, being somehow God's presence in the world, they invariably communicate that same chosenness to others."  

For 40 days and 40 nights, I practiced being.  Just being.  And to my astonishment, I met lots of other people who were just being and who wanted to just be, with me.  Just being jazz musicians in Portugal, just being soul mates in Spain, just being my extended family in Mozambique.  And of all of the beauty - the beaches in Pemba, the winding cobblestone streets in Seville, the picturesque patios full of jazz music in Faro - the most overwhelming beauty was seen in the eyes of those with whom I was able to journey.  It was the people who stole my heart.  The biggest blessing came in the people who were willing to tolerate my wanderings and muddle through my musings.  To just be.  And to just be together.  It was miraculous.  It was transformative.  It was gratitude inducing.  And I seem to have lost my shoes.