New Year's Revelations...

Dear Friends,

Feliz Año Nuevos. I know it’s been a long time since I’ve communicated, especially since my blog entered a dormant phase after I left Mexico in March 2011. The past year has been a time of endings. My mom--the amazing, valiant Carmen--died at 92. Some forever friendships and family connections dissolved. A job offer required me to trade my beloved southwest vistas for the hazy, conservative Midwest—a place I thought I’d never return after moving to Colorado in 1986. It’s tempting to focus only on the losses. But as I said to a colleague who was recently forced out of a job he’d held for a long time, but had outgrown-- the new thing can’t begin until the old thing comes to an end.

There’s no getting around the grieving process. But with my new job at Joyce Meyer Ministries, I’ve been challenged to change my natural tendency to view life through a lens of melancholy (hmm…wouldn’t that be a lovely name for a girl? Melancholia Rand…) to something a bit more optimistic. More than once the Universe (i.e., God) has spoken to me: it’s time to shake the dust off your feet and look forward for a change. Imagine new possibilities: New friends. New paradigms. Even new family. Be grateful for what you have, not what’s still missing. 

I have a job as a writer (with benefits!) at a time when traditional editorial jobs are going the way of the golden toad and the dodo bird. And after nearly four years with no permanent address, I’m finally settled in a charming apartment in a lovely old St. Louis neighborhood across from a big park where Bo and Rocky can roam off the leash. I have enough income to indulge my passion for thrift stores, and take the occasional trip to New Mexico to see my buddies. Oh, and here’s my nyaa-nyaa for those trapped in gloomier climes: I just came back from 10 days in Puerto Vallarta where I stayed with my friend Gloria at her historic posada, Los Cuatro Vientos. After nearly two years away, it was a sentimental journey filled with happy reunions and swims in the healing ocean.

My job entails writing curriculum for Joyce Meyer’s “action plans,” as well as magazine features, marketing copy and other projects. This year I’ve written journaling workbooks based on her books and teachings, including Power Thoughts, Fruit of the Spirit and Battlefield of the Mind. Working at a place where most of my colleagues are half my age, I’ve been forced to stay current with new technologies—although my favorite game on my Kindle is grandmotherly Mahjongg, not “Angry Birds.”

What have I learned in the past year? That what you want is not necessarily what you need. That God provides—usually at the 11th hour. That our “families” are not always related to us by blood. That it’s healthiest to pursue relationships with people who believe the best about one another. That sometimes you have to make peace with things being unresolved. And that it takes a lot less emotional energy to forgive someone than to hold a grudge.   

I’ve discovered that for at least this present season, I need routine and stability—not another “adventure.” I’m particularly grateful that my sister Dodi and I have grown closer after being virtual strangers for decades. We talk regularly on the phone—getting to know one another and working through our respective issues with candor, respect and trust. 

It’s been a year of solitude (what my friend Kathy Parham calls “sacred loneliness”), and many times I’ve felt like a fish out of water in the city where I was born and spent the first 10 years of my life. I wouldn’t have chosen St. Louis as a place to live. But here is where the door opened. I’m trusting God that there’s a lesson I’m supposed to learn from this. More will be revealed.

Blessings to you. May all your life transitions be smooth ones…life is so much easier when you just go with it. Have a great 2013. 

Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past. See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland. (Isaiah 43:18-19 NIV)

Love, bird

   

Israel's Prayers

When I first married Stephen, I used to ask him to pray for us. Looking back, I see now how uncomfortable that was for him. Although he claimed to be a Christian and postured in our church, he was as disconnected from God as he was from himself and me. His prayers came out sounding speechy, formal and pompous. They offered me no comfort, and they probably offered him no comfort either, other than the hollow pleasure of hearing himself orate.

Israel, on the other hand, prays as naturally as he breathes. His prayers pour out of him like music, or water tumbling over smooth stones, in Spanish. He tells me, “Okay, now I gonna’ pray for us.” And he begins, “Señor...gracias,Señor... ” and even though my Español is hardly fluent, I understand every word, or nearly every word. I feel like when he opens his mouth to pray, he is plugged into God with a heavy duty, three-prong power cord, and the energy is both pouring out of him and into him, humming and filling us both with peace.

Last night, Israel said, “God used to tell me the future. But I used drugs and fawk too many women, so He take the gift from me.” Israel makes these kinds of pronouncements all the time in between his straight-faced, but hysterical takes on Mexican culture, such as, “I am not like Mexican men. I am Dominican. I am clean. Mexican men, they smell like a mohng-key.”

As much of an outlaw as Israel can be at times, I believe he and God are on the same wavelength. And that’s what I love about God. He uses the unexpected people - the naifs, the outsiders, the unpracticed, the uncredentialed – to be His conduit and His Voice. Israel prays without pretense or consciousness of himself, and I believe him when he says the Lord is going to deliver us.

Dog Poisoning on Los Muertos Beach

The following is a news story I penned for the local "gringo" news outlets after my neighbor lost her dog to poisoning. It's likely that the story wasn't printed for fear of reprisals from local Mexican businesses -- so I'm posting it here.

Jodie Singerman, 80, a longtime resident of Puerto Vallarta, adored her dog “Puppy,” a handsome, gentle mixed-breed hound she had rescued five years ago. But now Puppy is dead, a victim of poisoned meat he snapped up on Los Muertos Beach. Jodie is inconsolable.

On Dec. 15, as she did every day, Jodie loaded Puppy into her small sedan and drove down the hill from her Olas Altas condo to the beach behind the Tropicoco Restaurant. Puppy romped and ran for 20 minutes or so, briefly distracted by something he discovered buried in the sand under the footbridge, before making his way back to the car. He jumped into the back seat as Jodie made a short detour to Reiso’s Market to pick up some fresh dog bones. When she returned to the car, Puppy was already unconscious and convulsing on the floor of the back seat. By the time she got home, Puppy was in a full-blown seizure, foam pouring from his mouth. Jodie screamed for help and the neighbors came running. But it was too late. By the time they got to the vet, the dog was dead. It took no more than 20 minutes for the poison to kill him.

Jodie and Puppy were best friends. They shared meals together. They watched TV on the sofa together. At night he snuggled up with her in bed. Puppy was her life. “He was the sweetest dog,” she said through her tears. “He loved my cats. What am I going to do?”

Since Puppy’s death, there have been a rash of dog poisonings on Puerto Vallarta beaches. One early-morning jogger reported having seen three dogs in their death throes on the streets of Olas Altas. If the story is true, city workers likely wasted no time erasing the evidence before residents and tourists woke up to witness the carnage. In the meantime, locals have been warned to keep their animals leashed -- or suffer the consequences.

Stories have long circulated that restaurant and hotel owners have purposely planted poisoned meat just prior to the high season in an effort to rid the beaches of animal traffic and the feces they leave behind. At least one hotel has admitted to planting poisoned meat supposedly to curb the "rat" population. It's a convenient explanation for the practice -- after all, nobody like rats. But has anyone else noticed that the street dog population in the Romantic Zone in almost nil?

Proving intentions is difficult. But poisoned meat. Dead dogs. Those are the facts. Whether it's city policy, a business owner or just some sick individual who hates dogs, dog owners of Vallarta beware. Death is buried in the sand.