FULL-SPECTRUM COLOR

Today, August 16, 2017, is the one-year anniversary of my father’s death. I remember this day one year ago, each hour of it, with painful clarity. I was nearly 3,000 miles away in my home in Oakland, California as my father was passing from life to death in a hospital room in Annapolis, Maryland, too far a distance for me to arrive in time for his final hour to say goodbye. But we had said our goodbyes just weeks before and many times before that. And so I awaited word from my siblings until that final hour came. When he breathed his last, I felt the pain of his long illness lift away, just the way the summer fog lifted that morning, the sun stretching its arms through grey puffs of clouds. Away he drifted, taking with him a lifetime of love and labor, memories and moments that would never become again.

Today is our last full day in Mexico. My husband and I have spent nearly two weeks traveling throughout this vibrant country — from Mexico City to Oaxaca to Cancun and Tulum — doing our best to take in the sights, sounds, and smells of Mexico with very little Spanish on our tongues. And it has been a powerful lesson in the goodness of humanity, particularly the warmth and kindness of the Mexican people, but also the incredible complexity of human communication. As my ode to Mexico, and in keeping with the theme of this blog, I thought I would pay homage to our adventure with a few colorful reflections.

There is a certain irony to spending a brilliantly warm and sun-filled Saturday in late April attending a convening on the Science of Burnout. But there I was, feeling a bit burned out myself from a week of travels and deadlines and a never-ending list of to-dos, sitting in a grand auditorium beneath the grand chandeliers of the International House at the University of California, Berkeley, ready to absorb the day’s insights. And I wasn’t disappointed.

For many Christians around the globe, today is celebrated as Good Friday, a holy day of prayer and reflection, a day of remembering the crucifixion and death of Jesus. This particular Good Friday, April 14, 2017, America dropped a bomb on Afghanistan for no apparent reason. Bombs in exchange for gassing. Bombs to send a message. I cannot help but see a sad and somber parallel here. It is my hope, in this our age’s most uncertain hour, that we find a way to be a bridge for each other over the troubled waters of our time.