just some feelings :)

doing things beautifully

ihsan  احسان it is called in Islamic theology. It is the action of living ones faith, harmonizing the heart with the ones deeds. It is the struggle to do all things in sincere beauty. 

I wonder what that means to you :)

This photo above from my last epic journey. It was to Nicaragua, in January of 2009, was truly a place of epic splendor. As my trip to Bosnia comes closer, I get all antsy and nervous down in my belly.  I pray I can embark upon my impending journey in a gentle and beautiful way, I don't know even know what that means! When I imagine myself leaving, I am not sure how pretty it will be when i'm balling and crying hysterically at the airport saying goodbye to my loved ones. 

I have been attending Taize services lately at Trinity College Anglican Chapel in Toronto, the silence of the stone church high walls, and the gentle warmth of the candles flickering with ease let me release my anxiety over exams and impending departures....

The sweet songs remind me to struggle to live a life in gratitude, charity and ultimately love.

Ubi Caritas et Amor,

Ubia Caritas, 

Deus ibi est.

Where there is Charity and Love,

God is truly present. 

All beauty, all love is ultimately God's, flowing, spinning through, into...

please let it flourish in me and in you.

poison and nectar

dear reader, I hope you are well!


The heart shaped land that my feet will stand on in t-minus two months, has, like every land... suffered some serious trials. 
I have to do a research paper on Bosnia-Herzegovina for my Intercordia class, and have chosen the heavy topic of the systematic rape of Bosnian Women during the genocide of the early 90's. I was living on a farm, chasing my older siblings and geese and learning my first words, when all this terror was going on across the ocean. Again, I am well fed and generally joyful while so much unspoken or unseen trials go on around me. 

God bless all those Sisters!!! Holy work indeed. <3
In my research I am exploring the notion that the brutal raping of the Women of Bosnia was in some ways a result of Serbian Folklore, that often glorifies Serbian men as superior beings than their neighbors....

what a dangerous thing it is when we try to exalt ourselves as gods above each other...

pride, selfish vanity, please get away from me.

When I am reading and writing on these horrific events of human memory, I often turn to Mother Teresa's writings to help lighten my heart. I love her piercing, sincere simplicity.

"Smile five times a day at someone you don't really want to smile at at all. Do it for peace."


"I still think that the greatest suffering is being lonely, feeling unloved, just having no one. I have come more and more to realize that being unwanted is the worst disease that any human can ever experience."


"God loves the world through you and through me."


"Yesterday is gone. Tomorrow has not yet come. We have only today. Let us begin."

Please give hope in our hearts,

make our smiles infectious,

let our arms be open,

and our embraces ever warm.

Let me see my pride,

Confront me with my selfishness

help me uproot them.

Plant in me seeds of gentleness

generosity

sincerity

honest love.

Please

:)

Thank you so much, all my friends, family and unknown beauties for your support, prayers and generosity. My thanks is with you! You rock. 
Also wanted to express my gratitude for all the outlandishly amazing young Women I am walking the Intercordia journey with! Seriously, you women amaze me. Mad love and respect !!

grace in disgrace

"They say there is a window from one heart to another...
how can there be a window, when no wall remains?"
-Hazrat  Rumi


Today I had a seminar with intercordia. At the session through storytelling we looked at ourselves, with all our faults, but tried to see them as gifts and things to learn from. I had the challenge of telling my 'life story' to my new friends. Reflecting upon my young yet wild life, I can feel overwhelmed by the amount of difficult experiences that are stacked in my personal closet. But I Alhamdulilah! Halelujah! Thanks be to the Good One! I have been able to turn some of the poison in my life to nectar. This dance of transformative perspective, and recognizing the graces in the gifts of my brokenness, is an ever evolving one. Like an Intercordian staff recalled from a Leonard Cohen song, its through the cracks that the light shines in.
Just been thinking about these things...... here is another hit from Rumi on the matter...


"Don't try to put out fire by throwing on more fire!
Don't wash a wound with blood.
No matter how fast you run, your shadow keeps up.
Sometimes it's in front!
Only full overhead sun diminishes it.
But that shadow has been serving you.
What hurts you, blessed you.
Darkness is your candle.
Your boundaries are your quest.
I could explain this, but it will break the glass cover on your heart, and there is no fixing that!
You must have shadow and light source both. 
Listen, and lay your head under the tree of awe.
When from that tree feathers and wings sprout on you, be quieter than a dove.
Don't even open your mouth for even a coo."


-Hazrat Rumi


In this process, I have been so humbled by the immense outpouring of support of me as I fundraise for my placement in Bosnia. I can never thank you enough. All the kind hearts that have generously shared their support with my efforts with Intercordia. Truly, sincerely, humbly.... THANK YOU!!!
Love and respect!
http://www.canadahelps.org/GivingPages/GivingPage.aspx?gpID=10130

In the cracks, the leaking spots of my wee heart,

there is quiet. 

In the loud, voice of assumption,

there is courage.

I am tiered, I am weary. Today was a long day.

But I am full, I am healthy

I am not a work in progress.

I am not a task to be perfected, completed. 

I am here, 

I pray that one day I may arrive.

I pray you are joyful and you may find comfort in the midst of all the tough, rough, and difficult things out there and in here. Love to you and your relations, Leigh

"be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle"
- Plato

takes a community...

Thank You

Thank you sincerely and kindly to everyone who has supported me in my fundraising! With your help we have fundraised 1000 dollars! It is only through your generosity that this opportunity is possible for me, I cannot thank you enough for your support. I hope that there is warmth of heart for you this winter and that you and all your relations are thriving and joyful. 

Happy Holidays!

to continue to support Interfaith work in Bosnia-Herzegovina through Intercordia please visit http://www.canadahelps.org/GivingPages/GivingPage.aspx?gpID=10130

Generous Creator,

Thank You for Your tender, ever present support.

You give ceaselessly form Your ever flowing wellspring of kindness,

Please live in us and help us to give and live a life of compassionate mercy.

BOSNIA-HERZEGOVINA !!

As God Wills, Intercordia has kindly chosen Bosnia-Herzegovina as the placement for me this summer.
I am ecstatic, nervous, excited and humbly astounded by this opportunity. Thank you thank you thank you to all who are making this possible.
As my thirst and yearning to grow closer to my Creator and find a vocation, I feel a tremendous mix of emotions, facing this experience. I now am beginning to try to build a solid ground under me... so that when I leave my friends, loves ones and communities behind, and enter a new culture, language, cuisine, climate and community... I do not go mad, entirely.


I have been thirsting for an opportunity to learn more about how best I am able to serve others... I pray this experience helps me...
This is from the message I have sent out to some friends and family...

Though it has been fifteen years since the devastating war, many communities in Bosnia-Herzegovina live as though there is an invisible line running through their villages. On one side, live the Christians and on the other side the Muslims.

Several centers have been established in the heart of these villages, to facilitate community programs where Muslim and Christian Youth can come together to learn, grow, share and heal through art and other means of self expression. The Intercordia program is not sending people like myself into these situations to bring our western ideals and romantic dreams of reforming communities. 

Instead, Intercordia challenges us to just go beyond our selves and witness the diversity of human experience. To learn to serve, and serve to learn.I am trying to fundraise money for the experience and to bring over art and theatre supplies, jump ropes and soccer balls for the Youth of Bosnia-Herzegovina.


Want to Help? If you could kindly support me in doing this, please visit my online page where donations are accepted. http://www.canadahelps.org/GivingPages/GivingPage.aspx?gpID=10130

I also ask if you could please add all victims of genocide, religious persecution and ignorance, the Youth of Bosnia-Herzegovina and myself and fellow students at Intercordia, to your prayers.

As I will close each message with a prayer, here is my favorite hymn about God calling us to follow Her and serve creation in any way we possibly can :)

Love love love

Will you come and follow me if I but call your name?

Will you go where you don't know and never be the same?

Will you let my love be shown? Will you let my name be known,

will you let my life be grown in you and you in me?

Will you leave yourself behind if I but call your name?

Will you care for cruel and kind and never be the same?

Will you risk the hostile stare should your life attract or scare?

Will you let me answer prayer in you and you in me?

 Will you let the blinded see if I but call your name?

Will you set the prisoners free and never be the same?

Will you kiss the leper clean and do such as this unseen,

and admit to what I mean in you and you in me?

 Will you love the "you" you hide if I but call your name?

Will you quell the fear inside and never be the same?

Will you use the faith you've found to reshape the world around,

through my sight and touch and sound in you and you in me?

Lord your summons echoes true when you but call my name.

Let me turn and follow you and never be the same.

In Your company I'll go where Your love and footsteps show.

Thus I'll move and live and grow in you and you in me.

Text: John L. Bell b.1949; Graham Maule.

© 1987, Wild Goose Resource Group, Iona Community, GIA Publications, Inc.

Tune: Scottish traditional, Kelvingrove. Arranged by John L. Bell.

being with

A storyteller of sorts once said,

have you ever seen young, real young ones interacting together?

If one of them gets agitated, and leaps into wails, the other wee ones join together, weeping. They feel each other, in a real, indescribable way- so it seems... to an adult who can say that she has laughed when seeing a peer run into a doorway, or a group of nuns slip on ice...
As we grow older in the world, we begin to learn detachment and emotional alienation for what one another are feeling. This continues to the point when we can actually feel pleasure or satisfaction from someone else's pain or discomfort. How hard has my heart become?

This is generally where I am at. Young woman, trying to- most days I feel like I am wanting to want to try to unfetter and untether my heart.
"I thirst, I thirst..."

I find out on friday where Intercordia is sending me. Intercordia, the program created by the amazing Jean Vanier, whose mission statement is to "see the world with the eyes of your heart".
They are sending myself, and nine other University of Toronto students on our own, all over the globe to be temporarily stripped of our family, culture, language, comforts ect. for three months. Incredible thanks and gratitude to all the family, friends, loved ones, the Only, Saint Michael's College and Intercordia for this great opportunity.

"Intercordia Canada is a non-profit organization that partners with Canadian universities in order to offer students a unique, university accredited, engaged-learning experience. The goal of this innovative learning program is to encourage moral responsiveness, develop respect for diversity and a valuing of other cultures, religions and socio-economic backgrounds that will enable Canadian students to attain a well-educated solidarity with others who are different." via http://www.intercordiacanada.org/index.php/about/


I have been reflecting on Mother Teresa and her writings 


“No matter what you have done, I (our Sweet Creator) love you for your own sake. Come to me with your misery and your sins, with your trouble and needs, and with all your longing to be loved. I stand at the door of your heart and knock. Open to me, for I thirst for you.” brackets my addition, I found at http://cassylee.wordpress.com/2009/04/03/i-thirst-for-you-by-mother-teresa/

Subtle Sweetness, Tender Relief

please, please

come with Your Ease...

come soften what was hardened.