The word “connections” was calling to me this past week. So I Googled the definition and this is what I found according to Vocabulary.com. It includes:

1. (noun) a relation between things or events (as in the case of one causing the other or sharing features with it.)
2. (noun) the process of bringing ideas or events together.
3. (noun) the act of bringing two things into contact.
4. (noun) an instrumentality that connects.
5. (noun) shifting from one form of transportation to another.
6. (noun) (usually plural) a person who is influential and to whom you are connected in some way (as by family or friendship) “Connection.” Vocabulary.com Dictionary, Vocabulary.com, https://www.vocabulary.com/dictionary/connection. Accessed 15 Feb. 2024.

This past month here in the Dominican Republic(DR) has been filled with examples of our need for one of the above definitions. We needed one right after another. From the search for an important doctor’s referral, to needing consistent internet in order to lead virtual training, to coordinating logistics to participate and celebrate a dear friend’s doctoral success, to searching for our lost cat, Lulu just yesterday. Yes, one challenge right after another.

The word “connections” was brought to my attention when I saw this mess of an electricity pole in the capital city of Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic on this past Sunday. This pole sits right outside of the hotel we stayed at, on a barely-one-way-street, in the old Colonial Zone. Compared to all the lovely sights in this beautiful part of that huge city, “What an eye-sore” was my first thought .

For some reason, I felt compelled to take a photo of the jumbled dozens of lines all converging on this one poor overloaded pole. I wondered and yeah, I even prayed about the word “connections” and why I felt compelled to capture this image. Something about it begged to be contemplated. It didn’t take long to start to make my own mental and spiritual “connections” to this ugly pole. It was less than 24 hours later that we received a distressing message that brought out in me all kinds of questions, anger, disappointment and eventually a bit of personal conviction about the significance of “connections”.

Here are some of my revelations. Just before we left to spend five months here in Buena Vista in the north central mountains of the Dominican Republic (DR), I was diagnosed at Mayo Clinic with an autoimmune condition called Morphea Scleroderma. It is the over production of collagen that causes the inflammation and hardening of the body’s interconnectivle tissues. Untreated, it can cause disfiguration and limitation of joint movement and if it become systemic, can affect the lungs, heart, kidneys, etc. Because my localized version is treated with steroids and immunotherapy medication, it requires frequent follow-up with bloodwork (to make sure the meds aren’t damaging the very organs they are trying to protect) and adjustments managed by visits with either a dermatologist, oncologist or internist. Thank God it is nothing life-treating at this early stage.

However, since it took me a month with; two urgent care visits, two rounds of antibiotics and steriods, two consults with Mayo’s internal medicine department, two rounds of bloodwork, a set of x-rays, an ultrasound, and finally a consult with a biopsy of my forearm with Mayo’s dermatology department to diagnosis it… I was very skeptical that I would be able to quickly find a physician down here to help me start the recommended immunotherapy routine that I needed. You know that there is always a seed of truth in stereotypes, and in Latin American things are typically known to move at a much slower pace (unless you are talking about how fast they drive) than they do in the US. Not getting started soon on the needed medication was very concerning to me.

But thanks to some of our Young Life International (YL) ministry friends here, Roy and Rebe, we were able to get a “next day” appointment with a very tenured dermatologist at a hospital in Santiago, just an hour away from our home. Thanks to Bruce’s proficiency in Spanish we found Dr. Duran to be knowledgable and her prescribed protocols very similar to my Mayo docotor’s recommendations. She referred us to both an extremely efficient lab, only 15 minutes from our home in Jarabacoa, which provided us same-day digital result reporting, and a pharmacy located just around its corner. So, I started my needed medications the very next very day. What an amazing “connection”!

Following up on the theme of the Latin American stereotype of things being slow, my financial consulting work here the past three weeks has been the beneficiary of good “connections.” This time related to the internet and my ability to work virtually from here in Buena Vista. Thanks to the work of Domingo, the local handyman who knows a lot about a lot of electrical, plumbing, carpentry, and all-things-house-repair related, we had an inverter system installed before we arrived for these five months. Because the power flickers or just goes down here for random reasons, we knew it would be essential for us to have reliable internet in order to work from here. And it works! After running two two-day programs, and Bruce using it constantly for work Zoom calls and “visits” with family and friends, we are confident that it will continue to support our work well. Another thankful “connection.”

Our choice to have a home here in the DR, and to use it as our living/work base for a substantial part of each year, primarily revolved around “connections” and the powerful sense of community that we feel here. If it weren’t for the vitality of the work our YL colleagues are doing here and their warm invitation for us to come, experience it, and become part of it, we would have missed out on seeing how God is changing lives in the DR, including ours. The basis of Young Life’s ministry is one of personal relationships with each other and the focus of helping young people begin and grow their spiritual relationship with God. This mission has been going strong since 1941.

On one of the first years that we were introduced to YL was in Nicaragua where we met a young, 19 year-old ministry volunteer, whose name is Hollman Mendoza. My husband, Bruce, and I have been blessed to be supporters of Hollman’s ministry, to work side-by-side with him across Nicaragua, and be part of his growth from a Club leader to a Regional Director to the first native National Director, to now serving as Vice President over all of Mexico and Central America through Panama. We have had the honor to host Hollman in our home in Florida, for him to meet and become a special friend with both of our children, Will and Kate. Hollman gave Will a flag of Nicaragua that was proudly displayed over Will’s bed while he was in his internal medicine residency down in Miami.

We’ve seen Hollman not only grow professionally but personally, as he is married to a lovely woman and father to two teenage children, all living and serving currently in Costa Rica. It has been a treasured “connection” for our family for many years. But the “connection” has not stopped.

It was about six months ago that Bruce (The Reverend Doctor and ordained Presbyterian pastor) was contacted by Hollman and asked if he would be Hollman’s doctoral advisor for his dissertation. Bruce felt honored to be asked and subsequently worked with Hollman to finalize his research and get it prepared for his in-person defense. To Bruce’s surprise, Hollman notified him just a few weeks ago that, in order for his doctorate to be complete, Bruce would need to be present for the questioning time at his dissertation defense meeting, in Santo Domingo (2.5 hours away). So, after more planning meetings and logistical coordination, we drove to the nation’s capital to be ready for meeting. That is were I saw the pole of “connections” and that is where Hollman successfully defended his work and will officially receive his doctoral degree in ministry at a graduation ceremony in April. We couldn’t be prouder of him and of this special relationship “connection”.

While in Santo Domingo, on the eve of Hollman’s dissertation defense, we received a text from home in Buena Vista from the gal, Dinorah, who was watching our almost 11 year old grand-cat, Lulu for us. Lulu had somehow gotten out and hadn’t come in for dinner. We don’t know how it happened but there were several folks coming and going, working on the house, and by the time we got home she had been gone, with no one spotting her, for 48 hours. We were devastated. The sitter felt awful, particularly after she found a bunch of Lulu’s fur on a neighbor’s back porch, apparently from a cat fight. There are lots of stray cats around, as well as dogs, large birds, and fast moving cars and motor cycles. And Lulu doesn’t have her front claws, so she can’t defend herself very well. Heavens, she is a spoiled suburban house cat, what can you expect? Well, I am ashamed to say, that I didn’t expect much.

I literally screamed some very un-pastor’s-wife-things at God from the backyard… I felt totally defeated and overwhelmed. I guess it because I have lost so many family members (Will, Dad, Mom, Brother-in-law Colin, Aunt Patsy) and friends in the past few years (El’s husband Pete, Victor’s daughter Kate, Lisa’s sister and brother-in-law…) that I didn’t felt I couldn’t handle it. I had just had it.

Yes, I know in my head that God loves me, has the best plans for my life, can accomplish anything that is in His will… and he has blessed me with so many dear ones to love, but the accumulation of all the loss, change, and uncertainty felt crushing. I guess… I guess I felt abandoned.

Now, I know some of you know Lulu and know how “hissy”, “biting” and aloof she can be, so you are likely rolling your eyes at my reaction. I know you can’t empathize with me. But I was a wreck and I am not proud of how I handled myself and my grief.

After I sobbed, hugged the cat sitter, Dinorah (who is, we just found out, married to Domingo the repairman), and her mom, Theresa (who happens to be married to the community’s security guard Jose… now there’s a story of “connections”), I decided I couldn’t just sit at home and do nothing. So, I walked about the neighborhood calling her name, and weeping…  As I wondered our gravelly roads calling for Lulu, I felt ready to just give up… everything.

The huge bags under my eyes that are still present the next day, were evidence of how gut wrenching it was mourn Lulu’s disappearance and almost certain demise… on top of everything else these past several years it felt like “the straw that broke the camel’s back.”

Questions were running through my head like: ”Why live and love and lose, when it hurts so bad?” ”Why did we buy a home down here? What difference does my work and our ministry efforts even make?” ”What difference would it make if I weren’t alive any more?” ”Would things not be a lot easier to not even try to make “connections” or a contribution anywhere, ever again?” “Should I check on flights and head back to Florida as soon as I can pack a small bag… and leave behind everything that is part of this new life and service down here?”

The fury I was in and the questions that were blazing through my head and heart were really frightening to me. It felt like everything in my world was coming un-hinged. ”A crisis of faith”, it has sometimes been called. Or “A dark night of the soul. ” Or “At the end of ones rope.” “Whatever”… was about all I could muster when I could finally catch my breath.

So, I returned home from my neighborhood walk to unpack my suitcase from the Santo Domingo trip. Angrily tossing things haphazardly in to my drawers… and slamming them. While railing at God some more about the cruelty of life and stomping myself silly on the tile floors, I heard a voice calling out from our back patio. There was Chiquito, our pool/yard man (yes, we have one of those folks down here, also… he multi-tasks by keeping an eye on things while we are in the US). While he rambled excitedly to me in his Hatian-laden Spanish, I picked up a few words, something about “………….tu gato.” “My cat”???? I replied, and in my poor Spanish and then asked if he had seen my cat, and he said “Si” and was pointing across the neighborhood. So I said “nos vamos”, let’s go… and I took off following him. 

On the way we collected Bruce off one of the side streets where he had been looking for Lulu and the three of us cornered her, hidden under someone’s front porch, stuffed will a real estate sign and all kinds of old construction debris. After much coaxing with food, poking at her with a long pool brush pole, and a concerted effort to keep my voice calm and inviting, she eventually came out and we carted her home.

Thank God that we begrudgingly hired a yard/pool guy for when we aren’t here, who ended up being the one to spot Lulu and therefore, help us bring her home safely. Thinner, a bit skittish, and with a small cut next to her right eye that were the only evidence of the events that Lulu had been through. Yes, many thanks for our house-helpers and our neighborhood guard who were all the “connections with connections” we needed to find Lulu.

https://youtu.be/8iDuZv_5MQk?si=2p5L8Nzl3xAz0m4M

However, the cumulative result of these “connections” for me felt much more significant. It was that apparently I needed of a humbling reminder that even though I’m currently living on an island, I am not an island. 

The Englishman, trained as a lawyer, then who became a soldier and explorer, who went on to be best known as a writer of love poems and finally an Anglican cleric, John Donne. In 1624, from “Meditation XVII” in his book Devotions upon Emergent Occasions, Donne penned this classic piece that is referred to as “timeless wisdom”, as part of a documentation of his sermons.

Here is the part of a sermon that as been most remembered down through history.

“No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main.

If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friends’s or of thine own were.

Any man’s death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind. And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.” John Donne (Itsallaboutpoems.com)

No, I am not an island. I can’t do life all myself and there is one main “connection” that I should go to first, but embarrassingly, as a person of faith, I sometimes don’t. I mistakenly think that I can rely on my own knowledge and experience to achieve whatever it is that I think I need to do. This sin of self-reliance was made so clear this week.

Yes, I was in need of a huge reminder that with a “connection” to God, to put my trust in Him as my main connection, it is the only way to have a life best lived. A life centered on God, is the only way for me to walk in the will of God. Without that centering it is impossible for me to see the events of my life and the world around me with any measure of perspective. I need to be “connected” to God to make the most of my time spent with those around me, and to leave me feeling centered and at peace. These hard past few years have left me raw and feeling like I can’t expect much good to be possible in my life. But with God’s “connection”, I can trust that through Him all is possible. He is the only one who can!

https://youtu.be/YihKbG8-X3U?si=i0RHUZTK2ttC9T6S

So, in wanting to make Donne’s quote accurately complete, I started Googling more about this famous quote and about the author. I was very surprised to find out from a number of sources, that you will see cited along the way, that this piece is considered a meditation on death, and that it was written to share the insight that all beings are one with God.  (Quartz.com) It is thought to mean that we do not live by ourselves without the help and presence of others and “that we always need a shoulder to lean on especially during tough times” (Brainly.ph). None of us can live a healthy life on our own but we are created to be part of a community, and that community is what defines our existence.

The websites I read today (yes, thanks to my inverter and Domingo) said that the book Devotions upon Emergent Occasions, was written just a couple of years before Donne’s illness and eventual death. At the time of its writing, in November of 1621, Donne had been elected dean of St. Paul’s Cathedral in London. A key part of Donne’s role as Dean was to “contemplate the relationships between men and God”, exploring the interconnectedness of all people. John and his wife (before she passed) lost three of their own 12 children. So, he was well acquainted with death and brought those insights to his faith in God and to his writings.

This famous piece of wisdom is considered an ode to community, togetherness, and the collected potential of the “connecting” the different parts of the community. It has become one of Donne’s most known and celebrated works, apparently influencing (“connecting” with) generations of writers and artists, including Ernest Hemingway.

As I read today on Commonlit.com about this specific sermon and its significance, I found it spoke exactly to where I was struggling yesterday and am painfully still aware of today. I am going to use, to their credit, some of the headings from their discussion, as a way to organize, reinforce and challenge myself about the “connections” that I am sharing.

Journey along with me to see how this literary analysis could shine some light on your own life.

Symbolism Of Islands

Most obviously, Donne uses the metaphor of an island to represent isolation and self-centeredness. By using this parallel-path of “no man is an island,” he urges us to leave behind the life of isolation and to connect with the broader world.

In what ways do I lead a self-centered life? What connections do I have with people who live and believe differently than me? How can I connect with others near me in a deeper way? What would have to change in the way that I live for this to happen? What might it like look like for my life if, instead of isolating myself, I made those types of “connections?” What benefits would there be to living more “connected” with this broader life perspective?

Unity of Humanity

The writing emphasizes that we are interconnected and should not isolate ourselves. It suggests that everyone is a part of a larger community and relies on others.

So what would happen if I just stopped trying to help others/make a difference? Isn’t it tempting to want to isolate ourselves with all the destructive things that are happening around the world? How might others be relying on me? Are there ways that I can be of greater use to others? What do I do with this insight?

Interdependence

Donne’s writing expresses the idea that we depend on each other for support, both emotionally and socially. The actions and experiences of one person can affect the entire community.

If that so, what difference am I making as I try to live faithfully and honestly through my struggles? Who could be I reaching out to with support during a time that is very difficult for them? What needs do I have that I need to ask for help to resolve?

Empathy

The piece encourages us to have empathy and understanding with one another. “It suggests that we should feel for others’ joys” (like Hollman’s successful doctoral dissertation defense) “and sorrows” (like the way many of you have come around us at our times of loss) because, in the end, we are all connected.

How can I express my feelings with love and compassion for those who hold different opinions than me? How can I open myself to “feel” what others are feeling so that I can celebrate with them or comfort them more authentically?

https://youtu.be/0qXn2I449qs?si=l01jmIGCEYrgAY5E

Mortality

Donne’s meditation reflects on the inevitability of death. The phrase “no man is an island” is a reminder that we all have a limited time on this early, and the loss of one person is a loss for us all. 

So, I wonder if I would be missed if I weren’t living anymore. What do I think people would miss most about me and the life I live if I was gone? What would I like for them to remember most about me? What do I need to do differently if I want to leave a legacy of love, encouragement, faith, ____________, ____________, _____________?

Social Responsibility

“No man is an island” conveys a sense of social responsibility. It implies that we must contribute positively to society and should not withdraw from our responsibilities. 

What responsibilities do I still have to fulfill, while I have days left on earth to do so? How may God use me to make a positive difference in my community? Who can I invite to join me in what I am doing to help the social fabric of my community/the world?

Spiritual Connection

To the secular world, Donne, is considered “a metaphysical poet”, because he added the spiritual dimension to his later writings. This piece “connects” the physical world with the transcendance of God. It also emphases the existence of this spiritual “connection” among people. So, I understand this to mean a “connection” with a Holy God, and a “holy” connection with others.

How am I “connecting” spiritually with those around me? Am I looking past the exterior to appreciate the uniqueness of them as an individual uniquely created by God. Am I being spiritually present to them, listening to what God has for them to share with me and sharing the Godly insights He gives me with them?

I think that my word of “connection” this past week, ties to encouragement of my needed “connection” with the community(ies) that I currently find myself living in as well as the ultimate “connection” with God. I need to trust that God’s “connection” is strong and steady and that it is working for my good. I think the word of “connection” has helped me see that as of today, I am still alive so I will be my best by “connecting” with others to mutually benefit us. I can also use my many “connections” for the good of those around me. Including people and situations that I have yet to encounter.

Holy scriptures tells us that:

That God is the “author and perfecter of our faith.” He specifically works at that ‘perfection’ of our faith through hard times… if we are open to His “connection” and we allow Him to transform our hearts. This is a key lesson that I have been taught this week.

“He (I) will have no fear of bad news; his(my) heart is steadfast, trusting in the LORD.” Psalm 112:7

That God desires to “connect” with us and that he wants to help us.

“For I am the LORD, your God, who takes hold of your right hand and says to you, Do not fear: I will help you.” Isaiah 41: 13

“I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.” Phillippians 4:13

That His love for us is beyond comprehension.

“But I trust in your unfailing love; my heart rejoices in your salvation. King David in Psalm 13: 5

Like in other “connections” we need to be open to feeling, hearing, seeing the “connections” he desires because God doesn’t shout to be heard. By putting ourselves in quiet places, we can “hear” the words he has for us during the “connection” time.

Be still before the LORD, all mankind, because he has roused himself from his holy dwelling. Zechariah 2:13

He is thrilled when we take time to look for Him, to seek communications with Him… in nature, when we read His holy word. He desires us to pause to speak to us, to transform us.

“Delight yourself in the LORD and he will give you the desires of your heart.” Psalm 37:4

Look to the LORD and his strength; seek his face always.” Psalm 105:4

God loves to use other people that we “connect with” to provide us with wise insights and motivation on the journey we call life.

“Come to me, all who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your soul.” Matthew 11:28-29

“The LORD is my strength and my shield; my heart trusts in him, and I am helped. Hy heart leaps for joy and I will give thanks to him in song.” Psalm 28: 7

Yes, God is the most proweful connection that brings all other connections into significance. So go out today and “connect” in a hopeful, loving way with God and others.

 https://youtu.be/zQATwkAklYw?si=4Cc4-WNuhT2LIPuz