The moment I met Lisa I felt like I was her best friend, I was welcome in her home for a quick portrait, and ended up staying well past an hour. I’m pretty confident our chat wasn’t a special case, I can see her being warm and welcoming to anyone. She has such a big heart. She is so full of love for every living soul, so kind, and so charitable. She is a great example of someone who uses every resource she can to expand her capacity for learning, for sharing her talents, and for strengthening her abilities. I really wouldn’t do her justice introducing her here, so I’ll let the answers to these questions speak for themselves. Meet Lisa.

Why do you consider your faith “Simple”? How has such a simple faith helped you in your life?
Faith is at the core of who I am. I’m just a believer plain and simple. I want to believe and so I believe. To live without a faith in God and in his plan for me and in my purpose in life would be to live in a way that is not true to who I am. I love being a believer! It has added such beauty and depth and meaning to the experiences of my life. Years ago I read the book “The Life of Pi” by Yann Martel. Oh how I hated that book as I tried to labor my way through it! The first third of the book was a bit dry and tedious, the second third was extremely gruesome and graphic (I would literally pause as I read it and shout to my husband who was trying to sleep, “I hate this book!”) but the last third absolutely blew my mind! The more I have thought about that book over the years the more meaningful and symbolic it has become in my life. The author essentially tells two tales of the same events. The first rendition of the story lays out the facts in a systematic and matter of fact way with no room for interpretation and the other tells a story so beautiful and so mystical that it seems almost impossible for our human minds and hearts to conceive. It requires a simple childlike faith to believe it. In the end the author simply asks which story brings the most meaning and joy to your life? Which story will you choose to believe? For me it is the latter. I love the following quote from the book, “If you stumble about believability, what are you living for? Love is hard to believe, ask any lover. Life is hard to believe, ask any scientist. God is hard to believe, ask any believer. What is your problem with hard to believe? To choose doubt as a philosophy of life is akin to choosing immobility as a means of transportation.”

How has serving others benefited or bettered your own life? Do you believe in Altruism?
Service to others brings purpose and meaning to my life. It allows me to feel empathy for others which is at the core of our common humanity. The definition of altruism is to do something for the benefit of another at a cost to one’s own self without any interest in personal gain. I recently read that some social scientists believe that altruism cannot truly exist in our human psychology because to do something for the good of another will bring with it the intrinsic reward of personal gratification. Some question if personal gratification is a “reward” in and of itself and I would reply with a resounding, “yes!” This past summer my 17 year old son and I had the amazing opportunity to do humanitarian work in El Salvador for a week. The days were long, the heat was sweltering, out thirst was unquenchable and our mode of transportation was to stand in the back of a 1988 Isuzu pickup truck while traversing bumpy, dusty mountainous roads. Of course two Americans traveling in Central America are bound to have a touch of you know what and we did have more than a touch of it and yet I felt joy. Not just a bit of joy but total and complete joy. So much joy that I could not feel the weight of the burdens that I seem to so tirelessly lug around in my normal day to day living. It filled my joy bucket so to speak and I was grateful to have been given such an awesome opportunity to serve. I love the play “A Christmas Carol”. I have seen it nearly every Christmas since I was a child and certainly every year for the last 20 years. One of my favorite lines from the play is when Scrooge tries to comfort Marley by saying, “But ye were always a good man of business, Jacob.” “Business”, cried the Ghost (Marley), “Mankind was my business; charity, mercy, forbearance, and benevolence, were, all, my business! The deals of my trade were but a drop of water in the comprehensive ocean of my business!” Of course in the end Scrooge takes Marley’s message to heart when he prays a loud and promises, “I will honor Christmas in my heart and try to keep it all the year.” What a lovely way to live ones’ life.

Has learning, speaking, and teaching a second language changed your relationships with the people around you? How? (besides the obvious responses, like language barriers, is there more to it?)
Yes! It has given me the opportunity to not just bridge the communication gap between Spanish and English speaking communities in my capacity as an ESL teacher and translator but in a greater sense it has allowed me to make new friends and to hear new stories. Life stories that help me feel greater empathy and understanding, and that empathy has lead to a greater love for my fellow travelers on this big beautiful planet. I absolutely love that my capacity to make friends is not just limited to people who speak and look just like me. Now if I could only learn the other zillion languages on the planet life would be grand!

What do you hope your children will say of you, as they grow older?
I have always loved the scripture in Proverbs 31: 26 -28 that reads (paraphrasing), “Strength and honour are her clothing. She openeth her mouth with wisdom and in her tongue is the law of kindness. She looketh well to the ways of her household … and her children arise up and call her blessed…” I honestly can’t think of anything more lovely than to have my children call me “blessed”. It’s just so beautiful.

Do you believe being close to family is essential to true happiness?
Yes, I not only believe it, I know it. Life can be messy and those we love the deepest have the greatest capacity to not only fill our lives with great love but also great heartache. I have experienced some of those heartaches and have been on the verge of losing the close relationships I have always had with some of my sweet family members. The pain and grief I felt at the thought of losing these loving relationships was unbearable. I simply could not imagine my life without their love and companionship and yet it was so painful to get past certain heartache and injury. In the end we must all choose what we will nurture and allow to take root in our lives: hurt and anger or love? I chose and continue to and will always choose to nurture love. That doesn’t mean it’s always easy to overcome rifts in a relationship but it is always easy to know my priorities and to know that maintaining a close and loving relationship with each member in my family is essential to my happiness.

What does it mean to truly love someone?
The more life I live the more I have come to understand that to truly love someone means forgiveness. It means patience. It means longsuffering in the sense that we are willing accept certain challenges in our relationships as long as we need to until we can learn and grow and become better from them. It means change and acceptance of change. It means compassion and empathy. It means trying our hardest to walk in someone else’s shoes despite the fact that our limited experiences in life might make it next to impossible to truly understand how they might feel … but it means we will keep trying to understand. It means giving of ourselves even when our loving efforts aren’t met with reciprocation. It means laughter and tears. It means joy and heartache. It means kindness and more kindness. It means to love as Christ would love us; without judgment or conditions. In sum it means charity. And charity never faileth. Truly!