Loosely connected

I've been kicking around a few ideas lately. I probably have enough material for a week's worth of blog entries, so I'm trying to figure out which topic to go with or whether I should put together a mish-mash of everything I've been thinking.

First there's this:


Don't be fooled by the happy merengue rhythm - there's a sharp social criticism in there. The sad thing is how still relevant it is:

"El costo de la vida sube otra vez
el peso que baja, ya ni se ve
y las habichuelas no se pueden comer
ni una libra de arroz, ni una cuarta e café
a nadie le importa qué piensa usted
¿será porque aquí no hablamos inglés?
....
Y la gasolina sube otra vez
el peso que baja, ya ni se ve
y la democracía no puede crecer
si la corrupción juega ajedrez
a nadie le importa qué piensa usted
¿será porque aquí no hablamos francés?"

In English: "The cost of living has gone up again/the dollar falls so low.../we can't even eat beans/nor a pound of rice, nor a fourth of coffee/ and no one cares what you think/ Is it because we don't speak English?//And gas goes up again/ the dollar falls so low.../and democracy can't grow/if corruption plays chess/ and no one cares what you think/ Is it because we don't speak French?"

Second, I spent most of Friday thinking about MLK Jr. Not even kidding. I'd be running copies or teaching or grading and pieces of "I've Been to the Mountaintop" would pop into my head. It helps that NPR was doing a special on Dr. King all week, but there was something about those words, that prescience in those final lines, that gives me goosebumps. The thing is, and it's kinda like the song above, in a sense, that these words could be spoken RIGHT NOW, and they'd pull at me. I'd understand that urgency, the need for change and justice. We've come a long way, yes, but there's a long road still to be walked. This is my favorite part:

Be concerned about your brother. You may not be on strike. But either we go up together, or we go down together. Let us develop a kind of dangerous unselfishness.

It's the kind of phrase that echoes in my skull. I'm far from dangerously unselfish, but I want to get there. The context, the gist of his speech, reminds me of my favorite MLK quote, from "Letter from a Birmingham Jail":

Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.

I believe that. Believe it with everything in me. There is injustice in this world, and as I sit by and watch it, I'm putting my treasured liberties and rights at risk. I've come away with this clear conviction that there has be more that I can do. It's not enough to complain and pray and vote. It's not enough. There needs to be a movement of people working to break these patterns of injustice, this institutionalized injustice. I'm not saying revolution, but maybe. Maybe...

I feel a little like El Che, stringing together my own motorcycle diaries, putting together these moments of injustice, this collage of faces - the faces of every social sin and political issue that has ever crossed my mind - these moments where the world is completely at odds with the Kingdom of God.... This is the pain I think modern Christianity has cast aside: the pain for our fellow man, the pain of seeing selfishness and arrogance reign, masquerading as faith....

I'm coming to my conclusions.

That said...
Third: Every day I feel like I'm seeing myself a little more clearly. I've always said that the better you know God the more you realize how hopelessly inadequate you are, and that's becoming clear to me. I'm selfish, arrogant, blinded. I'm guarded, hiding behind walls that have been built, knocked down, and rebuilt countless times. I'm not the person I'd like to be. But I guess that's the point:

For the foolishness of God is wiser than man's wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than man's strength. Brothers, think of what you were when you were called. Not many of you were wise by human standards; not many were influential; not many were of noble birth. But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. He chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things—and the things that are not—to nullify the things that are, so that no one may boast before him. It is because of him that you are in Christ Jesus, who has become for us wisdom from God—that is, our righteousness, holiness and redemption. Therefore, as it is written: "Let him who boasts boast in the Lord."
1 Corinthians 1:25-31

Boasting only in Him, and letting Him work....