I'm not on vacation

It's been a while, yes? Yes. Things have been busy, life's been crazy.

We've moved. That's the first thing. We left Philly (happy dance for me!) and moved to Costa Rica. We're working with ADE in a really rural area of the Costa Rican mountainside, safely off the beaten tourist paths. Not that we don't have any tourists, just that we don't have many, not for a country whose economy revolves around tourism.

And therein lies my issue today. When people think of Costa Rica, they think of sun drenched beaches, frosty drinks, bright sun, and tourists. And they think I'm here on vacation, which, you know, I'm not. I'm working. I work anywhere from eight to thirteen hour days, six days a week. It's coldish where we live, getting down to 45 degrees Fahrenheit, and up to 75 degrees on bright, sunny days. Oh, and this used to be rain forest, so it rains. A lot. Torrential downpours of Biblical proportions. And that's all well and good, because that's what I signed up for. But sometimes I miss things from home. Cheese, for one. Or dark chocolate. Or the convenience of having a steady income. Or even just the ability to find a variety of things at a grocery store or, luxury of luxuries, restaurants that serve food from all over the world.

It's the little things.

Yes, there's running water, electricity, hot water in the shower, but sometimes I miss a little luxury. And when I say I miss something, people are all like, "But don't you live in a tropical paradise where every day is a sunny vacation with umbrellas in your drink? Be grateful that you live in one of our most popular tourist destinations."

Right. I am grateful because this is an amazing experience and it's doing wonders for my faith. You don't realize how big God is until you start expecting Him to be that BIG.

But let's get one thing straight: I'm not on vacation. I don't live on the beach, no one puts umbrellas in my water glass, and even if I do live in a country that gets a ton of tourism, I can't afford to check most of it out. I am not here to be a tourist. I am here to get up at the crack of dawn, teach all morning, come home, make lunch, and do administrative, organizational work until late in the evening. And then, when y'all are lazing around on Saturdays, I'm working some more. Again, it's what I signed up for, and I'm gaining some great experience, so I'm not writing this to complain about my work. What I want people to know is that I have not been here relaxing. This is my job. My day-in-day-out job that just happens to have dramatic volcanic backdrops.

The reality is this: I'm living in an area that is in recovery. It's been two years since the earthquake and the roads are still a rutted mess, the local clinic will see only thirty people once a month, this is only the second year that the local high school has been in existence. There's a lot of work to do, good work, fun work, important work, but it's still work. Life is different here. And because things are different, I'm allowed to miss some of what I had in the States. A car, for example, or security. Or just plain convenience.

Because I'm not on vacation every day of my life here, and sometimes, I'd like to be.

Sound Track for a March

Yesterday I marched with hundreds of thousands for immigration reform and was elated to hear that the health care bill was passed (color me red, to hear the complaints from folks that probably haven't actually READ THE BILL).

Anyway, while my friend Z. and I listened to speaker after speaker at the rally, we talked about how nice it'd be to have some musical interludes between the speeches. Sometimes I'm shallow like that, even when trying to save the world.

So here's my own sound track for immigration reform.

1. "Mojado" Ricardo Arjona e Intocable

The quintessential immigration song. "Si la luna suave se desliza por cualquier cornisa sin permiso alguno, porque el mojado precisa comprobar con visas que no es de neptuno." A reminder that God has given us citizenship in His Kingdom and that all other kingdoms don't really matter in the long run.

2. "Papeles mojados" Chambao

A look at immigration from a European perspective. Same story, different continents.

3. "Tres veces mojados" Los Tigres del Norte

My students in VA turned me on to this one. A reminder of those who cross more than one border to get here, and who are strangers in multiple countries, despite the common language. It's crazy to me to think of the craziness/bravery of those who travel weeks and months to get here.

4. "Visa para un sueño" Juan Luis Guerra

This one hits close to home because it's about Dominicans trying to leave the DR. Many of them end up taking rafts over to PR, which is just as dangerous as rafts from La Habana to Miami.

5. "Sólo le pido a Dios" done by everyone and their mother, though this particular version is by Tao Rodríguez-Seeger and the guys from Fiel a la Vega

I ask God only for this, that I would not be indifferent to injustice. Amen.

6. "Casas de cartón"

This version is by Javier Álvarez. Injustice, migration, capitalism....

7. "Pobre Juan" Maná

On the telenovela side of dramatic, but about those deaths in the desert.

8. "Si el norte fuera el sur" Ricardo Arjona

The differences (maybe?) between North and South America. "Free" trade, national debt, war, exploitation, etc.

9. "Sangre americana" Bacilos

For those who don't remember that America applies to two continents and the bridge in between. For those who don't remember that the United States is a nation of immigrants, and that the original "Americans" are not of European extraction.

10. "We Are Called" by David Haas

This is a song from my days as a Catholic. The sound quality is pretty much terrible, but the lyrics are here. The chorus pretty much sums it up:

"We are called to act with justice / we are called to love tenderly / we are called to serve one another / to walk humbly with God!"

I will not lie; this song was in my head all day yesterday.

And a bonus song:
"Voces de Sol" Fiel a la Vega

"Entren vestidos de sol, las almas que quieran luchar....Sigue el camino, persíguelo con alma y pasión" Fight the good fight, make your voice heard, and seek your goal with passion. Yes. Amen.



And finally, some verses that came to mind:
Matthew 25:33-40

Leviticus 19:33-34

Confessions

To be quite honest, I don't love Philly. Most days, I don't even like it. I didn't realize what a southerner I was until I moved to PA last August. Coming from Northern Virginia, you're always explaining to people that NOVA isn't the South - you know that South I'm talking about: that "Deliverance" or "Mississippi Burning" or even "Meet Joe Dirt" kind of South. And it's true, NOVA isn't like that. But it is Southern in that showing hospitality, saying hello, and blessing your heart kind of way. And silly, Southern me thought folks were polite everywhere.

But they're not. There's a coldness up north - both literal and figurative - that I struggle to understand. I miss saying "Sir" and "Ma'am" without being looked at as if I had a third eye. I miss a returned "Good mornin'" and the beauty of a perfectly drawled "y'all".

I miss VA.

I didn't want to come back here in September, but it made sense. B. was here and he had to finish school. A year. I could do a year.

That year will become at least a year and a half, and I still think I can handle it, but I'll be honest: it's been a hard winter. A long, hard winter.

I'm counting the months till June, hanging on for dear life till the end of the school year and a welcome vacation, and then counting down till December when our lease is up and we can go wherever our little hearts desire.

I don't know where we'll go or what will happen or even what I'll do between June and December. Honestly, it's kind of exciting to leave this up in the air for now. I've been praying a lot. Praying for a heart for this city, praying for direction, praying for guidance, praying that I won't stand in the way of whatever God has for us here now or in the future because of my stubborn love for the comfort of the South. I don't know what's coming, I just know that this year has been a struggle of epic proportions for me. I'm trying to feel this out and to adjust. And I've felt myself stretching, learning, and thinking, and these are good things.

No ha sido en vano, pero tampoco ha sido fácil.

havin' church

I know your deeds and your toil and perseverance, and that you cannot tolerate evil men, and you put to the test those who call themselves apostles, and they are not, and you found them to be false; and you have perseverance and have endured for My name's sake, and have not grown weary. But I have this against you, that you have left your first love.
Revelation 2:2-4 (NASB)

This is what they preached on this morning at church. I went to the second service, but I glanced at the notes from the first service's sermon and was struck by this:

Passionate about truth but not passionate for God.
Passionate for justice but not for God.
Passionate for purity but not for God.
Passionate for marriage but not for God.
You can hate what God hates and love what God loves and yet fail to love God.

My immediate reaction: "Gulp. Daaaaaaang...." Such a common thing for Christians. We're characterized by so many, many things. On one end of the spectrum, there's a quest for social justice and serving the poor; on the other end, there's railing against all the evils (and "evils") around us. Both are sin when it's done apart from a quest to love God fully. When we love God - really love Him - it's hard to hate the people around us, to feel that we are somehow superior to them. And, yes, I do believe that there are feelings of superiority on both ends of the aforementioned spectrum. This girl from the left can attest to that.
Anyway, it really helped me to gain some perspective.

Also, there was this song that we sang, a song which I've long loved. I was reminded of its power today when we sang it, partly because we sang it in a church where most of the members would rather speak English than Spanish, and you could still feel the emotion that swept us up. There was something beyond language that descended. I hate saying it like that, because it makes me sound all mystical, but it's the only way I can explain it. A hush fell over the room, and wow....

Renuévame, Señor Jesús, ya no quiero ser igual.
Renuévame, Señor Jesús, pon en mí tu corazón.
Porque todo lo que hay dentro de mí
necesita ser cambiado Señor.
Porque todo lo que hay dentro de mi corazón
necesita más de ti.

Stinkin' cheesy YouTube videos...

Can't stop listening to it....

"The Great Conductor"
by Steven Delopoulos

So you dived beneath the tide
And you radio the sky
As you leave your desert land
And your fortune all behind

It’s a sequel never told
As you build it you can tell it
As the waves flush out the notes,
you built that temple just to sell it
The moon is sitting, speechless
As our castles slowly burning

Well, I bought a cup of coffee
when I asked her for her hand
She was checking me for Egypt,
she was shaking me for sand
But I've been resurrected years ago

So you listen to the sign
And you can’t believe the sound
Feels like blood is in the air like that lion’s close around
I can’t do it on my own you must be sober to reject him
Like a soldier with a Bible but no armor to protect him

If you listen to the saints
They’ll give you juice enough to fly
Now they found him in the catwalk
when he was knighted for the throne
And the crowd was throwing harmonies
To claim him as their own
As I close my eyes and vanished in the blessing

And oh, there’s a fire in the sky
Sit beside me on that last train
There’s a pinch before we’re through it
Close your eyes we’re almost to it

To the punch, the pain that popped our famous egos
out the window as we grew
And she opened up her eyes to see that
mansion full of glory
She was brand new….brand new, brand new, brand new

So you start with kicking pebbles
as you learn to fight in silence
And you orchestrate His presence
as you crucify the man
There’s a wand in your command,
as you became
The Great Conductor

So it’s fire turned to gold, you can catch it in the steam
As you slowly disappear in that crucifixion dream
You’re hanging in the balance of that heavenly perfection
While you’re having a conversation
Nonchalantly in suspension

And you notice something’s different
as you’re hanging in the sky
Well I got up from my knees
but I was dizzy from the trance
I was speaking like the angels,
I was raptured in the dance
Moving mountains with a glance

We must leave our earthly beds
And pray for those who strike us
In His house there are no weapons
Heal the sick and raise the dead

Raise the ballroom where we danced
until the broken sun surprised us from our doom
And we promised on our knees
to return the devil’s keys
We were in bloom
I do, I do, I do

So you start with kicking pebbles
as you learn to fight in silence
And you orchestrate his presence
as you crucify the man
There’s a wand in your command
As you expand

This is the song I've got on repeat these days. I won't say that I totally understand it, but there are pieces of it, lines that have made me really take notice as I listen to it again and again. For example:

1. "She was checking me for Egypt, she was shaking me for sand But I've been resurrected years ago"
2. "And you notice something’s different as you’re hanging in the sky Well I got up from my knees but I was dizzy from the trance I was speaking like the angels, I was raptured in the dance Moving mountains with a glance"
3. "Raise the ballroom where we danced until the broken sun surprised us from our doom"

And of course, that chorus is pretty stinkin' amazing.

There's a lot there about resurrection, about being made new right here and now while we're still on earth, about the perfection of God in acting in ways that make no sense.... There's more to it that I'm sure I haven't even begun to touch on, but, man, do I love this song!

Self censorship

I'm really struggling these days. Wednesday I totally fell apart. Class left me feeling emotionally exhausted, even though it was pretty stinkin' wonderful, and I pretty much dissolved into tears right after it. Combine that with a lot of thinking on Tuesday about my grandparents getting older and the loss of my grandfather over ten years ago, some family related stress, and the fact that I had to share my testimony in ProSem on Thursday. It was all too much and I fell apart Wednesday.
To be honest, I feel better since Thursday, but at the same time I kind of feel guilty for feeling better because of the family related stress mentioned above.
So I'm struggling. I had to really think about everything that has happened in my life to bring me here to Eastern as I was preparing for giving my testimony. There were a lot of good things and a lot of bad. As I look back, I see how God really worked all the terrible things for good, and I'm glad for them. I wouldn't go back and change a single thing. There's that verse in John where Jesus says something like "This illness won't kill him, it's so that God can be glorified through it." Obviously, I'm paraphrasing it, but the point is, I can see that in so many of the crappy situations that have come my way. They didn't kill me, they have been opportunities for God to be glorified. Which is not to say that they didn't suck at the time - having my wallet stolen in Costa Rica was pretty awful - but I can see now how God moved through those situations. (That particular situation forced me to realize that I couldn't keep "playing church".) God grows us through the good and the bad. He reveals Himself to us as individuals and as a body in those moments.
The thing is, when these situations involve others, what I see as a time of growth and of the greatness of God can be perceived quite differently by the others involved. And here is my dilemma. There has been great freedom and healing in me because I have been able to own my crap - I've talked about my sins and (some) of my struggles and have also talked about the grace and mercy of God in these areas, His salvific powers.... It's a good thing to share some of that, to know that you're not alone, to be a testimony of God's fullness and healing, and to let others around you know that they aren't alone either.
There have been some issues that I've never really talked about, though. Things that I'm too afraid to mention because I don't want others to think negatively about people I love and care for. The point is, I might have mentioned one of those things here recently. It was mentioned in passing, and was really not the point of the entry, but I feel like it brought up a lot of hurt for someone else. That was not my intention. I know that God has really healed the pain I carried around for a long, long time. I know that I have forgiven. Forgiving doesn't erase the past, but it does shape the future; it means that I've decided it's not my place to judge or retaliate; there's no need for judgment or retaliation. I am the chief of sinners, and I have been forgiven; that's the example I wish to follow.
All of this to say: I took down the last entry. Because, while it was therapeutic for me to write, I don't want it to hurt anyone I sincerely love. And since it did, I apologize.

¡Sí se puede!

Yes, we can. Yes, we did. People showed up, people voted, and Barack Obama is our president-elect. I watched election coverage and waited for the results. They trickled in, and just when I thought it couldn't possibly be that easy, it turned out that they called the race. Who knew? The polls were pretty much on point. I sat on that couch next to B., wondering which states had tipped the balance, watching the crowd in Grant Park cry and cheer, and I just shook. I shook because I knew I was watching something so much greater than me, greater than B., greater than Barack Obama himself. This is another step in that march towards a more perfect union, towards equality and justice in this nation. This is part of the history of this nation - a point on the broken road - and a step towards the future. It's taken me a while to put my thoughts in order. I mean, of course, I'm thrilled that Obama won because I voted for him, but this goes beyond that.
I feel like I'm standing on the verge of this swell of public participation, like there is this lovely hope visible on the horizon, like I'm part of this unbelievable mobilization to make this nation MY nation. Does that make sense? I'm a part of this. Besides my $25 contribution to the campaign, my attendance at a rally, my Obama t-shirts, and my vote; I am now expected to participate in this change. It's an invitation that resonates with me as I'm studying community development; I mean, this is what I want to do. I want to participate and I want to invite others to do the same. Barack Obama makes me feel like I can do just that - like it's my patriotic duty to do so. This is my nation, my government: by the people, for the people....

And then there's the obvious: this issue of race, of knocking down this barrier, of making me believe that this country can really begin to heal the deepest wounds of race and ethnicity.... This is the idealist in me talking, I'm sure. I don't by any means believe that this proves that race is no longer an issue. I'm too smart and too brown to believe such foolishness; this will not change overnight with Barack Obama, but there's something visionary about it. This is the nation taking the steps necessary in a post-civil rights movement era - an era characterized by a change in demographics. Power is not going to be centralized soley in the hands of the old money, WASP establishment. The outsider has found his way into the White House. It's the kind of thing that brings hope to a fellow outsider.

This is a beautiful thing, the verge of something greater.



Four years ago, a coworker told me that at church they prayed for candidate that they were supporting and also prayed for the opposing candidate. Today, post-election, I remember that story and I pray:

I pray for Barack Obama and his beautiful family. I pray that he will have the grace and humility to create relationships and partnerships that will benefit the nation and the world at large; I pray that he will have the wisdom and discernment to make sound decisions; I pray that he will have the strength and courage to stand by his convictions. I pray that God will keep him and his family safe.

I pray for John McCain. I pray that he will continue to be a man known for working across party lines; that he will continue to be gracious; that he would have the foresight and the vision to keep working for change in Washington. He is a good man, too.

I pray for Bush. I pray for wisdom in these final months of presidency. It struck me today that he can't possibly feel very good about himself in light of record low approval ratings, so I pray for him....

Ungodly Hubris....

We were talking in class yesterday about the role of the prophet and decided that prophets, both in the Bible and in the present day (MLK, Jr. was mentioned) are men and women who challenge the status quo, confront God's people with His truth and their shortcomings, and provide a greater vision. There's an identification with the plight of the poor and oppressed - a partaking in that pain - heart break on behalf of the people. There's a challenge to hold ungodly rulers and systems accountable to a just and righteous God.

So that was yesterday; Tuesday, our Urban Politics prof read us this article from USA Today which I feel touches on the prophetic elements outlined above.

This is not your typical "God-bless-America-and-the-Republican-Party" Christianity people show on tv (I hate that depiction...). It's a more biblically-based faith. One that points out the flaws of the nation and the church. There were many points that resonated with me, but I'll highlight a few:

Pop taught me that true patriotism is not a contest to see who can fly the biggest flag. True patriotism exists where citizens love their country enough to hold it accountable. That means working to make certain that the president we have elected and the government we have created live up to the words of our creeds and the dreams of our poets and prophets.

That kind of patriotism is at the heart of authentic biblical faith. The great prophets of the Bible were considered unpatriotic by many of their day.

I love this. I love it because I do love this nation; I've travelled a bit - mostly in the developing world - and can honestly say, though I love the socialist tendencies of Europe, this is truly a country with the potential to be great. This country gave my family and so many of my friends the opportunities we didn't have available in our own countries. (Not that I'm not passionate about the beauty of Puerto Rico, just that I know I have more opportunities here.) This is one of the greatest countries to be a woman, in spite of the glaring inequalities and failures. It's a country that acknowledges the handicapped, racial and ethnic minorities, and sexual minorities. Not that things are perfect, just that we are light years ahead of other countries.
That said, I can criticize the obvious failures and the half-ass job we've done on many issues because of my love for this country. I believe it can be more and it can be better, and that is why I am not okay with the current mediocrity and all out fracas. That is patriotism: to ask that my government make this the best country it can be, and not the one that will appease the greatest numbers. Shake things up; change the nation.

Which brings me to point number two: We are not the greatest nation on earth, but we'd sure like to think that we are.

Part of our challenge stems from the fact that we Americans have an overabundance of self-confidence. So much, in fact, that management guru Marshall Goldsmith reports that 70% of the 50,000 people he has surveyed rank themselves in the top 10% of their peer group. Among doctors, pilots and investment bankers, the number is even higher. Once when Goldsmith told a group of doctors that his "extensive research" had revealed that exactly half of all MDs graduated in the bottom half of their med-school class, two in the audience insisted that this was impossible.

I suspect we read the Bible much the same way. We don't identify with the Egyptians, Babylonians or the multitude of Israelites who worshipped the golden calf. We identify with Abraham and Moses the good guys. Likewise, in the New Testament, we don't identify with the scribes and the Pharisees. And we certainly don't identify with those hated Romans. We identify with Peter, James and John. But like Marshall Goldsmith's overweening physicians, we might be fooling ourselves. Look beneath the surface, and much of what's plaguing the world is what's plaguing us.

I hate when I'm traveling and I run into the proverbial "Ugly American". He's the guy at McDonald's in freakin' Germany where the food is so unbelievably good that McDonald's should be classified as a crime against gastronomy. He's the guy who tries to pay for everything in dollars and doesn't understand why people (a) won't take his money and (b) don't speak English like they should. These are the people that tell the locals that George W. Bush is a wonderful diplomat and that they don't understand why the international community can't back the United States. They don't know why "they hate us".
They hate us because we (as a nation) are greedy and arrogant and, worst of all, ignorant of our greed and arrogance.

The church, sadly, does the same thing. I blame the media for part of this, because they do tend to focus on the crazy fringes of the faith, but I've been around in this aspect as well. There are some ignorant church folks out there. Anyway, here's the thing: we're always preaching against the Pharisees and the Egyptians while we turn away those who don't conform to our rules and exploit the most vulnerable people both here and overseas. We are a self-righteous and often insular body.


For the past few months, I've really been identifying with the Pharisees; I've been identifying with all the failures of the prophets and the disciples (not as much with their successes, but maybe someday). I've been seeing my own brokenness and limitations in some very real ways. It's good; I mean, it sucks, but it's good for me.

I think it's a good thing on grander scales: the church and the nation. It's time to start looking at those broken places and recognizing that we. Need. Help.

We can no longer be those smug, self-righteous folks who have it all together; the wars and the economic crisis should be making that clear. We need to start reaching out, asking for forgiveness in our flawed foreign and domestic policies, and moving towards something better, no matter who wins the election.

Insiders/Outsiders and the Beauty of Grace

Ephesians 2 (The Message)
He Tore Down the Wall
It wasn't so long ago that you were mired in that old stagnant life of sin. You let the world, which doesn't know the first thing about living, tell you how to live. You filled your lungs with polluted unbelief, and then exhaled disobedience. We all did it, all of us doing what we felt like doing, when we felt like doing it, all of us in the same boat. It's a wonder God didn't lose his temper and do away with the whole lot of us. Instead, immense in mercy and with an incredible love, he embraced us. He took our sin-dead lives and made us alive in Christ. He did all this on his own, with no help from us! Then he picked us up and set us down in highest heaven in company with Jesus, our Messiah.

Now God has us where he wants us, with all the time in this world and the next to shower grace and kindness upon us in Christ Jesus. Saving is all his idea, and all his work. All we do is trust him enough to let him do it. It's God's gift from start to finish! We don't play the major role. If we did, we'd probably go around bragging that we'd done the whole thing! No, we neither make nor save ourselves. God does both the making and saving. He creates each of us by Christ Jesus to join him in the work he does, the good work he has gotten ready for us to do, work we had better be doing.

But don't take any of this for granted. It was only yesterday that you outsiders to God's ways had no idea of any of this, didn't know the first thing about the way God works, hadn't the faintest idea of Christ. You knew nothing of that rich history of God's covenants and promises in Israel, hadn't a clue about what God was doing in the world at large. Now because of Christ—dying that death, shedding that blood—you who were once out of it altogether are in on everything.

The Messiah has made things up between us so that we're now together on this, both non-Jewish outsiders and Jewish insiders. He tore down the wall we used to keep each other at a distance. He repealed the law code that had become so clogged with fine print and footnotes that it hindered more than it helped. Then he started over. Instead of continuing with two groups of people separated by centuries of animosity and suspicion, he created a new kind of human being, a fresh start for everybody.

Christ brought us together through his death on the cross. The Cross got us to embrace, and that was the end of the hostility. Christ came and preached peace to you outsiders and peace to us insiders. He treated us as equals, and so made us equals. Through him we both share the same Spirit and have equal access to the Father.

That's plain enough, isn't it? You're no longer wandering exiles. This kingdom of faith is now your home country. You're no longer strangers or outsiders. You belong here, with as much right to the name Christian as anyone. God is building a home. He's using us all—irrespective of how we got here—in what he is building. He used the apostles and prophets for the foundation. Now he's using you, fitting you in brick by brick, stone by stone, with Christ Jesus as the cornerstone that holds all the parts together. We see it taking shape day after day—a holy temple built by God, all of us built into it, a temple in which God is quite at home.

It came up twice today: once at church, once as I was reading. The thing is, it came up in the most inclusive church I've ever visited in my life - inclusive to the point of discomfort. I like that; it's a rare find.

There's so much beauty in the passage: the beauty of my inadequacy, the beauty of God's grace and redemption in Christ, the beauty of walls being broken and a single unit of faith being formed from that. Love it....

Advance apologies

* This is much longer and more rambling than I'd originally anticipated. I didn't reread it or edit it; it's "as is". Mostly, it's a look at myself; me trying to process everything I've been thinking about both in and out of class. I'm not trying to offend or polarize - just thinking "aloud", if you will. *

I was trying to upload Boston pics this morning, to no avail. Blogger really needs a better system for uploading pictures - just saying.

In the meantime, I've been thinking about a lot of things lately, and one of them is how far the church is from the teachings of Jesus. This is something I've thought a lot about since I started reading the Bible for myself when I was in high school, but it's been compounded in the past five years, and this semester has me wondering about this all over again. Don't get me wrong: I'm not saying that I'm an accurate picture of who and what Jesus is, just that I'm feeling really convicted by my inaccurate depiction of Him. Does that make sense?
I hate the "Christian" dichotomization of the spiritual and the mundane - there's a spirituality in the mundane, and an everydayness to the spiritual. There is no distinction, as far as I can tell between Jesus's spiritual, social, and physical healing. He repaired relationships, repaired people's sense of self-worth, went first to the untouchable and undesireables - and He preached salvation to them as He met their needs. Needs so deep they didn't even realize in some cases that they had them. I don't do this often enough, and neither does the church.
I was reading the Bible the other day and it struck me that Jesus looked out on the people and that His heart BROKE for them. Not just that it ached, but that it broke for them. My heart doesn't break that easily. It's one thing to say that I feel sorry for people - that keeps me on the moral/social high ground - I am somehow better than those people. But for my hear to break, there has to be a participation: the pain must become mine. That pain was Jesus's pain, and His heart and body broke for it. I don't allow myself to participate much.
In class today, we were talking about how the church would reject Jesus if He were to come today, Pharisees and Saducees that we are. We're so indoctrinated in "church culture", in the moral issues, in pro-life, anti-gay, creationism arguments; in buildings, in "ministries", in music. We've fallen away from the unbelievably inclusive revolutionary nature of the founder of our faith.
The truth is that if Jesus were here today, He'd be on the corners with the drug dealers and the addicts. He'd be talking to strippers, to homosexuals, to the mentally ill, to the immigrants, to the forgotten children in poor schools. He'd be embracing everyone the church has so neatly excluded - everyone I've excluded.
I was reading about the Kingdom of God being a whole new game in the middle of the old ballpark. It takes a special kind of crazy and a special kind of bravery to take the church to that level. Shoot, it takes all of that to get one person out there, playing tag in the middle of a play-off game. The book was talking about the church doing this in the middle of broader American culture, but I've been thinking about it in terms of people doing this in the middle of general church culture. I had this thought in class today, this phrase that popped into my head as we were talking about God's intentions for community and society as a whole as laid out in the book of Deuteronomy: "the unreached church". I'm not exactly sure what it means, but I wrote it in the margin of my notes.
There's a church that's complacent with the current systems: with exclusion, with injustice; with comfort, and riches, and big buildings. There's a church that's okay with saying that God is on the side of a particular political party, and that His will magically lines up with our own (that's rarely - if ever - the case, but that's a story for another blog).... Yes, that church exists, and it's huge, but there's another Church. It's a Church that wants its heart to be broken when Christ's heart is broken, a Church that can't be okay with injustice and oppression, a Church that won't use God to justify all kinds of ugliness. This Church, these people, must change the church.
I'm in school with all these amazing Christians - the kind you will never see on tv - who want to see this amazing Kingdom being played out, on Earth as it is in Heaven. Whenever two or more are gathered He is there; when we agree in prayer, there is power. This is revolutionary to me lately. I keep seeing myself as this tiny puzzle piece.
Have you ever done one of those gazillion-piece puzzles? The kind with the tiny, tiny pieces? Each piece looks like a whole lot of nothing. Sure, there are pretty colors, but you can't really make out the picture based on any one piece. So you start putting them together, and you have clusters spread out on the table: pieces of a tree over here, some river over there, a cloud in the sky... It's not quite finished, but these little groups of pieces are starting to make sense. And then you put them all together and it's amazing. This is how God works. He sees this great big picture, and all the little pieces of it. We have to start linking up with other little pieces to make this picture of a world where debts are forgiven and the alien is welcomed and the poor are provided for.
That's the good part, this linking up of the Church. Even so, it will not be easy. There will be a church to contend with and all of those outside who just won't understand. And that's okay. I mean, yo no soy monedita de oro para caerle bien a todo el mundo. These revolutionary words of Christ, the structure that God set up for His people won't make sense in the light of American individualism and the American dream (Turning the other cheek?! Cancelling debts?! Providing for the poor?!). The important thing is to stand with the Church and say that things are not okay as they are. And if makes people uncomfortable, that's kind of the point. I mean, it's making me very uncomfortable; I'm feelin' pretty convicted and challenged myself.

I was talking today to my roommate about institutionalized racism affecting education in low-income areas. I have my student seminar tomorrow, and I'm going to be talking about poverty and education. Here's the thing: it's impossible to talk about poverty in this country without also mentioning race and ethnicity. It's a fact that the levels of poverty among people of color are higher than they are among Whites. There are real historical reasons for that based largely on slavery and other exploitative systems (*cough* immigration and economic policies *cough*). It's so much safer to just refer to "the poor", though, without acknowledging that the poor tend to be black and brown. It's the way things are right now. I was vacillating - wondering whether I should take it there during my presentation - and I talked to her about it briefly. It made her uncomfortable, I could tell; as if she didn't want to think that the system that had worked so well for her (and to some extent, for me), could possibly be anything but empowering to all. Ah, America, land of opportunity and equality.... It occured to me as I was talking that if I'm afraid to bring it up because it'll make folks uncomfortable, it probably needs to be addressed. I don't think Jesus's heart aches when he sees these institutions, I think it breaks; that means that mine should and that the hearts of my classmates probably should break as well. That's something I'll be praying about as I'm preparing my presentation and actually presenting it. If y'all would pray, too, I'd appreciate it.

Oh, and if you're the praying types, I'd also urge you to sit down with a Bible and take a look at Deuteronomy and Matthew. If possible, pick up a different translation so that you're not just rereading the words you already know - sometimes that alone can give you that shift in perspective. I hope they challenge you as much as they challenge me.

Things I'm workin' on or workin' out

1. Resting in God.
2. Not focusing on the obvious brokenness of systems, and instead looking at what is doable on a small scale.
3. Remembering that this mess isn't mine to fix.
4. Trusting God to work out the details.
5. Balancing school, relationships, time with God, and "me time".
6. Facing all those unfinished areas of my life; coming back in contact with my own selfishness and materialism and stupidity.
7. Realizing that those are the areas where God really works.
8. (Re)learning to be less guarded, that vulnerability takes strength, that it is not weak to show emotion. Such a hard one for me.

You know, among other things....

Also, I may have run over a squirrel the other day on my way to school. He was ambivalent about which curb to run to, and I was coming around a curve a bit too quickly. There was a car in the other lane coming towards me and swerving was not an option. Poor little, ambivalent squirrel. He's been in my head since it happened....

ramble.

I should be reading because I've been slacking all night: chatting with J. and BK. - the old Mission Year roomies, catching up with my current roommate J., facebook.... We'll just say I've been a little distracted. Plus, I tried a little studying with B., but ended up mostly reading the same paragraphs over and over again, distracted by how comfortable his shoulder is. I did read an article and a half, which is something, right? Ha ha. I'm such a slacker by the end of the week....

Anyway, I'm dealing with a lot of tough issues in my classes, and trying to see how they fit into my experience, or the other way around, I can't tell anymore. I'm trying to bridge that gap between theory and practice, and I'm realizing I'm a bit on the cynical side sometimes. I guess that's what happens when you've spent a little time in the "real world".

I'm also being confronted with a lot of my own selfishness and doubt and basic brokenness. Not that that's a bad thing. It's actually the kind of thing that produces growth, and that's why I'm here and doing this crazy thing. I'm trying to become less like what I "should be" and more like what God wants me to be. Not that I'm always good at that, just that that's the goal. It's funny, because I'm not completely settled, I'm uncomfortable and out of my element, things aren't easy, and God is dealing with me in big and small ways, but I feel this PEACE. Like, when the Bible talks about paz que sobrepasa todo entendimiento (Phil 4:7), this is it - at least in my limited understanding. Like I can just lean back in these arms of love and know that though things are crazy, it's not up to me to worry about it, and that it's all being taken care of.

Fullness

I'm a bit of an insomniac lately. Surprise, surprise.... I do go through these sleepless periods pretty regularly. I think I'm pretty alright right now, though.

I just wanted to blog quickly while I was still feeling this way. I feel FULL today. It's good. Not food full, just, hmmm... God full, perhaps. Blessed might be a way to say the same thing, only it's more than that. It's contentment, blessing, and acknowledgment of blessing all at once. There's more, I just can't put words to it.

We saw Shane Claiborne speak this morning, and it was really good - this challenge to be a different kind of __________. I guess right now, a different kind of unemployed graduate student. Ha, ha. After that, R., E., and I went into Philly to hang out a bit (and miss peak hours). We got some ice cream at Reading Terminal Market - three scoops split three ways - and sat on a bench outside to enjoy it. There was good conversation and good ice cream: two wonderful things.
Then we headed out to Fishtown to have dinner at J. and A.'s house. They have a sweet dog who was super excited to see us. Burritos were great (yay, Hispanic food!) and so was the conversation.
We walked to Circle of Hope, where, for a moment, I felt like I was not cool enough. That feeling faded pretty quickly though - it was unlike any service I've ever attended before. It felt really fresh and really - inclusive. There was a rawness that I appreciate, and we met some cool people, including another Mission Year alum. (Whoot!) After that, the long train ride home to Wayne.

Oh, but I feel good. It's good to see these churches, to connect with people who want something bigger, you know?
I guess I'm realizing how much I needed to be shaken out of my comfort. I remember before I left for Mission Year, I sat down and told God: "I don't want to be comfortable." Last fall, I said the same thing again. I could feel myself getting sucked into the steadiness, the stability, the one-place-for-a-long-time thing, and I knew I didn't want that. But it's a hard thing to fight. I often think that humans can adapt to just about anything - we settle in. It feels good to be shaking out of that and stepping out into something different and big and uncertain.

Both R. and E. mentioned it today, and I have to agree: it's these blind steps that remind us that we don't get to call the shots, and even when we think we are, we really aren't. It's a good place to be, though.

Fresh

Brothers, pray for us.
1 Thess. 5:25

I've been in orientation the past two days. And by that, I mean we had one day of nearly twelve hours of information, and one day that involved a campus tour and a picnic with box lunches from The freakin' Corner Bakery. Basically, we've been treated insanely well.

I've met everyone in the program, and I'm so excited for what's going to come out of this year. There are very few of us doing the urban track, but there is some overlap with the international group. I still can't get over the incredible diversity of our group as far as life experiences, backgrounds, interests, but there is this common thread of passion for service in God's Kingdom. It's the first time I've been outside a (strictly) Mission Year group and felt like so many of the people GOT what drives me. Teach Overseas was close, but this is that step beyond. It's an organization more in line with what I see myself doing in the future: this cobbling together of all the things that I love in order to serve. I want to be someone who empowers men and women and kids to do the impossible, to do what they have never dreamed they could do, simply because God has done that for me.

But it's going to be an intense year, and I have given up a lot of my comforts and a lot of my preferences to do this great unknown thing. I have no job, scant savings, these enormous student loans, and a car that makes it up hills at speeds above thirty miles an hour only by the grace of God. We were put in small groups yesterday to do a little Bible study on Psalm 84, and it really hit me. Get beyond easy worship songs that we sing without thinking. This Psalm is about wanting to journey to God's temple. It's about not quite being there, or not being able to go, but longing for that rest and that security. It's about trusting and leaving a trail of blessings as you set out for the goal. Verse twelve really got to me:

"O LORD of hosts, blessed is the man who trusts in You!"

This is what I feel like I'm doing. I've left the comforts of home, of the wonderful NOVA area (at once Southern and not, in all the best ways), of familiarity, and have thrown myself at this with a thousand unanswered or unanswerable questions because I know with everything in me that this is where God wants me. And I can already see what He's doing for me. I needed this. Needed something JUST LIKE THIS to get me through what might have been one of the driest years of my life.
There's this:
Persistance, trust, faith.

And I'm working on all three.

struggle...

First, there's this:

Psalm 23
1The LORD is my shepherd,
I shall not want.
2He makes me lie down in green pastures;
He leads me beside quiet waters.
3He restores my soul;
He guides me in the paths of righteousness
For His name's sake.
4Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,
I fear no evil, for You are with me;
Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me.
5You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies;
You have anointed my head with oil;
My cup overflows.
6Surely goodness and lovingkindness will follow me all the days of my life,
And I will dwell in the house of the LORD forever.

For all that it's one of the most famous passages in Scripture, it grabs me everytime. Lord knows I need it right now....

Second, I've been reflecting a lot this weekend. Things have been tumbling in my head and I came to the decision today that I am putting it all on God and stepping away. I can't do it; He has to.

Third, for all the hurt that I'm feeling, I'm trying to believe that I made the right decision. Not so much for me, but for everyone else involved. And if I end up alone, I'm trusting that God gets me through this one, too. It'll hurt, but it has to be done, had to be done, and this, too, shall pass.

Fourth, there are two.

"The Valley Song" by Jars of Clay


and "El sonido del silencio" by Alex Campos

Heavy things

First off: I don't want comments on this one. Read it if you want, but know that this is me trying to sort things out the only way I know how: writing. I'm not coming to any conclusions, not sure where I'm going with it, not sure how things will end. I don't want comments. I just want space to vent.

That said, I've been going through some "issues" lately. Partly of my own making, I'll admit that, but partly thrust upon me. Don't jump to conclusions; there's an "s" - it's plural. There's been a lot going on. I've been thinking a lot about this all, and there are a few things that have been stuck in my head.

First: "If you want something, then you go for it." It might have come out of my own mouth, but I've been thinking about it more and more, and I realize it's not always the case. In fact, after I said it I was asked, "Is that what you're doing?" And my answer was no; not exactly no, but basically that I was choosing to avoid something that I didn't want instead of going after what I wanted. Does that make sense? My desire to avoid something overrode my desire to have another. Is that the same principle at work? Perhaps.... But it still sounds like a cop out, although this course is probably harder than the alternative.

Second: "Aquél que se ata al pasado no puede proyectarse al futuro y arruina su presente." This from my pastor this morning. Rough translation: He who is tied to his past can't project himself toward the future and ruins his present. Am I doing this? Am I tying myself to the past? Sometimes I feel like I am, especially lately when I've felt that I've had every sin past and present thrown in my face as evidence that I am not a good daughter, a bad Christian, a sorry excuse for a friend, a "f---ing b----".... I acknowledge that I am not the person I'd like to be, that I have myriad flaws and that I'm stumbling through life the best I can. Yes, I suck, but I'm moving forward. The point is, I'm struggling with all these memories of the past and with the knowledge of how easily I can fail. I'm trying to feel like God hasn't turned His back on me, hasn't left me by the wayside. It's so hard to translate head knowledge to heart knowledge sometimes....

Third: Along the same lines: "Buscad primero el reino de Dios y su justicia y todo lo demás vendrá por añadidura." (Seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness and all of these things will be added to you - or something like that. I don't know the Bible in English.) I feel like I'm asking - begging - God for some answers and some requests, but like I've been forgotten. I see everyone else getting what they're asking for and it hurts to feel like my own requests get stuck at the ceiling. But the truth is that I need to remember to put Him first. I need to seek Him first. I haven't been doing that the way I need to.... So this is one I need to work on. I know this.

Fourth: "La valentía es una decisión" coupled with "No te rindas" - Bravery is a choice and Don't give up. Bravery as a choice kind of struck me. It means you're afraid and you go forth anyway. It means you're terrified, but not paralyzed. I think I've been letting fear stop me more often than I'd realized. Fear of many things, sometimes conflicting fears.... And this not giving up thing - tenacity - I'm not sure what direction that's pushing me in, but it kind of fits with my first point.... What do I want? Which direction is bravery going to point me in? What am I going to fight for? I don't know, yet. I'm hoping point three will push me there.

Fifth: "La unidad implica renuncia" - unity implies surrender. And this doesn't completely negate "Don't give up"; it's kinda like my example of avoiding what I DON'T want. It's about surrendering some of my own desires for the greater good. And that's not easy. I'm not good at that, not good at giving up what I've dreamt of and wished for, not good at putting this greater good ahead of me. If life were as black and white as people think it is, this would be so simple, but there's so much gray that the greater good isn't always the easiest thing to know. It kind of brings to mind Atonement and Crónica de una muerte anunciada. In both, there's this greater good, and this ambivalence about how to get there. I don't know if those connections make sense to anyone but me, but that's what came to me....

Sixth: This song, running through my head.


I'm trying....

Political and disjointed

If you're not into politics, go ahead and skip over this one.
I've been thinking about this for a long time now and last night's primaries in WV kind of compelled me to put this out there.

Let's talk about the elephant in the room for a minute, shall we?

Race matters. It matters a lot and to a lot of people. This is not to say that we can't all get along or that we should segregate or whatever. We can have friends of different races and ethnicities and still be aware of those differences. We'd be lying if we said we weren't.

Mattering and discriminating are two different things, though, and I think both come into play in this long primary season. I think there's this deep fear in some parts of the country, in the hearts of many people of all races and ethnicities that a minority won't "make it" in the White House. Not necessarily that they won't make it IN, but that they won't do a fair job.

I keep hearing comments like this from coworkers here in liberal Northern VA, so I can only imagine what it's like in, say, Podunk, WV (not that I don't like WV - you know - it's wild and wonderful...) where people are a little more conservative.

But here's why I love me some Barack Obama:

I'm a brown woman. Bicultural, bilingual, not quite one thing and not quite the other. I have a sneaking suspicion he GETS that. You have to be black or brown or any shade of off-white to get what it's like to live that. Not that there aren't plenty of wonderful, compassionate, progressive Whites out there, just that they will never know what it's like to walk in another person's skin, in a different shade of skin. And that's okay.

That said, I think it's high time I had someone in government who could see things from a similar perspective. Someone who moves just as easily among mainstream White America as he/she does among minorities; someone who gets the nuances of representing an entire group of people; someone who can inspire us to be a more united and representative nation. There's a part of me, that idealistic part, that still believes in the democratic process and the beauty of representation, and I FEEL that from Barack Obama in a way that I don't feel it from Hilary Clinton.

This is a nation where if you are not White, you will always be an ethnic or racial label FIRST, hence this connection with the racial minority and not with the woman. Maybe I'm crazy, but this is what I'm feeling. I can get behind Obama's politics, I connect to what he's saying, and I know that he knows what life is like on the outside. That's important to me.
I can get behind Clinton's politics to an extent, but I don't connect to her the way I do with Obama. She doesn't get that outsider thing.

And it's the same way when it comes to Washington. Seriously, do I want a nineties flashback, a repeat of the GWB years, or something FRESH? I want a change. Someone who isn't dragging mid-nineties Washington baggage.

I think last night in WV proved that a lot of people aren't willing to look past what they know. Mejor es el diablo conocido - Better to deal with the evil we already know. At the same time, I believe there's a level of racial discrimination at play.... Ultimately, skin is skin. We all know this. But that skin is charged with so much meaning in this country and it's one of those status quo things that people just can't get past.

I pray that this country can come out of these racial and ethnic divides someday. I pray that we'll embrace our differences and forgive eachother for past mistakes. I pray that these elections and the shifting demographics don't serve to revive waves of supressed racial/ethnic issues.

I've been thinking a lot about racial reconciliation, lately, about how necessary it is, about how much I would like to be involved in that type of work.... I swear, I'm not militant. I just won't ignore this. I won't sit back and say that I don't see what I see or feel what I feel.

I've been out with men of other races and ethnic groups and been stared down. I've been called names and insulted. I've borne the burden of my people on my shoulders. I know that collective pain.

Ay, pero mi lindo Jesús, tú que tanto amas a tu pueblo, y a la nación que te ruega por guianza y ayuda, sana estas heridas. Trae una reconciliación, y recuérdanos que tú te manifiestas en la bella diversidad que has creado.

Throwing stones

So I was sitting in church last night and I leaned forward to pray. My mom was sitting next to me, and she about flipped out. "Pull your shirt up in the back!" she snapped. I looked at her puzzled, and she repeated it. "What are you talking about?" I whispered back.
Mind you, this is while people are trying to pray silently.
"Oh, I'm so embarrassed. You can see your tattoo; what will people say? I'm so embarrassed."
I'm not even making this up.

Here's where I'm going with this: people pass judgment. Period. It's what happens; everyone does it. Now here's where we make a differentiation: we can judge people and act on those judgments, or we can judge and wait to be surprised. You know, we can go in anyway.

I won't say that I'm always surprised, but I do give it a chance.

And here's what I've decided about my own life: people talk smack, regardless. I work hard, keep to myself, and do the things that I'm passionate about. But that's not to say that everyone will see that. It doesn't matter. The thing that matters is that God and I know that I'm doing what He needs me to do.

When I went to Mission Year, a lot of people talked; people doubted the reality of what I lived there. That doesn't make my experience any less powerful or life-changing.

My aunt once told my mom that she'd expected more from me; that she'd thought I'd be more thän "just a teacher". It doesn't make me any less satisfied or passionate about my job.

I was walking with my mom the other day and I thanked her for everything that she's done since I moved back home. I told her that it's been much better than I expected. She sniffed and said, "Well, maybe it's been better for you. I don't feel like you help out at home." Thanks, mom, but it doesn't make me less grateful for the sacrifices that you've made.

The thing is that she's not the only one to make sacrifices. I've made some, too. People never see that, you know? No one else will ever know what it's like to live in your skin. I remember as a kid, I used to think, "Wow, C's life is just as real to her as mine is to me." (I was a bright kid.) Think about that a minute: everyone lives in their own personal reality. Sometimes our realities overlap, but there's so much that we cannot possibly comprehend about one another.

And that's kind of what I wanted to get to. I'm not perfect: I have a hard time giving complete trust, I am what we refer to in Spanish as antipática, and I'm a bit of a cynic. That said, I am painfully aware of my shortcomings and I work at them. I consciously try to give people the benefit of the doubt, I work extra hard to curb the sarcasm and be a little friendly, I ask God everyday to help me look at things the way He does.

I fail.

I fail often.

But that doesn't make my attempts any less real or valid. People may think that I don't give enough, but it's because they don't know how much I'm giving, because they don't know the sheer effort that goes into the steps that I'm making towards progress.

I have students who've taken three years - three YEARS - to remember to put an accent mark on the "O" in words that end in "-ión". It's one of the easiest tricks to remember, in my opinion, but it's hard for them. I can't discount the effort that they're making in trying to remember this "foreign" concept of accentuation. But here's the thing, when I see that occasional accent mark on "opinión" or "acción" or "canción" - it fills my heart. I know that all their efforts have paid off, that all those days of reminding myself of their potential have paid off.

So the point is this: We are all flawed, all imperfect, but all working at becoming better.

Maybe you don't see the progress, maybe change doesn't come quickly enough for you, and maybe you don't think that person will ever get to where you think they should be.

But guess what?

You can't be sure. You don't know their inner struggles, don't know how hard they're working.

People will surprise you, but sometimes it takes years.

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....

Gratitude

Things I'm thankful for:

1. A positive observation
2. Naps to fight off migraines
3. The greatness of God (and by great I mean big)
4. Feeling tiny and insignificant, but in a good way, after seeing the lunar eclipse
5. The elliptical being down in the basement
6. The fact that I got my lazy bum out of bed this morning for a twenty-minute session on the elliptical and that I put in a full 70 minutes of exercise while watching AI
7. My upcoming trip to PR
8. A body that works
9. Papa John's thin crust veggie pizza - light on the cheese
10. Getting in the recommended servings of fruits and veggies in one day (someone should congratulate me)
11. My family and friends
12. A possible soccer game on Saturday (I get to play with the boys AGAIN!)

S told me that if I went outside I could see the lunar eclipse, and I kind of didn't want to because it's cold and it snowed (two things I hate). But then I decided I didn't have to sit out there and watch it for hours, so I stepped outside, stood on the porch in my t-shirt and yoga pants, and checked it out.

There is nothing that makes me feel as close to God as the beach, but a lunar eclipse might be close. There's something about the perfection of the natural world that really makes me aware of how vast and how precise God is, at least in my understanding of Him. He's got this whole complicated system worked out - He works it out - and it's beyond me.
I love that feeling of being dwarfed by Someone so wonderful.