12.14.14 Last of My Date Posts

This one is long... and I don't think a cool date is coming up for a while so my next post shall be a real one too. This is a blurb I wrote on 11.24.14 half of this has changed today… more on that later, maybe.

          Since almost a year and a half ago if not longer I think God has been making a “connect the dots” puzzle for me, kind of like constellations. Today, I feel a peace that lingers further than the pit of my knowledge of God/subconscious, and it’s been a while since I have felt that way. Today I am okay with quiet, today I am not questioning my existence or my faith, or my heart’s desires, not in the usual crippling way anyway… It might just be circumstance and how my manager praised my hard work for once… but I think the everyday is harder to face when your core is in question, at least for me of maybe all INFPs it is, it is harder to now know why. Some odd amount of months and a year ago I was in the fringe of a transition in my life with parts I foresaw, parts I never would have imagined and parts I thought I foresaw but did not want to acknowledge because I hated the thought, it shook my core and struck me with fear. Here I will break it all down.

          So I’m some sort of art freak or “creative” junk person thing, aka artsy-fartsy, aka artist, since before I can remember I have loved making things. Noise, images, ideas, structures (mostly small ones). At a simple level they are ways of communicating, mostly only seen as communicating emotions, by some, and others define it as communicating beauty and aesthetics. I think both definitions fall short, more on that later, maybe. Nonetheless, all my life I have loved these things more than I knew at first, never more than the important things in life, but love them. All my Jesus following life I have been told they are “gifts” and when I wasn't sharing them I was “wasting” them. Alright, I can say to some extent, I could agree they are “gifts” from God but to what degree is still up for verdict, personally I don’t think they’re very much different than other good things I have received, my life, my loved ones, Jesus Himself are also things I would call gifts and infinitely more important to me than all these things I do that create things… I was going to list them but that’s silly. I was told they “glorify God” so in my young understanding I equated that to worship of God, at least in part, and purpose in life.

          For a long time I always somehow knew that I hate doing any of these things publicly. It felt alien to me, to share these things, to expose them, to exchange them for something. I put it at the back of my mind, as they say, writing it off as a stigma of pride vs false humility (without the fancy words back when I was in high school/college) or a stigma of motivations a strange argument of it being for money and fame or the love of it or something else, something occult that I didn't know about yet. However there was and is a part of me, beyond shame of questioning my faith/drive that delights in sharing, and I can sometimes see a place for it, a small one maybe, but I only come to accept that halfheartedly. Where I have struggled with this the most is with the creativity I enjoy the most, (ironically or not) music, and specifically for me, singing.

          This is where most of my angst with the arts has manifested unbridled, untamed, and wildly which affected my deepest fears of who I am in light of loving God. In search of the meaning of this so called “gift” in my life (because people I trusted called it so, and David who tamed evil spirits with music affirmed those words) I looked at the world and saw a purpose of fame and money, that didn’t sit well with an introvert who likes doing things aside, quietly, and hates money and what it produces in the hearts of people. I looked at the church and it was evangelism, money and fame, or “worship.” These were my quaint observations. So my logical conclusion of where I fit in, seeing as how I hate concerts most of the time, unless I am watching them, I thought was “worship,” weekly concerts for a group of Christians for free, or a small donation I guess depending on how one looks at it. This, by the way, was only after a strange even, occurrence, happening, I had in Peru where I was on a “missions trip” and the whole group of people I was working with was asked to sing and “lead worship.” I felt the spirit move, as we tend to call it, I had chills all over that gave me a profound sense of peace, wholeness, and as I saw a room full of desperate and hungry faces staring back at me, it felt right and it reminded me of my first conversation with God that was through a song. I started seeking out a way to commit to what I heard God whisper in my heart, once I got back to the US I wanted to be a part of that as much as I could, weekly I supposed, because of Sunday morning “church,” it was addictive to me I suppose or simply I felt I found a place for something I loved that God “gifted” me, and maybe for myself and this persona I could not understand. The “worship leader” dismissed me when I asked him with his own frustrations saying I should take over and it was never brought up again.

          Over the years I played my songs, here and there like for little coffee nights they had for whatever reason and somehow I ended up through other words and thoughts and conclusions at the School of Music at USF, my fourth year of college maybe. I was there to learn how to teach music, a combination of many of my loves and my character, hoping to leave there with tools to help the least of these, children who are forgotten and overlooked in our society, children who are given up on long before they even know who they are, searching (as I always tried) for God’s character. Summer (June, July) some odd years later when I was isolated from the church I prayed for God to give me a place to unite my love for Him with my love for this monster (my voice, my creativity not in any of these words) having met people at the SoM who were completely like me in all things but my faith. I met a kid there who by that fall (maybe September) said he was doing an Artists and Musicians Bible Study, why they are separate who knows, unbeknownst to him, to me this was an answer to my prayer. I said, beyond any doubt “I’m in.” Within a few months, that following spring semester (January) I could no longer pursue my dream of teaching, temporarily (I said to myself) this marked the time I was no longer a full time student and part time bread winner to being full time in ministry and part time bread winner.

          Sooner than later I hear more of the “gift” talk, again, and felt moved around the same time to minister to the artistic soul, souls like mine, hurting souls like mine. I tried to put the “gifts” talk aside, while I still hear it from time to time when I wanted to explore the meaning of the arts in depth because I always knew the worlds definition was coming up short, and my insides questioned the church and while my friends, in attempts to encourage me, would tell me to “try the worship team” everything in my cried “no!” I thought it was “the enemy,” false humility, pride; the feeling had a dozen names throughout the years. Soon I was becoming tired of being an introvert lost in a very extroverted institution and after I had laid the idea to rest because I felt I was discovering just how much we were falling short of God’s purpose and definition of art and hoping I would have a group of people to learn and explore this purpose at great length and depth someone (meaning well) brought up the “gifts” and “worship” question back. I asked God, “What are You saying to me?” Somehow because I always think out loud, I was urged to ask the powers that be, and I was told I knew “nothing about worship.” That could very well be true, but whatever the case was about God and my heart I knew I loved Him then as I do now, and I stopped singing that day.

          By then I felt tired of the extrovert world and I moved from full time in ministry, part time bread winner to full time head of household as my mother because more invisible to society, and I was chained to my home because we couldn't reach others. Resources are a funny thing when no one understands not having them, explaining this to those who aren't wanting is impossible sometimes. I knew God had a time of rest for me, then, oddly enough, away from the noise of a crowd, away from giving, giving, giving and I questioned is I should exist at all if I could not give my time, since I have never been able to give from my pocket and it was even more impossible then.

          When I stopped singing, at first, I thought it was because I believed that voice or it was out of spite and anger (a piece of my heart wondered what the world would be like free of the sound of my voice, and my mind) but really I was tired. I was tired of not understanding a world based on performance, and I needed to understand why we craved these events so very much. Both outside and inside the church we flock to be able to hear, see, and taste the arts, it seems to be a phenomena everywhere. I mean, I cannot think of a culture that does not have the arts. Yet it seems incomplete everywhere I know it here, in our society, by far “Christian” music seemed broken to me for many reasons, my own music included (you can ask my why if you want but I won’t address that here). I felt no desire to keep playing the game, though I did find enjoyment in it still and remembered that well, I also couldn't remember the difference between “Christian” music and “secular” music for both had potential for great beauty and I would worship God in hearing both, as well as the other arts. Soon I remembered the undeniable fact; in the arts my soul finds great and vast intimacy with God, an understanding of something quiet unspeakable, incommunicable, indescribable and I believe it is capable of giving me that same intimacy with others, I am beginning to think. Maybe I did not even have the words for it until yesterday (11.23.14) or just now, but the dots in the puzzle I think God has been giving me point to something linking these two thoughts: intimacy-community, and introversion-extroversion.

          As I asked God yesterday why we call this concert every Sunday “worship” and why it’s needed, or rather so many feel it’s needed when so many say true worship of God is with every minute of our lives, when we honor Him, and bring Him glory, why can so many Christians not even congregate without it, and if they do they feel it’s incomplete. I thought it was as simple as we are indoctrinated to think so, perhaps, but I think there’s a deeper level to it as well, for even outside the church there are concerts and get-togethers to create music. As I was asking this I hear from the stage “we don’t call this church because we believe the church is what we do every day, so why do we do this?” These are words I hear often, and they were followed by something about “unity” and it hit me. I am a little introvert in this vast room of many extroverts, and alone I can have a deep connection to God that’s meaningful and energizing just fine. I can go weeks if not years probably without singing with others and almost never crave it, and then there were the extroverts. Extroverts who are nothing like me, who process energy in a whole other way and that was when my heart rested, feeling peace about this question that came well into my heart. Alone I can have that full espresso type of energy from God, that can last weeks sometimes, but extroverts live for the large crowds, the big sounds the noise and everything that tires me out in seconds and drives me to feel insanity. Suddenly I knew something I never understood enough to explain, another piece of the puzzle, collective artistry must be there. I always knew it was designed to be there, but I was at a loss as to why, so I am at another part of my search for God’s eyes for the arts.

12.13.14 Oh the perfect date ha ha ha

This is a poem I wrote a few days ago... but today is a good number day! So I wanted to publish it!

This strange addiction, I cannot deny
You trifle, taunt, tease
Beckon me with only a glace, a thought
This itch needs to end
Needs to bend
Needs to fend for my attention, no longer
Yet I can't say there's much of anything wrong.
The moments are sweet
Tender and far beyond my temptations
These moment seduce my mind my heart my soul
To recall a creation, a birth, a breath of life

So why...
Does my core tremble so?
The mystery is too much
It's easier to care nothing of it
But,
There you are, staring at me, filling my eye
Whispering of when you and I could find the time
and get lost.
Rhymes, chimes, lyrics, spirit
All entwined and I am
Spell bound

Later
I remember the fears
I remember the doubt
I remember the moments lost and dreamed
I dreamt of a time when we would be
Just as you envisioned me
And just as I always knew within
Then as I shake
And take a breath of nothing
You breath into me again
And I live on every word you say

12.12.14

Another one of those number days... I am thinking of finishing my poem that I wrote a few days ago and posting it later... isn't 12.12.14 a pretty number, or how about 12.12.2014? So I am waiting around for a ride heh and using the internet while I can, whereabouts? That's something only I can know! Anyway, I hear I might be getting a free guitar? Or something, I'm not sure the irony of this is so intense I will write more about it later, especially it if happens. I have been challenged all week to my core, in a good way. Anyway, laterdays, or more later!

Okay now a real one, Silence can be better

I am never disappointed at the things God does in my life... I've been thinking a lot about connect the dots, and I'm posting something about that soon, after I clean it up... I am in a silly mood tonight and I think it's because after a long time of trials I have some breathing room, and lots of encouragement.

I think I say this a lot, but I might not say it as much as I think, when I speak of trials I am not in despair, deep in my heart, and my most inward core I know the truth, God is here, He is watching, He is in control, but I think it is healthy to voice our fears. I think so that we don't get entangled in them, and I think mostly because another in the same distress can feel encouraged to know they are not alone. Yes, many of us say we are never alone with God, but there's a reason He gave Eve to Adam, and there's a reason He asks us to love one another... We were not meant to live in caves.

More so on this I have been thinking of division and anger I guess because of all the things in the news about racism and I think so much of how so many voices are never heard. So may say it's opportunity, and some may say it's power struggles I'm fighting for words... But I tend to feel that we don't take each other in one at a time.

Yes it's human nature to make inferences and generalizations and categories to better function in understanding... Examples cat, dog, rat, rabbit = furry four legged creature = animal... We say a small child "mistook a cat for a dog" no, simply they know a dog walks on four legs and is furry, they see a cat and don't see the difference it wasn't taught. Okay, then we do the same with whatever categories we have race, gender, sexuality, religion, faith etc mix that in with our own hurts, pains, traumas and sin we get potential for anger, fear, violence, division and opinions that very hurt and/or reject others. However, if you add grace, forgiveness, mercy, and love into the mix you have potential for a lot of other levels. We always hear about "racist" saying "well, I have a friend who is ..." and we rant at them saying this is not a valid argument against their hatred of another race (or their own)... Why would we think it is? Well, maybe because we love our friends, and where love is racism or any other bigotry cannot fully exist with out needing to be choked out, by that love.

Am I saying that love can cancel out years of hate and injustice and cruelty? Why, of course I am saying that. I don't think any of what has happened to these people in the news is right, yet I cannot say that the white man in law enforcement who killed a black man of the community is completely and wholly evil. Why? Because I would have to say you're completely evil, or I am, okay I might be but I believe in a God who created us in His image, and I also believe sin is rampant in this world, and I also believe that His son came to tell us to love our enemies, because God is love and love concurs all evil no matter what. I don't mean to say that the pain and hurt of the victims in these stories don't matter, that is not the point.

My point is we are adding to anger is we only focus on our own hurts, what of the hurts of another. One was never taught to look beyond their own lives and understanding, then one will never want to understand and never be able to understand. If I grew up being scared of the sky and only came out when it was cloudy then what real knowledge to I have of the sky except what I have been told? I believe that is the sin committed against those in privilege or anyone really that we suppose is better off, or wiser, or more powerful. We assume they have the same values. Guess what they don't, and even if they claim the same faith and religion, they don't have your same values. If we judge by the law, our own or anyone else's, we are all guilty and deserve death. In the end this is what I try to live and breath and this is why I am tired, so tired of the posts and comments and tweets about the same pain. I get it, no I don't think it's wrong to feel pain to voice it, but aggression begets aggression, and superficial little rants about it will not fix a thing. It will only make those who are also hurt and scared just as you are to be more hurt and scared and paranoid.

What I have decided is to talk to those I love about it, one on one, and I think that's the only way anything will change. Love binds us, beyond opinions, faith, race, gender, and anything else you can throw at me. Love, cancels out all hurt. Love can make a discussion about something that has happened for centuries come into the living room of a home and change at least those in that room. I refuse to go to any link about some random story of a person I don't know at this point because it will only add to any biases my heart has, and probably even develop others. If I am branded for this post, so be it, but if you love me I would hope we can talk about it. I have done the opposite many times in the past to my shame. It's easy to close a door on someone and say you're better off, but you will be alone. I think this is the same for the white police officer who killed the black man who stole cigarettes and that whole issue and we then closing our hearts to "those people" whichever side you are on, and crying about it on the internet. We all want to be heard, but the tongue cannot be tamed by man, and the tongue steer a whole ship into fire and death. This is why I have been silent. Today I decided not to be.

12.04.2014

Yes I like numbers I suppose
More than I would admit
In fact I am writing
Just to have something to sub---post
I hated math
It seemed pointless to the lives of humans
In deeper levels I am sure that's not true
On the levels I knew, eh it was just symbols and things and such and yes
I am told there are numbers in music
And that may very well be true
Here I am trying to find them
No that's not true at all
I don't look for the numbers in songs or rhyme
But when it comes to a day
A date and mark of time
I think that look pretty

If they are related and such things I dunno
So here are four more lines
To add to twelve
This is a free write because I can...

2014 cause I won't write endlessly for twenty more lines and then another 14... not today

7 6 4 3

That’s where you are,

In all those beautiful and tearful things

In ecstasy and failure, fear and triumph

As I tremble yet

As peace infiltrates my existence

That sweet sound

The stillness beyond

Senses fall short, the soul searches

Retinas for light

Drums for sound

Yes, I can’t take it all in

But oh, how I long

To absorb, observe, and know

This bliss…

And even as darkness arrives

And even when I despair

And even when it tears at my soul

You know.

You’re there.

You love.

10.14.14

Another free write un solicited (is that right?) post, another of my number things...

We had a bad scare last night, Mom and I, about her hometown. Earthquake tsunami... I was really scared for them... it never ceases to amaze me how much this culture I'm surrounded with doesn't understand family, or even seem to appreciate it the way mine does. Anyway, more later in general, just something I needed to spout out.

10.10.2014

          Okay, so I have a thing with numbers... I like the number ten... so I wanted to post today because I'm 3 x 10 years + 10 months old today... HA Yeah, lame I know. I'm free writing and trying to beat the clock and I'm not advertising this post. Only my hardcore readers, like Cookie, will see this one! (Yeah, I'm that popular insert sarcasm font)
          So I was asked what my blog is about today by a good old time friend, I had no words, wow a first,right, I think. Anyway, I wanted to give the gist of is but it's been four posts since i really started trying AND I don't remember the first one from August I think it was. That reminds me of August Rush, great moive, and yes I think I can hear stars too, but I thought I was crazy until that movie! Anyway, I have ten minutes left and today was a tired, tired day of a lot of tension at work that I did not know how to handle, as usual.
      I hope SOMEONE is reading this, eventually, maybe I might be one of those never published in waking life authors and this will be unearthed as a great tribute to the insides of my heart and mind... yeah. yeah, I don't know if any of that will happen. As I follow Jesus, though, I hope to make SOME sort of impact in this world before my body gives out or is crushed or whatever way I die. If I don't leave the earth tonight before 10.10.2014 is over! AH!!! Okay, I'm not morbid, but life is short. I say choose your battles, this I fail at mostly a lot. Ten minutes, I'm giving up now. Goodnight reader(s)!

Part Three: Love

Don't miss Part One of Part Three Makes not sense

More time passed, and I ended up hearing an answer from God about all the things spinning in my head in a place I least expected, a meeting at work. Along with everything aforementioned, I was also struggling with feeling alienated by un-relatable stories in sermons, and how my mom has probably struggled with this feeling even longer than I. This made the sense of being unknown and unheard worse tenfold. As egocentric as I had been, it should’ve been something readily up for discussion with God readily offered to Him in hope of change. For a while I have been thinking how no one knows Mom in my community, and I’ve always felt that no one really cares to try. This has been on my heart for many years, especially when I have been almost bullied into abandoning her for my “dreams” and “ministry” and “what God has for me” as far opportunities and a “future.” They, people who care not to know her, give a lot of vindications, ridiculous ones if you ask me, but a few people have reached out to her, so I took heart, and waited. I was waiting, for a day she would be able to connect as a Latina woman, ripped out of her country against her will, treated like an idiot almost daily for a language barrier (she is fluent in English by the way) for 25 years that we have been in this country and several years prior in another, add to that churches that have told her, her faith was nothing before getting there because her religion and culture was different, work places that told her, her diplomas and experience in her country are worth nothing, and many other bits of her story that only I seem to know, I waited for the day for her to connect to the community we had been a part of for four years now, the way I connected with many of the sermons and teachings on a week to week basis.

          A short while ago a Latina woman who I respect very much was given a chance to speak, and for the first time, my mom was fully engaged and connected in the teaching like I had never seen, and my heart was warmed. It brought to mind how I have been inundated with countless references and stories that I have no way of relating to, or understanding the way others in that room can. It was something that I always felt unnerved by, but it never really hit me until I was constantly explaining what “Twitter” or “Facebook” or “YouTube” are to Mom, and when I would be in a room of people laughing to a joke they were all in on because of the internet, and I was left out. Still, I felt” I am a rare case and Mom too,” so I thought, “it doesn’t matter, I’ll get over it.”

          That is until I talked to a friend (one of the few I’ve had in this year or so of isolation) about it, and then I saw how my very life is nothing like what these sermons speak of, on some level they are, because Jesus. On most levels though, everything is written, even sermons and teachings, for a specific audience, and I do not fit into the middle-class, post-grad, or college student, or full-time career audience that is my community. I cannot name one person who has not been to college, and the ones who don’t have a degree are seeking a degree, and have no worries as to finishing and moving on to where ever they wish in the world. Even those who I know as doing “full time ministry” have the privilege of making a choice of “leaving everything behind for Jesus” versus getting a “real job.” In that same conversation I remembered the people I have met who are in the same situation as I am, only a HS degree, or GED, unable to come and go as they wish, without the kindness of a good Samaritan or funds, time, and strength for the bus system. Then I thought of those who have less than I do, the poorest of the poor, who not only don’t have internet, or money for gas, or a smartphone, they don’t have a car, a home, and get even less food weekly, if any food at all.

I asked myself, how would they feel, how do they feel, to hear about things to which they cannot relate? Like I was mentioning before, all these thing had been on my heart, for a very long time, questions about love, and the unloved, the seen and the unseen, aware all the while that God loves constantly, and knows constantly on top of endless other things He does constantly these two aspects stand out to me right now, and suddenly it hit me. I was sitting at a meeting with the CEO of my company and eight other co-workers, the point was professional to break the stigma that the CEO is a stranger who just does whatever he wants and cares nothing about his workers. Whether this is true or not is not my place, but as I learned little things about him, through silly ice breakers, and comments he made I suddenly didn’t see a CEO of a company who only served to put food on the table, and a roof over my head (barely at times), I saw a man who is doing his job as much as he can, who has pressures (which he mentioned not intentionally or deliberately like his mind wondered for a second), who knows he is not making the cut because people are unhappy, and all this felt intuitive as if God placed His heart for this man on my shoulders for a second and suddenly there it was... Suddenly love was there, maybe weak, maybe quiet and very still but it was there. I suddenly had more patience, compassion, understanding, and grace for this man who before then I had probably murdered in my heart and prayed to find compassion and love for him because I know Jesus sent me, and everyone who loves Him, to love one another, like He loved us. I thought of how knowing Jesus gave me, us, a way to know God with a human face, making something tangible to the intangible, and it seemed so simple. It was easy to throw a judgment of the “rich and powerful white male CEO” who sees his employees as little ants who run at his every whim, who wants to play god in our little company world and just write him off, but that hurt my heart so deeply to even stray in that direction. However, after I could know him, my CEO, in the flesh, even a little and mostly the little was the tiny bit of struggle (which I would argue is the most human quality we have) he could no longer be a caricature of a human, he could no longer be an image on the screen of my computer or he image he probably want to portray of strength and security, he was a man, with flaws, and aching for what we all ache for, love, to be known, and loved as he is a flawed man.

          I spend most of my weeks, 40+ hours (if I include lunch and travel time) alone, in silence or the company of the sounds of my mp3 player and my phone (random texts I sneak to read and write). As I sit and explore my thoughts there are different things I come across at work that remind me of the people I love. A mention of anything related to Latin America will make me think of Mom, that same Latina leader I mentioned earlier and her fiery passion for our people, for example. If I see something about cats, I’ll think of my friend who I call Luna, or my horse calendar makes me think of my coffee date friend and her farm dream, and how she’s been struggling with feeling alone as well, even though she has resources I do not. Food makes me think of my friend who struggles to get rent and fed, and my other friend who sacrificed her money this week to help her, and me actually. When I think about the friends I wish I had at work I remember my friend who moved far from me, yet seems closer than anyone here in Tampa. When I think of a moving piece of music for an emotion which has no words I think of my friend who I met almost a year ago who I wish I had met years before and her vision for purity and her effervescent joy. When I see a name that can be confused for something wrong I’ll think of my co-worker and I’ll want to share.

          Then I think of how there are a lot of things I think over and over and I want to share, yet I feel like if I share them I am talking to a wall, and I send a little text to “Twitter,” and even that makes me think of my friend who volunteers at what the Underground calls the HUB and how she was the only person I confessed that feeling to until now I think. I sit for hours in a cubicle with no human interaction, nowhere to share joy, light or salt. Most everyone I see every day I am completely disconnected to besides physically they are like ghosts or robots. On the other hand everyone I know the most about I never see, and some of them, like most all the leaders I respect know nothing about me. They might know my name, maybe my face, but to have a conversation about anything seems awkward, like when you’re having a conversation with the person you’re stalking (or your stalker for you popular people) in a High school hallway. I feel like anything I would want to offer to them is out of place, out of context and therefore misunderstood, even with the most basic things like asking for advice, or asking how to get better connected or how to have a real community. I feel this leaves us with a weird dynamic, leaders feel over worked, misunderstood, and isolated, those who follow feel unseen, useless, unheard and equally isolated. I believe this should be something that is different in the Kingdom. It should be something we come and break apart when we walk into work places, stores and the city as a whole.

          We all want to be known, and yes we are known by God more intricately than can be described, yet I we also want to be known by the horizontal, the human faces next to us. As much as the large group community I am a part of, Underground, became a community of micro churches for this reason yet I know for a fact that there are those who fall through the cracks. I know I have, my mother has more so. I know friends who have and I know there are some who cannot even begin the conversation to fall through anything. In this community, as it is, I have no power, no influence, no connection, no voice because I am unknown, I am unseen. In the Kingdom however we all have power, influence, connection, and a voice because this is part of what, I believe, Jesus set out to do, to make God known through each of our stories, not to become one stale and redundant telling of His love and creation and grace, but through each individual case, each voice, each life a different facet is seen. I think this is why we were all called to love one another, but I think we cannot fully love without knowing each other. Because of Jesus we can now know God, and thus love Him more fully. Those who make me feel most loved are those who go out of their way to know me, and is this not how Jesus loved us? He went out of His way (not that anything is difficult for Him) to become nothing, fully God and fully man, a rainbow of beauty contained in human form to know what it is to be human, what it is to suffer, what is it to be born a baby who cannot contain its bowels, and to slowly and painfully learn to be an adult. He had to learn to walk, talk, communicate, eat, drink, sing… how to be a Jewish man in Palestine. He lived in poverty, learned to work alongside His human father, and befriended other humans who longed to see the face of God, to know Him and be known by Him. Many of us know about God through the stories about the work He did in the lives of many historical figures in the Bible, this is how we know His character, but what about the stories He has for us in the lives of those you serve, those you want to love? Why not get into the entrails of each of us and get the nutrients from each other’s fruit? He told us in Matthew that what we do for the “least of these” we do for Him, so we feel a call to serve and help others and love Him that way, but I tell you the truth, many of us in need, on the other side of the drawbridge, who are always asked to justify don’t feel like it’s justification if you spend time with us in general, and happen to know a need because you know our day-to-day struggles. Many of us in need physically are more in need to have a friend to talk with, to laugh, to cry just like you need these things. I see a common thread in society today, especially riding the bus with strangers who stare into machines instead of even look their neighbor in the eyes, or sitting in a break room, the one girl without a smartphone, alone, disconnected, is something more and more of us are facing, yet we do not talk to anyone even if it’s just air separating us. How much harder do you think it is to connect when it’s a whole city, or a glass ceiling, or simply no one asking who you are that causes the chasm you cannot cross, and especially those whose underbelly is exposed to the elements, whose soul might be dragging by on its last legs, or drowned in a chemical high of any sort, how much harder? How much more desperately needed, is a kind smile, and an ear to hear a story of who God has been to keep them sustained to that day to even know you? Then I say, what if they don’t even know it is God who painted their story? What if no one told them, what is they were told Satan made them? What if they just need to be known, empowered to speak, and then loving sacrifice comes ten times easier because it’s no longer duty? It is love incarnate, the body of Christ finally putting its head on its shoulders.

Part Two: Justification

 Don't miss Part One or Part Two makes not sense

          As time passed, I recently voiced my hurt one Sunday afternoon, probably in anger, to a friend, “No one wants to tote around poor folk,” overwhelmed by so many opportunities that were atop a glass ceiling I felt so tired of explaining. Overwhelmed by how small and outnumbered I feel almost everywhere I go for endless reasons, and misunderstood for lack of patience to listen, or simply lack of time or ability, and my own lack of energy and stamina to tell my whole life story to ask for a hand, I was falling apart and hid myself behind a fake smile again, as I have done many times before, to avoid tears that would also need to be explained. Maybe God was showing me, how the poor always feel they have to be justified, as if not having a good enough explanation for need makes one less human, and therefore less lovable. In my anger that utterance which was, shamefully, mostly sarcasm felt like a lungful of precious oxygen that my body longed to take in.

          Maybe it was something I always knew in my heart, when I saw the words “homeless please help” or “lost job, anything helps” or “single mom, in need,” or “struggling family ice cold water $1” and the times my friend has told me she can’t make rent again, and has to go into detail of all the things she fights throughout the day just to fearfully make it home, in one piece and feed her son, see her son and yet still cannot put together the bits of her wages to know her family will have a roof over their head the next day, week, month… As she tearfully explains how losing her car means losing her job, and how her job, which feels like a jail or slave labor is never enough in wages, she tells me how all her life all she’s known are struggles and she dreams of helping people with less than her, of opening a homeless shelter and giving others a worry free life very much unlike hers and her mother’s life. Her nights are of exhaustion, first mental and emotional, then physical simply because her body is scantily fueled, and spiritually she is holding on to the bit of hope that a God of love gives, knowing He sees and endures her pain alongside her. When things like these come to mind, “the least of these” giving justifications in order to inspire compassion seems wrong, it seems diabolical and evil to say the least.

          I wonder if this is something God planted in my heart years ago, long before I knew what something like social justice even means, I think God always showed me how wrong it is to ask those we are helping, “why.” What if I am not gifted in debate? What if you think I’m too stupid to speak your language, and barely listen to what I’m saying to you and humiliate me with your broken two words of my language because you’re somehow more intelligent than I am, because well you just are? What if I don’t know why, and I just need? What if I took a wrong turn and need a chance to redeem that mistake? What if it’s not your left hand’s job to ask what your right hand is doing, and why it’s doing what it’s doing? What if real compassion seeks out the lesser, has eyes wide open searching the horizon instead of continuing on their one track mind, and asks what need exists, not why it’s there and fulfills the need fully entrusting God to their own needs. I know I don’t do this either, I hate how I don’t, but maybe it’s because even when I ask I am denied or pointed elsewhere without even help in getting there, and I’m scared and weak in faith as time passes.

          Even when we’re not asking something for ourselves, the poor have to deal with the explaining, the shame, the justifying, the mistrust, the assumption that we are unintelligent because we are poor or rather we are poor because we are unintelligent. We have to face all the rejection, all the incommodity, all the sacrifice, all the risk and most of the time alone, and we have even more to lose than what it would take to help even for a little bit, more than time, more than convenience, more than comfort, we are losing our human dignity. The poor are seen as subhuman, just as immigrants or minorities are seen as less than human or any other people group that is not in privilege. Yet, I don’t have to explain why I am Latina. I don’t have to explain why I am a woman. I don’t have to explain why I am an immigrant. Yet, while all these aren’t seen and needing justification, or explanation no one seems to stop to think that they all have potential to contribute to the explanation of my financial class. The assumption is I am irresponsible, frivolous, that I don’t know the value of money, that I can’t control my spending, that I can’t add two and two and know that it’s more than the three dollars in my checking account, that I just forgot where I put that twenty dollar bill, that I am over committing myself, that I have a substance abuse problem, that I have an addiction, that I can’t decide what food is best for my family, that I don’t know how to be thrifty, that I waste money, or that I’m lying to get something for nothing. What hurts me more than anything is that I am more comfortable, less afraid and most confident to ask the government or perfect strangers for help through charities than I am to ask for even a simple prayer about these things from my Christ following community who (I used to assume) remembers the command of Jesus to love one another as He loved us. I always wondered why, and it’s because many ask me to justify my need only when it comes to finances, and yes government programs and charities do the same, but because they are complete strangers and don’t know who they can trust, but more so because I EXPECT these people to do so, and I used to EXPECT my body, whose head is Christ, to be different, the light and salt of the earth, but it’s not. If anything, they have been more ruthless in their asking and probing of my life and income. So, I remain, in silence, while I would only expect their yes to be yes, and their no to be no, it’s easier to hear nothing.

This is part two of a series of three related blogs; please see my next post to read on…

Part One: Draw Bridge

          A year ago I was challenged to love when I feel unloved, hidden, or forgotten, I think that’s why I spent a year looking for a place to do so, yet after a year of no growth, still being stuck in that same feeling, and failure (which is okay, it happens) I believe I know not how to love others. Maybe it’s just my current situation what feels like a sea of physical limitations that I cannot begin to document here, physical freedom-sucking limitations that seem to be making deep emotional and spiritual manifestations. I know, most would say it’s the other way around that the spiritual ill births the physical ill, but these limitations are very much outside of me, and they are bleeding my insides dry. I am aware that most of the things affected are existing hurts, and I am also aware that God may very well be fortifying me, and cleaning me of those hurts through this time. As some would say, we all have times in the desert. A few months ago I committed myself to a community of people, most of whom are strangers to me, and I have failed. I cannot commit to them and I am mourning the day I uttered such false words. Deep in my heart I think I knew it, I would have to swallow those words after speaking them like a dog returns to vomit, but the thought at the forefront of my mind then was “only time can tell.”

          I never knew how intensely I cherished the thought of being a person who can keep her word, even if they are little ones, and this has cut me deeply. I know, like I said already, failure is not the end all and be all of life, but I think there is a certain level of mourning I cannot even grasp enough with words when one fails at something held closet to one’s core. Everything I do, and everything I want to be, in Christ, for me is based around this, knowing who He is, who He made me and is making me, and being who I say I am to others, this is the way I know how to love; honesty, consistency, perseverance, fighting until the bitter end to engage the other and giving my life away as best I can therefore showing others a piece of who He is through my imperfect fragment of light. I know I’m not perfect, I know I fail at this in little ways every day and big ways too, but to outright lie knowing, somewhere, that my words could not be, I feel my edges fraying, and my insides raw and deteriorating. I feel I have betrayed the very one I love most.

          Ironically, I wondered for weeks if I could keep my word if I were able to become self-reliant and therefore able enough to even try to commit. If I could make all the stars align, shape the face of the world, change racism, classism, poverty, sexism, egotism, unfair wages, privilege the unprivileged, repair the image of family and what it is and does then, and only then I could go, let my yes, be yes, and my no, be no and not have to think about everything I face every time I wake. I thought, maybe then I could find a community, plant my roots, learn how to love others and not God, alone, far off, not out of sight and therefore not out of mind, not out of my mind.

          I haven’t been completely cut off; I am not a hermit by any means. Yet, the thought was crippling, when I was most desperate to find a bridge out of my lonely world, it became a draw bridge and it was only let down at the hands of others, and at their whim. Yes, you can have a friend today, because she needs to talk, the draw bridge lowered. No, not today, the bridge is raised, even though you are distraught with your pain, it is incommoding me. Sure, you can come to gather with others like you, lowered again, because we need you to fill a roll that is convenient for us. No, not this time, I can’t (or don’t want to) help you the bridge is raised, and though I have plenty of more resources than you, you need to take initiative and find your own way; I am not your keeper. Come be a part of planning who we are, and what we want to do together this year, oh but figure out how to travel 12 miles in limited time, with a limited income all on your own, don’t be late. Those who had privilege and power over me planned my dreams, contained my wishes, left me to burn in this desert…

          I’ve said it many times. I know I have God love and commune with and to communicate, and I know He loves me, hears me, and speaks to me. In my darkest moments, it is the only thing I can cling to, and know I am not insane. However, this God I love, with all I know to give, which never feels like enough and always fails to be given fully, also asked, begged, pleaded and bled in so many ways, for me to love not only Him, but to love others, and every time I fail I am spitting in His face. I am leaving Him cold, hungry, lonely, sick, desperate for human contact of any sort, and I ask myself, does anyone else feel the weight of this charge? Each time that bridge was drawn against me, and my family more so, I felt less than human, less than what He made me to be, less than living. After trying to find ways to cross that bridge and be able to come back, because I have a home here I am committed to not out of obligation but out of love and duty, maybe, and a calling I felt Him give me, after trying to find ways and failing attempt after attempt I couldn’t even commit myself to keep trying. I gave up. In the end, as lonely as it is, it’s easier to not ask, to remain out of sight and out of mind, and not be a burden to anyone else. I said to myself, “Until I find a way to be a gift to anyone without having to take from them first, I will remain. I trust that God will show me, in time, a way that the working poor can give and be a blessing without being a project or a parasite because God made beautiful symbiotic relationships, even where one is stronger and the other weaker, yet they coexist without one always taking and never giving, and the other always giving but never taking.”

This is part one of a series of three related blogs, please see my next post to read on…

Do people comment on blogs anymore? I wish I had more time to sit and write and solidify my thoughts. I do my best thinking at work and can't write a thing. I'm at lunch wondering, wishing my heart was settled enough to say half the things I've been feeling needed to be said to anyone. I was told once, maybe more, that sometimes we need to be heard... I wonder why, since God always hears us, why do we have that longing, and that need? I feel it's related to how Christ called us to love one another, and I feel like when we are unknown and do not know others that's when it's hardest to love... I have more thoughts on this, but have not the time to write them all down. But soon I will, I hope to keep my word on the soon, or the ever... Kid's Church was beautiful, as always God tells me my deepest weaknesses through the least of these, and I love them... so I don't want to say "I promise" unless I really mean it because I taught my little ones to make their "yes mean yes" and "no mean no" something I have always felt is important, but have cluelessly failed at more than I realized... So I will try to post, soon, soon.

Look Into the Eyes of the Least of These, There You Will Find His Heart

          Often, I have faced solitude with despair, and usually more so, when I am most inspired. One might wonder why, and the best answer I can give is it makes my inspirations, aspirations and hopes seem pointless, and that in and of itself (that feeling of despair I mean) reminds me of something I think many of us face at some point, especially in the arts. Why pointless, because there is no one to share in anything, not the process, not the end product (if any) and much less the growth of everything that comes after. What is it that I think we all face? A sense of worthlessness, especially with things we make and create, because with no value of the means and depreciation of the ends (meaning a lack of appreciation) and even less support to justify the whole process, our creations, our self, tends to find a sense of being discarded, or replaceable, less-than etc. Beyond all this, when I sit long enough with my thoughts they eat me alive.

          I know I am my Maker’s child, but with Him I was promised a body, a family, the answer to solitude. Since I have seen more compassion outside the body and wonder how “non-believers” cope, but moreover… There’s an issue when your thoughts are yours alone. When there is nowhere to share your point of view, your fears, your dreams, we construct our biggest enemies, or fall prey to him. Day after day I spend a life of silence with my dreams, observations, fears, failures, pains, outrage, joy and sorrow. Yes, He hears me; the very whispers of my heart are in His hands, whether I am aware or unaware, but honestly, alone for an extended amount of time, I find darkness.

          I don’t mean to say or think that He is not a constant rock, a strong tower, the only eternal being of the cosmos, of course, can be trusted with my inner workings, but is it right to keep it secret? Would I not be guilty of egocentrism? Darkness only breeds, despair, lies, fallacies, the list goes on, and I feel that we were given very clear roads to guide our thoughts into fresh air, into light, with proper filters, but we rarely take these roads. Instead we live with our thoughts shrouded, even the word can be misinterpreted when one is alone, (I don’t mean to negate the Holy Spirit) when it comes to sharing and taking those steps into light there is always a hierarchy, as we are now.

          What is intelligent, beautiful, or of worth is appraised, assessed, balanced by society not the Dream Giver, not the One who inspires us (to live, breathe, create) not by those we (should) feel free to trust. For instance I cannot share without first evaluating, is it a waste of someone’s time, is it worthy to be experienced, is it enough? These things paralyze freedom, creativity and unity, three things I see as part of being human, and God given gifts for community (to be shared, refined, nurtured and tided into our body as that of Christ). Why have I not heard the beauty of my brothers and sisters? What about their deepest hurts, darkest fears, greatest wishes, largest ideas, little spurts of creativity or inspiration, or ingenuity for revolution or life, what about those stories?

          We have constantly listened only one way of thinking, feeling, or acting and not from God but from one of His creations instead, not Jesus in flesh. One story is told and misses the insight of many others about the same plot. A man I admire as an inspired and inspiring leader said it best, “The greatest man who ever lived, trusts us to tell His story,” yet we do not tell it. Yes, this man was referring to the Gospels, the stories of those who knew Jesus in the flesh, but each story of Christ is its own. Christ promised us greater things through His Spirit, that it would not be contained to one man, one place, one time, one nation of people, each of us can know, does know a piece, a facet of His story, best told from our own point of view. Yet, we forfeit our stories to whoever is considered most cunning, learned, intelligent, or over-reachingly connected. Giving room to the little ones, and to the way God made them to share His story should be second nature, we should long to hear of His works eager to find another face of a tremendously endless Creator.

          A friend of mine tells me how she longs to share a journey with another, a journey of growth, refining, of polishing, and I believe these are the stories we neglect most. If one sees God most through dance, with its failures, aches, triumphs and perseverance and cannot tell another about Him through those same means if is our fault, perhaps we never knew to look. Moreover, we only await the finale, the recital, the final master piece when it comes to all the arts. Consider song, if it were one singing about the trenches, and valleys yet we only eagerly await to listen and enjoy the mistrals who sing of the summits and the elations is it not our folly to reject their whole heart, is that not wasting every tear that was shed, every moment that was shaping a heart? Again, let us muse upon something that is of a whole different nature, perhaps not even considered to be, by many, a form or art, yet it has all the same aspects. Do we dare to belittle how a young woman might toil, train and patiently learn the ways of a gentle and mighty animal, a horse, by then only valuing the prizes, money or glory one can get in a race, or show, which puts much less value on the relationship of a horse and her girl, something only a horsewoman can explain? If we say these all are nothing, if there is no room for a breath of fresh air, there is even greater sin in our midst. The silence is deafening, what have we forgotten about our own walks if we cannot value every step in between the highlights and climaxes?

          I want to hear, see, feel and taste these love stories, and I want more than a stage for them to be played out. I want to share a life, and have a life to be shared, as my friend put it so eloquently, a journey. I want to know my Maker’s creations and find Him there, and be found, remembering He is there, through the good, the bad, and the ugly, beyond the beautiful, the tainted, the broken and even the undone, the forgotten, and the unfinished. These are the veins of His body. Look into the eyes of the least of these and one will find His heart, we will find Him. So in the end, this is why I hate solitude, this has been my question for years when contemplating friendship, craftsmanship and the unity of the body of Christ. I hate solitude, the kind that robs peace and tranquility, the kind that makes me dream for only myself, and my benefit. I also believe that the Arts are a gift from the Creator that allows us to communicate, the same way He sometimes does, in mysterious beauty, beyond words (even when they are used), beyond the physical senses, and not only the express love of Him, to Him, for Him, but also on another, as He called us to love the Lord your God, with all your heart, mind, soul and strength, and to love one another and He loved us. As a friend of mine said when another friend asked, “what’s the point, why do I do this?” speaking of her drawings and paintings, my other friend said to her, two souls connect and find each other through beauty, and its deeper than the pretty things on a paper. How else do we guide our thoughts and hearts into light, with confession to one another and giving them to God, yet how many times do we need to communicate something that has no words, thoughts, of ideas, a deeper part of us that the Spirit sees and knows how it is killing us silently? Then I wonder about those of us who have scorned and belittled those with less privilege, knowledge, and training, and silenced them while they are probably the most honest and unveiled, unclouded by sophistication. I once heard a man who loved God sing with his whole heart, and his whole soul while I writhed and squirmed, as probably most any musician I know would, because his voice was not polished, or sophisticated. In fact, when I think of his voice it is probably damaged and aching, tired, and dehydrated because of a rough life of pain and poverty, yet until the Spirit quieted my pride, arrogance, and brain washing enough for me to hear this man’s heart and feel his spirit’s joy I was a judgmental silencer, ready to throw him off a very humble and loving stage.

          The truth is, we are unfinished, unpolished, and untrained in the ways of the Kingdom, and the man we call Jesus the Christ. We are imperfect and stained, yet we are given grace, love, and a chance to grow into a beautiful tree that bares fruit that is sweet to eat and pleasing to the eye and stomach. We have a chance to be seen as polished, sophisticated and elegant despite our past, present or future faults. We must love the unfinished, and give room for their beauty to shine, that is all of us, growing.

Today

Today, my heart feels so different from the last time I posted on here... and it took me way too long to even figure out how to post on this new set up thing. I'm going to try to write, often, and again, and at all... I guess I don't know what I am saying... Well, with doubts that anyone will read this, I guess I feel free, yet with hopes that someone might, I feel I have a duty to fulfill, let's hope it's not performance related. Anyway, I might tell a few peeps about it, and then see what happens. HELLO BLOG WORLD SO DIFFERENT FROM HOW IT WAS LONG AGO WHEN IT STARTED...