A Moment That Time Skipped By

It’s almost over.

11:00 December 25, 2009.

All of the secrets are unwrapped, and displayed on the inside of the house. I am outside, wondering what has happened to time.

It seems like this year went by so fast. I remember how it started. It was my birthday, as it often is. We were packing boxes up and pretending not to be sad about losing each other. I got a call from someone I thought I was in love with. It is now nearly a year from that day.

I’m not.

And Christmas has come and is nearly gone again. Time does not march.

It races.

All my energy has been spent trying to catch up with it, and now I realize that things must change. Here I am outside the house where I grew up. Outside in the cold. I hope, if it is cold enough, time will stop, and let me catch my breath. Catch it, and watch it pass from me like a vapor. In this small stretch of time we have, I hope that I am seen any bit as clearly. That is all we dare hope for. I couldn't ask for anything better than that.

But it’s Christmas, and I think I have had plenty of time to ask for things for myself.

My God, the stars.

I know it makes no difference to think, but I wonder what they looked like on the night He was born. I wonder how black the sky, how dark the clouds. Was there a moon?

Of course, there’s always a moon. Even if you can't see it, it's there.

I wonder what those two eyes, so close, and yet so far removed from humanity looked at that night. Did the sky acknowledge him, and welcome, or was he human in that strange way that we all are, where despite being under a canopy of stars, knit together by love, we can see nothing in them but ourselves?

I don’t know, and I think it’s beautiful that I don’t know.

You’re still out there.

You’re holding needle and yarn to this great canopy, and I can only see myself. What parts of me I can find, that is. Just this time, just this once, before you go, before time passes through me at that speed I’ve become so accustomed to, I want to ask you one thing.

Don’t go. I can almost see you.

I know it’s not really the right day, but happy birthday.

Honey Mustard

I performed in a play at my church this last Sunday. I also helped write it, and had to get up early after getting a somewhat less than ideal 4 hours of sleep thanks to my friend Jina's awesome Christmas party, and a gentleman by the name of Jose Cuervo.

Anyway, this play was about Christians who complain too much. One of the characters complained about spending too much time serving at church.

I resonate with that.

Or, at least, I would, if I had time to.

Guys, I seriously spend Soooo much time at church. People are always asking me, "hey, man, when are you going to start dating?" or "when are you going to finally hammer out your career goals and start working on them?" Or even "didn't you tell me about that book you were writing? When Can I see a draft of that?"

"Oh. Um... now's not a good time. I'll get back to you after Easter."

That is how it has always been. I was talking to a good friend of mine last week who does a lot of the same stuff I do. We have some slight differences in what we do and how we feel about that, but one conclusion was reached by the both of us.

Something has to change.

So, lately I've been thinking a lot about what I can get rid of. It seems the natural thing to do, I just can't seem to do it. What should I get rid of? Programing/brainstorming for new series? That's kind of important. The youth group? I don't even know who would step into that role if I wasn't there. Then there's all these new initiatives with the homeless that we're doing. I don't want to quit those. Even the non-church stuff I do (Open Mic Night, film stuff, writing in this blog) seems so important to me. I just can't choose what to abandon.

I think that the problem is that my loves are to varied and specific. For example:

I LOVE Jr high students.

I LOVE the homeless.

I LOVE teaching little kids how to read.

I LOVE encouraging young artists to pursue their craft, and I love providing a platform for them.

I LOVE Teaching/learning from the Bible.

I LOVE making movies (even/especially if they're dumb)

I LOVE writing and performing my poetry.

I LOVE coming up with crazy, off the wall ideas to get my point across.

I LOVE honey mustard sauce.

That last one really is true.

Love it.

Honey mustard sauce got me thinking just now. Love it. The thing about honey mustard is that it is a combination of two things that don't seem like they go very well together.

Honey

sticky, sweet. Used on toast in combination with peanut butter to make an awesome sandwich.

Mustard

Abrasive, bitter. Used in combination with some stuff I don't understand to make a noxious gas.

Hmm.

But it's delicious.

It occurred to me that maybe simplicity is a lot like honey mustard. Maybe it's not about how do I choose what I'm not going to do, but how do I combine the bitter abrasive with the sticky sweet to make some awesome honey mustard?

Let me try one...

What if I have my Jr high students come out to hang with the homeless in the park, and then we could make a movie about what we learned?

How about...

I move to the inner city and start a creative writing program with some of the inner city kids so that they can learn to channel some of their energy into some type of positive thing? They could perform what they've created somewhere for their parents and other people too.

Or, even better...

Maybe I should move Open mic night to the park, where my homeless friends can come to it, then I could invite my Jr Highers to come and help, we could try to engage with the people that come with words from the Bible, as the students are learning to teach it. Somehow I'll have to fit teaching kids to read in there...

Seriously. It think I've got it. Life isn't about just abrasive or sticky sweet.

Life is Honey Mustard.

Throwing Stones, Skipping Stones, Stepping Stones

I had a revelation for Christmas this year.

Funny, that's what I always wanted.

It started during Easter. I was asked by my church to perform spoken word for Easter. I wrote something. I didn't really like it. To be honest, I'm not sure they really liked it either. I'm not sure anymore if my art belongs in a church. By the time I create it, censor it, and wrap it up in a neat little package that "goes with the theme," I hardly recognize it and everything just becomes a little flat. 

I wonder if Isaiah had to do "churchy" versions of his work...

Probably not.

Anyway, one way that we had decided to spice up my lacking spoken word piece was to add a vocalist. So, Carolyn (one of our vocalists at the time), Cindy (then director of creative arts ministries) and myself made a list of hymns that would be acceptable to sing snippets of in between my readings. One of the ones I liked was "Come, Thou FOunt of Every Blessing." I sent Cindy the lyrics and she sent me back a message.

Cindy: "Yeah, that's fine, just take the second verse out. You know, the one that talks about ebenezer. No one knows what that means."

Just take it out huh? NO one knows what that means? It kind of frustrates me when we have to dumb down literature or good music because the audience's literacy level has slipped below what it was at when the work was created. That's why we keep having to have new translations of the Bible. They don't make "more modern" versions of, say Moby Dick, or War and Peace. 

It seems like everyone wants church to be really easy. 

Insert Commodores reference here.

No, I'm not going to explain that to you. If you don't know, look it up.

Point being, I got all self righteous and huffy, talking about the decline of western civilization, and how we should all know what ebenezer means... blah blah blah, we ended up picking another song.

8 months later, I realize that I still don't know what ebenezer means. I think it has something to do with Christmas 

Insert Charles Dickens reference here (you had better know what that means)

So, I looked it up. Funny that no one in church knows what that means. It's actually a biblical reference.

btw, those of you that use wikipedia to look things up will note that Ebenezer may refer to an abandoned water park in DuPage County, Illinois. 

It doesn't.

You can find the reference to this in 1 Samuel 7:12. Basically, the Israelites had lost the Ark of the Covenant. Again. It seems like the Israelites treated the Ark of the Covenant like I treat my car keys. Everyone was in this big panic to get it back, and they actually did get it back, but there was no room in its normal place in Shiloh, because of all the monuments to other gods. At this time the army of the Philistines rose up against the Israelites. These guys were huge. I always imagine Dwayne Johnson (the Rock) up against Woody Allen (Jewish). Things were not looking good for Woody. Samuel, speaking on behalf of God, mentioned that some help could be had if the people of Israel would just get rid of all that extra stuff they had in storage for those other gods, and start worshiping their God, like the old times. They decided to try it, and the people of Israel had a spring cleaning day. wiped the floors clean of unholy sacrifices, ceased to burn grain to the wrong gods, and hauled some serious ass scooting false idols out of the temple. Right when they did this, God sent a huge thunderstorm, which scared Dwayne and all his friends out of their minds. I must have been one hell of a storm. Basically, Woody and crew went in there and cleaned up really fast, and that was the end of the war.

Simple, right? Ebenezer.

Okay, obviously, there's more.

Afterwards, Samuel erected a stone monument to God, and he called it "ebenezer," which means "stone of help." (If you had looked up the verse I mentioned earlier, you wouldn't have had to read anything up to this point. You see how research helps us?) It is a reminder that God will help us, if we would only ask, and obey what he tells us.

Stone of help! At long last. That is what it means. 

Christmas.

This revelation has changed my interpretation of A Christmas Carol. Scrooge's first name is Ebenezer. He is defined by help. That sounds soooo weird to me. He doesn't begin the story as someone helpful*. There are things that make him stone, like his demeanor, his heart, or the stubborn will he has to be so grouchy. I think maybe he has rocks in his head. But stone of help? Why would Dickens name him that?

I think he was trying to draw our attention to something.

The thing about the original ebenezer, from the book of Samuel, is that, before Samuel assigned that value to it, it really was just a rock. Rocks can be used for everything and anything. You can skip them across a lake. You can throw them (unless you live in a glass house, or are not without sin). You can even trip over them. They become something great when you assign a value to them. Even some of our greatest works of art were once just rocks. If you look at Michaelangelo's David in its original form, I doubt you would be impressed.

I think that's the way I look at Scrooge. It's probably even the way I look at myself.

So, anyway, that's what Dickens did. He assigned a value to Scrooge before anyone else could see it. He was just a regular stone. He could have been a stumbling block, a block head, another heart of stone, but he became a stone of help. That seems really deep to me. 

There are a lot a parallels to the scripture as well. The Israelites were worshiping false gods. Scrooge only cared about his money (the false god of choice in the western world). He (like the Israelites) had to be broken down. Faced with his eminent death, he realized that the things he cared about were absolutely meaningless, so he needed to find something that was meaningful. Scrooge found it in using his money to care for other people. By helping. By becoming a stone of help.

Dickens (like Someone Else I know) could see a person in his story as not who they were, but who they were becoming. And, I think, all the things that do not make sense about all people will one day be made clear. I wait for that day, and this Christmas, I celebrate one of the many ways that act of becoming is being made more clear to me

*If you don't know the story of Ebenezer Scrooge, just watch TV a LOT for the next 2 weeks or so. You'll find it somewhere.

Empty Calories

A friend told me something about celery the other day that made me hate America.

My friend (who is a woman, and not the slightest bit overweight) told me that she makes sure to eat celery every day. "Celery," she informed me, "is negative calories." I had not heard of the concept of negative calories before, so I asked her to explain. Apparently, an average serving of celery has about 5 calories, and the act of chewing celery burns more than 5 calories, thus causing the act of eating it to consume more calories than ingested. 

She smiled when she said it, as though she had discovered something incredible.

What does the rest of the world think about negative calories, I wonder?

When did we miss the point of eating? Why do we try so hard to fill our bodies with emptiness, instead of eating what we need to survive, and then giving what is left over to someone else who might need it?

It's such a tragedy that this country suffers from obesity, given the global need for food.

How terrible is it that people die by the minute over something that is killing us by its excess in our lives? I'm frightened by what the popularity of celery means for America.  I think, in fact, that if a starving child in Africa heard about celery, and the whole negative calories thing, he would have a different reaction. I'll bet he would never want to eat celery ever in his life. It is a caloric parasite. Something we eat because we feel guilty about eating.

Maybe we should. Feel guilty that is, not eat celery.

I don't really have a graceful way to end this post. I just hope to think a little more in my life about the true purpose of things, so that I don't fall into a bad place because of their presence in my life: Eating is not something you do for recreation or to relieve boredom, dating is not something you do to reinforce your identity, the sabbath is not an observation to make you feel like a better christian, and charity is not about you either. 

The list goes on. 

As long as we are human, the list goes on.

The worst offense to a good thing is when it can be used to inflict evil on someone else.

Singing, Melting, Screaming.

I've decided that the healthy thing to do would be to move on.

I know that no one reading this really knows what I mean by the aforementioned statement, but bear with me. I feel the need to say it out loud, or write it somewhere permanent, just so that I can't say that I never said it. Now is the time to move on.

I want all of you out there to know how good it is to be in a relationship with God. I can't put into the proper words how much I am dependent on that confusing, frustrating, difficult thing we often refer to as Christianity. I've been healed from so much.

Be warned, this might sting a little.

I wish I could go back in time a little... like three weeks ago, and tell the past version of me what a waste of time it is to feel sorry for yourself. The future holds healing.

All we have to do is be brave enough to ask for it.

That is the key to it all, really. We have to ask. I think sometimes I like having scars. They make me feel important. They make me feel like an adult. I don't want to go crying to Daddy with every ache and pain.

Even though He aches and pains for us to do so.

He said that in this world we would have many troubles.

Take heart.

Greater is He that is in me than he that is in the world (note the capitalization).

I remember spraining my wrist when I was really little. And screaming. 

I kind of wish, as an adult, that I would still be able to scream as loudly as I wanted whenever I got hurt. When we grow up, we're supposed to pretend that nothing really hurts.

Anyway, my dad was there, and he came running up to me, and asked me to see my arm. I didn't want to do anything but cradle it close to my whimpering body. We always have our own version of healing, I guess. He kept asking, and would often try to grab at my arm when it was available, which only made me retreat further. It hurt when he touched it. How could he make it better when it hurt when he touched it?

It is a willful decision to show someone else our wounds. It's painful, it's embarrassing, its... just... 

We have to. Nothing will ever improve if you never pull your shaky arm out from behind your whimpering body and let your Father touch it. It's going to hurt a little more at first...

You may say it's impossible, but I'm telling you, He heals ALL wounds. He restores me daily. He makes me to lie down beside still waters. He put a new song in my mouth. A hymn of praise to our God.

He lifts his voice, the earth melts. I melt.

And then, I am just this pool, this useless thing, that can take no shape except to follow the contours of His hand, where I was when I lost my own shape. 

I shall not want.

I ask myself, and you, my loyal reader(s?), what wound are you afraid to show Him? 

He knows. He loves. He heals.

Scabies

I need some new clothes.

literally. 

Some people say they need new clothes like "oh, my God, I haven't been shopping in like, three months and I need new clothes!" I'm more like "I need a black shirt for my new job and all the pants I can wear for my old one are stained and/or with holes in them."

Not "new" clothes anyway. I don't buy new things.

I went into a Khols today. First time I've been in a legit clothing store in a long time. I forgot how good new clothes smell. Incredible. I kind of felt like it was Christmas, in a way I hadn't felt in a long time. Of course, I didn't buy anything there. As I mentioned before, I don't buy new clothes. Everything second-hand. I dream someday of buying brand new clothes without feeling like a failure. Someday, there will be new things that are not made by some misty eyed kid in Sri Lanka (but I bet they don't really cry anymore) . That's the goal. I can't wait for that day. In the meantime, I am resolute to not support the textile industry.

The cashier at Goodwill told me that someone she knows got scabies from clothes bought at the store I was at. 

Gross. I'm taking a shower.

It could be different. I could have dedicated myself to a career, gotten some full time work, spent A LOT less time volunteering at church stuff, and get paid to do all the stuff I do for free. Then I would have money, and a little power, perhaps a small amount of fame. Who knows, I might be pretty talented if I didn't have to do so many damn church slideshows...

but then...

...who would I be?

There's always two sides to the equation, two choices we can make for how we spend our lives. I chose to invest in other people. That's why I'm so poor I have to check my bank balance before I do my laundry. You can't have both. I sometimes wonder what it would be like if I was rich and had no compassion. Or, perhaps I could trade in a little of my compassion for a little more money. 

How much would I trade?

To quote the great Calvin and Hobbes, "As usual, goodness doesn't put up much of a fight."

On the one hand, we have a small, quiet life, filled with a reasonable amount of comfort (perhaps a wife and kids). On the other, stress, worry, poverty, and of course, scabies.

I choose scabies, and I refuse to feel anything about that decision except relief.

And perhaps a little itchiness.

Bleeder

Funny story.

I got mugged last week.

Then my apartment got broken into.

Haha.

My mom tells me I have a weird sense of humor.

Everything's weird these days though. It seems that the direction of my life has gotten really dramatic. No middle ground anymore. It's always something really awesome coupled with something that really sucks. I get mugged, Sean and Jon come and visit me. I get to meet Sasha's family in Chicago, My car battery dies and I get a parking ticket. I have so little money that I can't buy groceries, but my friend takes me out to dinner. I like it like this. It's more interesting.

It's like I tell HyounJun every time he gets into one of my crappy 3rd generation hand-me-down cars for a long road trip: It's going to be an adventure.

What adventure would be complete without a twisted plot and agonizing losses, coupled with the eventual victory of all that is good, the restoration of the hero to his rightful place, where everyone cheers as he destroys the enemy, reunites with his trusty side kick, and finally gets to kiss the girl? That's why I don't worry when things go wrong. I hope for a happy ending.

Is that my story? I really need to get a side kick.

...among other things...

I probably should get a new wallet too.

The point is- 

Actually, I don't think I have a point. 

Well, maybe I do, but I don't think it's my point to make. Can you imagine if I was the one in charge of my story?

I was once "in love" (quotations indicate sarcasm, not towards love, but towards myself) with this girl. She was all that I could think about. I spent every weekend with her, and talked about her all the time, and when I couldn't hang out with her, I wanted to die. Smitten for sure. My friends were happy for me. They liked that I liked somebody. This was one of the first times that I ever thought that someone could like me, too. She also hung out with someone else sometimes, but that wasn't a big deal. We had this indelible connection. Nothing could possibly separate us. It was time to rearrange the alphabet and put U and I together. It was like a movie. If I was in charge of this story, I would be with her now. Who knows? We might even be engaged.

But I'm not. So, I didn't. She's actually with "someone else" right now, and I have absolutely no problem with that whatsoever. It wasn't really like a movie, now that I think about it. Well, maybe it was, but it was more like a made for TV movie. A Lifetime Original Movie, or one of those BBC movies starring the UGLIEST actors in the world, who somehow manage to not even have great personalities, despite their obvious physical shortcomings. Isn't it supposed to work like that?

Not that I'm calling her ugly.

Not that I'm not.

The story that is my life would be quite a small one if I were in charge of writing it. Right now it's a strange, often frightening, always complicated, rarely safe, never boring, completely wonderful and awe inspiring thing. It tugs and tickles. It draws tears and blood, and it makes me wake up in a cold sweat.

How wonderful. How marvelous. 

And my song shall ever be...

I hope my apartment gets broken into again. I hope every wallet I ever buy gets stolen. I hope that the woman I "love" leaves me for a ham and cheese sandwich on my wedding day. The pain grows our dreams. The crying, the waiting... they make men out of boys and warriors from cowards. We are cut in half and we bleed. We bleed and we grow. We see our bodies turn red, and that's how we know we are alive.

And the writer of our story just keeps on writing. Despite us.

Good. Maybe He can make something of me.

Aesthetics

I've decided that I'm an artist because of aesthetics.

It's not the easiest conclusion to arrive at. I've never really seen myself as one.  I've always thought of artists a people who have their works published, or people whose names are in galleries, people with a little hype or buzz surrounding them... people who get paid to create.

By that definition, I am not an artist.

I am a waiter.

I have been other things, of course. I have been a student, I have been a tutor, mentor, librarian, and bingo scoresheet salesman (Maybe I'll tell y'all that story at some other time). But artist? Artists have studios, artists have commissions, artists have the proper tools.

I don't even really see myself as a filmmaker (despite having a degree in the aforementioned practice). I just have this crappy camera tat I bought in high school, which I shoot films that I edit on a computer that my parents went halvsies on with me when I graduated from 12th grade. How can I be an artist when I don't have the proper tools?

I like independent films.

I like the idea of taking a dream or vision for something that you really want and doing it without anyone's approval/finding. I love when an indie film makes it out to mainstream audiences and all the big studio exec scramble like mad to copy its success. It's a bit laughable to see these quasi-independent ventures that are actually funded by the big studios trying really hard to act like they're part of the indie "In crowd." They make their films look dirty and gritty like the low budget films that they so love with the goal in mind to re create the "magic" of the other film's reception.

Why would they do that? Make things a lower quality than they are able, I mean...

Is it just because they are trying to fit in, or did they just miss the point entirely?

I think I have a few things in common with them, and I think that's why I never (until recently) saw myself as an artist. 

It is not the quality of the medium that is important. The weight, in fact, rests upon the quality of EXPRESSION.

The artist's tools are inside of him. It is not what quality and grandiose title that is bestowed upon the artist that makes his work worthy of our viewing. It is weather or not he is able to speak truth, and enlighten us about our own lives. 

Everything else is just a question of aesthetics...

Let me put it to you this way. If I gave Rembrandt a piece of paper and a 64 pack of crayons and told him to make something, he would make art. He is an artist, and no matter what the medium, he will create art. If I give a big studio, professional tools, and a 10 million dollar commission to the guy who draws pictures of penises on the walls of bathrooms, he will use those resources to draw a huge penis. Because he's a dick.

I can't judge my own work through the same lens as other artists. I think that's one of the biggest problems with human beings today. The "compari-sin" if you will... I am not the next Monet, or Picasso, and I will not any time soon be creating works like them. I do not have the resources (or more than likely, the skill) to make what they make. I may have just a piece of paper and a 64 pack of crayons, but I can create art.

Because I'm not a Dick.

Everything else is a question of aesthetics.

Skipping Like Stones Across the Lake

I'm currently in a phase in my life that's not really a phase. It's more of a phase between phases. A series of stepping stones on a lake between two opposing shores, if you will. I am in a transition.

There is a question in my head, though. One that tends to knock rather impatiently against the door of my brain late at night. One that I don't feel quite right about skipping across the stones in my lake until I have answered:

What are my two shores?

What am I running to? What am I running from?

I used to think that I was running from evil towards good. I used to think very black and white like that. It was easier that way. More hopeful. I could think that everything was improving and some day everything would be alright. I used to think that way, but I don't anymore. There's good and evil in everything I do. Something of God, and something of myself. I just hope that this next phase of my life will be more about Him and less about me. I feel like it could go either way at that point.

I remember my mom telling me when I was little that phrase that I'm sure every child hears from their parents at one point or another. "You'll understand when you get older." 

Why is it that the older I get, the less I seem to understand? Something just keeps stirring the water, while I hold to my position, afraid to step either forward or back. 

I need to move at some point.

Which way?

Boys and Girls

My bathroom is a mess right now.

Bags of makeup, several types of shampoo, curling irons, straightening irons, and a bunch of other irons/ hair care tools that I have no idea what they do. I wonder about my visiting sisters and their friends. Do I really know what they look like?

Girls are messy. I'm not talking about "women" or "ladies," or any of the other things that a group of single men might idealize them to be. Let no one fool you. Girls are messy. They're loud, they're messy, they're emotional, and they have some sort of assembly line factory that they construct in the bathroom that helps them to become the person you see and idealize every day at school or work or church.

It's been a while since I've been this close to girls. Real girls. messy, loud, emotional hair care factory girls. I've just been staring at the bathroom, trying to guess what things do, or even which direction you hold them. 

Boys are simple. we don't do much to make ourselves look presentable. We wash our clothes, shower, shave, and brush our teeth. Beyond that, there's not much help for us. Boys are simple, girls are complicated.  That's probably why we don't really understand each other very well. We form this strange paradox in relationships. We pull each other in different ways, each trying to make the other more like them.

I had forgotten what it was like to live with girls. I had gotten used to this male-centric existence that I had been living. I had forgotten how much I needed them. Even though we don't always get along. Even though we're technically opposites, even though I don't really understand most of the things they do. I need them.

Boys and girls have this long, sordid history of not getting along, and hurting each other. I've been hurt enough to not want it anymore, but I've learned something this week about girls, in the middle of all the video games, girly movies, and (wrong) lyrics to John Denver being sung out loud. I think we need each other, and I think that without these relationships, we'll always be just one half of the equation.

The Philosophical Whims of Prepackaged Cookies

Today, something very special was supposed to happen. 

I don't know what it was, but I did everything I could to make sure that my good fortune was not interrupted. I woke up early this morning. I brushed AND flossed my teeth. I wore a nice shirt and my lucky socks. I went into the office, and called all of the people I was supposed to call. I did everything I could. You know what happened?

Nothing.

Conclusion:

Either I did something wrong, or the fortune cookie I ate on December 24th, telling me that three months from that day would be significant, was completely false. Or maybe it was just a piece of paper with something written on it. 

Not that I really believe in that sort of thing.

I think. 

It's silly, I know, but I had actually hoped, on some level, that something significant would happen today. I could really use a significant event. Something to change my perspective. I want something new.

God had promised me something new. (see my post "San Fransisco, Day One: Shorelines/Transitions" for more info).  When, though? My life seems to have taken the form of a ticking clock. Everything is about timing, and I have put my faith in someone who exists outside of time.

I think I really hoped that a fortune cookie message would tip his hand. I don't think I really thought that. I just thought it would be nice to know ahead of time when something big is going to happen, so I can have my camera ready, and plan my work schedule accordingly. 

My God, can you imagine what would have happened to my spiritual life if something important really did happen today? I would be done reading the Bible. I would be so obsessed with fortune cookies that I might actually want to eat one.

I shudder at the thought.

Back to trust. Good old fashioned trust. The type with no limitations on time, socks, ethnicity, or the philosophical whims of prepackaged cookies. One where we sit and we trust. One where we float along and we hope for the best. A world where we live so very often, and die only once. I can't imagine a stranger or more wonderful place to call home. Thank you, God, for not listening to the cookies when you came up with this place. 

I don't think I want to live in a planet that is run by cookies.

Even still...

I wonder where I'll be in three more months.

Up And Out: Theology For Assholes

When I was in high school, I heard a certain phrase quite often. I especially heard it the year that I went from being a lowly 5'2" to almost 6 feet. I have heard this phrase a few times since then, but it is no longer a compliment.

"You're getting bigger."

You see, there are two ways we can grow. We can either grow up or we can grow out.

 When we grow up, it is a wonderful thing. We become taller, more muscular, physically more able to handle what life throws our way. Everyone notices when we grow up, and it makes them proud, regardless of weather or not they had anything to do with the current state we find ourselves in.

When we grow out, it is the opposite. Growing out is unhealthy. It is an indicator of our indulgence. It doesn't look good. When people see that you're growing out, they ignore it, because it's not polite to mention that your excess is wearing you down from the outside. 

Today, I yelled at my roommate over something stupid. I called him an asshole. He doesn't deserve that. Ever. No one does. Especially someone of whom I have said that I couldn't love him more if he were my own brother. I apologized immediately, in my own stupid insufficient way. He said it was okay, and not to worry about it, then he left to go study. The thing is, I couldn't really forget about it. It bothered me so very much that I could just say something like that to someone I would call my brother. It's not like I have never used language like that before. My mouth is pretty much an open door most of the time. I couldn't shake it from my head. It kept replaying over and over again, and every time I heard the words I used, I couldn't believe myself. He came home two hours later, and I apologized again for how I treated him. He said not to worry about it again, that it was fine. I know him well enough to know weather or not he means it when he says not to worry about something. He meant it. I never want to call him that again.

So which was it? Up or out? Which way did I grow?

Have I grown taller, and stronger in my ability to care for others, that something that ordinarily wouldn't bother me could keep me bothered for hours? Or did I grow bigger, more bogged down and heavy with unnecessary self hatred that has been such a default reaction for me lately when I fail the people I care about? It's not like they're not used to it (there I go again). 

Truth is, I don't know. I hope some day that I can learn how to care better for those who have been placed in my influence without hating myself. For now, it seems like my life is a strange mix of the two. 

I'll need some exercise if I'll ever be able to make sense of this mess.

Getting Older

Why do we even bring children into this world? Is it because we're lonely? Because we want our lives to mean something? Seems pretty selfish to me. The world is not a very kind place to live.

I'm not talking about me. I'm not talking about me. Usually, I'm talking about me. Most of the things I like to talk about are about me, but today, I'm not talking about me. I'm talking about Jonathan.

I don't even know his last name. It's either Medina or Martinez, something like that. I run the after school program that is trying to teach him how to read. It isn't going very well. He's going to get older, weather he learns to read or not. 

Two months.

I have two months to get him reading at a level that is on par with his age group. He was a year behind at the beginning of the school year. If I bring him up one year, he'll still be a year behind. It'll just be a different year. 

It's not good enough. I keep telling myself to try harder to get through to him, but I just don't know how to do it. I think that me and his tutor are the only ones in his life that want him to go anywhere. My conversations with him go something like this:

"Why do I have to go to tutoring?"

"So you can learn how to read."

"Why do I have to know how to read?"

"So you can graduate."

"I don't wanna graduate."

"I'll bet your Mom and Dad want you to graduate."

"My Dad only went to first grade. Then he got a job."

"If you graduate, you can get a better job. You won't have to work at Taco Bell like I did in high school."

"You worked at Taco Bell? Cool! I want to work at Taco Bell."

It's just not good enough. I just can't be good enough to make them want anything. They're like jello. They'll become whatever is being put into them. They're going to work at Taco Bell. For all my efforts, they're not going to learn anything. I really wanted to be an agent for change with my life. But some days, we lose. We show up every day. We put everything me have into the game

-but we lose. I'm not writing this because I'm feeling sorry for myself, and my inefficient teaching methods. Some of us lose more than others. The world isn't very kind to little Mexican kids who can't read. That's something else that may never change.

Poem I Wrote While I Was Sick.

The 101 to the 46 to the 5, then the 210 until it hits the 57.

 

I’ve made friends with the signposts

I let the tell me what to do

All the colors of the rainbow

Pulling off like rest stops

Without gas stations

And where can I be filled again?

Another chance to watch faces floating by

In parade fashion,

Forgetting I was the one on display

Watch their lips turn colors of recognition

Speaking slowly as I crumble by

“What a nice young man”

I hope my daughters turn out to be just the way he is.”

Pausing before engaging in relationships

And not having sex with pretty girls.

And my friends have told me that I am not far from home

But I feel inclined once more

To lay down flat on this open road

Like all the other dogs that move too slow.

Who has sat in my passenger seat

To follow me home?

Though

I swear some day

I’ll find a set of watchful eyes

Disinclined

To fall asleep 

In my passenger seat

On the long winding road

That somehow

Someday

Brings me home.

Orange Chicken and Thom Yorke

I'm sick.

I'm trying with great difficulty to keep awake during open mic night at It's a Grind in La Mirada. Nobody wants to perform. What I really need right now is to eat some cheap Chinese food and listen to Radiohead.

I think I enjoy being sick. It makes me less accountable for my actions. Like I was some sort of social-awkardness super hero. I'm my own alter ego. 

Hyounjun says that I have multiple personalities that hate each other. Maybe that's it. I could see that. I often hide my keys from myself, or sabotage my own efforts to be a successful writer. Once, I even set my water glass on top of the refrigerator so that I could reach inside the refrigerator to get some ice, thus forcing myself to spill water on my own head.

Hmmm.

I don't have to think about this right now. 

I'm sick.

... To The Death

I can't find my phone.

It's been missing since Sunday, and I can't find it. It's not at Genie's house, it's not in between the cushions of the couch, it's not in my room. WHERE IS IT?

What could I have done to deserve this? I think I know.

I don't have time to deal with this right now. I have to make phone calls for work, and today is Deborah's birthday. I've got to call her, and tell her happy birthday, and that I love her, or she's gonna kill me!

That doesn't sound like her.

I went into  my car to see if my phone was in there. I got a parking ticket. I know already what I did to deserve that.

I feel this pressure inside of me all the time. I don't even know if it's real or not, but... I'm just tired of this constant fight. I'm tired of desperately searching for work, so that I can pay the bills I have racked up because I wanted to sleep in a bed and eat food. I'm tired of turning my apartment upside down to find something I'm just going to lose again. Today it was my phone, tomorrow it will be my keys, or my wallet. And the worst part is that in all this fighting , and searching, and hustling that I've been doing, I don't ever stop to ask myself if the fight I'm putting up is really worth the life that I live. I have to work THIS hard to barely make it. I mean, I'm so unbelievably poor, and alone, and inefficient. I can't be the things that people want me to be. I have friends that I haven't called because I'm afraid they don't want to be my friends anymore. I'm worried that my roommates hate me, that my father is disappointed with me, that my pastor talks about me behind my back, and that to everyone else, I'm a joke. Entertaining, short lived, fictional. My guilt keeps piling up, like a sink full of dirty dishes, and I can't do anything to make it feel better.

Shit. I forgot to do the dishes.

God doesn't make mistakes, they say. Secretly, I wish he did. If I were a mistake, that would explain how I manage to destroy everything I touch, or how I can't even manage to do a simple thing, like remember where I put my phone, or call my friends, or find a full time job after my parents paid for me to go to college, and I graduated with a degree. If I was a mistake, I could be fixed.

I've been fighting my whole life, so that I can maintain a mediocre existence. No one asked me if I wanted to fight either. We are born, we are slapped around, cleaned up, and then turned loose on the world, so that we can prove that we deserve to be here.

But what if I don't?

A January Exhale

Okay.

Christmas is over.

At long last, this season of frivolous consumption and unabashed consumerism is at a close.I am breathing once more. I can celebrate now. I can say it.

"For unto us a child is born. To us, a Son is given. And the government will be upon his shoulders. And his name shall be called 'Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.' And of the increase of his government and peace, there will be no end."

(Isaiah 9: 6-7)

This is not a statement of the current condition of the world, but a promise of what is to come. I will have to wait.

It will be worth it.

P.S.: I've been keeping this blog for a year now. I thought it would make me seem deep and introspective. All it's ever done for me is let me know how well I've been taken care of. So, to all who have read my crazy ramblings this past year, I thank you. And to the One upon whose shoulders the government rests, I thank you for still finding room to carry me.