i’m realizing this year, that i’m pretty crazy.

i know thats an unqualified statement that also qualifies as negative self-talk, but such things aside: I’m not very logical.

Here I am at a Christian college university. I really do love Jesus, i promise. I really do want to follow him and imitate him as well as I can. But I’m so negative about Christians so incredibly often. Its like I despise Christendom, but am a living breathing very real aspect of it. Its dumb of me. I don’t really like it. aaaand other people aren’t too fond of it either, I’m assuming.

Its like, post-Stuart, I don’t really have anything to hide any more. I don’t have something/one back home tearing me away from here. I don’t have someone to talk to every night on the phone and IM even more. I am fully here now. and I guess this summer I started hoping/dreaming/realizing that I had an opportunity this year to try so much more. To actually grow into whoever the heck I’ve been called to be. To grow up into Christ.  All these aspirations. And I’m realizing how incredibly short I fall again and again, even when I’m actually trying.

and then i get so caught up in being good enough that i forget about the whole love part of God.

thank you Jesus for Vintage Faith.  otherwise. i really don’t know where i’d gonna be.

whalalalalalalalla!

i dunno God.

answers to yesterdays questions were found in today’s reading of some bonhoeffer.

Self-denial is never just a series of isolated acts of mortification or asceticism.  It is not suicide, for there is an element of self-will even in that.  To deny oneself is to be aware only of Christ and no more of self, to see only him who goes before and no more the road which is too hard for us.  Once more, all that self-denial can say is; ‘He leads the way, keep close to him.”

“…and take up the cross.” Jesus has graciously prepared the way for this word by speaking first of self-denial. Only when we have become completely oblivious if self ate we ready to bear the cross for his sake. If in the end we know only him, if we have ceased to notice the pain of our own cross, we are indeed looking only unto him.

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The cross is laid on every Christian.  … It is that dying of the old man which is the result of his encounter with Christ … Thus it begins; the cross is not the terrible end to an otherwise god-fearing and happy life, but it meets us at the beginning of our communion with Christ.  When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die.  It may be a death like that of the first disciples who had to leave home and work to follow him, or it may be a death like Luther’s, who had to leave the monastery and go out into the world.  But it is the same death every time-death in Jesus Christ, the death of the old man at his call.

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oh, well in that case. i’ll jump right on board the jesus train. lol.

i really am enjoying bohoeffer a lot. (not that i’m reading it for enjoyment, i think i might be struck down with the hatred he has for cheap grace if i said that.)    he’s so so intense. and i love it, cuz at least he’s legit. like. he died at age 39 in a nazi concentration camp. for doing exactly what he writes about. he’s so intense though. i read like 8 pages at a time. i just finished chapter 4. and he kinda just says it how he sees it. and he makes sense logically. and progresses from idea to deeper idea to deeper idea until you see yourself nodding to agreement to something that blows your mind completely if you try to see it actually applied to the world today.

i’m so interested in Christ as of late. Vintage (Spokane-church) is doing a series through mark (its lasting from last easter to this easter. i love my church) and its so good and intriguing and legit to just hear people talk about Jesus. like. the jesus christ actually in the Bible. Bonhoeffer does it too. (as much as i’ve read) his entire book just looks at encounters that jesus has with people with emphasis on those he calls to discipleship.  hence the title. the cost of discipleship.

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i hate it when i get distracted half way through a blog. cuz now its not really concluded. but i lost my train of thought completely. plus its like 1:30 and i really need to go to bed.  sorry.

forgiveness is a funny thing

so i have this friend beka. and i need to forgive her. for doing something i shouldn’t know she did. but i kinda stopped being friends with her. i want to actually want to do it though. like, i feel like i need to love her. but where. how. why. how. do you protect yourself from people who might hurt you again? wheres the real and the true friendship if theres no trust. is there any way to love beka not as her friend?

do the saints and martyrs have a heart/soul that is open for attack? that is broken and wounded? did they ever learn? or did they learn not to feel it? or did they learn that somehow it would be better to be broken and wounded for the possibility of the betterment of the wound-er.

this whole love your enemy thing doesn’t make as much sense as i would like. i mean, you can’t get much more enemy-like than a betrayal. then you start thinking of famous betrayals (not that this ranks quite as high as slaughtering the only begotten son of God, but part of me wants to say “but still!”)

then theres the whole “what would (did) jesus do?” what does jesus do. what does jesus do for me.

its like i know that the only way for me to forgive her is through Jesus. and the only way for it not to hurt is to be so close to jesus that his opinion of me IS what defines me. the only problem with that is that its so easy to say the words. and its even kinda easy to live it for a while. (the older i get, the more i like paul. when i was little, i hated his guts. like really. i loved jesus, and i was a relatively good kid, and i did random stuff to love on people without realizing most people didn’t do that with out some form of intentionality. but i hated pauls stuffiness when i read him. i still don’t really like the peters. or james. just so intense in an occasionally self-righteous tone. the reason i like paul more now is his whole “i want to do one thing but end up doing something opposite” spiel [romans 7:14-21, thank you jesus for biblegateway])

that was a long parenthetical comment.

amber asked me today what my goals were. for this week. month. year. whatever. i told her i wanted to thrive. i want to be planted at whitworth fully this year, and i want to thrive.

upon deeper thought tho. i think i need to get better at discernment. i think i need to stop analyzing and repackaging my life experience to regurgitate in conversation with some (conscious or not) selfish intention. will i be sending my kid to an inner-city ghetto school? hell yes. do i need to glorify myself in the meantime and be just as elitist as the worst stereotype of a bullard girl? no. not really necessary. i’m going to try to stop thinking about myself so much (as awful as that sounds, its really true). i’m going to attempt to just Be this year. Be myself, for sure. but also do stuff that may or may not be Me. and maybe at some later point in time, i’ll stop for some self-reflection, but i think i need to trust the Holy Spirit inside of me a little more. i want to just GO. you know? like live in the moment, every moment, and still be becoming more full of gracetruthlovejoypeace. and the only way i’m gonna do that unselfishly, is to be able to listen more. to hear more. or trust my emotional decisions a little more.

this may or may not be retiring…. just a warning.

Important Papers

my mother has recently decided to go through a few boxes of papers. Files of “Important Papers” that have been sitting in their designated stack next to however many other stacks of “important papers” are being sorted through, and for the most part, ceremoniously disposed of. “whats the point of keeping this if i never look in the right place to find it anyway?”

so now, we have a few bags full of shredded paper, a recycle bin full of other papers slightly less secure, and a quarter of our kitchen floor is a few pages deep in the really important stuff. the folder from when my parents bought their first house in bakersfield, with all the stuff from when they ordered furniture from my grandpa. a phone list from “the young marrieds group”, most of whom i recognized and we’re still friends with. A whole lot of curriculum for various things, because apparently, before the whole internet phenomenon, you had to keep a copy of anything you found that you would want to use again ever.

I also received my fair share of parenting tips, through a variety of handouts and photocopied clippings that my mom had picked up throughout the years. I think I’ll do alright as a parent, whenever that day may be (not any time soon, lol). Working in the kindergarten class, and then babysitting for a two-year-old and her 10 month old brother has kinda made me kid hungry as of late. or maybe just kid appreciating.

Aside from the various drawings and stampings that had my name attached, and other than the growth chart from when i was a baby (I was one big baby, topside of the curve for the first 18 months), the most personal “important papers” i’ve seen all day have been things that my grandmother has written.

First I read an article she wrote about our good friend Marsha, who, although blind, can apparently play softball quite well, and also learned to folk dance from my grandmother, who the article goes on to explain, learned a great deal on articulating exact directions for Marsha. My grandma Lola’s writing style is so warming to read. She’s very exact and often puts notes in parentheses to better explain exactly what it was she meant (or explain extenuating circumstances). She also had a huge vocabulary.

The best thing I read today though, was written single spaced on orange paper and was about 4 pages long. It was my grandma Lola telling the life story of her beloved eduardo (my poppa ed). Their life together (mostly before they had kids) was one huge adventure over another. She was best friends with his sister Lucille, and they spent their early adulthood going from college to college teaching PE together, and apparently working at donut stores. Ed Owensby was in the army during World War II as a radio technician, staying in the states going from airfield to airfield. He would come visit his sister when he could, and started dating my grandma too.

Its so funny to read about them necking in hollywood bowl during Brahms. actually quite hillarious.

They dated for a really long time, whenever they could. After WWII ended, my grandpa took advantage of the GI Bill and was an academic loafer, studying in New Mexico, and then Mexico City. It was in Mexico City that they eventually got married, but even after that, my grandma came back to the states to teach and migrate with Lucille. It was like 2 years before they could figure out a way to live in the same city at the same time. Then they spent a few years in Europe together. Paris for the longest part, but they took trips all over together.

Throughout my gramma’s narrative, she inserts little excerpts from his letters to her. My mom says that one of the things that my grandma did after papa ed died was that she spent months transcribing all the letters that he had sent her. I’m kind of curious now, and I really want to read them.

I really kinda wish I hadn’t spent my whole life petrified by my grandma Lola. I know living a vagabond gypsy life has a tendency to be very fickle, and I know they had money shortages when older, but i want to know that “pepper” that my papa ed (whom i only vaguely remember in his pre-dementia stages, but according to my mother didn’t talk too much about the past any way) wrote so highly of.

Its funny, I think I really am a huge product of my four grandparents, even more than I am a product of my parents. Maybe a whole bunch of characteristics skipped a generation, but its more likely that my parents were like that too when they were younger, and have since gotten older and therefore more parental in my eyes.

I want a story like my grandmas. I want to adventure and do crazy things and travel and write letters and hope and dream. I want my boy to be a man and i want us to thrive in anything and everything, together and apart.

Might vs. Right

I just finished reading The Once and Future King, one thing i can positively attribute to the break-up is that i have a whole lot more free time, and can read lots and lots of books.

I cannot choose to hate. I cannot choose to play the bitch. I have to choose the highest road. I have to love.

Theres something about nobility, and theres something about goodness, and theres something about what is True, that has to win out in the end. And we’re all looking for it. As long as we’re brave enough to, I guess. I really wish Unitarianism didn’t feel so anti-Christian to me, because I feel like theres a lot of nobility and honesty in their aims.

And in the midst of all my dreams and hopes and attempts at Love, still life goes on, and still America goes on. That Seventies Show just came on, “we’re all alright, we’re all alright”, so much culture, so much numbness. So many opportunities not to care. I do it all the time.

I think one of my biggest self-lessons is that I’m just as bad as anyone else. I don’t really care about the environment, because I’d still much prefer driving adventures to sitting at home not killing the air. I’d much prefer buying mindless crap for peoples birthdays because I love them, even if Target has horrible working conditions. I’m all for greater governmental powers imposing limits, and changing laws, but when it comes down to individual choices, I don’t really care all that much. I do the easy stuff. Doesn’t everyone?

I’m a jealous bitch. Just the same as basically every girl on the planet, i’m pretty sure. I don’t have the patience. I’m full on envy and pride and i boasted every chance I got about how wonderful i thought my boy was. I’m not pure. My love isn’t pure. This is love towards anyone, not just a someone. I’m scared of being hurt, I put up walls, I don’t generally tell the whole truth, and I always change my story based on who I’m speaking to. and i think everyone does too. I’m scared and I’m jealous. Mostly, I’m scared of being left alone.

something about TH White though, he seems to believe, that if you work hard enough, and try long enough, if you lead the way, by intentionally trying, in Goodness, it will come. and Life will be better. But in the end Arthur is sacrificed. Chivelry is sacrificed. The Round Table destroyed by baseless humanity. Humanity thats just so damn scared of being hurt again that it takes everything it can down with it.

Today I wrote, in as many places as possible, “boys are dumb, then they leave” i chanted it in my head over and over again. and part of me is so so so convinced that its true. that no matter what happens, I’ll never be enough. or i’ll be just enough for sometimes. That Jesse, my dad, Logan, and Stu will be continually coming close enough to raise my hope, and then theyll leave again. So i won’t ever be able to let go, just continue a list, and cry when they hurt me again. this whole paragraph was unfair. I want to keep writing, so i’m just going to leave it, and hope that it doesn’t kill my thought process.

I hope, someday, that we get it. That we stop have multiple intentions, that we stop using each other, that we come truly into our own, and that we shine in it. That we would find ourselves. That humanity would realize itself, and its potential. That it would stop having boundaries, that it wouldn’t want what wasn’t its own (i know thats a contradiction, but like think about it in context of theres more than enough to go around. You don’t have to share whats your own if theres enough for everyone to have their own)

Sometimes, I’m really good at being full of love. and full of grace, and still speaking Truth. Sometimes I’m really good at seeing it, holding it, knowing things for what they are, the good and the bad, and still being ok with them.

Sometimes though, those wounds get to me. And I hurt so bad. And sometimes I deal with them the more right way, but most of the time, I just lash out. and I try to make people understand how bad this hurts, in the context of me, in the context of the world, even in the context of what is Right, and what Should be done. Sometimes I don’t use words though. Sometimes I just talk to their friends, and share my side of the story. Sometimes I just do cruel things, just to make them hurt half as much as I hurt inside.

Because somewhere along the way, no matter how hard I tried, my heart didn’t harden. And somewhere along the way, I was chosen, and my heart was redeemed, and I’m not nearly as bitter as I want to be. Maybe everyone does this, but I hope not, because if they have, and the world is this screwed up, theres really no hope.

People are human, and they screw up, and they hurt each other.

i think it finally hit home today.

he’s gone.

our talk won’t ever come.

we’ll drift and drift.

and someday, so much sooner than id like, we’ll meet, and smile, and laugh, and he’ll introduce his new girlfriend. and she’ll be sweet and nice, and i’ll probably be truly be happy for him. and i’ll be one of his many exgirlfriends. a good one though. not a crazy one. some odd form of consolation that he gave me, before i realized that i would need.

i hope she grows him up. i hope he becomes her man and lives out what he could be. and i hope he treasures her for everything shes worth. i hope he becomes more whole, and more alive. that he would find Life, and live it. i hope she matters to him as much as he tells her that she does.  and that if he promises, he thinks about it first.
and me? i hope i never do this again. i’ll live my own life, as i always secretly knew (or have been afraid?) that i would. and i will live on my own, and maybe do the single mom thing, adopt or gasp have my own. maybe i’ll heal enough to get married. that thought scares me so incredibly much right now, you have no idea.

and who knows, maybe i’ll find another adventure buddy. maybe i’ll find a dreamer. maybe i’ll find an artist. maybe i’ll find a worthy people-caring politician or diplomat. maybe i’ll find a radical jesus lover who’ll lead me in that way.  maybe.

but even if i do, i don’t know what would stop me from living the exact same life as my mother. i don’t comprehend how people stay together, for the rest of their lives. i don’t know how they don’t get bored. how they are still wanted after however many years. how you can be sure that that someone that you say yes to, will still want you after all those years, that you’ll be enough for one another.  how is anyone ever that sure?

i know this is a depressed/crying entry. i’m sure i’ll heal more soon. or eventually. i know its not really as bad as it feels right now.

that knowledge really isn’t helping though.

i really hate crying.

i don’t think i’ve ever actually broken up with someone/been broken up with. i don’t think the slightly dizzy feeling after alex, or the maddening avoidance after brian even remotely compares with now. i’m mad. i’m sad. i’m alone. i don’t have plans besides work for the next week… what am i going to do with myself? i’m filled with every cliche possible. its amazing actually. when i talk, i’m really good at hiding it, i think. i’m not sobbing any more. i’ll probably just work a lot tomorrow. i have to work a lot tomorrow. i’m really behind at cmt, i was planning on doing stuff tonight, but i didn’t. i did stuff this morning tho.

i’m having issues comprehending maybe. i knew he wasn’t as madly in love with me as he had been previously, but i figured it would pass. i think my conversation starter last night was based in the insecurity i was feeling about his apathy. and then it put everything on the edge, and instead of seeing the cliff and running back to me, he jumped. and there he fell. and now i don’t know when i’ll talk to him next. i don’t know what i’m going to do with my summer. i don’t know when my eyes will stop randomly welling.

i’m so mad at how distanced he was from me when we were talking. i felt like a clingy ass wisp of a person who was so weak and delusional as to think the person across from me actually cared for me. “i’m sorry” “wait, why are you sorry (i was still unsure if it had been decided yet)” “because this is really going to hurt you”. oh. oh i see.

“you’ll find someone better” “you’ll do good things” “

i don’t really want to finish this right now.

holy crap

http://factfinder.census.gov/servlet/QTTable?_bm=y&-context=qt&-qr_name=DEC_2000_SF3_U_DP2&-qr_name=DEC_2000_SF3_U_DP3&-ds_name=DEC_2000_SF3_U&-CONTEXT=qt&-tree_id=403&-redoLog=false&-all_geo_types=N&-geo_id=14000US06019002602&-search_results=14000US53063003500&-format=&-_lang=en

Sixteen days.

This might be typed a little differently than the way I usually write here. but thats ok.

There are sixteen days left of my freshman year of college.

I’ve been seeing a counselor here for a few weeks. Its making me actually care and actually want to figure out the Me stuff inside. For a while I had just stopped, and if anyone asked, I would tend to tell them stuff from last summer, or last year, that defined who I was then.

“Then we will no longer be like children, forever changing our minds about what we believe because someone has told us something different or because someone has cleverly lied to us and made the lie sound like the truth. Instead we will hold to the truth in love, becoming more and more in every way like Christ who is the head of his body, the church.” -Ephesians 4:14-15 (NLT). I also like the second verse in NIV “15Instead, speaking the truth in love, we will in all things grow up into him who is the Head, that is, Christ.”

I’m still a child in a lot of ways. And I think this year I regressed in my faith even. which is kinda ironic and sad. I mean, I’ve grown intellectually, and I know more stuff now than I did when I came in. I’ve read some great books, and I’ve enjoyed learning. But somewhere along the way, I came to the point where I assumed I was fine with or without Jesus. That I could pray or read or love on people when I felt like it, without Being with Jesus before or after that. And I know I’m romanticizing high school, and I’m pretty sure I wasn’t this amazing prayer warrier always walking with Jesus. But I also know, I remember a lot of walks, and drives, and talks, and silences with my Jesus. This year, I haven’t done that nearly as much.

I also know that its not through acts or works that my relationship or even salvation status is determined. but, thats kinda how it naturally manifests itself in my life. which is another thing I’m working through, I guess.

I’ve been talking to a lot of people abour the World recently. Lots of people who want to save it too. I went to Displace Me! this weekend in Seattle, to make some sort of stand, to be a public reminder of these awful things that are happening in Uganda. IDP camps are no place to grow up. A state of war is no place to live (see Beka’s xanga for a good post on this too). War is possibly the stupidest thing that mankind does. mmm. minus rape and child abuse. alright. the third stupidest. The fourth stupidest is letting other humans starve.

And so I’ve been realizing. I do want to do something. I do want to “ich will die Welt retten” save the world. But before I presume to do that, I want to learn it. I want to breathe it, live it, cry it, love it. I want to travel to all these far off places. to empathize instead of drowning sympathy. I want to be poor for a little bit. I want to be hungry for a little bit more than 38 hours or whatever that fast was last week (all the money that our cafeteria didn’t spend on the food that the people who signed up didn’t eat, got donated to a fund for World Hunger). I want to know the faith of people who truly depend on it.

And then once I’ve done all that. Alright, Maybe once I’ve begun, then I’ll have the credentials for me. I’ll have shown my mom, myself, that I really am going to do it. That I’m not just going to end up teaching english in an urban high school, living a comfortable life on the north edge of town.

I do want to save the world. And I do want to make positive change. But thats not necessarily through ministry in the way we tend to think of ministry. Its more through politics. and advocacy. and its in the big things that are already working. i think. maybe. we’ll see.

i don’t even know truly, to be honest.

but right now. I will keep holding to the Truth that I know, in love. and with Love and Truth. i think I’ll be alright.

i’m having issues dealing right now.