Towards what I aspire...

"A religious man is a person who holds God and man in one thought at one time, at all times, who suffers harm done to others, whose greatest passion is compassion, whose greatest strength is love and defiance of despair."
- Abraham Heschel

Tales of Target South Bay - Intro...

I hope that this post will be the first of few, several, or (best-case scenario) many about the people I work with at "Target in the 'hood". Mind you, the store I work at isn't quite in the hood - the shopping centre in which it is located is large enough to isolate the store from the surrounding area. But certainly a vast majority of the employees (excluding 95% of middle-management of course) traverse the streets of the surrounding neighborhoods en route to work each day. It may not truly be Target "in the hood," but it is certainly "of the hood."

While many of the questions I pose of myself center around the soci0-political-economic propriety of the big box store, I intend to steer clear from trying to resolve these questions/conflicts here. The reality is that almost all people will shop where they can find the best price, the workforce will go where the wages are best, and the frantic pace of living will draw the consumer to the place where they can acquire their requisite consumables in the least amount of time. Simply put, until our society, especially the powerful, places metaphysical concepts (e.g. wisdom, justice, and prudence) on the same footing as the rational (e.g. nominal GDP, the invisible hand of the market, and the incessant demand for "growth"), the big box stores aren't going anywhere. And meanwhile, ma and pop businesses, especially in the hood, flounder; management positions will go exclusively to those who are priveleged enough to have a college education; investors will continue to be able to make money (presumably, although the market may be exacting justice after all) by virtue of having money, not through the labor of their own hands; and the underclass will continue to be the "working poor," where many beautiful people, through no fault of their own apart from the situation they were born into, will labor simply to put food on their table, diapers on their children's bottoms, and with any luck pay the bills on the first of the month.

It is here where my story lies I hope...these are not pitiful creatures worthy of my charity. They are beautiful people, the handiwork of God, for whom many have replaced any delusions of grandeur with the mere desire for safety and survival. They are God's children, my siblings, and there lives, their stories - even if in brief - deserve to be told.

Esoteric things left unsaid

You did no wrong
For that I thank you

I wander back to our sliver of shared time
laughter, affection, nerves…
dancing eyes and your radiant smile brought my world to its knees

“Embargo” was a watchword –
more meaningful than we first realized.
You had said good-bye before the words escaped your lips

I could not give what you would not receive
Will you ever ask if you were honest with yourself?
Your tears told such a different story


There is hidden strength within,
Only a portion on display for those with eyes to see
My faith is greater than you think
I cannot turn from the burden of knowledge,
My heart languishes under a moral weight words fail to describe

Happiness needs parsing to be compatible with faithfulness

Pained and helpless as you walked away –
Bidding adieu to a stranger
Knowing the contents within were priceless
The fine print on the label read “Handle with Care”
I did my all to heed it, perhaps forgetting my label in ALL CAPS
Maybe I only knew the silhouette

I will not forget you,
But I’m smart enough to let you go
My own way I cannot demand
I do wish you’d given us a chance

I am free to wonder if you were right
You are free to meet the world head on
This I know, you will succeed
You deserve beauty,
And by God’s grace may you find it

In hindsight, one transgression likely was wrought -
the joy of being a riddle
seems so trivial, but to the unsuspecting,
takes one's breath away

You are absolved, for you are a saint
And I, I’m moving on…

Resolved...

I’ve never been one, at least since my high school days, to put much stock in New Year’s resolutions and the like. Particularly, since coming to faith in my mid-20’s, my mindset has been that every day provides an opportunity to – and for the self-reflective, even demands that we – examine ourselves soberly, adjust our course as needed, and resolve anew. That being said however, over the past few years my grip on my own life has slipped…slowly at first, but in time the rope had slackened and what had once been tethered to the other end – my existence, normalcy, homeostasis – was only a faint image of what once was.
“Things fall apart,” but when they do, simultaneously, all the self-reflection, self-reliance we can muster become impotent resources in a battle too big to be fought on our own. And when the Lord seems to have abandoned hopes and plans for our life, it becomes easy to question whether to continue to fight for wholeness or resign to “character-building” defeat.

In my case, at some point I reached the point where resisting inertia seemed futile, and resignation to the latter option – defeat, or at the very least an admission of loss of control over the direction of my life – became seemingly the only option available to me. Only very recently has the storm seemed to subside, the clouds lifting and tide shifting. I’ve begun to believe that God does care about me, does want to redeem the pain that I’ve been through, does desire to see me whole in a way far greater than I could have imagined when this all began. In short, 2008 has concluded with the hope that I can have my life back.

My resolution for 2009 is simply this: to trust God recklessly yet/and pursue shalom, wholeness, what I know to be good and God’s best for my life. I want to get my life back.

Of course, such abstraction leaves plenty of room for interpretation, but in this case, the restoration of life above all equates to the restoration of my health. Having been unwell for a prolonged period wrought havoc on every facet of my life, and I feel that the starting point in piecing things back together has to be found in getting healthy again.

The rest is just details, and while the simplest resolutions require some sort of planning and agenda, for public consumption I’ll just lay out what my resolutions are:

Health

- Quit drinking alcohol and caffeine - Pray for me!

- Ride my bike consistently – Shoot for 4,000 miles this year

- Eat Healthy – go to the grocery store and cook for myself

Vocation/Calling – By the end of ’09…

- Devise plan for finishing divinity degree

- Find a job that better utilizes my skills, experience, education and passion

- Be intentional about praying about and discerning my calling, and steps along the way towards meeting it.

People/Relationships

- Be a more consistent communicator with friends and family

- Devote more time to friends, less to escapist intellectualism

- Find a consistent avenue to serve my community

As a final thought, in recent years I think I’ve believed or at least assumed that living a prophetic life – a life that reflects or embodies Jesus’ love for all creation – precludes, by and large, security and structure. In retrospect, however, I’ve found that choosing to live by the seat of my pants, without a strong understanding of telos, or some sort of objective/end in mind, has not worked for me. I’ve come to believe that I need the latter to be effective, to be happy, and experience wholeness. If the past few years as I have experienced and understood them are any indication of how God works, I trust that if God desires me to continue to live an impromptu existence, then my efforts to ‘regain’ control will be in vain.

“I waited patiently for the Lord;

he turned to me and heard my cry.

He lifted me out of the slimy pit,

out of the mud and mire;

he set my feet on a rock

and gave me a firm place to stand.

He put a new song in my mouth,

a hymn of praise to our God.”

Psalm 40:1-3a

New start

So, for those of you (and that would include all but a select few) who don't know, I've recently moved to Boston and am trying to make a new start with some close friends of mine. I wish there was a way to make sense of this all, a way to say that choices I have made have been reasonable and I will be blessed for taking the 'narrow path.' The reality is that 'I don't know.'

Trying to explain myself, to explain why I have an anxiety disorder, why I'm a Christian, broke, unemployed, taking time off from school, single, anxious, incapable of dating, depressed, etc., etc., etc., would be an exercise in futility. I look around at many of my friends and relatives, the way they seem to be 'blessed' and without concern, and I wonder what the heck I've done wrong. I don't pretend to have an answer.

So often I want an answer. Why is it that so many, with either nominal and no whatsoever consideration for God's desire for the world, find life so easy to navigate? And why can't I seem to forge a path through all this confusion? Am I not smart enough, wise enough, blessed enough, holy enough. tough enough, hungry enough? I'm beyond halfway through a master's degree in theology, but I can't even pretend to have an answer to the questions.

Without belaboring the point, I only wish that the pain would go away, that I could find my way back to being 'me,' as absurd as that sounds. My God, seriously, help me to live as you want me to live. I love you, and thank you, and only want to do what you desire....

Resurrection

Blogging, like anything else in life I suppose, requires a lot of work. Well, actually, it doesn't, but for some of us unfortunate souls who have trouble expressing their thoughts, writing can be a daunting exercise. Regardless, in spite of my abysmal failure the first time around (All of four posts I think:), I suppose I'm going to give this a second shot.

Where to begin? Perhaps with a prayer...

Almighty God, you know me better than I know myself. You know my fears and anxieties, my passions and dreams, my sins and transgressions that are too illicit to name here. You know my disillusionment, my impatience, my faithlessness. You know the people who get under my skin, and you know how hard I try to hide it from you and the rest of the world. You know every detail of my life - yet the mystery is that you accept me, frail, broken and immature in the eyes of the world. Let this blog be for me an expression of worship, a place where I can point to your handiwork in my life. Thank you for the life you've given me, the friends and family you've blessed me with, and the immense world you've placed me in. Let me walk in humility before you, in all that I do. In Jesus' name. Amen.

Evolution takes a shot to the biscuits

Scientists formulate new hypothesis in their quest for the true origin of species...