march 26

“There’s only one thing that’s free in this life……my love for you.”

Yesterday at work I overheard a daughter tell her mom she should work at the ice cream store so that they can have free ice cream. That was the mom’s response.

It was sweet. It was a strangely serious moment, too. It made me think of Pink’s strong, F**kin’ Perfect, the music video especially.

On a somewhat related note. My co-worker Ebonee is getting her degree in African-American studies. That same day she was explaining to me what that entailed, and gave an example of studying a writer said that there is an unspoken idea that to be white is to be human, and that many black people try to act/look white. It’s funny, cuz I’ve known so many white people who like to be told that they’re really black or latino or asian. Being yourself is not a skill easily come by. I

Personally, I’ve been trying to figure out if I want to do Invisible Children’s 25 event. The project it supports seems well-researched, locally supported and locally led (a rehab center for child soldiers and a radio network to warn of attacks and request med help). But the promotional videos make me uncomfortable. They do such a good job embracing who they are – mostly white culture, activist, competitive, fun, artsy – and it works well, with 12000+ signed up. But the fun, artsy part of who they are (and yes, hipster glasses-wearing) throws me off a little.

One of my issues with it is feeling like a hypocrite, supporting people there, but not here. Of course, that’s a great excuse to do nothing, anywhere. I partly feel better and partly feel worse about it because I might start being an assistant teacher in one of the homeless shelters sooner than expected. Better, because I can say I AM helping here. Worse, because I know my motivations are partly to feel better about myself, to be Somebody Doing Something, and I don’t want that to be what it’s about – especially not as a white kid who’d be helping primarily African-American (little-er) kids. I don’t want to make myself feel empowered at the expense of making them feel dependent or somehow weaker or “in need” or “at risk.”

But the thing is, I love the idea of doing it! And the fun, artsy side of Invisible Children is something I have, too. I love the idea of teaching kids music and helping them express themselves and think deeper in the process. And I don’t want to wait to do it until I go to another country or something. So I’m…taking baby steps, trying to be more proactive. That includes making a playlist of songs I can perform for busking, and researching places to play. We’ll see I guess. In the meantime, I got my BuildaBridge “Artists on Call” shirt, and I’ll wear it Thursday night to City Hall for the students’ art exhibit.

And in the meantime meantime, I’ll take the bus, where I’m usually one of one or two white people. And sometimes I’ll be singing on my way to the bus, and I’ll make a new friend, and sometimes I’ll be quiet and shy and not. I’ll try to sing more, though. I have a lot to sing about.

For instance, the fact that I have a roof over my head, a shelter, a safe place. Homelessness…is a scary word. Wednesday my supervisor had to leave my internship early, so I couldn’t stay there, and my cell group didn’t start for another hour, so I had nowhere to go. And I had already ordered a small pizza to share with my cell. So I ate a few pieces on somebody’s porch (hopefully they don’t mind!) and then I just walked around in the light rain for an hour. It was weird, to pass by all these homes and doors and none of them are for you. It’s a little silly, probably, but that made me understand homelessness a little more. If you know someone you can call on to help you, a door you can knock on, you’re homeless but you’re not alone.

It’s strange, to think about St. Francis. He was part of the young, urban group of cool kids. Apparently he dressed really stylishly and threw lots of parties, though his family was only just on the line of being “wealthy” by the city standards. Then he decided to be a homeless, wandering preacher who took shelter in an old church. And suddenly he wasn’t alone, either, because others joined him.

It’s crazy, honestly.

I think the first time I heard about St. Francis was actually through an Invisible Children video that featured Denison Witmer’s song Little Flowers. So good on them. And I just found out Denison Witmer used to go to the circle church. So good on them. Kind of a balance to me worrying about being…too much myself, I guess. Anyways, here’s the song.




St. Francis' "little flowers" are stories from his lives, about miracles and daily sacrifices. His sacrifices are rather as miraculous as the miracles.

I'm going to see the latest Invisible Children video about Tony, one of the original guys.

routine

My life feels really routine. Which is funny, because it’s not: there’s not a whole lot that’s the same every day or week, and it’s not routine/boring, either. But it is beginning to feel more familiar, and I’m really grateful for that. For instance:
• Walking down Washington lane’s mix of row houses and historic mansions to my internship. I’ve only done this route this week (the singing man Chad asked me if I wanted candy, and it was weird, so I avoid him now), but I like.
• Waiting for the bus & counting the birds in the bush next to me as they sing.
• Tuesday pm pomplamoose livecast – this will be my second time! Good night song!
• Wednesday night church cell group, and Roula’s pizza before it (once).
• Oatmeal with peanut butter for breakfast - every day except for one.
• Toasting pb and j sandwiches. Because the bread is cold.
• Eating breakfast in bed. Because I’m cold.
• Eating brunch for free at work after my Sunday shift – tasty tasty tasty tasty.
• Coming home after evening shifts with more energy than I had going into it.
• Taking showers and feeling like I’m in a cocoon.
• Thursday day-off visits to the Crooked Bookstore, while the washer/dryer go.

There was something new today though, that I hope becomes routine. Three red-breasted robins. Spring, are you coming? I walked off the sidewalk to go around one and not disturb it. Hopefully, none of the little kitty-cat friends I’ve made get hungry.

This Lent thing is better and worse than I thought it’d be. I miss facebook, but I know I’ll use it better because of this – I miss the ability to easily message friends and stay in contact. I don’t miss the wasting of my time. I do miss tv shows. A lot. But I’m using that time to build new routines. Playing guitar near daily. Reading and writing, too. Going to sleep when I’m tired. Reading my bible by playing guitar along with it. I’ve been sitting on Matthew 3 and John’s “brood of vipers!” talk to the Pharisees today.

I’ve been noticing other people’s routines, too. I want to have them:
• Remembrance. Over lent, my church is doing weekly communion.
• Generosity. Christy shares lots of her food with me. Liz, my cell group leader, has given me a couple of rides to church. Danielle, my internship supervisor, never hesitates to compliment or note good work. Edgar and Kim, who run Avenida, feed you every shift, and for Sunday brunch go all-out. Smorgasborg. Overwhelming. And then Edgar tells you to take more home.
• Hard work. Most of my co-workers have at least one other job. Danielle works at BuildaBridge as the only FT paid staff (a lot of work!), and then has a dance instructor position, and THEN works at a restaurant. And she still has a bf.

I want to practice these habits till they’re just routine for me. I think moving makes you lose a lot of your old routines, and it throws you off. Even simple ones. That’s part of why I’ve been so anxious at my job (that and I don’t want to lose it). Anxiety’s very difficult to overcome. I really sympathize now with the movie character girl in the new city working at a restaurant. Heh. But apparently Edgar and Kim like me: a server told me they were planning to train me in all the different work, including server. Cool…gulp. Danielle likes me, too. I figured out how to use Adobe Illustrator to fix a flyer after a day of failure, since the marketing intern is on spring break. We were joking afterwards, and I said “yay, I’m going to be marketable!” And she quite nicely said I already was.

Of course, she’s way more “marketable” than me, but she has to have two other jobs. I’m realizing how much hard work is necessary, to do what you want with your life, help people. My head’s still sorting out Uncle Tom’s Cabin, and that book has taught me a lot about hard work and faith. It’s too bad the Uncle Tom character seems to be misunderstood. He’s impressive. And there’s quakers, too, in the book, and of course they’re big in Pennsylvania. Talk about hard work to help people. The book highlights their role in the underground railroad, the risks run and the work done. My bus stops right in front of a historic underground railroad stop. It made me pause to wonder today. I may visit Thursday. In the meantime, I tried to read Aunt Phillis’ Cabin (southern anti-abolitionist response to Uncle Tom’s Cabin), but it made me feel physically ill.

I want…to have routines that’ll make people feel good, not ill. There’s no underground railroad right now, though there’s an underground human trafficking trade. People are hungry for change, but they’re also just hungry. I can’t imagine. Last Wednesday I didn’t have money to buy Roula’s pizza before cell, so I didn’t eat dinner. I figured I’d just rely on the cell’s generosity, even if I did feel a little foolish eating so many of their little muffins. But it’s weird. I was so hungry, even though I’d eaten twice that day already. Everyday I feel hungry, though I eat a lot. I joked to Christy: “If I didn’t know myself better, I’d think I was pregnant, I’m so hungry.” Needless to say, I’m not pregnant, and I am eating well. But this amusing hunger of mine has made the video below about homeless kids all the less amusing. I hope you can watch it all, but at least see 4-7:20.



“Homeless kids tip-toe in a world of insecurity, hoping to be invisible.”
If you watch the rest, you will see.
It makes me grateful to be interning at BuildaBridge, and want to be a part of their programs within homeless shelters:



I mentioned that moving seems to make people lose a lot of routines. How much more homelessness must do this, hurts to think about. Same thing with refugees, whom BuildaBridge also does some work with. Art really seems…in my own life it has helped. The routine of it, the expression of it, the security of it. The city hall exhibit I’ve been helping with at BuildaBridge will make homeless kids’ art visible, and so it will make them visible, also. This is what I’m thinking about.

But now I’m late for the pomplamoose webcast. So much for routine ;)
and they're talking about nuclear power plants. it's hard to be serious.
now they're talking about nuclear power pants. it's really hard to be serious.
and now they're singing jack's original, "the way it was before" and asking if their music's getting too dark. well, actually they asked if their shit was getting dark. tee hee. :) as long as their routine and life routines make space for addressing light and dark times/experiences, i like. if buildabridge's art programs only let the kids focus on happy, and avoided dealing with the sad, it'd be useless. but if it didn't teach how to see the good in the bad, it'd be useless. So.

listening4lent. hopefully.

As a writer/blogger, there is a lot of pressure to be speaking into the culture and producing output, but I often feel like I’m sacrificing a patient, reflective discipline for receiving input. Do I really have something to say about Rob Bell, especially so prematurely? Probably not. I’d rather read, listen, think more. I’d rather take things in slowly, ponder them, and then offer my two cents (if I have any).

That’s why for Lent this year, I’m going to give up blogging. …. During this season I’m going to be quicker to listen and slower to speak, meditating on the blessings of Christ in my life and drinking in his goodness in a deeper, more concentrated way. I want to slow down. I want to read more books and collect my thoughts. I want to think less of myself wherever possible, and think more about Christ’s sacrificial love–what it means for me, for my neighbor, and for the world.

I read this yesterday from a blog I follow, The Search. I’d been mulling over what to do for Lent. I had my no list: mostly shows. I had my yes list: walks, books, Bible, music. I had a qualifier: personal internet use at home only after a ½ hour of quiet/music time. I didn’t know anything about the Rob Bell thing until I read that blog, and then I watched his video for his book, etc. It once again brought to the surface some of the tensions I’ve been trying to patiently sit in, mostly unsuccessfully.

The Circle of Hope Ash Wednesday service had an activity to draw something that distanced you from God, then give it up for Lent, symbolically throwing the paper into the fire while everyone sang, because lent a time for setting fire to garbage that needs to be cleaned out. It hit a nerve, the same nerve hit by the blog passage I quoted. I didn’t have a pen, or a paper at first, but I knew what I would’ve drawn. An ear and a mouth. Getting sucked into all the talk.

I value dialogue and discussion, but sometimes all the talk just tires me out. Giving up all the tv shows was part of that, getting rid of some of the voices bouncing around in my head. Like in a book I was browsing that showed a picture of a curved line, asked if it was concave or convex, but the fact is it’s both, that very identity is interconnected, and you have to accept and engage that connectedness to really talk well about it.

I’m not going to stop reading, or blogging – I’m in the middle of Uncle Tom’s Cabin right now, and I realize it’s affecting me the same way reading Crime and Punishment did, leaving me impatient when I’m not reading it because that’s where my mind is, not anywhere else. But I am off facebook, so that I post less links and just think more for myself and care less about what others think about what I think, and spend more time asking God what he thinks. Or, at least trying to. I can’t count the number of times my finger’s hovered over the “f” keypad to type in facebook, and just that makes me realize how this is good for me. But I’ve also realized I don’t know how to contact lots of people outside of facebook, so I’ve had to be more intentional, which is good, but also difficult and a little depressing. But I’ve also done better things with my time this Thursday than I did last Thursday. And that’s real good.

Dandelions the Color Purple

I think it was the wrong question to answer, last two entries, about what I think about dandelions. What I think’s not too important. I can see the color purple and think of royalty or grapes or bruises or jimi hendrix’s purple haze. But is that the best/goodest (because I can) thing purple can make me think of? If I’m wondering if God’s kind of throwing dandelions my way, I should probably ask what he wants me thinking.

I finished reading the Color Purple today, after buying it for 25 cents at the bookstore down the street. I’d read it once before, but I didn’t remember a lot about it. There’s a lot that I learned from it and a lot I appreciate and agree with and a fair bit I appreciate but disagree with. I like how the characters talk about purple, and just creation in general, as God’s way of catching your attention. And I like this quote:

I think it pisses God off if you walk by the color purple in a field somewhere and don’t notice it.

God and his plans and the universe and the color purple all kind of get along without me well enough. That's not an excuse; it’s good if I go with them and learn from it all, and help to keep the color around. But I don’t want to forget that it wasn’t me who made colors or dandelions in the first place, and it’s not me his plans are made for. Oddly enough, this echoes my response to a friend who asked me to unpack what I said last entry about God’s plans and how we might make them sort of not work out for ourselves. Basically: so what? That attitude doesn’t work towards others, but it works towards myself well enough when I get too self-centered.

So I’m rethinking dandelions, but I’m not in a hurry to get an answer. And as far as The Color Purple goes, I was glad to read the book again. I like being brought out of myself to think about being white or black from the perspective of a black person (and I like/hate trying to talk about that without sounding ignorant). I love the format as letters to God, and the faith involved in that there’s no letters coming back, and I identify with the change in how to understand God. I don’t go as far as Celie in calling God an it that’s just everything. I can’t seem to find anyone or any group or any book where I can just whole-heartedly agree with everything. I’m always a little to this or a little too that to fit in, although the good and bad of it is I can still belong, I think, and definitely still love.

Anyways. I spent my weekend keeping busy at the restaurant. After today I really began to feel comfortable and feel like I had made friends and belonged, and maybe even fit in a little.
Maybe it’s that today I got to wear the Avenida Restaurant shirt. Maybe it was the heaps of food we were given to eat after the shift. Maybe it was just time. All I know is it’s nice. And my feet are very relieved, especially after mistakenly thinking I had to wear heels the first night: six hours standing, walking up/down stairs in heels led me to walk the block home in stocking feet.

I also played guitar and posted a new youtube video (cover of Do you Only Love the Ones that Look Like You! <3). I listened to Damien Rice for the first time. And I skyped with my daddy. We were silly. And I hung out with my roommate and it was good. This is our dining room table, home to many happy, hungry tummies. And that's my roommate, Christy. Say hi, Christy! Oh, and I didn’t mention it, but Monday night I got to babysit. And right now I’m skyping with my mom. And I received funny texts from my brother. Aww. Yay, life.

Dandelions. Practice.

I’ve been learning that lesson about letting go this past week, from the previous entry. I visited my friend Viola in Camden, and I was nervous about it. I had a few reality checks. Flirtatious ticket vendors that made me feel awkward, but also made me smile at life. A young white girl and an old black man on the bus sharing war stories about their mugging experiences and the bones that were broken. The cheery black woman who came on the bus, took a look at me and the other white girl, and said – with this awesome great smile – “I’m SCARED, there’s so many white people!” It was kinda great, and it made me smile, too.

Viola lives on the grounds of a large NGO called Urban Promise. We spent the whole day in her house. We listened to music and she did gymnastic stuff and tried to dance. Lunch was fantastic, she had made some potatoes Ugandan-style…tastiness, partnered with convo about cultural assumptions. Good times.

Her house was built a few years ago by Extreme Makeover. Viola’s room had basketball murals on the wall, as well as the name of the two boys who were supposed to share the bunkbed left behind. The family couldn’t afford it in the end. It’s hard to help without hurting. I understand that. As I was waiting at the train station on my way home, I saw a guy asking for money coming my direction. After worrying so much about getting to where I was going, I felt grateful that it had went alright, and I sympathized with him. So I decided not to pull the “My ipod is on and I can’t hear you” card.

As I was getting out my money, an older woman came up and started loudly telling him to leave, that he shouldn’t intimidate people. She started waving her arms towards the security, but they just looked at her perplexed. Twice I told her “ma’am, he didn’t intimidate me.” She disagreed. So I told him, ‘you didn’t intimidate me.” I felt bad for him because he looked embarrassed, and bad for her because she was just so upset.

But for the first time in a while, I didn’t let it bother me. Usually I might do a ‘we suck’ thought project the rest of the night. But instead I just cocked my head to the side, shrugged it off, smiled and went back to my music. I don’t know if that was right. But it was nice. On the train ride back, I continued to be grateful about getting home safe. I had my own little happy epiphany as I was listening to Switchfoot’s Enough to Let Me Go, Free and Jon Foreman’s My Love Goes Free. I had been skimming a book by the Urban Promise founder earlier, and there was a section in it about subversive joy. It included a quote by Mother Theresa:

The best way to show our gratitude to God and the people is to accept everything with joy. A joyful heart is the inevitable result of a heart burning with love. Never let anything so fill you with sorrow as to make you forget the joy of the Christ risen.

I had posted that lion martyr Christian life sometimes the Christian life isn’t about you photo on my facebook. Cinda responded and said the Christian life is never about you. I’m still thinking on that Cinda. But joy’s definitely not about you or your troubles. Because joy comes from Christ, to you, when you understand why, and then you’re free to stop worrying and fearing for yourself. The circle cell group I’ve gone to so far just finished going through Philippians. The third chapter is where Paul’s like though I’m super awesome and do everything right, I count it all as nothing, for the surpassing joy of knowing Christ Jesus.

When I think about dandelions, I think about a lot of things. One of them is that each of the little fluffs is something I’m proud of about myself, something I get my sense of identity and worth from. These are things I like very much. But saying I count it all as nothing, that requires *whoosh!* blowing them all away, letting it all go. No longer worrying about it, fearing what others think of you. Of the many things I’m bad at letting go of, these are probably the worst. Yet it's all nothing, just little fluffs that are chasings after the wind. But that doesn’t mean I have to go all Ecclesiastes, dark clouds and frowns. Because joy says, yeah, that stuff’s not what matters, and I’m still here. I'm not there yet, but, like I said to myself when I walked past where I was going, I'm not lost either. I know where I am. It's just not where I thought I was going. But I know where that is, and I'm learning how to get there. So. Yay, joy. Okay.

And so, yay, after two mornings of having the random old guy on the corner do some kind of song/cat-call to me on my way to my internship, I can walk up to him – instead of past him – and greet him and get to talking and find out he’s a Christian counselor and herbalist. Okay.

And on my walk to the church cell group I can go at a snail’s crawl for a block and a half because I made friends with a kitty-cat and it knows my legs are for being rubbed against, not walking. And we make quite a spectacle of ourselves, me talking to it and it meowing at me and people walking past smiling, but really, it’s okay.

And I can not eat dinner tonight cuz I left my wallet at home and wait around at my internship for an hour and snack on Danielle’s carrots, so that I can go to cell and then hog all the snacks, after over-empathizing with the kitty-cat and its hungry/lonely-meows, and it’s okay. I actually really like over-empathizing with animals. It’s kind of my thing.

And I can admit to the cell group that I didn’t go to church because I hadn’t really felt like going to church. And I can ask questions about how he is the God of peace and yet in the OT he’s kind of a god of war, and I can feel stupid asking about that and not really have the question answered, but expect that, but listen to some good dialogue, and not really expect that, and knw the questions won’t be answered for years probably and I might not like the answers, but feel like it’ll be ok.

And, let’s see. I can start writing my first grant and need to re-write lots of it and learn how to mat pictures and go down to City Hall all within the first week of my internship and that’s definitely okay, because the programs administrator/everything supervisor Danielle is good at her job and blunt when she needs to be and encouraging when she needs to be and rather a lucky break for me. And I can be more nervous at my performance at the restaurant than at my internship, and that’s okay. And I can get a random babysitting job where the kid is adorable and I’m allowed to snack and I’m very generously compensated, and that’s definitely okay. And I can find someone to play guitar with and it sounds cool but I don’t know if it’s good and that’s okay, cuz I can change that or change me. And it can be cold, and that’s okay.

And my mom can rock, and that’s definitely okay, too.

In sum, things are okay.

Dandelions. Theory.

Have you ever seen Horton Hears a Who? I’ve had that in my mind a bit lately, as dandelions keep coming up for me, and pieces of fluff remind me of dandelions. Seriously, though, I’ve got dandelions on the brain:

- on my flight to Philly I dreamt people were outside of my window flying on dandelion clouds
- at BuildaBridge’s training we drew to classical music: arpeggios were a stick figure hanging on to a dandelion flipping around in the wind, along with the universe orbiting and ending where it began and stuff
- I went into an Ikea for the first time. Epic. So streamlined, so efficient. This hanging light, radiating wires from its center tipped with white plastic strips to look like a dandelion. Beautiful shadows.
- the front page of Circle of Hope’s church “map” has an action sequence of a dandelion growing in a bunch and then spreading out and flying away, as church growth. “Taraxacum officinale” are well-known for their ability to multiply, and their “long used culinary and medicinal values.” Wiki verified their history and potency as a healing root, particularly in China.

That’s why I asked people about them on fb – thanks for responding, really. I forgot about childhood wishes on dandelion fluff, even though I did it earlier this month! The idea of my grandma paying my dad a penny a pull for childhood chores to keep him from boredom is so sweet. I had forgotten they were considered weeds, and the curious case of how that status is decided (stop judging the weeds, they’re beautiful!). I need to read Dandelion Wine, and maybe try some, too. I also was introduced to a crazy-good song along those lines (thanks again Joanna!).



Joanna asked me what they meant to me. I’ll try to answer.

All those childhood wishes remind me of how I would always focus on the few tufts that didn’t fly away and pout. Sometimes it bothered me a lot – I didn't get my wish! But other times watching the rest of the tufts fly away balanced that sadness out. It was therapeutic, to breathe all that stress away with the flower. You let go and fly away yourself. It always reminds me of Jay Adams. The first seconds of this vid, it's just this young kid looking all adorable like he’s ready to blow out a dandelion and make a wish. As you watch, you see him and his skill grow, and if you watch the film, you see more. But even by the end of this clip...well, you'll see. It’s why it’s stuck with me all this time. It’s one of the reasons why I always feel a pain of worry and fear for adorable and talented little kids. Every single time.



Dandelions remind me of innocence lost and of regrets. As a friend posted alongside a picture of early Christians about to get martyred via lion dinner, God’s good plans for you aren’t always exactly what you expect, and honestly sometimes I think they just don’t exactly happen, either because of your mistakes or someone else’s. I haven’t tried to think that out theologically. I should, but I haven’t.

Anyways, with all that in mind, sometimes letting go doesn’t seem like a very good idea to me. The way Jay explains it interests me. He doesn’t really agree with the interviewer’s “still stoked” question. He just tries not to trip too hard.

Well. For more exciting words that actually talk about what I've been up to - trying not to trip too hard and let go - see the next entry! Exciting, right?