hakuna matata

It’s really hard not to worry.

Really hard.

I’m going to a training tonight to be an assistant teacher with BuildaBridge, so I’m looking at the class schedule. I’m worrying about how I’ll be able to help, and how I’ll get to the class. And I’m opening up my bank account and worrying about if I can afford to have one more night a week I can’t work, where instead I spend money on public transportation to get to the class.

Worrying is lame. It’s for squares.

Luckily, I go to the circle of hope church, so…yeah…not square. Well…anyways. But we had a worship/prayer event last night focused around Christ’s high priestly prayer. It was good, mostly because people were honest (self included). It made me think about humility, and love and glory and peace.

On the ride home with the women in my cell group and Jonathan, we talked about television and ice cream. And then I played guitar with Jonathan a little bit and thought more about peace. And then I called Avina and talked about many, many things. And then today I got a card from Candice and Avi and Elyse and Alicia, and it’s like a little prayer/encouragement card and I want to hug them. Aw.

I’m still worried, because money is worrisome, but now I’m also happy. Maybe if I got out some crayons and made money more colorful-looking, it would be more fun. Hmm. :)

But I’m doing well. I play a lot of guitar. I’m teaching a guitar student Iron Man, and I’m looking for more students. I even have a music myspace, sarahroarmusic. Which has helped me to try to write more songs. Which is really therapeutic. And fun. I might join a soccer team this Saturday.

I went to my co-worker Ebonee’s African-American studies classes last Thursday at Temple University. And both the classes and talking around the classes were good. Good conversation.

Friday night after work everyone stayed late and hung out and had free drinks, and talked about Michael Jackson and Charlie Sheen and Lindsay Lohan. I mostly just listened. My boss kept complaining, trying to get me to talk, saying it was because of the beer, but honestly I felt sad talking about people’s lives falling apart. Well, then a decorative hanging fell off a wall and broke apart. Everybody freaked out. They believe there’s a ghost there. They said they had been too loud and made Emily mad, and Edgar said to leave the broken hanging on the ground so she feels guilty about it. Interesting night. I told Avi, it was cultural spectacles time.

Anyways, in general there's a lot of different people around, and it reminds me that I'm pretty different myself. And we're all pretty weird. Jonathan has a quote on his wall from Johnny Depp about how it wasn't the strange people that made him curious, it was the normal ones. Cuz normal ones are pretty strange. Which makes me think of this music video that you must go watch...

http://youtu.be/jJOzdLwvTHA

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CRAZY UPDATE. I think it was like half an hour after I wrote this, I checked my email. Like three hours before, my supervisor had emailed me saying she thought she had a way I could volunteer without using septa (public transportation). So I called her up. Apparently, she couldn't sleep last night, so she was thinking about work, of course. And one of the girls uses Philly Car Share (I remember when a friend and I thought we had come up with the idea of having a car people can share by online scheduling...nope, it's been around a while). And she lives above my internship (the business offices are on the first floor, while the co-founders and others rent out floors above). It's a spoken word class, too, one with 6-7 year olds, and one with older kids. And last night I wasn't even worrying, but even then God was like, yeah, I know you're gonna freak out, but check this out, I'm already pulling some strings, so don't forget I'm great.

Pretty much.

the life that is truly life

I watched Rob Bell's Everything is Spiritual video a couple of nights ago. It was helpful to me, so tonight I searched for more of his stuff, and just finished watching the nooma Rich video, here:

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-1744463994542090095#

Here's some quotes

...that we're saved by the grace of God by faith in Christ in order to do good deeds... In this way, they lay up treasures for themselves as a firm foundation for the coming age and in doing this they take hold of the life that is truly life.

It's about taking hold of the life that is truly life, it is about realizing that the kinds of people we are becoming matters.

Now if you're like me, you're looking for the pitch...this is about something much much bigger than giving to the latest cause...this is about how we view the world...this is about what you and I truly believe...that the way we are commanded to live is the best possible way to live

Putting others first, that isn't so easy. Jesus said he came to serve, and serving takes sacrifice. It costs. It's hard to ask difficult questions about how we spend our money and what we spend our money on.

What can you do to be more generous?
Who are you going to bless?


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Story

I wish I had watched this before today. I was working late at BuildaBridge, the organization I'm interning with that does arts education and intervention in transitional living facilities. I went to pick up dinner in a hurry - a philly cheesesteak. Right near the door a man asked me for change. I said I didn't have any - I was pretty sure it was true, although I just checked and I did have 45 cents. I went in and grabbed my dinner in a hurry and rushed back out. The man was still there. He had a dollar out and looked at me again, asking with his eyes. I just told him all I had with me was my plastic. I wasn't sure if I had change or not, but I was too busy to be bothered with checking. As I was walking away I wondered if he was hungry, if I could offer him half my sandwich. But again, too busy. That morning, I had thought about 'do unto others as you would have them do unto you,' and I had offered some of my orange to my supervisor. But I was too rushed that evening, I didn't offer her any. I just mostly inhaled it, although the last time we had shared it and it had been a nice time of talking.

I let time control me. I didn't live the best possible way to live. Granted, I was busy. And super hungry. But those are excuses.

What can you do to be more generous?
Who are you going to bless?

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When I finished watching the Everything is Spiritual video, I wasn't sure Rob Bell had actually done a good job making his major point. I thought a bit about the whole controversy around his book, Love Wins. But mostly I thought about what he said about rectangles and circles. In two dimensions, it's an either/or situation. But then he gave the example of the marker he was holding, in three dimensions. If you asked a person who could see in three dimensions, circle or rectangle, they'd just be like, "yep." God would be like that, as he looks at us in and out of time.

I thought about that. And I thought about Bell wanting us to focus more on being than doing. He made that point well, but it stuck with me more because I've been reading Henri Nouwen's In the Name of Christ again, after my supervisor lent it to me. That's kept me sane. Honestly. I don't feel capable at my internship a good bit of the time. I used to get so much of my self-worth from being capable. Now I don't.

The first day I started reading Nouwen was after last week, which was the first real hard week, and that book uplifted me so much, I went in to work at the restaurant singing. And one of the girls said I was spiritual. I didn't know what that meant, so I asked. She said I seemed so connected with both what's inside of me and what's going on around me. That's not something I've often been told. But I realized that because of Nouwen's book, I was more freely being myself, confidently and without any hesitation interacting with my co-workers without worrying how I appeared. I think that's what she saw.

But the being and doing go together. That's part of Bell's whole point of everything being spiritual, because there is no word for it in Hebrew to separate your "spiritual life" from your day-to-day, physical life at work and home. And I think it goes back to the rectangle/circle point, too. That's important, because who you are affects what you do, and what you do affects who you are. I think this "being spiritual" is just when you're well aware of each, and why it is so and how you are supposed to be and do. Which goes back to loving your neighbor - and your God. And taking hold of the life that is truly life.

Because even with spring coming, and lent almost over, it's too easy to feel dead.
And that's so lame. Because, well, you know. Easter. :)

In the Middle

I've been working on this song since last summer, I think. For a long time I didn't know how to end it. It's a good night for finishing.

I was listening to India Arie with Christy tonight, Ready for Love. And we started talking. Actually, we were both melted onto the futon and I talked and she nodded and then Moses came and there was macaroni and cheese. But I shared with her about how, especially as Christians, we talk about loving people all the time. But I don't know how much we mean it. Because love - even just brotherly love - is so difficult. My big brother James would probably have an apt example of this :)

This week I've questioned what I'm doing here, not a lot but a good bit. But if all I learn is how to have brotherly - and sisterly - love, that would be more than good enough.

"So. Anyways. Yeah." (The epitomy of Jr. High speech conclusions)

Feeling Free

Don't worry. I'll get to the song, briefly. But first. TGIW. Thank God It’s Wednesday!

For me, it’s the end of my internship week work. And it’s been a busy one, and a harder one. It’s the first week where I’ve really had to learn from some mistakes at my internship. All is well by the end of it, but it’s hard to know how to take responsibility but not let yourself just be blamed unfairly. Because that just makes you feel so small. A lot of good has also happened this week to make me feel big…well, little, but happily so, in a big, beautiful world. Tonight is just like a sigh of relief.

I feel really grateful this week, mainly because I have a friend now who’s not just somebody I work or live with. Friday night I got off work early (which kind of sucked), so I went home and played guitar and tried to psych myself up to visit a bar. “The Mermaid Inn” is the only local place around that has an open mic on a weeknight, when I’m not working. Since Germantown Avenue also has some of the cute little coffee shops vibe, I was thinking of taking my guitar with me and setting up on the sidewalk for a while, or at least to have the choice to do so.

Well, I didn’t have the guts to bring the guitar, but I did go. Funny thing is, if I’d brought my guitar, I would’ve gotten to play, cuz the bar’s band cancelled. It’s rather shallow comparatively, but it made me think of how when Jesus did his miracles, it required an act of faith on other people’s part first. I think we must’ve talked about that at church or something recently. Anyways, cuz I did make a friend, and that was pretty cool. It was funny, cuz I had kind of hung around the door of the bar, nervous, and when I finally walked in I was like eehhhh this is awkward because there was like nine people in the whole place (since the band cancelled). But I sat down and ordered the drink I had researched beforehand that sounded the least alcohol-y tasting (heh heh), and started talking with Jonathan, since he was the only other person there without a friend.

And actually I’m texting him right now about checking out his Sunday church service, after he went to my church’s cell tonight. It’s amazing how much you miss hanging out with people, in general, when you’re new to a place, and even moreso I think how you miss hanging out and talking with Christians. At work actually there’s the guy that flirts with everyone, who asks me if I have a boyfriend (in Spanish), and Sunday I was like, “No, y no quiero un novio, necesito amigos primero, porque no tengo amigos” (No and I don’t want one, I need friends, I don’t have friends). The girl I work with was surprised, cuz that sounds so sad. But it’s true. When you’re new, you don’t have any. That’s why I’m grateful to have one. Being new, it’s made me think a lot about immigrants and refugees, and the class I took on ministry to them my last semester of college. And it makes me wonder what I’m going to do about it, and it makes me email my supervisor again asking about BuildaBridge’s trip to refugees in Atlanta, Georgia. *Ponder*

It’s been a really full week actually. Hiking along the Wissahicken trail w/ Jonathan and getting to have some good thinking/talking time that way, watching the new Invisible Children film (film quality down, but I think their programming/ministry is increasing, so I’m fine with the trade-off). Plus going back with Jonathan to the Mermaid Inn for their open mic.

Everyone was SO GOOD! And old, mostly. And folksy and hippy. And in some cases quite drunk. But nothing scary, just more like friendly older women singing and dancing along drunk. And, again, they were really good. There was a group of like 12 people, with several guitars and a stand-up base, a harmonica, an ocarina, a banjo, a fiddle, a clarinet, a piano thing with a hose you blow air into, plus like a 17-year-old girl rockin’ some emo-ish hair and some sort of choker necklace, and being really quite shy but friendly. It was cool. Then there was the act of the lady reciting All Along the Watchtower as poetry with musical accompaniment and the reminders of the crowd when she forgot the next line. And the old man with a cute old man voice singing about his love left behind in Venezuela. And shanty songs. And then me, plus the banjo, stand-up base and a few more people volunteering to play along.

That was nice. Then cell tonight, talking about a verse in Micah 7 that says something about, though I sit in the dark, the Lord will be my light. Several of the people in my group, or idk, maybe all of us, are going through some really difficult situations, so…talking about hope in that context…has to be more than just talk. The funny thing is, the group’s mostly agreed that hope isn’t that strong of a thing, that it’s…like, weaker than prayer, more passive, inactive. For me, hope is…something that is strong enough to carry you, it’s something sometimes just plain outside of yourself – not because it depends on your environment, but because…oh, I don’t know. It’s strong.

I have a lot of hope this week. I have three potential music students. I’m talking with Drexel university’s Music Therapy Director about what I need to learn to meet admission requirements. It’s stuff I really want to learn. I feel hopeful because two students in Maryland and North Carolina heard about the BuildaBridge Institute from my marketing emails to faculty, so I’m…actually helping people. I feel hopeful because…heheh…it’s silly, really, but because I’m #163 in the reverbnation philly local folk music charts. And, much more importantly, and I should pause here, because, because there’s a music conference in Atlanta, Georgia called Driven, that I want to enter, and then I think it’s a different one where you have to write a song about revolution to enter. And…I’m trying to do that. I don’t even know if it’ll happen, but I’m hopeful. *Shrug*

And now Atlanta, Georgia has come up again. And I’m hopeful about that, though I REALLY have absolutely no clue about that. And I’m hopeful listening to the video at the top of Amos Lee performing the song Cup of Sorrow in Atlanta. Which is interesting, because the lyrics go “I want to sleep with the promise of tomorrow, although tomorrow may never come." Hope is weird that way.

And this song of his, Jesus, makes me hopeful, too, to have someone put so openly feelings that people rarely share.



“I remember when I was wild and free. But now the world has jaded me, corrupted and defeated me.” I feel very grateful, because I’m feeling very wild and free. Free just to be me, weird as that may be. Free to be here in Philly honestly not knowing exactly what I’m doing, and not trying to pretend like I do. Free to just call out for help. Free to be really happy about seeing a bird and to get my dork on talking about how amazing the revolutions of the earth and planets really are. Free to let those revolutions give me hope, even as violent political revolutions don’t.

So yay for freedom.