so I joined this website called relational tithe a couple months ago...finally, after contemplating it for a few months before hand and just never getting around to it. A few weeks ago I get an email from a girl, saying she just joined, and also just moved to new haven. She did a search to find others around here..... and I guess I was the only one. ....this is where it gets interesting.
we are both erin's as it turns out. We decided we'd meet up for coffee sometime this week, etc.... talk about jesus and relational tithe and all that good stuff i guess..... I sent the email asking if sunday would work out, this is what I received in reply (any of you who know me...... tell me how funny this is, I thought it was hysterical when I read it.....) enjoy:
"sunday at 3 is good. i'm familiar with chapel st so i should be able to find it. by the way, i'm a redhead, in my 20s, that way you won't have to ask everyone in the place if their name is Erin."
wow. Does God have a sense of humor or am i just halucinating?
Friday, October 31, 2008
Wednesday, October 22, 2008
politician rabit trails.....I'm writing in Jesus
To vote or not to vote…..
Propaganda. Hype. Hysteria.
Obama, McCain. Let us all look to the gods to better our situation. Let us place all our hopes in them.
I was reading a magazine, a recycled-green-supports-organizations magazine, and this months feature: 1,565 reasons to vote.
And I can give you one reason why I absolutely will not:
My faith is only placed in one human being ….who also happened to be God, and there isn’t room enough on a ballot to share with someone else. In the end I will be held accountable for the way I have lived, for who I have chosen to follow after- who I imitate.
I refuse to push my responsibility for living the way I should onto Obama, McCain, or whoever the hell ends up getting elected. They are already responsible for their own actions, God help us all.
I refuse to idolize or immortalize a human.
I refuse to follow the gods of america.
I refuse to give myself that easy of a cop-out. I have not done my ‘duty’ until I learn to live in a way that actually embodies what I claim to believe and stand for, it is not simply fulfilled by a check in a box.
I refuse to give respect to grown adults who can’t help but slander one another in an effort to win votes-the excuse of politics is no good- you are who you are all the time- if you slander, you are a slanderer.
I refuse to accept the idea that we can be our own saviors, or that all the things that are broken can be fixed without God.
I refuse to vote for a system that is completely contradictory to what Jesus lived. …..We will keep searching for solutions to our mistakes in ways that still allow us our comfort, greed, and generally no change in anything (with the possible exception of brands….) to ease our own conscience.
(the funny part, is that i have friends i very much respect who would agree with the majority of the above, ....but are voting. i know they are doing so with good motives.)
The most important decision you make on November whatever, 2008 won’t be who you vote for to be president of the United States of America…..it will be who you chose to be that day, who you chose to follow that day, whether you learn to love your neighbor as yourself and your God with everything you are.
All this election crap. It’s just dust and ashes….and it will blow away on the wind just as easily.
In ten years the entire world could change. It’s highly doubtful, but still not impossible, that the country you are in could no longer exist as the country it is at the present moment. What will you have then? What will your vote matter then? What will your chasing after the wind accomplish?
If you want some honesty- here it is:
I walk by people everyday that are broken, and some days I am too busy or cowardly or concerned about myself to stop and try to help.
I am terrified of what it means to live like Jesus did. I am terrified, and I am not sure if I really know what it means. But I can’t tear my eyes away. I can’t stop staring at how He lived.
I am even more terrified of not giving everything it costs, I am even more terrified of being a pretend plastic manikin who speaks empty words that were meant to bring life and beauty and fails to live them, fails to be them.
I’m scared of this ideology we all hold so dear and how it creeps into who we think we are. This comfort we grasp at, this selfishness we breed. And we justify ourselves by saying we are civilized, our way of life is right, and that everyone else should be brought up to our standard. The world is crumbling at our feet, because, as it turns out, we have actually recruited too many people to live up to our standard. And as it turns out, it was also never possible to recruit the entire world…..you see, greed breeds injustice, and for greed to stand someone has to feel the pang of injustice….which means not everyone can live up to the standards of greed.
I sat and wrote something in a journal today.
‘sick of all this so-called justice movement, sick of all this green campaigning - mostly-because the majority of the world is trying to do it without love. It’s funny that the whole world seems suddenly so interested in things of merit. And funnier still that that could pose a problem. “make me good”, they cry, “but none of this jesus person” …and as long as I can still be good- fashionable, trendy, well-thought of, and comfortable, well, everything is ok.
But it’s not.
People don’t really want to be good. They just want the appearance of it.
………..
And some Christians don’t really want Christ, they just want to appearance of having Him.”
…… and right after I wrote it, I stared down at my white dress, scarf, coat, …… and wondered if that was me?
I am not saying you can’t be fashionable or have nice things. But I kind of am too. I think you can have them if no one else is in need of them. If you’re excess doesn’t cost someone else. If your possessions don’t, in essence, possess you. But I think it’s a very fine line to walk…. And I think I would rather live too simply than to live too extravagantly……
I think I need to repent for the way I live, for my actions….and for my lack of them.
I think everyone who calls themselves a christian needs to repent…. At some point and time we have endorsed, participated in, or ignored the actions of our culture and the actions of our churches.
I think the cry of some lady on the street who most of the people within earshot of probably thought was crazy- the cry of ‘God have mercy on us’ ….is much closer to the truth than the majority of sermons I have heard in my lifetime.
I don’t mean to be a downer. I think we’d all be a bit more joyful if we learned what it is to be content. What it is to trust. What it is to be free from judgment, from ourselves and others. What it is to be loved. And how to love.
I’m still terrified.
But I’m even more terrified of never finding out.
Propaganda. Hype. Hysteria.
Obama, McCain. Let us all look to the gods to better our situation. Let us place all our hopes in them.
I was reading a magazine, a recycled-green-supports-organizations magazine, and this months feature: 1,565 reasons to vote.
And I can give you one reason why I absolutely will not:
My faith is only placed in one human being ….who also happened to be God, and there isn’t room enough on a ballot to share with someone else. In the end I will be held accountable for the way I have lived, for who I have chosen to follow after- who I imitate.
I refuse to push my responsibility for living the way I should onto Obama, McCain, or whoever the hell ends up getting elected. They are already responsible for their own actions, God help us all.
I refuse to idolize or immortalize a human.
I refuse to follow the gods of america.
I refuse to give myself that easy of a cop-out. I have not done my ‘duty’ until I learn to live in a way that actually embodies what I claim to believe and stand for, it is not simply fulfilled by a check in a box.
I refuse to give respect to grown adults who can’t help but slander one another in an effort to win votes-the excuse of politics is no good- you are who you are all the time- if you slander, you are a slanderer.
I refuse to accept the idea that we can be our own saviors, or that all the things that are broken can be fixed without God.
I refuse to vote for a system that is completely contradictory to what Jesus lived. …..We will keep searching for solutions to our mistakes in ways that still allow us our comfort, greed, and generally no change in anything (with the possible exception of brands….) to ease our own conscience.
(the funny part, is that i have friends i very much respect who would agree with the majority of the above, ....but are voting. i know they are doing so with good motives.)
The most important decision you make on November whatever, 2008 won’t be who you vote for to be president of the United States of America…..it will be who you chose to be that day, who you chose to follow that day, whether you learn to love your neighbor as yourself and your God with everything you are.
All this election crap. It’s just dust and ashes….and it will blow away on the wind just as easily.
In ten years the entire world could change. It’s highly doubtful, but still not impossible, that the country you are in could no longer exist as the country it is at the present moment. What will you have then? What will your vote matter then? What will your chasing after the wind accomplish?
If you want some honesty- here it is:
I walk by people everyday that are broken, and some days I am too busy or cowardly or concerned about myself to stop and try to help.
I am terrified of what it means to live like Jesus did. I am terrified, and I am not sure if I really know what it means. But I can’t tear my eyes away. I can’t stop staring at how He lived.
I am even more terrified of not giving everything it costs, I am even more terrified of being a pretend plastic manikin who speaks empty words that were meant to bring life and beauty and fails to live them, fails to be them.
I’m scared of this ideology we all hold so dear and how it creeps into who we think we are. This comfort we grasp at, this selfishness we breed. And we justify ourselves by saying we are civilized, our way of life is right, and that everyone else should be brought up to our standard. The world is crumbling at our feet, because, as it turns out, we have actually recruited too many people to live up to our standard. And as it turns out, it was also never possible to recruit the entire world…..you see, greed breeds injustice, and for greed to stand someone has to feel the pang of injustice….which means not everyone can live up to the standards of greed.
I sat and wrote something in a journal today.
‘sick of all this so-called justice movement, sick of all this green campaigning - mostly-because the majority of the world is trying to do it without love. It’s funny that the whole world seems suddenly so interested in things of merit. And funnier still that that could pose a problem. “make me good”, they cry, “but none of this jesus person” …and as long as I can still be good- fashionable, trendy, well-thought of, and comfortable, well, everything is ok.
But it’s not.
People don’t really want to be good. They just want the appearance of it.
………..
And some Christians don’t really want Christ, they just want to appearance of having Him.”
…… and right after I wrote it, I stared down at my white dress, scarf, coat, …… and wondered if that was me?
I am not saying you can’t be fashionable or have nice things. But I kind of am too. I think you can have them if no one else is in need of them. If you’re excess doesn’t cost someone else. If your possessions don’t, in essence, possess you. But I think it’s a very fine line to walk…. And I think I would rather live too simply than to live too extravagantly……
I think I need to repent for the way I live, for my actions….and for my lack of them.
I think everyone who calls themselves a christian needs to repent…. At some point and time we have endorsed, participated in, or ignored the actions of our culture and the actions of our churches.
I think the cry of some lady on the street who most of the people within earshot of probably thought was crazy- the cry of ‘God have mercy on us’ ….is much closer to the truth than the majority of sermons I have heard in my lifetime.
I don’t mean to be a downer. I think we’d all be a bit more joyful if we learned what it is to be content. What it is to trust. What it is to be free from judgment, from ourselves and others. What it is to be loved. And how to love.
I’m still terrified.
But I’m even more terrified of never finding out.
Friday, October 10, 2008
the unimaginary
so, this is the beginning of.....well, i'm not sure yet. it's a beginning,..... of something. I just felt like writing something fictional one day and this came out. it's kind of about humanity in case you didn't pick up on that.
I used to write, long fairy tales filled with adventure and air you could barely stand to breathe-but not for want of anything, only because of the amount of reality it contained-it was too concentrated, and filled with themes that are sometimes deemed imaginary simply because they are unseen. The air pounded with them; I used to paint, sprawling scenes of the obvious, and yet somehow people missed it in the midst of the ugliest chaotic greed. They saw only their lust and neither the destruction it caused, nor the beauty it violated. Staggering imagination was lost to the eyes of the sleeping; I used to sing to the heavens, one resounding theme…the echoes of the birds and streams and sky. The sun and moon and trees spoke their various notes, and it all became one mixed melody of aching good and heart-breaking melancholy.
And one day the music stopped.
The paint didn’t flow.
….and the ink ran dry and cracked.
I lay staring in the early morning grey at the reflection of a face I didn’t know. I knew whose face it was, but I no longer knew the person staring back with an expression void of wonder. I had become one of ’them’. Call them what you will, a ‘member of the human race‘, ‘an adult‘, ‘responsible‘, ‘successful‘….and most dangerous of all ’normal’; All the adjectives fit, even when the definitions did not. The very words in their heresy made me want to rip modern dictionaries apart….. The dictionaries people carry around with them constantly. The ones they use as a reference and scale to measure themselves upon. The one they treated as law, and the people who dare violate it, as much worse than the ordinary criminal. Those dictionaries. They all deserved to be burned til even the ashes blew themselves out of existence. For those who would defy the monotony and days void of color- those who would dare actually live with wide open eyes-there lay a far worse type of scorn. Scorn built of fear. And I had escaped that scorn, only just, so that I might have the pride of staring into this empty face.
I used to write, long fairy tales filled with adventure and air you could barely stand to breathe-but not for want of anything, only because of the amount of reality it contained-it was too concentrated, and filled with themes that are sometimes deemed imaginary simply because they are unseen. The air pounded with them; I used to paint, sprawling scenes of the obvious, and yet somehow people missed it in the midst of the ugliest chaotic greed. They saw only their lust and neither the destruction it caused, nor the beauty it violated. Staggering imagination was lost to the eyes of the sleeping; I used to sing to the heavens, one resounding theme…the echoes of the birds and streams and sky. The sun and moon and trees spoke their various notes, and it all became one mixed melody of aching good and heart-breaking melancholy.
And one day the music stopped.
The paint didn’t flow.
….and the ink ran dry and cracked.
I lay staring in the early morning grey at the reflection of a face I didn’t know. I knew whose face it was, but I no longer knew the person staring back with an expression void of wonder. I had become one of ’them’. Call them what you will, a ‘member of the human race‘, ‘an adult‘, ‘responsible‘, ‘successful‘….and most dangerous of all ’normal’; All the adjectives fit, even when the definitions did not. The very words in their heresy made me want to rip modern dictionaries apart….. The dictionaries people carry around with them constantly. The ones they use as a reference and scale to measure themselves upon. The one they treated as law, and the people who dare violate it, as much worse than the ordinary criminal. Those dictionaries. They all deserved to be burned til even the ashes blew themselves out of existence. For those who would defy the monotony and days void of color- those who would dare actually live with wide open eyes-there lay a far worse type of scorn. Scorn built of fear. And I had escaped that scorn, only just, so that I might have the pride of staring into this empty face.
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