This city,
New York City,
makes me cry.
The forms upon forms upon forms of lostness and Christlessness,
the hard faces, the weight that seems to press down on every pair of shoulders. Weight weight weight weight weight. . .
like everyone has all the bills they owe and all the family and job responsibilities and all the anger and loneliness and resentment and hardship of a lifetime
hardened into a mask
which they wear all day long,
and no longer know how to take off.
Today I was down at the bottom of Manhattan,
and in the middle, and here in the Bronx. Today I walked a lot. And took long subway rides. And carried heavy groceries.
And how strange this place is. Unlike any other, in the way it feels to me.
And there is noise
and there are a thousand different worldviews
all clashing into a cloud of chaos
until the only value left that everyone believes in
is survival,
is: not physically hurting someone else;
and, maybe, if you're rich enough, environmentalism.
May I tell you?
This is a hard place to be poor.
and this is a hard place to be alone.
Was Rio like this? And I just didn't feel it,
because I was surrounded so closely and supportively
by a community that shouted out "KINGDOM" and refused to be hopeless
and was determined to see the world in light of God's promises
and character?
(Did I not feel it also
because it was 'foreign'?
Because of the layer of outsider's perspective that a different language adds? The alien-planetness that gives me the privilege of contemplation and analysis ...
Because of the hundreds of little words and conversations I missed
that here, I hear without trying?
And because I was not plugged into, aware of, the mass media culture there, hearing the messages people there hear...? )
Which way is the truth?
Rio was -- is -- a city full of violence, full of problems, darkness, spiritual oppression,
of course.
But I did not feel there
like I feel here.
Please pray for this city. Please come to this city
and help to transform it with the salt and light of Jesus.
Please pray that it does not step on me and squash me,
that it does not form for me a mask
as well;
that I do not lose
(most precious, precious) Hope.
I am in a job now. this is hard for me. i have been privileged to live a contemplative, fairly intuitive and improvisational day-to-day life these past years.
A life of being out and about,
walking around,
talking to people,
thinking about culture.
Praying a lot.
No human standards to live up to, few deadlines, loose schedules.
No spirit of competition;
a feeling of freedom
and joy. Easy to trust that God was everywhere and that He would fulfill His plans; all I had to do was listen
and obey...
I loved it.
I think that I thought
my crumbling-all-to-pieces days were maybe, just maybe,
behind me...
then this.
A job that is very structured
With people who seem to have, and enjoy, "Right way, Wrong way" labels for all things -- or at least "Better way, ineffective way"--
People who are very different parts of the Body than I. And sometimes I find that I've begun to fear that Jesus sees everything their way -- that it's right
and I'm so wrong. This systematic way of looking
and living,
the extreme busy-ness
.
I confess
I long for freedom.
I do not want to lose my belief that God loves and uses the foolish things.
I am not a person who is about
Achievement.
I tried, long ago, to be one of those people,
to keep up with those people. And I did.
And I was an empty shell,
and there was no depth to the world,
and no depth to God in my spirit.
Why would You take me back into such a land, oh Lord?
I do not understand.
And after giving and showing me a life that fit my heart
so well.
Please don't let me stop believing in that life's existence
and its reality and value.
Here, I am broken down to childlikeness,
not impressive in any way. Impressing no one,
by any stretch of the imagination.
not shining Jesus the way I know I want to,
and quietly ashamed
that so much could 'backslide' so soon
and so completely.
But You, O Lord, are my strength and my song.
But You, O Lord, are still You, and still died for me.
But You, O Lord, have lost none of Your strength, Your impressiveness, and Your power.
Whatever I once had
was completely by Your grace,
a gift for a time -- a miraculous work completely of God.
Whatever is gone now
is Yours to have, and to restore in Your time.
I am not in my element.
I have become last.
I need You to do this job
through me.
I need You to do this job through me.
I am humbled to the ground
I don't know how to get up
.
Please bless this place through me somehow
Please bless this place, these people.
Please bless and form these children somehow.
I do not know this place. I do not know what You want to do here.
Do it
please.
Break me down,
even those things that I thought You wanted and approved of in me,
those things I thought were permanent now, and to be joys longlasting.
If You want to take them down, and take them away,
they are Yours.
May I ask for them back
someday?
I do, Lord, I do long for happiness. For joy.
Give me, please, joy that sings louder than the suffering
, even though the suffering can still be heard.
Somehow.
I talked to you
years ago,
and months ago,
and weeks ago,
about becoming poor. About experiencing the life that so many live.
i think it is happening. I did not think I would have to be so alone.
But poverty is often loneliness.
I did not think I would have to do something so scary and so oppressive to me.
But poverty is often in scary and oppressive circumstances, and leads to having to take scary and oppressive jobs.
I loved our life in poverty in Brazil. Because we were together -- our team. Our small band
of 'new friars' .
I believe You call to loving community. I believe it's a good gift, and Your ideal for us.
I can't wait to work in it fully
again.
But for now you seem to have This Other in mind for me. Do Your will, oh Lord. Pull me through, oh Lord. Prove Yourself God in the midst of it all, oh Lord.
And please. Please wipe away the shame coloring my heart, shame for not handling this with a grin on my face and great hope pouring out of my mouth; shame for not being strong here;
did I think I was impervious? Super Transition Woman, able to leap between sin-struck cultures in a single bound, smiling all the while, never feeling, never broken ?
i am small and i am human
and i can't do this.
AND YOU CAN.
moment by moment,
carry me. and help me to trust
in Your love.
Can you, friends, help me to love this city?
Talk back. and pray. and come, please come.
