i live in the bronx.

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.

Subsequent Travels. 1.

Washington, D.C.

Yes, but where am I?

Struggling.

Caught up in waves of feeling, and permeated by so much questioning that I feel I am becoming a Walking Question.

Lovely city. Remarkable place. Blank slate of the 'write-on-me' nation. Nest of idealists (and den of those who've lost their ideals but kept their power.) and planners and do-ers and talkers. Museum-land. Which makes me happy as a clam.

But here I am, all at sea, missing a Rio-lifestyle that is not validated by what's all around me. I have no expertise. I have no title or profession. I have no Project or Plan. I cannot claim to be an expert even in what I've lived in the last four months. Not even close.

So where do I belong? Not wanting 'professionalism', if it means focus on business over people, if it means no room to breathe, if it means putting Jesus in a box and pretending we know what we're doing. But feeling accused. By an efficient world,
of being lazy
or naive
or 'unrealistic.'

It's a private battle, one of constant petty skirmishes in my heart and head -- there's no loud external opposition, no earthshattering news to report to you, or stories to tell.

I don't want to be stupid. Don't want to be a baby clamoring for my own way, or a coward or a sluggard trying to evade the sharpness of the competitive world. Even 'charity' is competitive in such a world, it seems. . . But. But I cannot live well like this. I cannot enter this fray. Not now. My heart cries and thirsts and aches for a life with room in it. Room to live out love and listen to the Spirit, room to be 'unprofessional,' free from a title and possessions. This is not for everyone. Job titles, and organization, and professionalism, and possessions are not evil. But I cannot survive them
yet. Maybe someday. But for now I have to accept grace and believe that the thirst in me is part of my call. Is how I'm being called.

Called to be part of a brotherandsisterhood of broken people who claim no other titles and who enter into lives with poor people knowing only that their call is to listen and to love: to listen to both God and the people. To love both God and the people. To listen to and love one another. And trusting that 'the work' will flow out of that if God wills it.

There is this title of a book I've never read that bounces around my brain so frequently.
'Brothers, We Are Not Professionals.'

As I war with shame
and try to discern the Holy Voice;
As I wander a city alone,
meet a country,
settle in the land of notknowing for awhile;

I long for your prayers, and, I confess, for some validation

that a call to a life like I had in Rio
Is valid. Is good. Is acceptable. Might even be useful.
Above all, I want to be obedient -- even if it takes me into what smells to me of misery.
So pray openness in my heart, and joy in my days,
And above all, closeness to Him.

You see, I know nothing but Jesus.
( And suddenly I remember

that that's okay. )

We are in a battle.

Don't forget. Please don't forget.

You live on a small planet  where suffering is woven through all around you.

Don't forget. Please don't forget.

I can walk around filtering out the colors of light I prefer not to see.

I can leave "activism" to the "extreme people" and sacrifice to the missionaries.

Or I can recognize the radical call that it is to be Christ's. To be loved.

And live a life of compassion.

It's short,  this life.  Home's coming.

Meanwhile,   I want to show pieces of it here,

and I want to clear out that which would distract me from the ultimate Beauty.

And that which would distract me from the imperfection of the war zone in which we dwell

for a time.

There is love. There is beauty. There is Beethoven's 5th, and there are twinkling lights, and there is the sweetness of real companionship. There is rest. Thank you, dear and tender Lord, for all your artworks.

But dear ones, there is war, as well. May the beauty and the love be our weapons in the battle;

may we leave our baby-comforts  and walk out to meet those with no comfort at all.

We are loved, so loved, by our Maker and Purchaser. He came in and sat with us.

Let's go out and sit with them.  And fight for the beauty 

they don't even know they have.

Please help me stay clean, streamlined and simple. Please help me live love, and please help me know Jesus.

I'll help you too, 

if you want.

Pedra Lisa.

Up top,

at city's peak,

in a small square church

all white tile

white plaster

white stools within,

high ceilings, and windows framing

spectacular views

of the city beautiful, the city surreal,

the city extreme;

up top

in this white room

strange levels of possibility emerge .

a dream-laboratory

where smile elicits smile

and innocent questions rise from yet-innocent hearts;

a nether-room where one sees

how life on a steep city hillside

in the simplest of conditions

could be -- (can be) -- Beautiful.

sunlight through a window casting perfect faces with pale orange,

whispers passed through the same window

and a boy passes rocks in for the teacher.

clean slate,

world apart.

Jesus is there.

up top

at city's peak.

Rio.

mountains and sea and a Jesus in the distance
and a Jesus right with me -- the real one.
long, slow bus rides and a mind working in a language not its own,
a mind wrapping itself around a rhythm it's just meeting,
trying to pour into it, trying to speak out through it,
sometimes finding a way to flow,
and sometimes resisting with the stubborn outward push of a strong-willed child.

City I live in and hardly know.
It's the details
that catch me
and stick.

for: is there anything in this world
more absorbing and worth delighting in
than one child?
All these wild, precious wonderworks of art
running around on two legs.
I could get lost in the face of one.
(what is a city when there are these marvels to be known?)
In the blessed tenderness found in secret pockets,
in barely hidden pools
uniquely configured in each dear one,
like deep and beautiful networks of
lavish caverns
barely discovered
, in each little treasureperson.
is there any easier place to get lost
than in close-faced conversation with a child?
Where am I? I hardly know
except that I am in her eyes
and hearing her newly-minted mind pour out
like water and music.

Will I know this city,
understand its reasons and rhythms, patterns and purpose ?
i thought i would. But now I'm wondering
if what I'll know of it
is
her
and him
and her and her
and him
and him
and they will be
my Rio.

book.

read (please.) !

a treat

http://www.ubu.com/sound/komar.html

The above link will take you to something that made me laugh long and hard. And makes me laugh just thinking of parts of it now: The "scientifically" engineered most-wanted-song and least-wanted-song. I assume we're talking about in-America here. Just listen. All the way through. Then come back and tell me about your delight.

This seems like an odd thing to post about less than 48 hours before I leave the country. But when is it ever a bad time to spread a little happiness?

Maybe I'll get to post here while I'm in Brazil... or maybe I'll just have to stick to the email updates. If you want them, and you haven't gotten the first one, you should email me.

I'm well. This is going to be good. As all life in Him is, it will be good, truly and deeply and for the long haul.

And this one's for Bonnie: a picture from our week of joy last month. A week that will be a mental reservoir of sweetness for years to come.

a day in the current life

• woke up around 8:30 and donned all green (easiest thing to do when dressing quickly).
  ate a bowl of cereal and headed off to take care of a bunch o' kiddos at church during their moms' Bible study. Josh and Heather came along today. Makes it much quicker, more fun, and easier.
• Wacky times with tots. Lego rocketships, squid drawn with crayons, a four-year-old who reports that his brothers are ghost-hunters who live in the church. He was a little delirious with his own energy and laughter at the time.
• Back home at noon for a lunch of leftover deliciousness made by Heather. spinach noodle casserole with broccoli and cheese. And a bit o' cold salmon. Eating while watching the rest of the old version of Around the World in 80 Days (begun late last night).
• Josh and Heather head out for work. I eat too much chocolate.
• Melissa calls. Delightful.
• Write an email to new Brazil teammates;
  am sufficiently motivated and convicted to actually sit down and do some Portuguese lessons with ye olde tape player. Hours spent thusly. Eu vou ficar ate as duas. Voce vai sair agora? Nao, nao vou. Eu estou com fome. (I'm going to stay until two o'clock. Are you going to leave now? No, I'm not. I'm hungry!) This kind of stuff seems useful, but when I sit down to email my Brazilian friend, I find I still lack the skills to say the simple things I want to say to her. But by golly, I can ask her her name and tell her when I'm leaving. I can even ask her if she's married and if she wants to go out with 'that young man.' My tapes say they're how diplomats learn to speak fluently. Apparently diplomats have slightly different priorities than I do.
• Motivational snack: chai in soy milk. Yum.
• Dinner time around 7. Delicious HEB (Texas grocery store) tortillas and taco cheese, with delicious HEB chipotle salsa. Kate's classic comfort dinner.
• Time for email. They're piling up a bit.
  And it occurs to me I haven't put anything on the blog for quite awhile. So here we are.

Childcare jobs, Portuguese learning, random trip preparations (leaving Feb. 7), time with J&H, phone calls with friends, email, reading, old movies. This is the present, and really, it's very nice. Not a permanent kind of life, but a lovely interim life. Thanks for praying, you who are. I feel I'm being cradled by the Master. Treated tenderly and whisper-sung to, and given grace. harsher reality lies ahead. Big things. Much thought and vivid experience. Yet unless I make myself afraid, I feel... ready. Not prepared. Who could be? But ready because it's right and I am carried in the hand of an all-knowing, encompassing-all-time Abba.

So I'll just thank Him for the soft times
and ask Him that my brain would not be so mushy by the time they're over that I'll be useless for the real stuff.
How kind He is being; I can hardly believe it. (But how can I not??)

Recently read: A Severe Mercy, by Sheldon VanAuken; The Thief Lord, by Cornelia Funke.
Currently reading: Fresh Wind, Fresh Fire, by Jim Cymbala; Less Than Two Dollars a Day, by Kent A. Van Til; Return of the Prodigal Son, by Henri Nouwen; numerous other things.
New listens: Gotta Serve Somebody--The Gospel Songs of Bob Dylan; The Builder and the Architect (Sandra McCracken).
Classic listening: Billy Elliott soundtrack; Doc & Dawg; The Inkspots; Tom Waits ('You got to come on up to the house...")
Recent watchings: The Pirates of Penzance (with Kevin Kline, Rex Smith. FanTAStic.); Alien; Damsel in Distress (Fred Astaire. Lovely. Funny.); bits of Ken Burns' The Civil War (could watch his documentaries forever.)

This post is really...

an unabashed plug for Mars Hill Audio Journal. Visit their site; click around. Subscribe if you can! You'll love it. Give it as a Christmas gift!!

I'm just so glad it exists. I'll never catch up with all the past issues I haven't heard, and will lose track of the ones to come...but every time I get to hear even a few minutes of it, I think: 'now THIS is valuable.'

in my life today --
sweet stirrings of feeling that are somehow glimpses of Beauty to come someday. How good it is to know the Author of Beauty, and to love Him, and to know He will make all things.... indescribable. unutterable and glorious.

my last exam is tomorrow!
a graduate; can it be? it's an ambiguous label for a distance ed student.
Praying for the framework I've been given to endure; for the exploration to continue, within the safe knowledge of His sovereignty; what a glorious place to be. (May this joyfulness in anticipation continue!...)
I love Jesus.
I want everyone to!

friends are far away. undertaking big adventures. bless them.

Celebration is just around the corner.... an exuberant party full of lights and Norwegian food and music and people from around the world, and old friends and dear family. in Florida!
What a wonderful way to end the year ... and begin so much more.

If I were to put a picture in this post, it would be a misty amalgamation of golden trumpets and glowing Christmas trees, of exultation and peaceful contemplation somehow perfectly melded. No picture can quite do it. Use your imagination.

Merry, blessed, happy Christmas, dear friends.

Road things.

The road is
a balm of soothing rest made mandatory,
a wave of perspective washing over me slowly,
a siren song that pulls my self from settling ever .

Fall trees painted with a wash of burnt and dusty fire-shades
line the roads and hills
and slowly wash my mind, too, with their colors
sweeping, sweeping, sweeping --- hours, hours, hours ,
of giving in to a rhythm of rest and disconnection from
settled spots,
closing in to-do lists
and tidying one's own cocoon.

Instead, we drift out free,
floating across other peoples' worlds .
Peace
(whispers.)

I love the Natchez Trace Parkway.

And now, five things:

First, because long car rides are the time to really absorb and meet music, three road musics:

1. Gling-Glo , a Bjork album. Jazz. How did I not know about this? I haven't been as delighted by a voice since I-don't-know-when. Be amazed.

2. Cassadaga, the Bright Eyes album. I recommend listening to this when fully awake, in daylight, so as to appreciate it as a whole and a piece of musical literature. The way lyrics and music meld on this album is ethereal, surprising, near perfect. The lyrics need the music, and the music needs the words, and they feed and edify one another. And this man writes incredibly. In each song, there are about fifty brilliant phrases that would build whole songs on their own for most of us. But he keeps them flowing and flowing .

3. On a very different note. The song "So Not My Baby" from Josh Turner's new album, "Everything is Fine." You have to have some classic country on a roadtrip through Mississippi, Alabama and Tennessee. And oh man. Maybe it's just me, but there is something ridiculously catchy about this chorus. It soothes the psyche in some odd physiological way. This goes on repeat. I danced with a three-year-old to it (sung by me) last night. I think she approved.

4. is a film. 'Once Upon a Time in the West.' Seen it? I hadn't. So good. Not sure I can describe it well. Epic; but quiet. But full of sound. Not a happy world, but you still don't want to leave it. One of those movies where you linger in the special features so you won't have to step back out.

5. The most delicious chocolate item (possibly; I'm always willing to keep looking) on the face of the earth: Lindt Lindor Extra Dark Truffles.

let's have a happy post!

pondered: is anything i like not tinged with a touch of melancholy? of bittersweetness...? i even prefer dark chocolate.

Maybe Muppets. And tickling darling little children. And maybe 1980s Disney World. That's pure raucous happy-ness. Robots and purple plastic and rainbow colored souvenirs.

Still learning to "go with joy" am I.

Still stumbling very clumsily to true realization of facts like: "I don't know what's best to do for the world." i.e., "I don't know how to fix the world."

You'd think that one would've been obvious.

I guess it's one of those things you have to make the journey to, to really understand. To really understand what a big and hard and necessary thing it is to trust God to know how to run the world.

outside of that, what hope have we? Lord orchestrate all our little wee efforts

into a grand and glorious symphony. A riotously colored rag quilt sewn together with golden thread.

Lord, place me in that tapestry. Somewhere. Somehow.

If You don't know best, then no one knows anything.

Hey guys, I'm going with Word Made Flesh! To Rio! In February. For four months of learning learning learning.

After all: You gotta start somewhere. Somewhere to start asking the questions. Somewhere to start walking the walk that will last the rest of my life.

And to continue the walk with the Most Patient of Walkers, Leaders--Lord.

I'm so thankful for this open door. It looks beautiful.

Your prayers: incredibly appreciated.

in now.

strange pieces.

good chipotle salsa

old Henry Mancini music punctuated by funny disco sounds

poems by C.S. Lewis. brilliance.

things to read for class that I can't seem to dive into;

organic applesauce that tastes strangely spiked. maybe it's past its prime.

boy scouts selling expensive popcorn.

too many disparate and drifting thoughts that i've followed too far and then had to come back from.

a vague and massive confusion, manifesting itself as a tremendous, frustratingly un-dissect-able BLAH.

the 'where to?' and 'what to do?' questions--the big ones--lurking in my peripheral vision,

All The Time.

alone in the house.

looking for joy-- by pushing against the great pale BLAH, hoping to push hard enough to break through it. pushing by generating words. pushing with words.

we'll come through.

meanwhile, thanks for stopping by. i'm hazy, and hence wary of speaking;

but hazy people need human-touch too.

We'll just sit in His love.

Happy Sukkoth!

Whether you celebrate the holiday (starting Thursday) or not, watch Ushpizin this week or next, in celebration of the Festival of Shelters, of temporary dwellings, of booths. A happy festival (Deut. 16:13-14); a time of remembering we are uprootable, we are moved according to God's will, we are guests on this earth. A reminder of the great works of God, of the exodus from Egypt and God's 'calling out' of His people.
Build a fort in your backyard! On your balcony!

and do, do find this movie, please.
it's beautiful!
have you seen it?

temporary dwellings...
remember the shantytown-dwellers this week, too, loved ones.
those who are constantly aware of the precariousness of life here.
May Jesus sweep through the 'slums.' And remain there. May we, representing Him, go and sit with their residents. For the long haul.
A God of hope can make every place beautiful.
He is present!

recent comings, recent thinkings.

" But I do not say stay well. I do not care if they stay well or ill. And nothing goes well with me. I am tired and lonely. Oh my husband, why did we leave the land of our people? There is not much there, but it is better than here. There is not much food there, but it is shared by all together. If all are poor, it is not so bad to be poor. And it is pleasant by the river, and while you wash your clothes the water runs over the stones, and the wind cools you.
Two weeks from today, that is the day of the moving. Come my husband, let us get the planks and the tins and the sacks and the poles. I do not like the place where we are. "

(Cry the Beloved Country. Alan Paton.)



the following poem is by Naomi Shihab Nye. from the book Come With Me: poems for a journey.

MAD
I got mad at my mother
so I flew to the moon.
I could still see our house
so little in the distance
with its pointed roof.
My mother stood in the front yard
like a pin dot
searching for me.
She looked left and right for me.
She looked deep and far.
Then I whistled and she tipped her head.
It gets cold at night on the moon.
My mother sent up a silver thread
for me to slide down on.
She knows me so well.
She knows I like silver.


[that poem is supposed to be shaped like a moon. i can't get it to line up that way here.]
do you think, with me, that those last lines speak rather powerfully about love? do they help remind you what it feels like to be really, quite and completely, loved? oh, I hope so.


I must tell you
that Alan Paton's book (Cry, the Beloved Country)
is a wonderwork! I'd not read it since high school. And it is a favorite,
not for fanciness or word-dancing, but for being so very complete. Such a whole. A whole story. It fits together perfectly. And it is so simple. Subtle about saying its say. You hardly know what themes you've been hit with until you're done with the whole book. (or maybe I'm just slow) but suddenly you see that there have been grand weavings done through all the small things,
and you've experienced something miraculous,
this interweaving of story into one big meal of redemption.
A son given; and then people may step outside of their own limited spheres, must take off their blinders, come together. And a new son, who is a hope.
Broken situations, big and small, national and local and very personal, all redeemed via suffering.
: "lovely beyond all singing of it."


if anyone's there reading this, can I ask you: What reminds you of what it feels like to be truly loved?

radiant pieces, pieces that glow.

I have this file, called 'Catching Written Bits,' in which I hammer out with my fingers, and mull over, and treasure special pieces of things I have read. Words I have met. And do you know, it's high time I scattered and spread the joy of them, time we shared the profundity captured in sentences crafted by sharp spirits; these nuggets are so valuable and precious,
and so now this treasure is to be yours too!

Here is today's,
from The Greater Trumps, by Charles Williams ; a simple start ,
a good example of small paragraphs becoming wide windows all of a sudden.
I've bolded my favorite bit, but all of it contributes and matters.

“She would not go to bed, certainly not, but hot drinks—yes; and a hot bath—yes; and a complete change—yes. Drinks and baths and changes were exquisite delights in themselves; part of an existence in which one beauty was always providing a reason and a place for an entirely opposite beauty. As society for solitude, and walking for sitting down, and one dress for another, and emotions for intellect, and snowstorms for hot drinks, and in general movement for repose, repose for movement, and even one movement for another, so highly complex was the admirable order of the created universe.”

isn't that a lovely way to look at change? and at the simple changes that fill this day? one beauty exchanged for another,
again and again.
One of my favorite songs says :
"All the days of my struggle,
I will wait for my change,
I will wait for my change to come."

We are being changed -- "And we, who with unveiled faces all reflect the Lord's glory, are being transformed into his likeness with ever-increasing glory..."

We will be changed .
one loveliness for another, for a better and truer,
is the story of the world
do you think?



( image from artist Olafur Eliasson's exhibit, Minding the World. )

free!

the me is like a leech
that squiggles and screeches and screaks
p u l l i n g and p u l l i n g


oh the chipper, golden glory of even glimpsing
FreedomFromMe,
a life lived new-ly


-- Let's begin!

the summer.

it was beautiful.

(see)

thank you.

and thank You.

glorious day

well, kids, I'm off to camp again ( ! )
and to Phoenix. . . because guess who's gettin' married?
another semester beautiful and complete, and it's a wonder , and so many beautiful days lie ahead in my Father's world
--and challenges and confusions and befuddlements but all within His hand
, with a hold on His rope and with His assurance that holiness will triumph. His, that is, and Him.
Hurrah (!)
and have a glorious summer
and I will see you in awhile
and hallelujah first loud, then quiet and with a smile. goodbye!

uncovering the story.

Step with me into this issue for a minute. Where did "third world" countries come from? Why are they "third world?" Do we think about this much?

The following bits are from David Christian’s crazycomprehensive (not perfect) book Maps of Time (pp.434-437). Come into the story for a moment.
You see, Britain was at the center of a powerful network of interchange, and so its Industrial Revolution caused a global chain-reaction…:

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“Germany and the United States had also pioneered two new, multicellular forms of industrial organization: the national corporation, which vertically integrated tasks previously shared by many separate enterprises, from the production of raw materials to manufacture, wholesaling, and retailing; and the multidivisional corporation, which horizontally integrated what had previously been different sectors of production.
… As productivity rose in the industrialized hub region and the prices of goods such as British machine-made textiles fell, producers in other regions found their livelihood undermined by European imports. In entering global markets, small producers found themselves competing with large corporations using the most up-to-date technologies, and in the long run there was no doubt as to who would lose that competition. Wherever they had the power to do so, as in India and Pakistan, European powers accelerated such processes by juggling with tariff barriers or by forcing weaker powers and colonies to accept European exports…Even China’s once self-sufficient economy buckled as the pull of the Atlantic economies warped the topology of international trade…
The transformations of the late nineteenth century created a world divided between those that did and those that did not have industrial economies. The same processes that enriched the societies of the Atlantic seaboard ruined much of the rest of the world; and the gradients of inequality within nations, which had widened so spectacularly with the decline of the traditional peasantry, now became gradients between regions and nations. . . The twentieth-century term the third world could have made no sense in 1750, when today’s third world countries accounted for almost 75 percent of global industrial production. By the late twentieth century, they counted for less than 15 percent.
…As traditional rulers outside the industrializing core became aware of their vulnerability, they began to wonder if they would have to industrialize the lands they ruled. But how? …Matching the rates of innovation of the North Atlantic hub region meant changing political systems and cultural attitudes as well as economic structures in order to create well-integrated capitalist societies.” In other words, cultures to whom individualist, competitive economies were not necessarily indigenous or natural were squeezed into the race for 'first world'-ness.

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I don’t want to forget that all these developments affected many Westerners badly, too!... those pulled into long, monotonous lives of factory and mining work, those who were more victims than instigators of all this change. And the structure continues to adversely affect many Westerners; we aren’t all directly responsible for the system. I think of all the small producers-- though today, I think the Internet and other communication tools are putting more power back in those hands, which is great…

Nor do I think that all innovation and invention is bad, or that we should have all stayed on subsistence level, not developed vaccines, not tried to make new things, discover new things, etc. But you can see the ugly vein of greed running unmistakably through what happened, though people hid their greed behind words like ‘progress’ and ‘innovation’ and ‘rights’ to buy and sell, etc. … This is humankind, lording things over one another, stepping on one another for power… and, I hasten to add, making unintended mistakes, running into unforeseen consequences.

So. The love of money is the root of all evil. Not money, but the love of it. And the love does not make up all of evil by itself, but is the root of it all. What a world we’ve come to.
And now we use the term “third world” to look down on and pity those whom our own massive economies have essentially used and held down. ‘What’s the matter with them?’ the assumption behind the term runs. ‘Why couldn’t they keep up? Poor things. Guess we better give them our pocket change.’

I think, I really think, that the Internet can be a huge part of getting power to live and market and work humanely back in the hands of the ‘unincorporated.’ As well as a huge part of the networking process, the way that the West comes to realize what we are and to see the spot others are in—and so this connecting tool can enable us to see and reach out to one another in cool new ways. Lord willing. Lord willing. Oh, Lord, this time let us use the tools for Your glory by using them in love. This time let us not charge ahead for our own gain and luxury without thought for the ripples that tsunami into the rest of the world. We may not all have been directly responsible for how things came to be as they are. But we are responsible for now and for tomorrow. ( Is this so much to ask? )

"Frankly, Mister Shankly" just started playing. Oh Western society. Speaking of the bizarre fruits of Western society, I've got to post on Industrial musicals soon. Amaaaazing stuff.

On a different but related note, I've been convicted about making people into abstractions and theories lately. There is real lostness in the world. And it's person-by-person; it's in each face. And I know, I am reminded by every real encounter with a real person, that it is impossible for me to change even one of these millions of hearts in my own power. Thank God, thank God, He is the God of impossibilities.
Would you like to see faces instead of grand theories? Oh, please, go read these stories and rejoice in Word Made Flesh.

are you out there? dialogue with me. what do you think?

so faithful.

His faithfulness
is shown in glorious color
to a self-centered, self-seeking and self-promoting ninny.
Harsh though it may be to see the grime and gunk and filth in me,
It is real,
and to see it makes His saving work,
His faithful love,
His unspeakable grace clearer and more beautiful to me.


I wish I were hiking today,
I must admit.


I spent my Easter in Tucson, Arizona, a bit of a leap away from the original plan of Texas' Guadalupe Mountains. Such an unexpected present
;I do love a dash of spontaneity.
you see, we woke up Saturday in a tent covered in snow, my two friends and I,
and so with numb fingers we clumsily packed it up
And we drove till the weather map turned from blue to yellow.


One foot in front of the other,
One foot in front of the other,
One foot in front of the other.
Sunday after a church service attended in a 'happy hiker' tshirt and dusty running shoes,
we headed up the mountain to Douglas Springs.



I feel
cleaned up
cleaned out.
Five days with two people who are not impressed by what the world tries to impress with.
Five days of quiet, simple conversation,
Not so much profound
As clear--
like a stream you can see the bottom of,
no hidden motives clouding the water.
And the days were peppered with simple prayers.





Pressing into a desert landscape, surrounded by saguaro, I find once again,
as I can only learn in this way,
that there is Beauty in simply pressing on.



Seeing the web of streets and houses and stocked superstores from the mountains,
it looked like a toy town, where Playskool people
buzz back and forth,
round and round
and round.


There is something about a sweaty t-shirt
and a sun- and wind-burnished face
and the pleasant, unavoidable prospect of simple tasks -
finding water,
making dinner,
washing dishes.
I think I would be a more beautiful person if I lived in a tent all the time.
I'm looking into it.


This weekend,
God showed me again what Grace is:
knowing I am n o t h i n g but what He lets me be,
what He empowers me to be;
it is all by His gifting.
This is Easter. This is grace:
as I am beaten with the fact, over and over, simply by observing my own thoughts, that I am low, humiliatingly shallow, selfish, petty, undedicated, clumsy, ...
even as this is happening, at the same time-- the same time --
I am being showered with good and special
-- and detailed --
gifts,
coming purely of love.


One foot in front of the other,
One foot in front of the other...
The simplicity is like good food for my spirit.


The journey is simple, really,
Because He provides it all--
We just walk in Him.
Grace, grace, increasing grace--
Stir up my song of Hallelujah! , all my life.

Pare me down however You will,
however You want to.
Anything You have to do
to get me back to "Thank You"
and a quiet spirit.
He's always been faithful to me. He's always been faithful--to me!