Thursday, August 21, 2008

Seem.

I was in Lincoln today and I was riding in the car with a friend. We were riding right past the gas station when we saw about five young black men coming out of the gas station together. This is what happened;

"What's with all the gang activity in Lincoln this summer?" -friend

"I don't know this is the first time I have seen anything like that? I just think it's interesting that when we see a group of black men all together we think it's a gang."=me

"Well it's not that they are black it's their clothes that gives it away."=friend

"Yea I did hear about a couple of car break-ins this summer."=me

"Yea, except they caught the people who were doing that and they were both white guys."=friend


This short exchange gave me a realization that sometimes people seem differently than they actually are. This is not only with a slight judgement on the streets but it seems to be infesting my own life.


I seem to be failing at most things and the thing that I seem to be good at seems to be farther away than I would like to admit.


This idea of seem really frustrates me.


Almost to the point of wanting to give up. I just feel like if I determine my life by the way I seem to think it is I set myself up for failure.


Simply because I know that this mind set of seem has been developed by the many ventriloquists that have attempted to pull the strings in the life I live.


Here's my deal.


I am tired. I am tired of trying to explain myself, because I don't seem to get anywhere. I am tired of being vulnerable because the people I choose to be vulnerable with don't seem to care. I am tired of getting up and doing the same thing I did the day before because my existence seems futile at times. I am tired of trying so damn hard to love the people in my life because it seems that nothing ever changes. I am tired of my resilience because it seems to get me into a mess every so often.


I am tired of going to bed every night because it seems that some things happen in the dark that make me weary.


But, here's the clincher.


All these realities, ideas, things, whatever you like to call them are not who I am but rather how other people have seen me which in case lends itself to how I seem to have to live my life.


I have to live my life according to what seems.


However, if I were to take my old way of thinking and throw it on the oven burner of actuality I will soon find out that my seems are much more over exaggerated than I thought they were. That people don't really seem to think of me in any specific way or being and that I can go on with my life without needing to prove anything to anyone.


So, my struggle...is being frustrated with the way things have been while transitioning into the things that are and that are yet to be. I know original using the word things.


I am tired. Not because I am seemingly trying to accomplish anything.


I am just tired and I wonder if other people ever feel this way? If everyone ever so often is weary?


I apologize for my rambling because I am doing this without much thinking. Sorry if this seems a little harsh.

Monday, August 18, 2008

Homeless

So, recently I have become homeless.

Actually, come to think of it I guess I have always been quite homeless. Not in the typical sense in which I don't have a place to stay, but in the way where I guess I have always gone by, "Your home is where your heart is," and it seems that ever since I was able to see things in this world I have always given my heart away. So, since my home is where my heart is I seem to find myself quite homeless.

My heart is in Canada,

My heart is in Mexico,

My heart is in San Diego,

My heart is in Lincoln,

My heart is in Naperville,

My heart is in Montgomery,

My heart is in England,

My heart is in Assumption.

There are so many places where I have seen God and so it's hard to have one place to put my heart and so there in essence is why I remain homeless.

Monday, August 04, 2008

Everyone Wins...or at least everyone feels like they did.

I was swimming in the pool with Waylon and his niece Mckayla and she is just learning how to swim with her arms and her legs. When Mckayla would swim a certain amount of distance she would yell "I win a thousand metals!" and Waylon would yell in response, "Mckayla wins the gold medal!"

Then we tried to teach her how to count to five. Waylon and I figured that Mckayla didn't feel like learning because she would always forget what would come after two.

The reality of the situation is that Mckayla is going to be turning five in a week or so and she doesn't know her numbers or her letters. This is a contention between the men and women in Mckayla's life. The men think that she shouldn't have to learn anything until she actually goes to school, while the women think the opposite.

It's an interesting debate. And I finally came to a realization in the pool today. Being a different kind of learner I understand the conflict of understanding the different kinds of learning styles and I also understand that the public educational system really focuses on one style.

But, that is not what I am concerned about right now. What I am concerned with is the way that people in the public educational system are so concerned with making sure every child knows that they are special and knows that they are winners.

Perfect example: If you are watching the disney channel you don't have to wait long to see a movie or a show about a little league team who loses but they still feel warm and fuzzy because someone comes along and tells them, "Your winners no matter what"

Here's the reality your not. When you lose a baseball game you lose. Now I am all about being good sports about it. You don't have to be an asshole and pout or gloat about it depending on what side you are on. I am just saying that at the end of the day somebody wins and somebody loses.

And maybe losing isn't a bad thing after all.

But the children in America don't ever have to feel the disappointment and shame of losing. It's not even the fact that every child is valuable, because they are. It's just the fact that some children are going to win and some children are going to lose. Many could say it depends on the culture and their upbringing, and that probably has something to do with it.

But in the end the kid who was always determined in school, who always was ambitious enough to work late will probably win. While the kid who didn't care much will lose.

Maybe this reality of 'tolerance' that is flushed out in the idea that 'everyone is a winner' has formed the laziness of my generation and is continually causing damage in the next.

Everyone is valuable. Everyone is worth something. Everyone should be treated equally.

But not everyone is a winner. Because if everyone was a winner then the kids who worked extra hard wouldn't get the recognition that they deserved and the kids who didn't do much but smiled will get a cup full of false entitlement.

So should a five year old know her numbers and her letters? I'm not exactly sure but I know if she doesn't catch on soon she might get a cup full of false reality and will be living with her parents when she is twenty eight.

Friday, August 01, 2008

Holy Entitlement.

I just finished reading Nervous Conditions by Tsitsi Dangarembga. As I was reading this book people continued to ask me what it was about and my response was, "I'm not exactly sure." It wasn't that I didn't know what was going on in the book I just didn't know how to explain the complexity of it.

Sometimes it is better to get the whole picture before you start scrutinizing over the details. The whole story is centered on a main character who is burdened by being and African female in the early 1960's. Tambu is this main character's name and she is first introduced as a little girl wanting to attend school. While I didn't think that wanting to attend school could be the basis of an actual novel I soon realized that wanting to go to school was the greatest aspiration and accomplishment for Tambu, or any African women.

While many people would assume that someone who was not very educated would not be very astute or observant however, it is not the case with this little girl. Tambu is extremely observant and reflective about what goes on around her.

A certain myriad of events happen that land her at the mission for what she always dreamed to do, school. While she is on her way there, with her beloved and generous uncle, she thinks through something that seems to be literal in her experience, but i think it is metaphorically universal.

"But the real situation was not so simple. Although I was vague at the time and could not have described my circumstances so aptly, the real situation was this: Babamukuru was God, therefore I had arrived in Heaven. I was in danger of becoming an angel, or at the very least a saint, and forgetting how ordinary humans existed- from minute to minute and from hand to mouth. The absence of dirt was proof of the other-worldly nature of my new home. I knew, had known all my life, that living was dirty and I had been disappointed by the fact." (pg. 70)

Babamukuru was the head master at the mission and also was her uncle. He was the wealthiest elder in her family and was the main provider for his sister's and brothers. To be in his house was to be in the wealthiest home that could be perceived by Tambu. But, she has a good point. She knows that being in such a nice and wealthy place could leaver her believing that she was entitled to be clean and wealthy. This entitlement was a mind set that she knew could have trapped her in feeling elite. Feeling like she was better then those who worked on the farm without education. She wanted to feel clean. But, she knew that she was not entitled to feel clean.

Tambu was afraid of the entitlement of being clean. This was an opportunity, an act of grace and if she couldn't understand that she knew she would lose her understanding of humanity.

When I started thinking through this idea I realized that I feel just as entitled because of my potential position in the church. I feel entitled to be clean and to forget the dirt that I experience every day as a human being living in this world. While, Tambu experienced dirt on a physical level I experience on a metaphorical level.

Dirt is not better or worse than clean, because dirt is what we all experience. We are all have dirt and in my thinking, metaphorically we all have an opportunity to get clean.

I am not equating dirt with sin, although it does happen, I am equating dirt with the human body. With the human reaction and with the human limitation that we all feel.

Here's the deal. I believe that Jesus was clean and dirty. He was clean because he knew and acted on the proper way to treat humanity. He was clean because he was divine. But, he was dirty because he was physically limited. I know that he could do miracles but that was because he was divine. He was killed which means he was also physical.

Jesus didn't need to feel the entitlement of being clean because he was just clean just like he was dirty. We are not entitled to be clean but we are given the opportunity to get clean, without forgetting that we also need to be dirty.