meanderings

Why are we surprised by grace?
Who would have thought to find such courage in the most fearful person I've ever known. I always thought I got my courage from my daddy - and anyone who starts a roofing and siding business in the middle of winter with four children and a wife to support certainly qualifies as courageous - but I'm beginning to see the courage of my mother. My mother grew up in fear of everything... but mostly of being on her own. A broken hip, while certainly surrounded by a multitude of support people, is a solo journey. It would be so easy to lose hope, so easy to give in. There is so much frustration in the relearning of common, everyday tasks. There are the hours of hard labor, away from friends and family. I know that she is more blessed than most in the quantity and the quality of her family's support, but she has also used that stubborn streak that has so often been an obstruction to be her strength in this time of trial. She has that strong, inner desire to achieve, even if it's just the ability to put on her shoes and socks without help.
A young. black woman took us for my mother's ultrasound. In the conversation, the cafeteria came up, the prices and her love for desert which she mostly couldn't afford to buy. On returning to her room, my mother (who on one occasion couldn't name her five children) asked the next nurse who entered the room what the woman's name was. She wanted to get her a dozen Krispy Kreme donuts because she liked sweets and didn't get them that often. Every time I think of that I want to cry with love and pride.
I've had a rocky, difficult relationship with my mother who I've often seen as so different in so many ways, but these last few days I'm beginning to realize that much of what I consider to be most valuable in life was a gift from her.
I love my mother.

The absolute desire of 'having more' encourages the selfishness that destroys communal bonds among the children of God. It does so because the idolatry of riches prevents the majority from sharing the goods that the Creator has made for all, and in the all-possessing minority it produces an exaggerated pleasure in these goods."

- Archbishop Oscar Romero, "The Church's Mission Amid the National Crisis," August 6, 1979. Twenty-four years ago today, Monsenor Romero was assassinated as he celebrated Mass in San Salvador.

"Who Is My Neighbor?"
by Luciano De Crescenzo

Christ didn't say, "Love humanity as thyself," but, "Love thy
neighbor as thyself," and do you know why? Because your neighbor, by
definition, is the person nearby, the man sitting next to you in the
underground who smells, perhaps, the man next to you in the queue
who maybe tries to barge ahead of you; [THE COMPUTER HACKER WHO
HASSLES YOU!]; in short, your neighbor is the person who threatens
your own liberty.

I read this in Prism today. It's something that is always appropriate, and difficult, to hear. I find it easier to love the oppressed than the oppressor, but Jesus doesn't give me that option. Whatever I seek in the way of justice must be motivated by love.... for EACH.
PAZ

man is not the center of the universe.

http://www.salon.com/news/wire/2004/03/18/extinct/index.html
I don't know how to make this a link, but this is an article worth reading.

i am a lonely painter. i live in a box of paints.
without sounding too cynical or whiny, it was a mistake to think that i could have peers in the place that i live and work. it is the attempt to share, to think that i have passed the point of being an albino in a hostile environment, that causes me grief.
and now my history is threatened as well. my mother has broken her hip. i know the danger that entails. how i long for the protective bubble she managed to live in most of her life. how i would like to preserve it for her a bit longer.

If you shoot a bee hive with a shotgun, you will destroy the nest. The bees will simply move.

All the time and money we have wasted fulfilling some sort of dysfunctional revenge thing for George Bush is all I can think about when I see the devastation in Spain. We have done nothing to stop al-qaeda and we must address them in way that does not allow them such intricately planned and brutal assaults on innocent people. They do NOT represent Muhammad, anymore than George Bush represents Jesus. I don't know if these deaths could have been prevented, but I believe they might have if the United States didn't believe we could simply bomb our problems away.

i'm really worried about salaam.

it's strange to feel like you know someone you've never met. i've been reading this man's blog for almost a year now. he was in karbola when the attack came. raed is worried too. i keep checking to see if he's blogged that he's ok. there's just a certain light to his writing. he's unabashedly subjective but has such an aware outlook on his circumstances. i want salaam to survive.
i want an end to this senseless killing.
i don't want any more 14 year old boys murdered by an unrepentent isreali government. i don't want my tax money going to perpetuate violence around the world.

my wants don't seem to count for much these days.
but i'm not taking my trivial wants to wal-mart anymore. my resolve is greater than lent this year. no one loves unnecessary plastic items any more than me, but enough is enough.

and this thing i can do....

and i'm going to pray for salaam.

have you ever spent a day as if it were your last?



a good question.
and i hope i've spent more than one that way. unfortunately, it was usually the result of some strong grief... those catastrophic events that remind us that we are not promised more than the present.
and so i'm dropping my gt class. gt = gifted and talented. i've taught a sixth grade gt class three of the last four years and i love teaching those kids. but i won't be certified without this class... and i won't be taking this class. it's a guinea pig class and somebody got excited over the technology and what they could do. i've already put in over 25 hours in little more than a week and i don't have the time to spend. i want to be able to enjoy my daughters in the few times i can see them. i want to be able to workout or walk or run when it's a pretty day. i want to be able to read a good book and i already can hardly do that with what i'm doing for school now.
so i'm dropping the class.
and i'm going to miss teaching those kids....

other thoughts: the world cannot affort overweight americans going on this all meat diet. it is truly outrageous that the richest country in the world would persuade its people that they need to use more of the earth's resources to lose weight when children are skeletal or bloated with lack of food.

It is easier for a camel to thread the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of Heaven.

this is not a penalty for being rich. it is a direct result. it is the things we own that keep us from the kingdom of heaven. in the kingdom of heaven we live each day as if it were our last, not because we fear the end, but because we know the beauty and joy of each moment.