29 March 2008

Can You Hear Me Screaming?

A very dear friend of mine asked me last July if I would scream, if I could scream, if I had a place, or a person who would listen or a time would I scream...

And I never answered her.

Today, yes. I would, I want to, I can't.

22 March 2008

Good Friday?

Much updating to do I suppose.

I'm 23 now. 22 was basically the year of my life so I have big hopes and dreams for this one. And if God is going to answer the prayers of all of you so kindly praying for another extreme year, I better buckle up.

I'm moved now...
And mostly it is good. I still have not gotten used to my own space. Sometimes I wait for Liz or Joy to come bounding in, or to see a diaper that didn't make it into the garbage...or other memories that don't quite invoke the smile the others do... I'm still getting used to being able to escape whenever I want. It's lovely.

And it's Easter. Or it's the awkward death day between Good Friday and Easter.

Next week is Spring Break. My Mom is going to Georgia and I'm working over 15 hours a day, every day...and by next Friday I will be less then a month from Chicago and seeing my sisters again.

Yesterday I didn't work Kidstop but I had Isabelle so I took her to "Horton Hears A Who." I cried. At the Dr. Suess movie but let me tell you why...there is a scene towards the end of the movie where the entire city of Whooville (which fits on a speck of dust) is going to be destroyed by this evil kangaroo who dosen't understand something she can't see. Horton this huge elephant is the only one who knows thats the people of Whooville are real. He's to big to see them and they are too small to see him but the mayor of Whooville and Horton have forged this relationship and they both believe the other is real and evintually all of Whooville knows they are in dire circustance. Horton has taken on this little speck and is trying to get it to the top of this mountain where it will be safe but he has been captured and the Kangaroo is going to throw this speck in a pot of boiling oil. And the people of Whooville realize they need to make noise, they have got to be heard if they are going to saved. And so their is this scene where are these little animated Dr. Suess creaters are screaming "We are here! We are here! We are here!" And in an instant this picture of all these beautiful dark skinned middle eastern babies came in my head and the voice of these hundreds of kids screaming "We are here! We are here! We are here!" It just ripped my heart apart. Because I want to be Horton in the midst of a country full of Kangaroos. I want to be the one who hears those voices, "We Are here!"... I have to long forgotten the passions of my heart when Dr. Suess brings me more to convicted tears then pity. I'm not doing anything...

Something else that I realized yesterday. That it was good Friday. I've spent so much time being politically correct at work explaining to parents that we don't have Kidstop due to the "Spring Holiday" and getting ready for my Mom to leave town that I really had forgotten until about 3 in the afternoon that it was Good Friday. And you know, let me explain something about myself. If God forbid I ever lost one of my dearest friends, if something ever happened to Jenny or Jenn or Bitsy or Heather or one of my girls it would take me months and weeks of preparations to get ready to emotionally walk through the anniversary of the day I lost them. Everyone would know how much pain I was in, if I was strong enough to even leave my room that day. And yesterday? I didn't even remember. And the good Christian answer would be I am just overcome with the joy that He didn't stay dead. But that's in all honesty, it's not why. Because in a America, and most places, Easter is just another day right? I mean I joked with Carrie why the world would ever celebrate something like this if they didn't believe in Jesus. Why would you care about bunnies and pastel colors? I wasn't affected by good Friday because on a daily basis I do not remember that it was me who put him there. It was my deception and idolatry and betrayal that put my best friend, my lover, my creator to death. It was my fault that man had to die! And I drove around and went to a movie and a bought new under ware and did not even remember until the day was nearly over that He was gone this day. The darkest moment of redemption in history and I forgot about it.

02 March 2008

Johnny Cash gives me shivers.

"Lord I'm returning to things I used to do. Somewhere along the journey I think I lost hold of the truth."

Want to know whats really f-ed up?

Knowing your in the wrong place.
State.
Country.
Home.
Relationships.

But that no matter what, no matter how much prayer or fasting or crying or yelling or fighting...time and space must still pass and you can't be where your supposed to be for reasons you can't control.

And your too far removed from your new "family" and not close enough to all the "family" you left so your life and your struggles and the stupid circles you run every day can go hidden everyday. You become one big secret.

And you can't cry out to one person because they don't want to be just one person. And you don't have the fight left in you. Not anymore.

And you know what I think is cool about David? When he was young and he needed to fight off that lion and the bear to save his herd...he knew no one saw him. He knew what he had just done had taken super natural strength. It had come to some little punk shepherd boy. A supernatural miracle, a sign or power and strength had come to a weakling. And no one had witnessed it. So David had to be completely convinced what had happened was real. He hadn't fallen asleep and dreamed it. He hadn't been dehydrated. He hadn't fought off a "spiritual lion" he had fought a real frickin lion! And this poor fool had to go back home blooded but completely convinced of what God had done to and through him in the wild....David had to know that people weren't going to believe him. People weren't going to listen. Or they were going to write him off.

"It's a phase."

"He thinks he's better then us because he had a lion...poor fool doesn't he remember that he's just a shepherd?"

But David knew. David knew that God had worked through him and he went home to face it and when he went to bed that night I wonder if anyone believed him at all? But he knew. He knew what God had done and obviously his faith was enough because someone else believed him and wrote it down and we teach our kids about it with felt boards now.

You see the thing with me is...I don't think I'm convinced of what He did to me in the wild.