March 23, 2007

• Got my computer working…

  and so i finally have the MOUNTAINS of pages i wrote February 13. here they is:

  We all just want to know we are irreplaceable. That we are
  special enough to have a space just for us that no one else can fill. That it
  is worth getting up in the morning. That sweating and running and grinning and
  looking people in the eye and going the extra mile and doing things right when
  no one is looking…adds up to something. We all long for someone we respect and
  look up to to stop and notice us and put their hand on our shoulder and say,
  “you did good. I saw that. It made a difference. Keep going.”

  I met this guy named Chad. We were both sitting at the
  computers at the hostel in the everglades. After a couple sentences he asked
  me, “are you a Christian?” which led to sharing “God stories” for the next
  while. It was good. Connection of two people with the same dad. So the night
  before I left he asked if I had anything good to read on the plane. I didn’t,
  so he said he had a book for me. What a book.

  I sat alone in Costa Rica, tears running down my face,
  looking at the world and being overwhelmed with the beautiful and the pain and
  the wretchedness.

  “The Irresistible Revolution” by Shane Claiborne

  MUST READ.

  Karine took me to a special place today after school. A
  field in the middle on nowhere. Where the wind blows and you can see the
  “lonely tree” and the hills and the cows and…lovely. I’d read Karine some
  excerpts from the book and we were inspired.

  Karine: I want to roll down the hill, but the grass is sharp
  and will cut me and there is cow dung everywhere

  Me: but if you really wanted to you could. What is stopping
  you? What really is stopping you?

  (Long pause. listening to the wind)

  Me: I bet the author of that book would roll down
  it—scratches and dung and all

  That’s the kind of book it is. And it hurt me that I didn’t
  roll down the hill. What stops us? What REALLY holds us back? So I will give
  you my highlights. Do what you will. But DO something.

  In the Authors note: “If you have bought this book, dear
  reader, I thank you. If you have borrowed it, I honor your frugality. If you
  have stolen it, may it add to your confusion.”

  He grew up like me: “I discovered a Christianity that
  entertained me with quirky songs and Velcro walls.” (I did the Velcro wall too.
  Yep.) “I call it spiritual bulimia…I developed the spiritual form of it where I
  did my devotions, read all the new Christian books and saw all the Christian
  movies, and then vomited information up to friends, small groups, and pastors.
  But it never had a chance to digest. I had gorged myself on all the products of
  the Christian industrial complex but was spiritually starving to death.”

  “I used to be cool. And then I met Jesus and he wrecked my
  life…Mark Twain said, “It’s not the parts of the Bible I don’t understand that
  scare me, but the parts I do understand.”

  “ (John) Wesley’s old saying, “If I should die with more
  than ten pounds, may every man call me a liar and a thief,” for he would have
  betrayed the gospel.”

  So this guy went to college in Pennsylvania and had this
  weird friend who visited and befriended homeless people. They started going out
  and spending the night with them. “On the streets of Philly, we experienced
  miracles…it’s enough to say I just wanted to be safe for God to trust with
  those little secrets that God seems to reserved for the weak and the destitute.”

  OH SWEET PAIN. I WANT THAT.

  “I met a blind street musician who was viciously abused by
  some young guys who would mock her, curse her, and one night even sprayed Lysol
  in her eyes as a practical joke. As we held her that night, one of us said,
  “There are a lot of bad folks in the world, aren’t there?” And she said, “oh,
  but there are a lot of good ones too. And the bad ones make you, the ones, seem
  even sweeter.”

  They read in the paper that these homeless mothers and kids
  had gone to a condemned cathedral for some place to stay and went in droves,
  picketing and helping and loving and standing up for the fatherless. They had a
  sign in front that said “How can we worship a homeless man on Sunday and ignore
  one on Monday?”

  ““I think I’ve lost hope in the church,” I confessed,
  brokenhearted, to a friend. I will never forget her response, “no, you haven’t
  lost hope in the church. You may have lost hope in Christianity or Christendom
  or all the institutions, but you have not lost hope in the church. This is the
  church” At that moment, we decided to stop complaining about the church we saw,
  and we set our hearts on becoming the church we dreamed of.”

  (In an old comic strip he saw) “Two guys talking to each
  other, and one of then says he has questions for God. He wants to ask why God
  allows all of this poverty and war and suffering to exist in the world. And his
  friend says, “Well, why don’t you ask Him?” The fellow shakes his head and says
  he is scared. When his friend asks why, he mutters, “I am scared God will ask
  me the same question.”

  “I gave up Christianity in order to follow Jesus.” So what
  did this guy do? He went looking for a real Christian. He called Mother Teresa
  (this was early 90s). And went to Calcutta. Yep. Really. When working with the
  street kids he said: “Some of the kids just wanted to be touched with love, and
  some confessed that they cut themselves or scraped their knees just so they
  could be seen in the makeshift clinic, to be held and healed.” He met this guy
  named Andy, a German businessman who read the Bible, and it messed up his life.
  He sold all he had and went to Calcutta to help. He’d been there 10 years. The
  author then said, “I had finally met a Christian.”

  From Mother Teresa he learned “We are not called to be
  successful but to be faithful…the discipline of doing small things with great
  deliberation.” “Following Jesus is simple, but not easy. Love until it hurts,
  and then love some more” “Calcuttas are everywhere if only we have eyes to see.
  Find your Calcutta.”  FIND YOUR CALCUTTA.

   “Over and over, the
  dying and the lepers would whisper the mystical word namaste in my ear.
  We really don’t have a word like it in the English. They explained to me that namaste
  means, “I honor the Holy One who lives in you.” I knew I could see God in
  their eyes. Was it possible that I was becoming a Christian, that in my eyes
  they could catch a glimpse of the image of my Lover?”

  (Single girls reading this…don’t wait up for this guy; he
  also took a vow of celibacy)

  “Jesus raised his friend Lazarus from the dead, and a few
  years later, Lazarus died again. Jesus healed the sick, but they eventually
  caught some other disease. He fed the thousands, and the next day they were
  hungry again. But we remember His love. It wasn’t that Jesus healed a leper but
  that he touched a leper, because no one touched lepers. And the incredible
  thing about that love is that it now lives inside of us.”

  Then he came back, going to Wheaten and working at Willow
  Creek Church. Culture shock. He happened to meet Rich Mullins (This book
  is a trip) even though he can’t sing a note. He heard a message Rich gave in
  chapel “You guys are all into that born again thing, which is great. We need to
  be born again, since Jesus said that to a guy named Nicodemus. But if you tell
  me I have to be born again to enter the Kingdom of God, I can tell you that you
  have to sell everything you have and give it to the poor, because Jesus said
  that to one guy too…But I guess that is why we have highlighters, so we can
  highlight the parts we like and ignore the rest.” (Then the author says) HA! If
  Rich hadn’t died, he probably would’ve joined the list of notorious blacklisted
  chapel speakers.”

  YES! For years I read my Bible and get this guilty sensation
  over some parts. I ask different people about them and always get a nice answer
  that tells me I don’t need to change—that God meant so and so in such and such
  context—so NO, I don’t really have to be that radical…of course not! POOP ON
  YOU. Let me bleed. Let me feel guilty. Let me do something. Let me roll down
  the hill thought the scratchy grass and cow dung. Let me go…why do I hold back? 

  So if you’ve gotten to the third page of this endless
  novel…don’t stop. Please. Don’t reconcile. Don’t write off this guy as
  sentimental. Don’t look down your nose at his love of Catholics and Gandhi and
  words against war and money. For once…just once…let the questions come into
  your life and don’t try to answer them. Let them grow. Let them chase you to
  the heart of Jesus.

  “Have we even begun to be Christians?”

  “People always want to define you by what you do. I started
  saying, “I’m not too concerned with what I am going to do. I am more interested
  in who I am becoming. I want to be a lover of God and people.” When asked for
  autographs he stopped and decided to write this instead: “This is not an
  autograph, because there is nothing special about me that is not also special
  about you. Never forget that you are beautiful, just like everyone else. And
  never forget that you are a fool, just like everyone else.”

  “I had come to see that the great tragedy in the church is
  not that rich Christians do not care about the poor but that the rich
  Christians do no know the poor…I truly believe that when the poor meet the
  rich, riches will have no meaning. And when the rich meet the poor, we will see
  poverty come to an end.”

  “Few people are interested in a religion that has nothing to
  say to the world and offers them only life after death, when what people are
  really wondering is whether there is life before death.”

  “And the people who have changed the world have always been
  the risk-takers who climb through windows while the rest of the world just
  walks in and out the doors.” “One friend was asked by a skeptic, “You all are
  just a little group if radical idealists. What makes you think you can actually
  change the world?” and she said “Sir, if you will take a closer look at history
  you will see, that’s the only way it has ever been done.” 

  So then he and some friends got this house in the poorest
  area of Philly and live there. In community. Spending days painting murals,
  turning trash heaps into gardens, tutoring kids, driving people places,
  welcoming people in to live with them when they are homeless…and God. It is
  called “the simple way” –a label given by a journalist that came and wrote a
  piece about them. In their first newsletter they wrote this. Which sounds
  something exactly like my amazing sister would write. I love you Anna.

  “Once, there was a small group of kids who decided to go to
  a park in the middle of the city, and dance and play, laugh and twirl. As they
  played in the park, they thought that maybe another child would pass by and see
  them. Maybe that child would think it looked fun and even decide to join them.
  Then maybe another one would. Then maybe a businessman would hear them from his
  skyscraper. Maybe he would look out the window. Maybe he would see them playing
  and lay down his papers and come down. Maybe they could teach him to dance.
  Then maybe another businessman would walk by, a nostalgic man, and he would
  take off his tie and toss aside his briefcase and dance and play. Maybe the
  whole city would join the dance. Maybe even the world. Maybe…Regardless, they
  decided to enjoy the dance.”

  www.thesimpleway.org
  “my pants have special holsters for bubbles and sidewalk chalk, and one of my
  housemates wears a tutu. Where else can you find that?

  “Charity wins awards and applause, but joining the poor gets
  you killed. People do not get crucified for charity. People are crucified for
  living out a love that disrupts the social order, that calls forth a new world.
  People are not crucified for helping poor people. People are crucified for
  joining them.”

  And get this (Anna and Carina), There are these people who
  converted their RV to run on old, used vegetable oil! So they’d stop at
  restaurants, get the old oil, and then do a little circus show to earn their
  dinner. AHHHHH! Check www.psalters.org
  and www.mewithoutyou.com

  “The true atheist is the one who denies God’s image in the
  ‘least of these.’” “Don’t call us saints; we don’t want to be dismissed that
  easily” “Love is a harsh and dreadful thing to ask of us, but it is the only
  answer”  –Dorothy Day

  “Tithes, tax-exempt donations, and short-term mission trips,
  while they accomplish good, can also function as outlets that allow us to
  appease our consciences and still remain a safe distance from the poor.” DON’T
  LET IT! Two weeks in Brasil is not enough.

  “Ask the poor. They will tell you who the Christians are”
  –Gandhi

  “The early Christians used to write that when they did not
  have enough food for the hungry people at their door, the entire community
  would fast until everyone could share a meal together” WHAT WOULD HAPPEN if we
  did that? WHAT? WHAT?

  “I am convinced that God did not mess up and make too many
  people and not enough stuff.”

  AMEN. What can you say to that?

  “Jesus was not simply a missionary to the poor. He was poor.”
  “I used to always say,  “Jesus was
  homeless.” And while there is truth in that, I believe the deeper reality is
  that Jesus had homes everywhere he went.” He goes on to talk about community.
  The FAMILY of God. Where you need the people who just get on a bike and ride
  around the world sharing about God—as well as—just as much—the homes that open
  the door, wash his feet, and give him a good meal and bed to sleep on at night.
  What do we do now? On a good day, we might give someone some McDonalds or set them
  up in a hotel. But my house? My home? My space? My coveted free time? What?
  Open my life to a stranger? But that is dangerous! What if they are fake? What
  if they come in and rob me? May I suggest we could “what if” ourselves right
  into hell?

  So he goes on a trip to Iraq. Why? “A love for our own
  relatives and a love for the people of our own country are not bad things, but
  our love does not stop at the border…in our rebirth, every life lost in Iraq is
  just as tragic as a life lost in New York or D.C. And the lives of the thirty
  thousand children (or as my amazing friend Becky would say—of the countless
  unborn) each day is like six September 11ths EVERY SINGLE DAY, a silent tsunami
  that happens every week…we are free to imagine a revolution that sets both the
  oppressed and the oppressors free…I truly believe we can overwhelm the darkness
  of this world by shining something brighter and more beautiful…may we stand by
  those who face the impending wrath of empire and whisper, “God loves you, I
  love you, and if my country bombs your country, I will be right her with you.”

  A doctor in Iraq helped him when he was hurt, after the US
  had just bombed the hospital. He looked at him and said “Violence is for those
  who have lost their imagination. Has your country lost its imagination?”

  I don’t know what I think about the war. I get that same
  guilty feeling about the war and politics as I do when I read things in the
  Bible like selling all your stuff…I don’t really know what to do about it. I
  push it aside and pick up the comics instead. But this is good. I am reading
  something real. That looks at the problems and doesn’t HIDE. It hurts, but it
  is a good feeling for once.

  “If they come for the innocent and do not pass over our
  bodies, then cursed be our religion” –one of the saints (ok…I couldn’t find who
  gave this quote, but I WANT it on my wall—this one too:) “So live real good,
  and get beat up real bad. Dance until they kill you, and then we’ll dance some
  more. That’s how this thing seems to work.”

  I am a hypocrite. How can I even write words like this? Who
  am I? What am I doing? That is the problem with dreamers…they sound so good but
  where do they go? Don’t think this is written to preach at you. I am simply
  recording my thoughts on this book. How I was inspired. Will I do anything
  about it? You tell me after you see my life the next month, year, 5 years…

  It reminds me of something that hurt me so badly. My pride
  was wounded. In Brasil I shared about things I’d learned. Some “golden
  platitudes” that I so easily and quickly cling to. About struggling with
  problems and poverty and pain. Someone read what I’d written and laughed (ouch)
  they looked at me and said, “What do you know about poverty and pain?” yuck. I
  recoiled and thought all my meanest thoughts about the person, like “well, you
  don’t know either, so meh.” But it is true. What do I know? But I want
  to know. I want to learn. I want to live and give and love…please?

  One of his professors said, “All around you people will be
  tiptoeing through life, just to arrive at death safely. But dear children, do
  not tiptoe. Run, hop, skip, or dance, just don’t tiptoe.”

  “Bored? God forgive us for all those we have lost because we
  made the gospel boring…it’s because we don’t dare them, not because we don’t
  entertain them. It’s because we make the gospel too easy, not because we make
  it too difficult. Kids want to do something heroic with their lives.”

  “When we realize that we are both wretched and beautiful, we
  are freed up to see others the same way.” Wow this hit me. Because I normally
  see one or the other. Some days I am too busy to see the beauty. Some days I am
  a cynic and all is wretched. Some days I fly over everything and only see
  beauty, followed by disillusionment when something wretched happens. It’s both.
  It’s God.

  So this guy has an old hippy friend who smokes lots of weed
  and likes to debate him. “One day he said to me, “Jesus never talked to a
  prostitute”…I grabbed my Bible and was ready to spar. Then he just calmly
  looked at me in the eye and said, “Listen, Jesus never talked to a prostitute
  because he didn’t see a prostitute. He just saw a child of God he was madly in
  love with.” I lost the debate that night.”

  “True revolution is when…the oppressed are freed from being
  oppressed and the oppressors are freed from being oppressors.” –Bishop Desmond
  Tutu. So…I find it easy to love the raped woman, but what about the man who
  raped her?

  “If I can’t dance, then it is not my revolution” –Emma
  Goldman

  “Welcome to the irresistible revolution, a new an ancient
  way of life that is so attractive, who would settle for anything else? Welcome
  to the revolution of little people, guerrilla peacemakers, and dancing
  prophets, the revolution that loves and laughs. The revolution begins inside
  each of us, and thought little acts of love it will take over the world. Let us
  begin to be Christians again. Jesus, give us the courage.”

  • 5:52 pm
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