wrestle the angel for more than a feeling, more than a cause...

sleep has not been my friend. I am like a "lo benh"(old cookie)...i am so not kidding about nineteen going on thirty.

you know when jack bauer says "this is the longest day of my life" on 24?(well, in season one)...i felt that the last two days. It's not really the "doing" that gets tiring, but rather the "thinking of doing". the feeling of never-ending work. the work itself is fine...but then to know that there is more to do after i finish this book, or finishing this shift; that's really tough.
as i visited urban promise in vancouver yesterday, i realized my need to just stop and write.

which brings us to today. after my morning class, i just sat down to write. my thoughts, my questions....and here's an excerpt:

we live in the breakdown. we live in the collision of our depravity and God's divinity. we are the broken, we are the shadows, we are the imperfection. we are the living dead. and yet we await a King, coming in the light of His glory. Majesty, the unavoidable and constant sunshine, permeating us with its warmth, propelling us to our knees in an incapacity to understand the sheer all-encompassing nature of grace.

and so we must love.

the reason of my own "yuppie unhappiness" often has to do with feeling unloved, forgotten, unimportant. in desiring to be loved and accepted, I realize that I need to learn to love. letting go of individual relationships, and rather, adopting an attitude that is inclusive. indeed, we are the disenchanted. maybe if i dedicate my life to a love that goes beyond my own yuppie happiness, I will be filled by the fullness of God's love. maybe extending myself is the only way to be "satisfied inwardly". my humanity prevents me from understanding the strength of God and the role He can play in life. but at the same time, it is my humanity that allows His strength to break through my weakness.

we seek comfort in things, in consumer culture, in celebrity overload, in friendships and friends, in family....strangely, we rarely seek comfort in the service of God. When we are low, or busy, we always say: "I must work this out first before giving...", forgetting that in surrendering our lives lies the answer.

maybe God puts people in our lives to show us that it is in extending ourselves that we "find" ourselves. i know for me, that is the case. there will always be questions, insecurity...we're all so"scared of dying here alone"...but i think seeing beyond "me" is the first part of the answer.

a work in progress

nineteen years to bring me back full circle
i've been pacing, forth and back, forth and back

see the moon, see the stars
see what's above and down below
but is it staring back at me?

convoluted, so facetious
the sight of me
in the eyes, through the ears
perplexities waiting to be thought
pacing again, crawling again

be in me Lord
what You are in the stars, in the moon
abide in me Lord
that Your kingdom be alive in me

til kingdom be,
til kingdom be,
til kingdom be in me.

the blues

"is this the new year or just another desperation?"

first and foremost, since "nothing is sound" is officially released...I can legitimately say: this album is better than any of its predecessors. Truly amazing in it's musicality...and the lyrics...ironically...leave me speechless. They've gotten so good at creating "noise"...whether that's jon foreman yelling into a piano to hear it reverberate...or the subtle chimes leading from "lonely nation" to "stars"...this is the stuff dreams are made of. (at least for music lovers)
I await canadian tour dates! stupid seattle, san francisco...BOOURNS...I want Vancouver!

Today, as I got off my opening shift, I realized just how heavy a load I'm carrying. Tomorrow, I have school from 9:30am-4:30pm (albeit with a yucky 3-hour break in between)...I come home to a shift @ 6pm-11pm. And then the next day continues, with me having to leave the house by 8:45am...and having a shift from 5:30pm-9:30pm...

I guess that's how it is when you're a full-time student moonlighting as a barista.

Beyond that, there are internal things that I'm constantly trying to escape. I really do love school...and work...I don't dread either (other than the immense amounts of reading)...but I've come to realize that they all serve as escape routes for me. There are too many things eating me up inside that I need to diverge attention away from them...

Hit by the blues...is there really any other song to sing? There now comes a point where I begin to see my own "inner ugliness"...and it's very hard to subsist it and keep it in control. It's like having a black hole live within me....emptying the contents of my heart so quickly that I can barely sense it coming. It's more difficult seeing the beautiful things...to come to terms with what is penitent...

"I'm singing this one like a broken piece of glass...for broken arms and broken noses in the back...you push until you're shoving, you bend until you break...there's nothing here worth saving, there's no one at all...is there any net left to break our fall? it'll be a day like this one when the world falls down...when the hungry and poor will be found...are you broken hearted? have you been pushing hard? does justice ever find you? do the wicked ever lose? is there any other song to sing except these blues? and nothing is ok...till the world caves in."

the rude awakening

as we neared YVR, vancouver was magnified from brown and green specks into an actual city...with the first thump of the wheels, i knew there was no way that the plane would revert its route and go back to philly..

so it's been a month since we came back from our trip to Camden, NJ, working with Urban Promise, and yet if someone asked me to recall events from every single day there, I think I'd still be able to describe and thoroughly express my feelings. A lot can be said about the "missions high" that people experience post-trip, the strangely exhilarating feelings of the need to "change the world" and "live a better life"...and that it is unfortunate when no real change occurs.

I know one week means nothing.
One week cannot determine anything.

But...can't it trigger something?

Complications. We live around them. We live in them. We can't live without them, or so it seems.
One of the greatest ironies of this century is that...for people who have so much...we contribute so little. We are the richest one-sixth of the world...but as many as there are of US, there are as many starving every day, unable to satisfy the simplest of needs. Why the perpetual entropy? Why the constant greed? Why the continuous need for noise?

I am no different. I am a contributor to this ugly mess...this social entropy that eats all of us up, chews it to pieces, and spits us back out. "I pledge allegiance to a country without borders,without politicians, watching for my sky to get torn apart...we are broken, we are bitter, we're the problem, we're the politicians, watching for our sky to get torn apart...."

Camden gave me hope. How strange it is...that a city of such devastation would sow the seeds for real contentment...in debris, in dilapitated buildings, in shards of glass...there is room for love to grow...and that's what really hit me hard. God's grace is so much bigger than you and me...grace can break hearts, and it can heal wounds....and above all, it calls us to discipleship.

I'm getting a little bit tired...so I'll write more a bit later.