"A time comes when silence is betrayal."

2008 feels as though it will be larger, somehow. Maybe leap years and election years always feel that way, but as I look forward at the moment I feel a little - not afraid, maybe intimidated. Something will happen, and I've been waiting with my hands on my heart for a while now.

Tonight, while driving to my dorm, I heard Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s speech "Beyond Vietnam" on the radio. I think that God works in stranger ways than we realize, and if God still employs prophets, then Dr. King was undoubtedly one of them.

The speech is filled with abyss and light, hope and fear and dread and not a little anger. It is beautiful, and painful, and makes you much more aware of the way your lungs and heart feel inside your chest. He was a truly gifted man, and I don't think that we realize exactly how much the world needed him, despite the countless dirty streets and ignored statues that bear his name.

Whatever poor soul who stumbles upon this site would be much better off reading his words: http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/mlkatimetobreaksilence.htm


And some of us who have already begun to break the silence of the night have found that the calling to speak is often a vocation of agony, but we must speak. We must speak with all the humility that is appropriate to our limited vision, but we must speak.

e pluribus unum

I feel...lighter.

Tonight, a dear friend asked me what I would do differently with raising my kids from what my parents did with me.
"I would make sure they knew that they are not alone."
"You're not."

I know. At least, I've learned so, despite what I've been taught.


I am the make-up of everything around me. Absence of starlight sits in my soul, near leaves and smog and imperfect moons. I am crowded with others. My mother's strength, my father's imagination. Her masochism, his selfishness. My brother's loneliness, diluted. A bit of the faith in God of my sisters, and also a tiny growing spark of their faith in me. The healing of my boyfriend, in small measure. I am fundamentalist, fire-and-brimstone, hellbound, heaven-gazing, slowly expanding, peace-searching, solitude drawn, community grounded, hell-denying, ever-opening in heart and mind. I am always everyone I meet. I am never who I used to be.

And, I am humbly grateful.

Pick Any Verse

"He is a homo! A Sodomite! An abomination!"

So screamed the evangelist standing in front of the Tate Center on campus this morning. The jeering crowd around him fed off of their common hate for him. They screamed back. The boy the man was referring to was standing behind the evangelist wrapped in a rainbow flag and making faces. The crowd was reflecting back at the man the exact same hate he was subjecting them to.

All of this hurts my heart.

The evangelist does not seem to understand that he's only spreading hate. Animosity. Making a mockery of the religion that, through some fluke, we both claim as our own. The crowd around him is a testament to the revulsion that many are adopting as a defense against what this man would have them believe is Christianity. He called the boy an abomination - something hateful to God. That boy is a creation of God, and is as loved by the Lord as everyone else on this earth, including myself, each person in that crowd, and the evangelist himself.

Jesus preached love. Why are so many of us forgetting this? So quick to judge others, so quick to condemn, so quick to make war not only in other countries, but within our relationships to our neighbors. Love is not "spreading the word" that everyone's going to Hell. That is separation, a categorization amongst an illusory "us" and "them." There is no difference. Really, when it comes down to it, there is absolutely no difference. We are each human, and must share in the fate that God has wrought for us. We're in this together, so why are we so determined to wrench each other apart?

My prayer today is that God will give us the understanding and courage to heal the wounds we tear in ourselves.

sometimes it's difficult to notice

I went to the top of the North parking deck this morning because I needed to scout for a landscape drawing, and also because I was obscenely early to class. However, I ended up just staring. The sun was covered by blue clouds and cast pink rays. The clouds behind me were dark and soft. It started to rain, gently. A person carried a red and white striped umbrella. A girl in her car let two other cars on the road - she didn't have to, but she did. I watched rain drops fall to the ground far below me, and they swayed and skipped their ways down. I turned around to make sure no one could see me, and then I grinned. Sometimes, it's just good to be alive.
Thank you, Lord, for this day. It's amazing.

cookie-cutter

The 'oneness' felt at football games is only valued because there is a lack of oneness elsewhere.

Wearing the exact same clothes as another is an attempt to connect with someone, anyone.

If so many people here look so alike, it's only because they share the same desperate desire to be loved.

I shouldn't be angry at them. I should be angry with myself for denying them that love.

I thought I was getting over this

I try not to dwell on it, but this past week has been very difficult. And I've been ignoring that.

Yesterday, I browsed the Gospels for some comfort. But it felt like I had read it all, and the important parts many times over. It seemed irrelevant. I knew it wasn't, but that's how it felt.
I put the Bible back on the shelf.

I'm incredibly frustrated by my life right now. With my inability to inflict any change with my family, how little I've changed, the way I'm living, my disconnect with friends who used to be close, not being able to be openly friendly, my lack of a social life outside of Ryan.
As much as I like to think I've learned about dealing with the crap happening around me, I'm still pasting on a small smile and speaking calmly. I still have so much anger, so much hate built up inside of me - I'm directing it at every person I pass on the street, every building of my school. They're not special enough. They're holding me back. Not letting me be myself. I know full well that I'm to blame for all of that, but realizing that doesn't seem to improve anything.
But it's almost as though I don't want release. The only outlet I'll allow is that every few days I'll sulk when Ryan's around, and my silent disconnect hurts him more than any amount of yelling. Being angry feels too valid, hurting others feels too deserving.

My roommate needs to sleep, and I have a report to do.
I have to stop this.

Summer's Ending

How on earth can typing take so much effort?

The preceeding was a half-hearted excuse for not updating.

Now then. Today marks the beginning of my last full week at Jubilee Partners, which I will leave on August 8th. I'm not sure how I feel about the time I've spent here. I was expecting something monumental, an obvious turning point. One thing I should've learned by this point in my life is to not expect things to be so simple. At my low points, I feel as though the only thing I've learned here is that there are many, many wrongs that I am guilty of or contributing to simply because I was born more priviledged than others (white, middle-class, American, able-bodied, and reasonably intelligent). I can't plead ignorance about this anymore, but I also feel powerless to do anything about it. In other words, I feel less and less worthy of the space I'm taking up on earth. On the good days, I feel like God is paying attention to me - which is humbling, though still uplifting. At any given time, I'm less and less sure about who I am, what I'm doing, and the words that come out of my mouth (I stutter a lot these days). No, I haven't found any great answers. Not even any okay answers. I haven't met my salvation or finally figured out what paths I should take. But I'm a little more open, a little more patient, and, at times, a little more hopeful. That's something, at any rate.

I'm looking forward to being back at school (remind me to read this sentence when I start complaining). I'll be working towards a goal, feeling more connected, pleasantly distracted, and using high-speed internet. Most of all, I'll constantly be near Ryan, who has decided to stay at UGA for at least one more semester. No more of the endless wishing he's here, no more of him visiting just long enough to say goodbye, no more having to beat myself up about being so hopelessly dependent. For now. We've been together nearly ten months now, and I still can't get over how weird it is. I thought I wasn't like this. I was proud, blindly driven, no one's prisoner. Now, I'm second-guessing whether I should study abroad because I don't know that I could spend another summer being so far away from him. I was also stubborn, cold, and relentlessly alone. Now, I wonder why I feel as though I have to fight against being this happy.
There. I said it. I'm happy.
I don't get it either.


Right now, these words speak the most to me. They're carved around a playground structure in the center of Jubilee, and as I look back on all the trials and mistakes and miracles that brought me here, I am certain that, somehow, this is where I'm meant to be.
"For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord."
Romans 8:38-39, New International Version