Wednesday, October 31, 2007

Dissonance

Be happy and be haunting. Slip into that perfect disguise that will advertise who you really are. Get sexy and be sure to set out plenty of Kit Kats for the kids. Take a break from the war on terror and terrify someone to death. Go on, have another mojito and a Mars Bar chaser. Party hard but stay out of the party-central Castro. It's Halloween, the most dizzily dissonant holiday of the year.

-Steve Winn From the San Francisco Chronicle.

I think this hits the nail on the head. How can we be for something and against something? For God has put us in charge of small things (national holidays) and He will put us in charge of greater things (worldwide causes) only based on how we respond responsibly to our charge over the little things. That's food for thought...

Wednesday, October 24, 2007

A Baby Refugee

The people wanted a mighty Messiah. They got a baby refugee. They wanted a powerful king to take over Rome. They got a wandering homeless man. He could have saved the world with his mighty power, but he did it through his ridiculous love. The power of God lies in the brokenness of Jesus: naked, cursed, spit upon, with birds picking at his flesh as he died the rotten death of a criminal. -Shane Claiborne

Monday, October 22, 2007

Bearing Burdens

Sometimes I remember what it's like to bear burdens.

I carry a really old Toshiba laptop to class every day so I can take notes on it. I carry my regular backpack with my books and binder in it and then I carry my laptop bag with my laptop in it on one shoulder. It is probably 15lbs or more and I was walking with it today when I realized that to other people it probably registers as 5-10 lbs hanging off the end of my hand, but it's heavy enough to be painful to my back and neck. It feels to heavy to me, but it probably looks light to others. Isn't that the way?

I probably wouldn't look at someone and offer them help unless I saw them visibly stagger under the weight of their burden but I realized today as I'm walking that I've gotten pretty good at smiling despite carrying a heavy burden. And not staggering so it doesn't appear as though anything is wrong. I'm a survivor. And not in the thats-my-name-because-I-did-something-impressive way. More in the sense that my default position in life, my position that I set into when things are tough, is that of a survivor.