MOVE!

I’M MOVING TO A NEW DOMAIN!!!!

All future posts can be found at http://earthmuffin.wordpress.com

Peace y’all!

Whirlwind

Here’s an idea of some of the thoughts going through my head at this particular moment:

• Mission year sounds great: It costs about $10,000 though
• Graduate degree in International development?
• What if the poor really don’t like me like that woman in Colorado
• I need to get my freaking passport . . . too bad the post office is closed
• Can I travel to India alone?
• What about teaching English as a second language in South America?? Can I still do that.
• If I wanted to sell/give away all my stuff where should I take it?
• “Another World is Possible: Poverty Edition” is on the brain
• What if the shelter doesn’t take the food I bring tomorrow
• Crap, I stalled to long with wonders about what to do and now I’m missing Monday Night Football with one of the churches I checked out. It’s so awkward to work hard at making connections and then be so unsure about whether or not I’m sticking around . . .Cool Cool people though.
• I need to finish my “Amish for Homeland Security” Shirt
• What is wrong with my insurance???????
• Boys
• I love bread. Atkins diet would kill me. I am never going to look like the girls on tv. If jerks could see my body unclothed they’d probably use it as one of those shockers they put to scare people amidst a montage of beautiful bodies.
• My body kicks ass – 2600 miles of North American terrain on a bike. Put that in your perfectly manicured pipe and smoke it!
• Maybe I could go to Iraq with the Peacemakers.

I’m going to go eat a cookie, work on my sewing, and start thinking of ways to stop allowing 35,000 children to die from starvation every day.

Game on.

Dirty Tiles

So I met a man named William today. He stumbled into the Santa Cruz Homeless Shelter two years ago after being driven to the streets by his alcoholism. A recent bought with his drug of choice had landed him in the hospital, but without health insurance could only get so much help.

As he stood in the food line there was a call for help in the kitchen. No one answered.

He thought to himself about the absurdity of hungry people refusing to help themselves or make any sort of contribution.

He has been helping in the kitchen almost every day for two years and was hired on as a cook last month. He is clean, kind, and admits to his anal retentiveness about how the floors ought to be waxed.

Today we scrubbed and moped and waxed, but there are still dirt tracks permanently pressed into checkerboard diamond tiles. They have been used, and used well. Sure, some people will yell at you because they just want their handout or maybe they don’t want anything from you at all.

I don’t want to grow up to be cynical. There is a realistic approach and, most likely, a sense of detachment necessary for that sort of work, but meeting people like William show me that there is obvious good being done here; however, the desire must come from within. In the same manner that I could not get brown streaks out of the floor today, it is not my responsibility to force people to walk through the door . . . I just have to be there to keep it open.

Jesus loves us. This I know.

Maybe Technology isn’t ALL bad

This morning I listened to the wondrous chants and praises of the Taizé community (taking place all the way in France) while the sun’s morning blaze set the forest behind my house into a brilliant fire of colors.

Jesus our Peace, you wish gospel joy for us, and when we are touched to the very depths by your trial a way remains open; it consists in commending our life to peaceful trust in God.

Negative Nancy or Realisticly Observant ROnda?

I’ve noticed a lot of things lately, but the problem is that I have a habit of blurting those things out before I have fully processed the possible interpretations others might create from those observations. I do not intend to sound overly critical; I am simply processing out loud.

This is still such a formative state in my own development that I dare say that I’m just starting to figure out . . . everything from how I’m supposed to do ministry to the basic premises of language, and even whether or not I can justify spending money on clothes anymore. Weird, I know, but worth the effort I suppose. Sorry for the confusion, but this may take awhile.