On roaches and bombs dropping

I'm in Spidle Hall, putting the finishing touches on my thesis. There is a roach crawling across the floor to my left. I am really tempted to be grossed out and scream, but there is no one else in this whole building, so I know that really it will do me no good. As he meaders across the floor, seeming to float on the carpet itself, I'm reminded about the random morsel of knowledge, "If a nuclear bomb dropped, roaches would be the only thing to survive." This is interesting, because today I feel like some bombs have dropped, and yet here I am.

The roach is still here, but somehow so am I.

Today I hurt a lot for others. I have been so enveloped in my own stress and pain for a couple of weeks now- like a horse with blinders, only seeing one direction. But today, in what felt like only an instant, I began to really hurt for someone else that I love dearly. It has consumed me all day. I hesitate to even blog about it, wondering what eyes see this blog, even though it just feels like I am writing into the infinate cyberspace of no one.

Today, was a day that I am ashamed to be associated with a pack. A tribe. A group of people. A denomination. A congregration. A religion. Today it seems that all the reasons that people give for not wanting to join mainstream Christianity came and slapped me in the face, and I am forced to look at them, and wonder what the Gospel message has become.

In the midst of our behavior modification rituals have we lost grace and love? We say that we do not want to be like the world, and yet we care so much about rules and obeying.

I thought that this was what Jesus came to change.

Tonight, with tears in my eyes, I grieve for a wounded warrior who walks alongside me. One who feels defeated, but doesn't see the Lord fighting alongside. But I also grieve for that which so many have become, who "they" think that "we" are in this insider/outsider game of who looks and acts the best.

I grieve that sick people can no longer recieve mercy at the hospital, this place where they need it the most.

And I pray that somehow I can be an agent of change, a messenger of light to those who are broken.