My stomach hurts

I'm taking the LSAT on Saturday. My stomach hurts. I thought that I would study more over the break. I didn't. I needed a break.

Blessing

I had a pretty intense day yesterday. I left for Macon county at 6 in the morning (most of you know I'm not really pleasant in the morning...espically THAT early in the morning), my co-worker and I screened about 120 kids in three different HeadStarts for vision problems, packed it all up, drove back, and went to debate practice. The kids had decided that they didn't want to have practice on Tuesday, rather they would like an EXTRA long practice on Monday. We finished at 9, and then I took 2 of the kids home. I got home (for the first time all day) at about 10:30.

There are a lot of things that happened yesterday that I would love to share with you- some that I'm sure i will over the course of the next couple of days, but one thing that keeps sticking in my mind is how exhausted I was, but how, being there with the kids was really good last night. So many days are so frustrating and hard, but yesterday was really just such a great day. They all worked so hard and were so kind.

At about 7 we went and got them Chinese food. Before we started to eat, one of the kids said, "We need to have a blessing." One of the boys was nominated, and he stood up as we all sat around this table we sit at on a daily basis, and this fourteen year old boy said something similar to these words:

"Father, thank you for showing us your glory. Continue to lead us in paths of rightousness. Thank you for this SpeakFirst team, for they have enlightened me so much. Help us all to be in love with each other, because I really do love each person on this team."

Why do am I always so prideful to think I have anything to offer these kids when they have so much to teach me?

Grindingly clear and the illogic of it all

Most of you know that this year I'm working for a non-profit, and I am an Americorp VISTA. While doing this year of service we have a really shady insurance policy. I think that it's really stupid that the theory behind Americorps, especially the VISTA program is to work at the grassroots level to try to reverse the root causes of poverty. I would say that one of the root causes of poverty is the lack of good heath insurance- especially heath insurance that covers, and thus encourages, preventive health care. And yet, while we are doing this service- a service that I think is a pretty big deal- we are given a health care policy that is a JOKE. If your tooth falls out ON THE JOB, we will pay for it to be fixed, if your eye starts hemmorging while you are sitting AT THE OFFICE, we will pay for you to see a doctor, and so on. So really, people are working to change people in poverty, meanwhile we are really contributing, as well. Now on to my story.

So I have been really freaked out lately worried that I have a cavity. Because of the aforementioned insurance policy I was considering driving to Mexico, buying a bottle of Tequila and taking my chances, but then I realized that if they took more than one tooth, or the wrong one, this would only further diminish and hope that I might have left of EVER finding someone to marry me. I can see it now,
"What did you think of my friend Kara"
"Oh, you mean the snaggle-tooth girl?"
"I told you she has a nice personality."

But I sucked it up, and made an appointment with a dentist recomended by some friends from DF. I have always been pretty sensitive about my teeth. I had braces for five years. That is a really long time. When I got them off- when I was fifteen- I had had them on for a third of my life. That's a big commitment to some hardware, you know? And then there's always the fact that the dentist is seeing inside your mouth- a place very few people really look. It's like being naked in front of someone else. Maybe some people (Eve) get used to that, but still, there is vulnerability there. I know that they are going to be talking in the break room when I'm gone,
"Can you believe that molar?"
"It looked like she never flosses"
"I wonder what she ate for breakfast! Man"
And you're not even there to defend yourself.

So as the lady is cleaning away she asks me if anyone has ever told me that I grind my teeth. I think of all the people that have slept with me in the past four months- none- and tell her, "Nope, no one's ever mentioned it." When the dentist rolls around he informs me that I DO NOT have any cavities (HURRAH! I'm wondering where my sticker is. I really feel like after all the angst I have put myself through I should get a "no Cavities" sticker like I did when I was little), but that he thinks that I grind my teeth in my sleep. This is crazy.

SO I'm clear. Maybe I'm just stressed out. Who knows. No one is here to tell me, so I'm just going to grind away. I though that the knocked out tooth would keep the suitors away (I wish they were still called suitors), but now I have a bigger issue to deal with. Maybe I should reconsider the bottle of Tequila and just knocking them out.

I may not be able to dance....

(setting: Homewood High School Debate tournement, they have just posted the match-up for the much anticipated first round of debate, about 30 minutes late. They tape the postings on a wall, creating a scene much akin to a class of 60 all scrambling to find out what they made on the semester exam, and they drop sheets with the postings at a table in the front. One of our debators, Chrystalline, goes to grab a sheet and bring it back for the whole team.
The anticipation is growing.)

LaVentrice: Look at Chrystalline taking her time....look...she's just talkin to that white girl.
(me standing there just staring at her. She looks over at me. touches my shoulder)

"Oh. You Black in my eyes."

I told her I wasn't sure what to say to that, but I think that it might be the best complement that I have gotten all week.

In light of some recent conversations...

I thought I would share this.

"You were called to freedom, brothers, Only do not use your freedom as opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another. For the whole law is fulfilled in one word, "You shall love your neighbor as yourself." But if you bite and devour one another, watch out that you are not consumed by one another. "

Gal 4:13

Lost in Translation

I have often talked about how sometimes words just don't communicate. Today was one of those days. I felt like i was just talking and people were responding, but it came out as "Hope Bread Remarkbt". Was it that I wasn't using the right words...or was it all just lost in translation?

Burn

"It's not a political revolution or a Muslim revolution," said Rezzoug. "There's a lot of rage. Through this burning, they're saying, 'I exist, I'm here.' "

"We want to change the government," he said, a black baseball cap pulled low over large, chocolate-brown eyes and an ebony face. "There's no way of getting their attention. The only way to communicate is by burning."


These quotes came from an article on the riots in France. The people, wanting to be noticed, wanting attention. The only way to communicate is to burn.

How much fodder must have been stuffed into this cannon or emotions before it exploded? What is an adequate response? From the government? From those around? From us, miles away?

The hope of justice, of eqality, personified through fire.

I can't make this stuff up

I went to this concert and the opening woman played a song called supermodels. She talked about how her friend was having a bad day, and she was trying to convince her that things like character, and inner beauty were more important, and then the most georgous woman floats by. The chorus of the song says something like,

"I hate supermodels. It's not that any of us actually know one. I just hate being compared to them."

It was a good, funny, entertaining song. Because she's right... who does know a supermodel?

The other day in practice Stephen calls and says, "I think that my friend is going to come by and be a guest judge for practice this afternoon."

"Ok, sounds great."

"And then I think that I might have her talk for a little bit. You know, the whole, 'follow your dreams bit."

"Um.... ok....what does she do?"

"She's Miss America"

Seriously, I can't make this stuff up.


But then she called and said she couldn't make it. Stephen passed the phone around to let them talk to her. It was lame, but I can't say that I was disappointed.

Ms. Singerwoman, you're wrong. Some people do know them. And bring them to practice. To talk about following your dreams. Welcome to my life.

How long?

I ran in a 10K this morning. While most of you were still in your bed, I put my shorts on and laced up the tennies and took a stroll through downtown Birmingham. We started at City Hall, which is right by Lynn Park. This is such an interesting part of town, because a couple blocks down there is the civil rights museum, 16th street Baptist church, and it was here, in this park that many teenagers met to march.

Truly this city has so much history.

Today was a warm day. Warm, especially for November. By the end of the run- about 9, it surely was about 65 or 70 degrees. Today the streets were filled with runners, cheer-ers, water passer out-ers, and a few random pedestrians.

But I have run this course before, and the scene was different. Sunday morning, I ran it about 7:30, and it must have been about 30 or 35 outside. As we ran the area around Linn Park the benches were filled with people bundled up trying to keep warm from the night, or smoking, and hoping that the nicotine filling their lungs will help them forget that their fingers are numb. Another friend said that he went out for a long run that morning and started at 5, before the sun came up, and as he was running under an underpass he almost tripped over a man still asleep under the bridge.

It is when I think about these collisions of reality- the footprints of the past mingling with the shallow inhalations of the present, that I scream out with the Psalmist and wonder.... How long o lord.

Where is the justice that was promised? Is this really the kingdom come?

Most of you know, because I talk about it all the time, that I work with teenagers. I must have a death wish, or really think that I am a lot cooler than I am, because for some reason I have chosen to do this. Last night was a particularly frustrating night, and in between the constant criticism of my clothes, hair, (insert other physical tangiable feature including race) there are times when they are just rude. I have to remind myself that part of this is literally because developmentally they are at this stage in life where they cannot see beyond themselves, and they are so screwed up in developing their own freakin identity that how can they even begin to imagine that they are being hurtful to me.

But for some reason sometimes when I'm around them I sink back to thier level and I feel like I'm in high school again wanting to be a part of the cool crowd. Last night as I was leaving practice, I was thinking about something that I wrote earlier this year about rejection... and how it really is something that we... that I... deal with just by being a human.

In spite of knowing that the table of the wedding feast is big enough for all, I still want to be invited to sit at the cool kids table.

wwj....drink

Tonight I went to a comminuty group for a church that I've been visiting for the past couple of months. It basically consisted of a group of people my age getting together, drinking wine, making pizza and laughing (and there was a little dancing, but I won't get into that right now). Though we didn't pull out the Bible, or have some forced, formal discussions, we had community. It's interesting to me thinking back on my time at Harding, the fact that if I had done what I did tonight, four years ago, I would have been kicked out. I did nothing illegal, immoral or unethical, and yet I technically could have been dismissed from school and would not have a college degree. So funny to me. Where I come from.

And then tonight I was thinking about Jesus and him hanging out with his friends. Never does it say, "Jesus and the disciples had a meal, and after the meal, at the appointed time, Jesus pulled out the torah and began to interpret the law. They then took prayer requests and Jesus prayed for them all." Why has this become the perscribed way to do community? I think that Jesus sat around and drank wine with his friends and laughed and talked about the things that were deep on his heart, but it wasn't because it was a forced aloted time.

I pray that my life, and the time that I spend with others is redeemed into community.