who are you going to vote for? (and Bible Bars)

Due to the depressing choices we have for governor, there's a new choice in town...

If you are not offended easily, then come find out how the Bible Bar Extravaganza went at Community Group last night.

"That's right. This delicious snack contains 7 essential vitamins and minerals taken directly from the scriptures:

Deuteronomy 8:8: "a land of wheat and barley, of vines and fig trees and pomegranates, a land of olive trees and honey."

It was Bible-icious, a night of feasting on the word.

Hitting and Running

I talked to one of the students that I worked with this afternoon. She is "on punishment". Being someone who is fairly familiar with this concept, I talked to her a little about it.

"Let me tell you the story Ms. Kara...."she begins, and then weaves an amazing, eventful tale about how THE VERY FIRST NIGHT she was allowed to drive (she has JUST turned 16) she hit a parked car at the movie theater, but didn't think that it was that bad, so she drove away.

Then, driving home, it was dark and raining, and she HIT ANOTHER CAR from behind. She couldn't drive away from this one. Her dad showed up and told the police to take her to jail. He was so mad at her. They didn't.

Then, that night, the police showed up at her door, asking about the "hit and run" informing her (apparently this is the first time she found out about this) that she could be sent to jail for what she did. Some kids from school were at the movie theater, saw the whole thing, and told the police. She is one of the only black people at her school, so how did they describe her? The black sophomore who ran for student council VP. And she was surprised she got caught!

Greg talked about community on Sunday, and I can't stop thinking about it. I have lived alone off and on for almost 4 years now (since I graduated from college). It's hard to live with people sometimes when you are used to being selfish with everything around you. In true community there is a sense at which you have to die.

In the movie Crash, the beginning quote is so profound.

"It's the sense of touch. In any real city, you walk, you know? You brush past people, people bump into you. In L.A., nobody touches you. We're always behind this metal and glass. I think we miss that touch so much, that we crash into each other, just so we can feel something."

Sometimes I think that I'm more like my student, though. I crash into people, and still think that I can walk away. Or Hit and Run.

Everything that's wrong

If you want to know a few of the reasons that people aren't coming to "church" (however, according to AVB- "you can't go to church, 'cause the church is YOU") then watch this. Warning- there are a few "dirty" words, so if you live in a Christian vaccum and never hear words like this, you might not want to watch it.

It's about 8 minutes, but it could take you days to really unpack it all.

It's pretty much one of the most facinating things I've seen in a while and I can't stop thinking about it.

Skin

I'm blogging at work- don't tell anyone. Sometimes the quiet of the office is deafening, but right now it's kinda nice. Because I can blog. And no one knows. Except all of you who are reading.

A friend recently talked a little about meeting up with some friends from High School. In the post he asked,

"Why do wounds from high school stick so long?"

This past Sunday Adam and I talked to the middle and high school at our little church community. It was mother's day, so there were not as many teens there, so we had a combined class. It was going to be a class about "THE FUTURE" and whatever that entails- you know making choices, etc. But somewhere in the middle of it I started talking about something that happened to me in 9th grade. Thinking back on it, it really is so silly, but I really do think that it was a wound that has stuck to me and has affected me and planted in me a fear of rejection that has been fertilized by other events only to grow.

I really do think that it's amazing though, how two insecure 9th grade girls deciding that I wasn't cool enough because didn't wear the right jeans has affected me so deeply.

I know it's a weird connection, but I think about the movie Independence Day a lot. When the aliens come, they are virtually indestructible. But towards the end we realize that they are so sensitive once you get past their armor. There is a line in there, as well, about how all human have to protect them is skin. This frail easily cut, burned, severed lining covers all our internal organs, and everything that is holding us together.

Inside we really are so fragile. I wonder if we treat people with the respect, love, and gentleness that is needed to respect their skin.

Did you know......

That if you google yourself, not only does your bolg come up, but so does all the comments that you made on OPG (other people's blogs). Maybe I should be more careful about what I say in cyberland if I want to get a job. Or maybe I should stop yelling at my boss. Either way, it's a tricky game. I like what Bonita said about networking.

When your private life isn't private

I live in an apartment. This apartment is about the size of your living room. This apartment used to be a house, but now, by putting locks on my door and a few new walls, and a kitchen, it is a freestanding apartment. The house, even before it was an apartment was old. Now my apartment is really old. Like before we all were born, old. If you have ever lived in an old house, you know that if you are in the back of the house, on the bottom floor, you can hear people whispering in the front of the house on the second floor. Kind of like an IMAX. Except they don't show movies in my apartment. But I can hear my neighbors. I sing along to their music, laugh with their jokes, and quote movies as they are watching them. I know when they leave for work each morning, and usually this is the noise that tells me it's about time to wake up. This is not that bad sometimes, unless 1. I'm trying to sleep, and it's 2 in the morning, 2. they are trying to have "private time". 3. I want to sleep and it's 12 in the afternoon. Also, they smoke, and I swear, I can't make this up, but the smoke comes through the walls along with the sound waves.

And the opposite is true.

I'm sure they get annoyed when I listen to NPR on Saturday or Sunday morning. I'm sure there are times when maybe they want to sleep, and I am watching a riveting movie, and of course, I never really have any "private time."

Which is interesting to me. The idea of privacy.

I really like the people that I rent from. The woman that owns the house lives on the bottom floor, and her daughter, who really takes care of everything lives in the other apartment on the bottom floor. They are very very kind. They brought me soup when I was sick, and they keep an eye out on my comings and goings. But one day I got a little annoyed at something that the daughter said to me, and I came up to my apartment and said something about it to a friend that was there with me, when I realized that my windows were open...which means that people on the porch hear everything I say. I speak in a normal voice, and it's like I'm sitting on the porch with them.

So when is my life private? When I know that people can hear everything that I'm saying, is there any place that becomes sacred to utter words spoken only into the silence? When there is no silence.

I think this is also interesting in light of the fact that I have an obsessive tendency to become engrossed in reality television. These are people that have CHOSEN to give up all privacy for the sake of what? The chance of money? Fame? A good time?

Have I chosen, in some way, to give up my solitude? What does that even mean? Does the concept of true community exclude the idea of true privacy?

No answers, just some thoughts from someone that was woken up, once again, to the sound of heavy boots descending the stairs this morning.