On the Edge

There is a grand view as we sit on the edge of this wall. There is no fear of falling although the ground is so far away we can not see it. A misty sunset is on the horizon, but never seems to fade. Forests and mountains, hills, fields and rivers are between us and the sun. We absent mindedly kick our heels against the wall. The dirt falls from our shoes down into the clouds. There is no where to go, so we just breathe.

"I have been hopeless for years, it is nice of you to join me."

I try to muster up some reason why there is hope, but I am too tired and just sigh. Behind us there is giant lake, its a resovoir really. The world is beyond that and we are scared to look. Too tired of trying to live faithfully in that decaying place, I do not turn around, I just breath in this amazing view. I am so tired, I am crying.

Its a wierd place to relax, the edge of dam, but there doesnt seem to be much else, and like i said, i am too exhausted to speak, let alone move.

With some effort, I invite Jesus here to be with us. But the world shakes and shudders, the waters ripple. He is too big to sit here. He is everywhere. But he makes himself small for me and sits down on the edge of the resvoir with us. He too breathes in and out, taking in the impossible view. I am surprised that Jesus can just relax with us too.

I am no longer afraid to turn around. I look at the resevoir and realize its tears. The resevoir is so large I can not see to the other side. It is so deep it seems to be as endless as the sky.

I wonder for a moment if these are my tears. If i will have to cry them all. My eyes are already puffy and sore from crying, from trying. But they are my tears. My tears for the lost and the forgotten. For the bodies in Baghdad that are piling up in the morgues and only are a sentence in the LA Times. They are for the homeless men desperatley panhandling for their next high, or their next meal who no one listens to or even looks at. They are for Carmela. They are for the US government and Global Warming. They are for my family and neighors and friends. They are for myself. A few trickle down my cheeks. I look over at Jesus and they are pouring down his face. He is given over to crying, like a heart is given to pumping blood through a body.

We continue to sit on the edge of the dam, breathing in the beauty, crying out the tears. No one says a word.

Ay Carmela

Today when i was going to blog i had many things i wanted to write about. I wanted to ponder on the word longing, or describe my desert experience, or maybe even say something about thanksgiving. But i checked my email and got one from the philippines. A 9 year old girl, the daughter of my host family got dengue fever and she didnt make it.

Ay Carmela, you were just a rascal. You would wrap your slender arms around my waist and smile up at me and anything you wanted, i would give. I couldn't resist. You came to my window the day i was sick, and the day your mother went to the hospital to give birth to your baby brother. You told me that your baby brother had died. "so handsome" your mother would describe him later. "so handsome." Now you are there with him and I can not imagine your mother's pain. Ay Carmela. You loved to draw. You drew volcanoes and Jolly Bee and wrote your name in large little-girl handwriting across the page.

And this I remember is one reason why poverty sucks. When you have to raise your family in a shanty house across the path from a mucky river, with inadequate health care, lack of nutritious food, the little ones can die. Life is so meshed with death.

I brought your picture to my family's thanksgiving. On the table I put the one of you smiling up at the camera when we were all making nga pamaypay (fans) from construction paper. I want to honor you. Little rascal girl.

I am thankful for life. Sometimes when i am in downtown eating lunch and i see all the breathing bodies in their business suits eating panda express, or walking hurriedly to the next meeting, i wonder if we realize what a mystery, what a gift each breath is as we breathe it into our lungs, it oxygenates our blood stream, our heart beats and we are alive.

Ay Carmela, i don't want you to be just a reminder to me of why poverty sucks, and why we need to fight to eradicate the unjust systems that keep the poor poor and the rich rich. I don't want you to be just a reminder that life is precious and i need to be thankful even for the car ride home from thanksgiving dinner with my grandma, aunt and sister and brother, where we got lost and everyone was backseat driving. "We are heading west so we need to make a left." "No were not we need to make a right." "Okay if thats what you want to do, go in the wrong direction." etc.

I bought you and your sisters hair ties with bobbles on the ends the other day, which i meant to send via some friend traveling to your 'hood. but i forgot to give the present to them. And now they are sitting in a brown paper bag on my desk at home. Now i dont know what to do with them. They once seemed like such a good gift. Now they seem like plastic and rubber bands.

Ay, Carmela...

I love you...

the discipline of jazz and celebration.

yesterday i had much to do, as i drove to the gym before getting my blood drawn, before going to work, before going to reading buddy time, before going a party for a friend, i turned on the 88.1 k-Jazz, leaned back into my seat and listened to the da-da pause snap, da-da pause snap of the song. Even if there is wiley saxophone or trumpet singing trills and frills, the back bone of the song aint rushing to get any where. Its steady, relaxed and assured it will arrive on time. So i breathed that in, past the graffiti, construction, LA drivers, movie filmings, lane changes, pushing past the thoughts of worry and being overwhelmed.

My head was hurting like a hang-over. OD'd on tears the night before. Sometimes, you just got to do that. I accepted the headache as reminder that healing hurts, and listened to that beat da-da pause snap, da-da pause snap. I wont have every lessoned learned yet, but da-da pause snap, I dont need to.

At work, I do paperwork. There are forms for this, and forms for that. But when you fill out this on a form for that, its all useless... da-da pause snap... so i will start again tomorrow...

Driving to reading buddies, i prayed, da-da pause snap, for the little girl that made me cry last time, pure frustration, 9 years old and can not read, and can not add 10 + 1. Oh, Lord, give me patience, Oh, Lord give me love. da-da pause snap. I pictured us reading, recline in the palm of his hand, da-da pause snap.

Da-da pause snap, the party's starting time came and went, before we arrived. Strolling around the finger-foods table we made conversation, da-da...pause we prayed and praised God for the good work he is doing,

SNAP

The DJ gave the cue, and it was no longer time for the laid back beat of jazz, it was time for the hip hop, shake that groove thang, dance and celebrate beat.

BTW... I got my first rejection letter

from Zyzzyva. But it was pretty gracious and i don't feel that sadish. But the same day i also lost the costume contest at work. and then i felt a little saddish. But not really cuz i looked hot. (j/k) :) hehehe (I am the one on the right)

Daylight ... Savings

The time change has occured. It is now time to turn on your headlights when you leave work at 5pm. Yet something in the air seems fresher. As a friend said to me, 'it reminds me that time is passing, things are seasonal, there will be change.'

Change is hopeful news when you hear gunshots on your street on halloween, when your job sucks the life out of you, when your constantly reminded of your brokenness and you long for the fruit of the spirit.

A group of us were studying Acts Ch. 9. Besides the sensational stories of the work of the holy spirit, i was struck by the language of the chapter. Metaphors employed.

Saul is described as "breathing" threats. Breathing is such a rich word. It reflects intimacy of the threats, his involvment, and constancy. His closeness to the people being threatened, and the fear it invoked.

When Jesus blinds him with a flash of light from the heavens and turns Saul childlike (on the ground, led by the hand, unable to see) he is described: His eyes were open, but he could see nothing. This is literally true. He was phsyically incapable of seeing the matieral world around him. It is also spiritually true. Saul was a Pharisee, a man of God, deeply religious, yet he was blind to the reality of Jesus, so he killed and imprisoned the people who could see Jesus, the Messiah, Son of God.

Until he met Jesus on that road to Damascus.

I love layers, multiple layers, and language when it is not used lazily. When it is pushed to the maximum weight it can bare, and still have integrity. I love when you can read and re-read soemthing and be unable to put to words all that it means to you.

With the time change, I see new metaphors. In the darkness, each headlight, streetlight, light shining from a window is a metaphor: light piercing the darkness, light used to pursue clear vision, "let there be light" declares the University of California. In the darkness, I appreciate the light.

I am seeing new darkness: violence on the streets, terror in the slums of manila, jealousy, fear, evil lurking in my heart, and therefore I appreciate the light, the light of the holy spirit who is committed to me in all the seasons, the breathable lightness of being forgiven and of forgiving.

Mmmm I want more fo that light.