care enough to care

I'm constantly told I have to stop taking work home with me. My job as a youth leader is very emotional. And if you've ever met me, you know how emotional I can be. Sometimes I feel like I carry the weight of these kids around with me. The abuse in their homes, their doubts, their insecurities. I take it all home. I feel like I've borrowed Santa's sack to drag around sorrow behind me everywhere I go. I feel the weight of them with every step.

The natural disasters recently haven't helped with this at all. I donated money to Haiti relief and then added them to my Santa sack. I know empathy is a good thing, but there has to be a boundary, right? So I began trying the new concept of "care, but don't care TOO much". I began breathing a little easier and walking seemed a little less like trudging.

And then Chile happened.

And Pittsburgh. And Belize. And seeing homeless folks in this blizzarding weather. And orphans everywhere. And people without clean water for heavens sake!

Suffering, injustice. This is nothing new. But that doesn't mean we stop caring. That does not mean we stop responding.

I think there is a medium between the Santa sack and not caring TOO much. There has to be. I think it's decently healthy to take the weight of the world home with you. It keeps things in perspective. Like right now, I'm waiting tables at a restaurant to save money for when I get married in 3 months. When I remember the bigger picture, I don't worry as much about where I'm going to live or where Caleb and I will end up, because when it comes down to it, even below the poverty line in the United States, we are still in the richest 5% of people in the world. And it's not about being rich, anyhow. The reality is that Caleb and I will be just fine in our minimum wage jobs. When I don't care TOO much, I get frustrated when I watch shows like the OC and the Hills that my life will never be as luxurious or as comfortable as theirs. Who hasn't felt that way?

But I don't want to live comfortably. I think if you're comfortable, you're probably not responding. There is a whole world out there crying for people who can do something to stand. Move. Go. Do.

So we will. Minimum wage paycheck and all. Because people were made for people. We need each other. You were made a white American and they were made Haitians and Mexicans and Belizians on purpose. With purpose. For purpose.

For each other.

life perspective.

What do we say in the face of such specific tragedy? There are no words. What could we possibly say to ease a pain so severe that it makes one go numb?

"Rest in peace"...but what does that even mean? Are rest and peace not interdependent?

"She's with God now"...what difference does it make where she is if she's not here? We want her to be here.

"I'm sorry"...surely we're all sorry. But sorry is meaningless in tragedy complete and outside of our control. It offers nothing if it is only a word and not accompanied by action.

To imagine what her life would have been like, what causality could result in such heavy hopelessness, and what possibly could have prevented it is far too much to imagine and carry. Yet one can't help to stop at the intersection of "why?" and "what if?" So how do we respond?

Perhaps the question isn't 'what do we say?' but rather, 'how do we listen' and as a result, 'how do we respond'?

We pray. Hard.
We mourn over this visible fracture in the universe.
We mourn over their unimaginable grief.
We make ourselves intentionally available.
And we are reminded why we do what we do.

Surely, we cannot fix or ease anything. We can offer no solution to grief. That is not the intention. This should not be our response. A loss as this is much too personal and heavy for us to offer anything acceptable other than ourselves.

I have no ounce of doubt that her salvation was broken; it wasn't. For you cannot sin your way out of God's love. His sacrifice already paid for this. Surely, Jesus Himself wept over this, for she was and still is His beloved. In the midst of this tragedy, there is hope, though understandably difficult to see through the fog of grief. It's okay to see no redemption in this right now. But assuredly, it is there.

Hope remains. Healing is real.

We cannot expect any certain behavior or belief from the family. But what we can expect, and I do expect, is a response from the body of Christ. We mourn together. When one part of the body hurts, we are all affected. When one part mourns, we mourn with it. Yet somehow, we rejoice. We rejoice that now the tears she cries are only from blissful and uncontainable joy.

I bet she's dancing.

chasing the wind

I am beginning to believe Solomon in Ecclesiastes when he cried, "Meaningless! Meaningless! All is meaningless!" [read in context of the whole book]

When I first started studying the Wisdom Literature a year and a half ago in college, I didn't understand it. (Ha, still don't.) I couldn't even comprehend what the word "wisdom" meant. I read the Scriptures discussing 'lady wisdom' and the like, but that didn't help me at all.

What if I look around the world and think no one is wise? Everything looks pretty messed up to me. Now where do I find wisdom?

There is a confusion that must be addressed. There is a difference between wisdom and good advice. Wisdom is constant while good advice is subjective. Good advice is dependent on the situation. Wisdom is not.

There really is nothing new under the sun. We're never satisfied. Nothing will ever be enough. We chase the wind in circles thinking it will lead us to castles in the sky when really we only might end up finding castles in the sand. And we're not even back where we started. We're somewhere further with tear-stained cheeks, scraped knees, and dirty hands.

But I don't always think it's bad to get dirty. You have to get messy or you'll never learn. By no means am I condoning recklessness, but sometimes you have to chase the wind.

Sometimes, it takes chasing the wind to realize that all the while, He was chasing after you.

coffee and cosmos

I am beginning to enjoy library coffee.

If you don't go to Waynesburg, then you don't understand why this is revolutionary. The coffee in the library, while it's free, is disgusting. It's always old from sitting on the warmer all day and has a burnt aftertaste.

A burnt whole-time-your-drinking-taste really.

But there's something about a certain familiarity when you've been gone from a place for so long that sparks appreciation. And then goodness. And then longing.

When I was in Australia, I wanted library coffee. With one powdered creamer and one sweet-n-low in a white styrofoam cup that I'd complain were killing the environment. I don't even like sweet-n-low. And now as I sit here and drink it, I yearn to wander the streets of Petersham until I find my way to the city. An excuse to mindlessly listen to 40 minutes of my ipod on the Inner West Line train until I get to downtown Sydney. Now, I walk on High Street in Waynesburg and long to see the Harbour Bridge in full view as I get off the train at Circular Quay and make my way through the crowd. I always take the stairs on the left. Once my transit pass clears at the turnabout, I turn right.

There, I find coffee. Familiarity, once again. Deep breath. A home in exile for which I sing my hallelujahs when it's existence is revealed. I sit and read C.S. Lewis and drink skinny caps for 3.50AUD a piece. Consistency. Finally. Everything is peaceful. While the chaos within me rang loud like a bell on a steeple, I sipped slowly, ignoring the time. Disorder somehow fit into order. Like human structure was woven this way so we could survive. Like someone knew.

Cosmos.

Coffee.

But what is it that I truly long for? God would be too easy of an answer.

when it snows

A blizzard hit today. And not in my spiritual life.

I've never seen this much snow before. Apparently, Western PA hasn't seen snow like this since the blizzard of 1993, which I vaguely remember. I was living in West Virginia at the time and I stayed in my pajamas all day. Mom said we couldn't leave the house.

I just finished digging out my car with literally feet of snow on top of and around it with my fiance and roommates. Work feels like play in the snow - especially with people you love. I have to be at work tomorrow at 8am, which means I'll probably need to leave here around 7am to ensure I'm not late. My mornings seem to get earlier and earlier the older I get. And I'm okay with it. But I'll blog about my recognition and accepting of adulthood later.

I always think of God when it snows (you knew this was coming). But not in a cheesy way. I never think of God's presence in a visible or really tangible way. I always think of it as some sparkly feeling you get behind your collar bone.

And then it snows.

And I'm surrounded by thousands upon thousands of crystallized molecules; each hand-crafted by the Maker of the universe. It falls gently around me, and I don't fear. I can't hear it, except when I listen really, really carefully. And even then, it identifies no distinct sound. Just a hum. Or a murmur. Or just a sound I hear from faith that the pieces plummeting from miles high will eventually land. And when it does it joins the rest in a sparkling uniform of glory. Like the sky in the Outback.

I always think it's going to be dark outside when it snows. But it never is. It's always bright. And calm. Serene. And I wonder why I didn't venture outside earlier.

And while it has the potential to become like it is today and was in 1993,

I'm at peace.