grape on a vine.

pajama pants and biscuits. [drinking from the same cup]

the day is set right with a little Rosie Thomas and Ani DeFranco.
it's a good day off, spent resting with my wife - watching movie trailers, drinking strong pressed coffee - eating not the best of breakfast foods, but necessary for our lazy sunday.

pajama pants and biscuits.
cold and rainy outside, but it's okay today. It's okay to be inside and not feel guilty for wasting a day...of course I would never call it a day wasted, but a day rested, indeed.

I like to catch up on writing things - or at least reading things, which bring me to write things. I'm not sure why it happens that way, but it does and I can't complain.
In finishing "Reconciling All Things", by Chris Rice and Emmanuel Katongole, I imagine a life of drinking from the same cup.

It's a great reminder of real reconciliation - of not just drinking from the cup of our own redistribution and injustice, but drinking of the same cup with those you build community with...

When two enemies drink from the same cup, real reconciliation begins. Drinking from the cup is intimate and is necessary - it's close. It's something I'm learning to do in the midst of cultural indifference.
Love requires much more -- especially when living in the city tends to harden your skin.
Real life takes place in the mundane, everyday interactions, I'm reminded.

It involves me, living in a community for thirty years and then understanding what needs have yet to be met.
But, I don't want that - I want to change something quick.
I want to shake a hand and smile and give someone a ride and believe that racial inequality just met its match - but it's deeper than that.
It's giving people a ride for decades at a time -- putting up with their dog pooping in your yard, even when they know it's their job to pick it up.

It's finding grace and patience - not something I can really fix in a few months, or even a few years.

I'm learning that, well, I have a lot to learn.

But today, we'll rest and debate going out - only to realize that our sabbath lies within the hearts of each other and our communion with God

and also, in pajama pants and biscuits.

"I'll eat you up, I love you so!"

I'll be honest and say I've never read, "Where the Wild Things Are".
I may have actually...a long time ago, but I don't remember it.

I watched it tonight and half way through I whispered to Hannah in a half smile, "...this is weird." As to which no surprise Hannah responded, "Yeah, I love it!"

It was weird, but I really liked it too...well, eventually.
Once I got past all of the sadness and confusion and anger of everything, it all came together.
Well, at least after I talked about it for a bit.
I was left feeling like I had watched something meaningful, but I didn't know what.

This was a book that captured the imaginations of my generation seeing as it was published in 1988.
Kids who loved it then are now presented with a piece of art by Spike Jonze, who's an overall super rad cat.
Unfortunately, I can't seem to find a way to relate the movie in a way a child could understand, especially seeing how it took me a few minutes to realize how powerful the characters were.
So, this movie was made for us - for the kids who grew up with this story and the parents and teachers who read it to us when we didn't know how to read.

I enjoy movies that present different characters as metaphors of the main protagonist.
Of course, it took me a while to recognize this, and when I did, it all hit me.

It's a story about growing up - and it's about being angry and misunderstood and frustrated.
It reminds me that sometimes, parents need their kids to mature quicker than they want to.
For financial reasons...for family reasons...it happens.

It reminds me that...sadness always tends to accompany our growing spaces.
We move on...from one season to another and parts of ourselves are angry at that.

Sometimes, Christmas doesn't feel the same as it did when you were 8 years old - but now, you enjoy the simple kindness of the spirit - well, at least I do. You enjoy the more grown up things - eating breakfast - laughing with family - watching the same TBS special that always comes on...ya know, the usual.

But I come back to that sadness - because it's an important tone in this movie and beyond that, it's not something the wild things hide. Each character represents Max and not all of them are friendly and cute. Some are quiet and some ooze with melancholy. Some are angry and some have the grace and kindness only a mother understands.

I walked away with something beautiful...but haunting. A story about growing pains and dirt ball fights...and holes in trees.

It captures the sacred beauty of growing - the hurt, the hilarity and sometimes, the overwhelming sadness.
But it all ends with a thankful and loving embrace -- that there is a gift in pain, for what it's worth and that it's okay...

..it's okay to howl every now and again...

lost love.

I lost a lotta love when I started to care for our LGBT brothers and sisters.

It was fine to talk about injustice and poverty and oppression, but apparently, I hit the "don't wanna talk about it" button hard.
It is an issue we JUST DON'T WANT TO TALK ABOUT. But I need to...
And I'm not saying these things to bring up old issues...or to get more comments...but this has been in my heart for a long time coming.

I had someone tell me that they were sorry and that I wasn't who they thought I was. Personally, these people had never known who I really was. Unfortunately, Facebook and the online world isn't real life. I hope this isn't damaging to the future of relationships. :/
Real people have real flesh on them. Not profile pictures.

Sure, they had seen me go to India and Chicago and write about suffering and injustice. It was okay to bring up these issues, as long as I kept away from those other moral issues...the ones that force us to become uncomfortable and hard.

I received personal notes from friends telling me how hard it is to be themselves with their parents. They fear being pushed away - they fear they won't be able to be loved as much as they used to be. With these words, I hurt so badly.
I pray to be a generation that brings change - to offer hope after freedom from oppression and to offer our friends who are poor, the hope of a good God and a future of dignity.

But I've lost some love...in the mix there. I've lost respect -- I've lost words of support because I've chosen to love on the ones who feel oppressed in my generation and generations before me.
I have family members that want to "sit me down for five minutes and talk" - which honestly, scares the living daylights out of me.
To tell me I'm wrong? To tell me they know what truth is? I've already been backed into a corner with scripture and I still can't help but to wander.

I come back to this, because there's something inherently wrong with this pompous spirituality.
Jesus came for the sick and marginalized.
He referred to the brood of vipers, not as the homeless, untouchables, or the culturally unaccepted - but to the church folk! (But this is up for interpretation - like all scripture has been over the past 2000 years -over and over and over and over again.)

I've been called a heretic for saying the poor will inherit the kingdom of God - or that God's love covers all sin.

In the words of one of my favorite people.. "A good default is to love people, man..."
And in the words of sister Leah, "The world just needs good people." The world just needs good people to love on others. You don't have to be part of a nonprofit to do good...

But you know, this is just my journey. Five years ago, I would have thought I was ridiculous for believing what I believe now. Oh, what grace I've learned.
It is life and it is in these experiences that I have been pushed to dive in further to this Great Mystery.
It has taken me standing in front of angry homeless crack addicts, to the dying and destitute...to the trafficked and oppressed women made in the image of God...to the love between two human beings - such humanity has brought me into this mystery - and it has cost me...

Tears and anger and misunderstanding.
I am sorry I'm not who you thought I was - I'm not sorry, however, for believing in a love greater than my own understanding of the word.

"Revolution is not something fixed in ideology, nor is it something fashioned to a particular decade. It is a perpetual process embedded in the human spirit."
-Abbie Hoffman

what the trees teach me.

I've never lived in a place that changes colors like Oregon.
I've never seen trees seemingly burst into flames, showing off their fiery orange pigment.

I truly believe they're showing off for us - telling us that they're something special, and dear friends, they are.
The seasons come, the winds cool and night chills those branches.
I don't want these leaves to go just yet.
"Just stay a little while longer.." I'd say.

But they do - and they do so in such a beautiful fashion.
I watch my wife try to catch them as they fall in a quick breeze and I notice the wonder of such an auspicious occasion.
We are witnessing life at one of its most pivotal moments.

As my friend Clint [Who he and his wife married me and Hannah] said, "We're not so good at doing death..."
And by we're, I assumed he meant the U.S. culture.
I think for the most part, he was right.

We get afraid - at least, a lot of us are. I do, on the occasion.
We move and change from season to season...but we're still here...we're still alive.

I remember my mom had a book she used to give to the children of those patients who were in her hospice program. It was a book designed to help the younger [and older] family members with the passing of their dear ones.
It was a book about leaves.
It was a book about how these leaves change in different seasons.
First the leaves grow from young sprouts and bud into beautiful green sleeves.
As winter comes -- they gain a beautiful orange, yellow and brown.
And as the leaves fall to the grown, they become part of something much bigger.

So as I'm watching these trees...I see life...and I see life coming near its end. Those leaves that once sheltered birds and creatures from a hot sun are slowly falling to the earth where they will become part of the greater mystery.

I wish we were better at death.
The trees are teaching me to be better at life.

And perhaps when my season comes, I will further recognize the Great Mystery as I become eternally reconciled to its Creator.

I'm thankful for the bright yellow and orange that paints our streets.
I'm thankful for those details - the veins in each tiny leaf that give us air.
...for the shade
...for the beauty
...for the imagination
...for the understanding of seasons

for life.
thankyou.

For what the trees teach me will come around every year.
And when that time comes..

..my eyes will be open upon their wonder.

a convicted proclamation [an affirming adoration.]

I sat in front of my bosses - the owners of a cafe in Portland.
Both women and both proud lesbians.

Thoughts stream through my mind as I try to find reason to disagree with their love.

They're telling me that they are giving me a manager position because the cafe would fail unless they were both willing to take full time jobs.
One of the owners is from Finland - the other...a Portland citizen (albeit, sometimes hard to find.)
They had been long distance upon my fresh employment at their cafe - They have known each other since high school and they are well beyond the angst of that time.
Getting to know them has brought me to a conclusion that a lot of people don't want to hear me say.

They are.... absolutely in love.
Our owner from Finland made the decision to move back across the other side of the world, so we could all have our jobs.

I watched, as the owners sat across from each other and wept...apologizing for their appearance...I shook my head, "No...I'm so...sorry."
It was making me tear up.
I know the pain of long distance - of the one you're going to spend your life with.
Another year apart, they said, but that "we...were worth it".
They didn't want to see us homeless.

I grew up with the idea that the GLBT community wore nothing but leather chaps and the whole reason of their existence was a case mistaken identity - selfish, rude, sinful, confused...you know those words.

Their relationships were perverted...wrong...disrespectful...collapsing our moral fiber...
I would call my friends, "Fags..."
I would call a situation, "Gay.."

For what??? What makes a situation gay?
If it's dumb?
If it's out of place?
If it's ignorant?
I'm ignorant.

Oh, such a deep hidden wound.

We....so proud of ourselves for oppressing an entire community of humanity.
There is an internal shift...
A river...flowing into my heart.

I sat with God today.

I asked Her why my heart hurt for my owners - whether I was wrong to feel empathy for their love - for their sacrifice for people they don't even know that well.

I told God that I was going to have a lot of His followers speak down to me and tell me I'm flat out wrong for fully loving His Beloved.
I knew what I had been taught - to love them, but hate what they do.

the word, "they" furthering myself even more...
I'm awfully sick of it.
The politics...the guidelines...the FEAR!

More importantly...disagreeing with family. Friends.
Not becoming angry...but disagreeing.
We...well, at least I try to assume that it's okay to disagree as long as we disagree well with one another.

I crave love...and affirmation from my family - but I can assume that I will get no affirming words or thoughts..and..I can be okay with that.
I will see these people throughout my life, and they will be silent until I write or say something that they can say back...from a distance. I humbly speak, though I know my words won't make it past a few OT scriptures and a literal context of a few of Paul's lines. {though folks have read his words and walked away oppressing African Americans..Jews..and the subordination of women..}

I can't be afraid to write - whether or not it agrees with the reader.
I can't be afraid to say what my heart witnesses.
I ran away from this - because I believed it was hurting my relationships, but I have gained more love and admiration for simply loving others enough to see my heart.

You can tell me what the Bible says about homosexuality, and I can tell you that the bible says in Deuteronomy 22 that if you're fiancee is not a virgin upon marriage, she should be put to death.

And then, you have these couple of verses in Romans 1 that say, "Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural relations for unnatural ones. In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed indecent acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their perversion."

I ask you though, if a person can get past this..?
If not, our conversation ends here and I'm absolutely sorry for wasting your time. [By the way, I'm not trying to convince you - we all have the freedom to believe what we want.]

If we're talking context - take into consideration what many scholars believe that Paul is talking about homosexual rape - an act which took place quite often among Roman soldiers and young men - that's unnatural. I feel that any relationship that naturally hurts another emotionally and sexually, is unnatural. This means...it's not healthy.
But does it talk about long term homogeny? The same partners for life?

{"Many scholars..." sounds awfully vague eh? Well, look it up. Read about it. You don't have to agree - but open your mind to the world outside, after all, we are made in the image of God} Or maybe some reading this don't believe in God or have been hurt by God's followers...regardless, you are welcome in this conversation and know that my love for God has come out of a personal journey of faith...with nurturing family and friends.
{And love...oh yes, love... of the Beloved, the hurting, the oppressed, the dying, the destitute..}

But back to what I was saying before...
It seems when we see two same-sex partners...we imagine sex - we imagine how gross and wrong it is for them to be doing that to each other.
But friends, have we seen what heterosexual couples do to each other?? Please, go elsewhere with the thoughts you have about heterosexual couples being pure and healthy.
I've seen some damaging things - we're all guilty of unnatural sexuality.
We're all guilty of unhealthy persuasions.

If you're not, then sorry again for wasting your time.
After all, it was a family member that showed me what pornography was - how it was okay and how it should have been normal for men to like looking at naked women.

It was in your home where my eyes became haunted with these pictures.
You don't talk about this being wrong...do you?
You don't hear me talking about how it fucked up the relationships with people I love and who love me...?

You don't care about the extended adolescence of men who sit behind their computers and masturbate or fantasize about underage girls forced into some sexual predicament?

What matters more to you, dear brothers and sisters...?

I'm not oblivious to what I have said here. I know it doesn't settle well with many people..but that's the risk I take in feeling alive.

People are precious gifts in this world.
Once we start seeing that our brokenness lies in each other - then perhaps we will all start placing our hands on the wounds.

I'm so sorry.
I can't be silent.
I saw their love....


...and it moved me in ways hate could never touch.

hiatus - a pause

I've been struggling with this a lot lately.
My writing has helped me beyond any medium of processing life and I feel as though I am coming to a halt.

I'm not sure if my writing matches my actions.

I have a hard time writing these days on injustice, reconciliation, and my relationship with the Beloved - I'm not sure if I deserve to write on such precious and delicate things without living a life centered around such issues.

I'm beginning my season of managing a coffeeshop in portland - and will be busy a lot of the time making sure all is well in the transition..
I struggle because the clients and security in our area would more than likely turn their noses up at the poor and here I am - claiming to have a heart for these dear ones that get shoved away from the area where I work.
But then again, maybe it is a season for a different kind of reconciliation.

Regardless, I'm feeling upon my soul a hiatus - to work on my writing more privately and perhaps seen less hypocritically.
I don't feel folks read much of my messy ramblings anymore anyways, so I'm sure I'm just tootin' my own horn for the sake of an audience.

It's always a pleasure to get feedback - and I'm afraid has put me in some difficult places with some family and friends who used to enjoy and share my writings, now hide them and ultimately become concerned with my well-being.

So, I deeply apologize and ask for a soul moving conviction to be more intimate with my relationships.

I'm sure I'll come back soon...but for now, I don't want to offer up anymore of the same noise - the same thing people hear and never see acted out, or any actual loving being lived among the precious Beloved.

sending so much love and peace to my dear friends and family.

josh

aching reconciliation.


These things come out of a book I've been reading recently for a book group called, "Reconciling All Things" - A Christian Vision for Justice, Peace and Healing by Chris Rice and Emmanuel Katongole.

I've had a hard time reading at times, like most books. I hear something that strikes a particular chord in my heart and I have to stop and process. I'm only through with the first chapter and there is so much to say! Oh goodness.
I have a hard time with just merely processing words through reading. It does me much better to write on a certain thought. It allows me to understand it better - I'm sure there are tons of others that feel the need to do the same. I'm there with you.

Within a few pages are folks like Jean Vanier of the L'Arche Community in France and Dr. John Perkins of Mendenhall, MS. - who are such inspiring people in my life. I don't know them, I wish I did, but they inspire my life none-the-less.
Jean Vanier was a well-to-do naval officer who's own loneliness called him to create community among the mentally ill and "clinically crazy" persons that were forced into their own loneliness and separation from our society.

John Perkins has a story a little more closer to home. He was almost beat to death by a group of white cops in Mississippi and has since then founded centers for reconciliation and is a worldly sought after speaker and activist. I don't think his heart is so much in traveling than it is living among his community.
He is an example of reconciliation.
He put flesh on the word and covered it in forgiveness and compassion.
He didn't have to forgive us white folks for almost killing him -- but he did and continues to do so everyday.
He forgives the Southern Baptist congregations that wouldn't allow him in their services.

Among terms that I have fallen in love with in the past few years, "Reconciliation" is one of them. It's such a holistic word that brings about lots of heaviness, hope and personal memoir.
My story brings me to the South - in which Chris Rice, one of the authors and directors of the Duke Divinity School's Center for Reconciliation is too familiar with.

My heart finds itself on a journey back to the South.
Having the perspective of a Northwestern brotha, things catch me off guard all the time.
I learn more and more that we are a nation that needs and craves reconciliation - real...actual reconciliation.

For example, at work I made the comment that it's too hot in Mississippi for houses to have fireplaces (joking mostly, because houses in MS don't usually have fireplaces because we rarely have a good season to use them, but I know homes do have them..sheesh)
And in response, one of my co-workers says jokingly, "Yeah, if you guys want warmth you can just light a cross on fire!"
And in the rise of laughter came my smirk and I hung my head low.

Is this the image people have?
And is it sad that some folks down South and elsewhere would laugh at this joke because of their hearts are still in a place of hatred...?
yes.

Again and again I will say that I'm not pressing on any particular group of persons - because saying that for all Southerners would be a huge lie.
But this lie is lived out a lot in other areas of this country and throughout other countries in need of their own kinds of reconciliation.

That joke...about the cross on fire - hurts my heart, and I'll smirk and shake my head because I'm not looking to start a discussion every time I hear something like that...because I here it often.

And I often, just have to shake my head.
It's a bit offensive and causes a great pain in my heart.

To sum up these messy thoughts that don't necessarily flow together all the well, the authors ask,

"What and where are the patterns of life and social structures to sustain a vision of reconciliation?"

Are we willing to live these things out as a conflicted humanity?
Are we willing to mend the broken body of Christ - placing our hands in the wounds?

May our actions be peaceful in the midst of anger and frustration.

May the older and wiser generations have grace on my idealistic heart..especially when I start getting less than hopeful reactions from the generations that say we need massive weaponry and scare tactics to keep the "peace" along with our place in the world.

If so, my life will be utterly exhausting as I march the other way - promoting peace and reconciliation to a hurting humanity and the ultimate reconciliation...

..to myself.

walls.

Quietly walking to work, I notice the stillness in the world.

I see the bright and flashing glow of television sets left on in the midst of insomnia and too much caffeine or sugar, or whatever keeps people up at night.

Maybe their thoughts - Mine have from time to time.


I think of the hustle and crowds of India.
I think of the politics of land ownership and I think of the dear ones left outside of the walls. I think of its mass humanity and the people that would fill up this nice part of town that I get the pleasure, well, sometimes pleasure of working in from time to time.

I walk by a warm vent and it feels good when I scrunch up with the cold breeze - I think to myself that it would be a good place to rest if I didn’t have a warm place to go to - but I do. I have a wall that separates me from the broken pieces of the world. {Not leaving out the broken places that reside inside of homes as well…}


I was watching “City of Joy” - a movie based upon the book by Dominique Lapierre, and came across a scene in which the “overbearing” landlord explains that to us Westerners - money is just money…paper…with a face on it…but to those who live in Calcutta, it is a Wall.


And this word, Wall stuck out to me. Because…he was right. In Calcutta, rupees equal walls and those walls separate you from the street. That’s what you work for, that’s what you lie for and that’s what you steal for…that wall.

In living in that city for a mere 4 months and learning more upon my life back in the states, I cannot ever seem to wrap my mind around the mass humanity and the injustice that is sewn into the system. I don’t know if it’s the Westerner mindset that believes we can solve all problems and that we know what every culture needs to do to work.

This simple realization came to me as Sonny and I diagnosed the traffic system in India saying, “Jeez, wouldn’t be easier if they had lights and lanes??” Followed by an almost immediate reaction of, “Nah…it just works better this way. Just too many people going to too many places.”

And I’m not sure if that made sense, but that realization helped me to calm down about my Westerner urge to say all of the systems were ridiculous. ”What do I know…?” I would have to constantly question myself.


Change begins with relationship. Systematic change.

I hurt because the odds of me ever changing that kind of system are pretty slim. I think about the amount of men and corrupt officials that walk into those districts and wonder what it would take to make them see life differently. I dream about making these men and that government conscious about the damage they are inflicting on their own people and the ones that are lied to and tricked into leaving their own country.

It’s too big sometimes. I get overwhelmed and frustrated, and I don’t even live there. But it’s 2009 and these things just shouldn’t exist.

Another world is possible and our lives should be fixed on bringing Heaven to earth in those ways - of justice and freedom and dignity.
Imagine your life with none of that, and understand the reality for millions.

These walls…are bigger than I realize.