mundane

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"Throughout these forty days Jesus fasted from food so that he could all the more fully enter the divine feast. Then...God allowed the evil One to come to him with three great temptations...they were temptations for Jesus to access for his own use the three most prominent social institutions of the day -- economic, religious, political [turn stones into bread, leap from the temple and be caught by angels, and lord over all the kingdoms].

...but Jesus knew that domination and force were not God's ways. He rejected coercive structures because he intended to demonstrate a new kind of power, a new way of ruling. Serving, suffering, dying -- these were Jesus' messianic forms of power.

In those forty days in the wilderness Jesus rejected the popular Jewish hope for a Messiah who would feed the poor, bask in miraculous heavenly approval, and shuck off oppressive nations. And he undercut the leverage of the three great social institutions of his day (and of ours) - exploitative economics, manipulative religion, and coercive politics." Streams of Living Water, Richard J. Foster p.6-7

"wisdom as a charism of the Holy Spirit is far more than knowledge or information, more even than truth; it is truth applied to the heart and the mind in such a living way that the person is transformed" p.9

"we must recognize that the majority of Jesus' life - and of ours - is found in our families and homes, in our work and play, among our neighbors and in our everyday surroundings. This tangible world is the place we most fully experience the outflow of love, joy, peace, and all the fruit of the Spirit. Here and nowhere else. It was true for Jesus; it is true for us." p.21

i include the first two excerpts just for record keeping sake but want to address the last quotation. this summer i have been feeling, as i usually do during the summers, dry, purposeless, empty, dead. when i write, i write impulsively upon emotional waves and find that the act of writing feeds my soul as well. life circumstances will trigger my thought processes and my heart quickly follows as it connects long thematic arches and attributes it to God's work. but when life slows down, my heart, ill-adjusted to this speed, atrophies as its vision of life's grand meanings becomes frustratingly veiled.

so in light of the tone of my past two posts, i find that this summer is not a bad summer at all. god has placed me squarely in the midst of the social justice community in sd; i have found a new friend in jesús m.; i get to see my favorite people every weekend; i get paid; jackie is with me so that i'm not alone in the evenings.

things that give me life this summer: caring for people, thinking about the asian american church, meeting with trish and being rejuvenated by the kindred dreams i have in her, reading from nouwen and foster and lewis, sleeping, eating well, my new makana candle

swept, dazed

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i don't really know what i'm doing. after my quarter ended, and after three weeks of sleeping at home and hanging out with someone every day of the week, i came back to san diego to start my internship with CPI's SEJ program in mid-city. i had one week of training, a three day independence day weekend (highlights include playing with cats, munchkins, lbp, hiking in killer heat, going to la), and this week i started at my assigned site, ICWJ in north park. the past two weeks i have missed freeway exits at least once a day because freeways in sd are convoluted and patchily built. i hate sd freeways. today i helped load boxes into the truck for the refugees and none of the staff stopped to ask my name.

after getting home i eat dinner, feel lonely, chat online, go to bed. i spend a lot of energy listening with my heart and asking god to show me the hearts of my coworkers; he gives me insight with which i know not what to do but pray throughout the day in the cage (haven?) of my mind. i want to make heart connections but it feels out of reach because from what i gather from the spiritual climate, they don't seem to be very aware of the depths of their heart to be able to share. and to the extent that they are aware, they stash it away from the workplace. is it okay that the work i want to always do is heart work? i miss the women in tenderloin. i feel far removed from anything that gives me life.

e said that god has given this internship to me because he loves me and knows what i need - and i suppose that is to be in san diego, to be in the midst of social justice work, to be in the midst of people who have yet to know jesus, to have physical separation and emotional room to think and be silent. but in the midst of it i am more aware of my heart's longing for substantial human connection; i miss the company of those who nourish me, even if i see them on the weekends.

will you ask me what i've been learning? will you hold the things on my heart with me, because sometimes they're too heavy by myself? do you see me? are these not near fundamental human cries that we as humans have sometimes? do you hear these cries in the everyday interactions of those around you?

i feel like that moment of disorienting unfocus as i frantically try to focus my camera lens and fumble with inexperienced hands. give me the eyes to see that which i cannot by nature.

sidenotes;

sometimes i feel like an insane person