To The Ones Who Need to Read This But Won't

Like the clouds over head bursting with rainfall there is a heaviness in St. Louis that is palpable. And like the very wind that rattles my windows and seemingly sways the very foundation my house is set on, so has the crisis that has risen here do to us. Something pushes at the very panes of our windows threatening to break in and there are varied responses. Some of these responses I've not been surprised by, others have shocked and appalled me as they have come from the very community that is to be the picture of reconciliation for world to emulate, The Church, and yet there is such hatred, such fear, and such refusal to listen for understanding.

Romans 12:17-21
"Repay NO ONE evil for evil, but give thought to do what is HONORABLE in the sight of all. If possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all. Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God, for it is written, "Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord." To the contrary, "if your enemy is hungry feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink; for by doing so you will heap burning coals on his head." Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good."

Some of you have forgotten what your position is to be in the face of real conflict, when faced with turmoil that is larger than your individual life. Some of you never knew because you've been consumed with only the needs of your own lives and refused to see the needs around you. Some of you have kept an arms length or a 100 mile radius from St. Louis in fear literally terrified to come to this city, terrified to drive through neighborhoods for fear that you may be attacked. What happened to your belief of "Do not fear for I am with you". The same verse you post around your home to "encourage your heart" loses it's power when placed against situations that are larger than you. May your foundation be shaken. May this crisis break every window pane you perceive the world through and may you actually find power in the words of God, who didn't say don't fear for ONLY the small individualistic problems we face but also for the larger scale ones that  we face as a community. You don't get to hide in fear here. He has given your heart courage. Do not back down in fear. Rather, walk into the very places you fear the most and do good.

Some of you seem to believe you can only support Wilson, because doing anything else would be unchristian. You are mistaken. The situation is complex because the 2 people involved were sinners. Is it possible that there was fault in both people? Is it possible that both Wilson and Brown made mistakes that day? Isn't that a more natural, logical conclusion. Instead of believing one person did EVERYTHING wrong. In your relationship with people when there is conflict isn't it true that there was often wrong done on both sides? So to simply only support Wilson, because he's a white authority figure that surely had to be doing everything right is ludicrous and exposes your beliefs about wrongness and rightness solely based on color and position of authority. I'm sorry, but if you're human you were born into sin and NO man is above it unless of course He's Jesus.... which I'm going to go ahead and tell you, he's not. So the ability to sin is available to all; white men in authority and disenfranchised black men both have the ability to sin equally. So may your walls and windows of pretense and judgement come crumbling down with the winds blowing through St. Louis. May God rattle you so that you may see the humanity and glory in each person that roams this earth.

And there are some of you, who sit in your ivory tower casting judgement on the protesters, the voice of this battle. You, in jest or in all seriousness, make snide remarks or in fear of making them yourself, "like" others remarks about the protesters and their need to find a job. You irritate me the most. You, clearly, have no understanding the bigger underlying issues the death of Mike Brown has brought out for the minority community. You have scrolled over the countless articles and status updates that address some of these issues without reading a word but have lingered and gawked at every picture of people midday protesting and developed your own thoughts on the joblessness of these people. Get over yourself. Were this a young man needlessly killed in your community by someone you trusted and looked to as a person of safety wouldn't you be up in arms too. If day after day you went seeking answers and yet got none. Wouldn't you make certain sacrifices until justice prevailed. Or do you care so little about the needs and welfare of others that you wouldn't be phased? I mean, what is the point of an ivory tower if not but to keep you tucked away from the needs of others. May your ivory tower crumble beneath your very feet and may you be found lacking and destitute so that you would actually turn to the compassion of Jesus and that through the very compassion you find in Him you would extend compassion to others.

To quote a song by Rend Collective "We are your church, we are the hope on earth." The song is called Build Your Kingdom Here. You know what it requires to build something new? It requires rattling and shaking the old systems to completely demolish them. Some of us have been living and thinking under old systems. God has come to build a new Kingdom. And it's not a white suburban kingdom and a black city kingdom and Chinese or Latino kingdoms. We ALL from every socioeconomic background, race, tribe, and nation will be established under the same Kingdom. It often seems the white community I know is more receptive to the idea of God's Kingdom being filled with white Americans and every other nation in the rest of the world. Let me tell you, dear white people, the very people you defame now struggling to have their voices heard in Ferguson are the ones that will be standing beside you in the Kingdom of God. Yeah, that's right, some of the very people you so despise and look down on are your own. I'll let you wrestle with that one for a bit.    

We are His church. We are the hope on earth.

There's No Sense In Apologies

Let's skip the apologies this time ok?

It's been 14 months since I last wrote here and in 14 months life happens. In 14 minutes life happens and there's no need to apologize for life and its happenings regardless of the amount of time that's passed.

Life happens and the next thing you know its been 14 months and your heart and hands are burdened with messages that need to be released in a world of white space and tiny scribblings. 

So here we are, with no apologies and endless amounts of white space left. It can be overwhelming....the white space and being unapologetic. Maybe more so the being unapologetic. I apologize for everything. Like EVERYTHING. I run into a table, I apologize to the table. I run to an elevator door closing, I apologize to those who held it open. I startle at someone walking into the same entrance as me and I apologize. I find I can be a walking apology. And I'm just kind of over it. As a side note you know what I never got "under" but am so over (see what I did there :)   )? #sorryiamnotsorry   SO. OVER. IT. You just apologized for being unapologetic! It's like people saying " You can't have your cake and eat it too." What the ***? Oh yes I can! What's the point of having a cake but not eating it? Someone riddle me that. Sorry I'm not sorry??? GAH!

Now I'm not saying there is never a time to apologize. When you're in the wrong, absolutely apologize. I mean I didn't buy that etiquette book years ago and learn nothing from it! I am saying though, that when I find myself  in a place where I'm apologizing to inanimate objects I also find myself apologizing for things that are outside of my control or that warrant no apology.

I can find myself internalizing the thoughts of; I'm sorry my skin color has made you uncomfortable, I'm sorry my grammar baffled you, I'm sorry my femininity made you question your masculinity, I'm sorry my body made you self-conscious of your own, I'm sorry my personality has made you feel inadequate. I'm sorry I am me, a voluptuous, educated, confident, brown skinned woman. And not in the humble-brag kind of way, but a legit apology for these things which make up... me. 

Well I am SO over that bull! I'm starting the I'm sorry I was ever sorry for that stuff I never had any reason to be sorry about movement! #isiwesftsinhartbsam

Over the course of the past 2 months I have encountered a plethora of white people apologizing for their whiteness and black people admitting their sense of apology for their blackness in a white dominant culture. Let's skip the apologies this time ok? They're not needed. Not for the color of your skin. Not for the upbringing you had. Your apologies aren't needed. The color of your skin, from the lightest to the darkest hue does not warrant an apology.

The negative intentions, words, and actions brought forth out of a belief that a hue is more superior, more deserving, more (fill in the blank) than the other is where the apologies need to begin flowing. Apologizing for injustice, oppression, ignorance, hatred, abandonment- Yes, please! But apologizing for the skin that you wear... oh no no no my friends, there's no sense in apologies.

  

The One Where No Title Seemed Right

So, it's August. You deserve a big HELLO that's been 5 months in the making. The last time I wrote it was March and I was dreaming of spring. It's now the end of August and I'm giddy for autumn. Here in my Little City/Big Town the weather has been A-mazing. Usually we're sweating to the oldies remembering the good'ole times we had in dreadful winter. Not so this year. Not so.
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That part was written a week ago. This week it's been 100 degrees... literally and Sunday it will be September. In case I don't say it, welcome September!
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I know what you're thinking. You're thinking, she's been gone for 5 months and she's talking about the weather? THE WEATHER!! Well... my response to you is.... yep. It's hard being gone 5 months and then trying to catch up without being too overwhelming. So my default was the weather, but I lacked a transition. I've been gone too long. Bare with me.

So... the quick update so that you can make sense of what I'm about to say is:
In the span of 6 months 3 people I cared for deeply died. And 3 others were diagnosed with cancer.
I fell apart emotionally, physically, and spiritually.
After months of perpetual grieving I came back to life.
I postponed leaving for London one year.
I began eating less and moving more.
You are now caught up.

The other day I was running (because I run 3 miles everyday now! I know right. DO you even know me anymore??). My path, originally completely unintentional, gives me a view of the hospital my friend lived in the last months of her life. Everyday, I run by it and think of her. Some days are more emotional than others. Some days I'm more exhausted than others, you know how that goes.

Usually when I round the bend at the hospital there is grown up prairie on either side of the path. Just the day before there had been. But that day I rounded the bend to find the prairie on one side had been cut down. In the shadow of the looming hospital, standing next to the naked land my heart began to ache. I continued putting one foot in front of the other but my mind would not move forward. Why would they cut down my prairie? It was so pretty, so peaceful, a little hideaway home for animals of the woods. Why would they cut it down like that, without warning, without notice? As I ran slowly by it again I tried to pry my eyes away but could not. I wondered why I was so emotionally attached to this prairie land. I looked to the opposite side,  where there was lush growing prairie and beyond it the hospital. And the tears began to flow. I missed my friend Jenny. And as confused as I was about the prairie land I was confused about her death. And in that moment I was oddly comforted by the words of John 12:24, I tell you the truth, unless a kernel of wheat is planted in the soil and dies, it remains alone. But its death will produce many new kernels--a plentiful harvest of new lives.

In order to preserve the prairie it had to be cut down. It's a strange concept that from death will come life. But Jesus is kind of in the business of doing strange things that seem counter intuitive. I've seen this truth in my own life over the last few months of mourning. I've been led to a life filled place because of the death that once surrounded me. How many times have we heard of someone making a positive dramatic life change because of their loss? This is Jesus being faithful to His promise that from death, life will spring. 
I miss my friend dearly. But I'm convinced that, just like on the opposite side of my path there is still lush green, wild prairie there is beautiful life springing up in me because of the life she lived. 
I of course didn't always have that perspective. There were many days spent on the couch or in bed avoiding life. We'll call those my "Reliving Dawson's Creek Days". I questioned everything and shouted psychotically at God when my silence treatment had grown too loud, only to retreat back. I'm so grateful, on this side of it, that He can handle my outbursts and not just handle it but knows me so intimately to know what I'm actually saying under and through all my hurt and mourning. He has proven Himself more faithful and loyal than I know what to do with. It's because of His gentle kindness that I am gladly back at pursuing His plans for me in London after a few month hiatus from support raising.

There has been much pain and sorrow but I've also been able to experience more life and joy because of it. I've been encouraged to whole heartedly pursue losing weight and making healthy decisions in general. I have said yes to wonderful opportunities and no to things that have no value. I've treasured friendships and family more than I ever have. Life has come and is coming, but I only know that because death was once here.   

spring is coming

I parked under a tree and came back to a car covered in sap.

Driving away I, irritated by the spots on my window, sprayed them down and wiped them off.

Later, streaks still spreading across my window, I again cleared it off.

It was then that I realized, in the dark of night,

with one headlight beaming ahead, that sap was on my car.

Sap.

The trees are awakening from their slumber.

Though they look dead, bare and fragile arms reaching to the sky,

snow encircling them, deep underneath the topsoil of this earth

there is life percolating.

Life is spreading through the veins of the trees.

Life is seeping out, clinging to what it touches. 

Spring is coming. 

There are no blossoms, they sing no song of warning,

But there is sap on my car.

Spring is coming. 

{abundant life. really?}

I got the best news of my life and then I got depressed. 

True story. I could explain the whole grueling mess but let's suffice it say that following God's calling is often followed by trials. This was my experience and it has not been pretty. 

There have been many a "gray" day in the past few months. Days where I was so overcome by despair and hurt that though the sun was shining I could not drag myself out of bed. I could not interact and engage with the world around me. It has been fascinating to me to talk to other people who have walked through times of depression. A characteristic that I have exhibited as well as others is lack of motivation to shower. Y'all, I LOVE being clean. I LOVE the scent of my body wash. I LOVE when my curls do their thing. LOVE IT. I'm so for real when I tell you I could not do it. 

I've been rocking this bun on the top of my head for months now because even after finding the motivation to shower I don't care enough to do anything with the mop atop my head. Makeup has not touched my face but once in the past several months and that was to take a picture that would be going to the masses. And then, that makeup stayed there until it sank into the abyss of my pores or smeared my pillow cases. 

It's funny how depression manifests itself differently in different people. Some pull at their hair creating bald patches, some overeat, some hide away for days on end. Funny was maybe not the appropriate word, interesting, it's interesting. 

What I'm learning in the midst of all of it though is that even here in this gray place there is a wide spectrum of emotions to be experienced. Even in gray times there's still a place to experience joy and deep happiness. There is a place to actually be at peace and for my mind to find rest. Even here in these gray days.

Today, it's dreary out. Clouds hover low to the earth, puddles form on uneven ground. I'm moving to a place where this will be the norm and I'll have to learn to live in it. Depression will not always be the norm for my life, trials however are and likewise I'm learning that there's life to be lived in the gray days. There's life to be lived in the midst of trials. And there's life to be lived in depression. 

John 10:10 says The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I (Jesus) came that they may have life and have it abundantly.

Y'all this is GOOD NEWS! News that I need to remind myself of daily. Jesus Christ came so that we, you and me, would have life and not just life but abundant life. I had to Google abundant life and this is one beautiful description I found : superabundance, excessive, overflowing, surplus, over and above, more than enough, profuse, extraordinary, above the ordinary, more than sufficient.

This is not a meager living God is promising. He is promising extraordinary life both after we depart this world and now. I'm letting that sink in and wash over me. He's not waiting to give me a surplus of life but He is giving it now. 

One description said, " A quantity so abundant as to be considerably more than what one would expect or anticipate." It's reminiscent of  1 Corinthians 2:9 which says, "What no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man imagined, what God has prepared for those who love Him."

Trials. Hardships. Maybe even depression. But He is giving life in the midst of it. That is His promise. And He is faithful to His promises. 

Like Whoa

Do you ever have those times when you look at the trajectory of your life and think WHOA? I finally had one of those moments today.

It's been since October that I've written on this little spot of mine. 4 months ago! My life is tremendously different since then and yet monotonously the same. I've been approved to move to London this year. Though I've been preparing for it for months now and chatting surreal-ly  with dear friends and family it wasn't until today that it became in the slightest sense, my story. 

I sat in a home with others listening to a friend talk about London. I listened and smiled remembering my own experiences from the summer. As he talked about various needs and thoughts he had I was keenly aware that this information being processed in my head at that very moment was not distant and unrelated to me but that in fact is what I'm entering into.

I am moving to London. Me? WHOA!!!! 

Ya'll!  If you knew half of the person I used to be before Christ, you'd be astonished too. For. Real. My new life looks radically different from the life trajectory I had. And I have no other response but WHOA!

Colossians 3:10 says, "and we have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator." 

I love this so very much because it gives me a secret insight into this new life I've been given. I know what the end result will be. I will be more like my Creator. Beautiful? Glorious? So amazing? Yes, but.

This process is not overnight and it's not easy. My old flesh is die hard. And it seems the more I commit myself to putting on the new self, the more my old self bucks against it. So this is where I've been. Caught up in the putting on of my new self while hourly slaying my old self and its ways that lead to death. This is hard work. 

Many people think the hard work starts when you do the thing you're called to do. Hard work it is, but I'm learning it doesn't start there. It's actually starts that moment when you, with reckless abandon, for the cause of Christ in the world, give yourself away to Him for His purposes. BAM! HARD. WORK. 

So I look at where I've been and am humbled that my Creator has and is redeeming my brokenness. I look at where I'm going and am stunned that this new life He's given me will (and is) being used up for Him. 

Whoa.

Wednesday Things

1. Do I even need to tell you how thrilled I am that my Cardinals are movin' and shakin' in the post-season? Now, in all honesty I must confess that I did think it wouldn't be the most terrible thing if they didn't go to the post season... because well my life kind of gets put on hold when we are in the post season. Late nights. Stats updates. Lower work performance. It's a bit exhausting but here we are and now WE MUST WIN.

2. Do you remember last year's World Series Song? What do you think it will be this year? This or maybe this?

3. Let's talk about my love of sweet potatoes and my love of cheesecake and how this just happened.

4. We all know my thoughts on my own singleness. I'm pretty vocal about it. I pray not in an obnoxious way, but more in a oh she wants to be married, I know a single guy that would be great for her way. Please tell me if I become this. Seriously..... seriously.

5. "I think singles must feel more acutely than most that we are 'aliens and strangers' in this world." 1 Peter 2:11. Want to read more, go here.

6. I blingged out a pumpkin tonight. I feel pretty bad about it. Like I've gone all Good Hair on it. This poor little pumpkin was just fine, even quite lovely in its natural orange state but then I came along and was all like, wouldn't you be prettier if you were white and sparkling. I know what you're saying... it's a pumpkin! But shall we just recall that I'm the girl who's beside herself with joy that I haven't killed my plant and I've had it for a month. You want to know what I do to keep it alive? I talk to it. Yep. Telling it how pretty it is and how badly I want it to live. I stroke its tender little leaves and I like never water it. Like ever. Except one time. Literally once and it's still alive. I think I've found my plant soul mate.

7. I got an awesome hair cut a few weeks ago. And I love my salon because they "teach" me as they go. I'm not a great learner when it comes to this stuff none the less I try real hard. Any way, I spent an inordinate amount of money to buy this shampoo especially meant for women with curly hair like mine. So you can imagine my shock after buying specialty shampoo and conditioner and going to a salon that knows how to cut curly hair when I found this rouge straight hair in my head among the gray scatterings. Such was my shock that I started snapping pictures in the fitting room.

8. I successfully missed watching the presidential debates tonight. I think this has got me pretty well covered and if not that than this should offer some help before voting day.

9. Um.... along with these political ads being over I'm wishing scary movie/show previews were over too. Driving down the highway today I saw a billboard for a haunted house with a creepy mask on it Because creepy masks aren't scary enough until they're plastered on billboards.

10. I'm turning 30 in T-minus 2 months and I still don't have an evening face washing routine. Things I thought I should have down by now. Discuss.
....no but seriously...