the rain in bombay falls on the righteous and the wrong

I think that Caedmon's Call Share The Well is one of the best albums of all time. The songs are all inspired by a mixture of India, Ecuador, and... somewhere else that I'm not remembering. They're such anthems. God has been loving my soul with this music, and I feel so joyful and ready when I listen to them. Which is nice, considering. Considering that most of the time I feel incredibly not ready...

So many things have been happening, and also nothing is happening. ?

Our little house church (yet to be named... "the vigil" maybe) is going through a weird time. We started off fairly energetic, full of things to talk about all the time, and that's burning out a little. We've been going to different public church meetings every Sunday, rejoicing in the different traditions of the faith and growing/learning. We're sort of reading the Great Awakening together (book club annex to the vigil haha) and we're also scattered across town on various days of the week digging work with various brothers and sisters. We're thinking about buying a house in f-ton,... and that comes with a lot of questions and decisions. I don't know how long I'll be in this country, but definitely sense our community moving in this direction. i confess i am not always so quick to submit my plans to him. father, forgive me, for I have not believed... We are learning that we need to be family, I think. So I feel like with that paradigm shift, a transformation may occur.

we were blessed to enjoy a potluck dinner (sweet potato and black bean burritos, homemade chips, rice, couscous... mmm) with a beautiful family that just moved into the area of interest one day this week. They were so kind and taught us very much. I look forward to seeing them again. their children make me feel Father on account of they jump on the bed and have hiccups.

Empty as a tiffin...

Most of the time I feel unworthy of what is happening around me, but "he always provides sure as the sun will rise, so i sing songs of praise, because i know he keeps me in his gaze" (who else knew my name before the day I was born?) "lord help me learn how to lean on thy staff and thy rod"

Yes, the Body is designed to be family. This(I) is(am) in need of improvement.

Speaking of families, my east asian family is making plans to reunite in Yosemite this summer, and thinking about it warms the whole of my heart. They are precious to me, I may or may not demand a ten-minute group hug upon seeing them again. Perhaps that's excessive. (maybe...) If only Mother Owl could be there... (and little brother Owl? No! the whole Owl family!) We're going camping and things of this nature, and it will be so warm. The combination of all these things is just too good. "he fathers forth whose beauty is past change- Praise Him." (name that Victorian poet!)

I constantly have books due at the library, as well as books on reserve at the library. By "the library" I mean, "the libraries." I have three libraries waiting on me for things right now. Bulgakov was so good! Joey Pigg was right.

I want to go to Ghana and help Emmanuel bring babies back to the United States. I want to go to Honduras and El Salvador and serve in the orphanages. I want to go to Cameroon and help at the AIDS clinic. I want to go to TJ and love the bike parking man.

I am restless and want my way. Forgive me and deliver me, Father.

A Lenten Call to Repentance

March 19 will be the fifth anniversary of the war with Iraq. In this season of Lent, we are called to lament and repent for an ongoing war that is being waged by our country, financed by our taxes, and fought by our brothers and sisters. After five years, we all lament the suffering and violence in Iraq. We mourn the nearly 4,000 Americans who have lost their lives, the tens of thousands wounded in body and mind, and the unknown hundreds of thousands of Iraqis who have died.

Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel once said about the war in Vietnam: "How can I pray when I have on my conscience the awareness that I am co-responsible for the death of innocent people in Vietnam? In a free society, some are guilty, all are responsible."

Repentance means more than just being sorry. It means both admitting that the course we have been on is wrong and committing to begin walking in a new direction. Repentance has to do with transformation, and that's exactly what the U.S. church needs to break out of its conformity to the U.S. government's foreign policy of fear and war. We must pursue our future foreign policy in ways that are consistent with moral principles, wise political judgments, and international law - rejecting unilateral preemptive wars for multilateral cooperation. We need a new definition of our national security. There is a better way. The global church feels it, and the world is hungry for it.

It's finally time for the U.S. churches to find their voice for Jesus' way of peacemaking and to demonstrate—in matters of war, peace, and the critical area of conflict resolution—just who we belong to.

Jim Wallis, "A Lenten Call to Repentence" [sojo.net]

Yes, let's. As for the end (demonstrating that we belong to Jesus and thus our family and loyalty is international), how do we do this? And what will it look like to care and love for the nation (nations, depending on Iran) after this is all over? I hear people speculate often about what evacuating Iraq would look like. Is that just leaving a huge mess? (Though, in thinking we are providing aid [often by force], aren't we really just perpetuating a hierarchy of dependence and hostility?)

I certainly can't answer such questions, but I beseech the Lord to reveal His answers. I confess I know very little, but Jesus taught that "Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called Sons of God," and though I know oftentimes those in the U.S. Military-Industrial Complex are referred to as "peacemakers," I cannot label them as such. The peacemaking Jesus requires is paired with mercy, meekness, a pure heart, a hunger and thirst for righteousness, a mourning, all things that cannot be equated with murder, bombing, fear, and dehumanization of our own kind, regardless of the noble and pure intentions behind such actions.

There will always be photos of U.S. soldiers caring for Iraqi children, branding them as righteous heros. I do not doubt that many people who support the war (and fight in it) are kind-hearted and believe that this will liberate Iraqis, while protecting families in the United States from violence. As for the latter, what does that say about the equality of value of human life? Are children and families of the United States persuasion more valuable, or valued more by God than those in Iraq? And for the former, is the end goal of "liberating Iraqis" from injustice, justified by our own injustices?

Perhaps now I am too far in. I have much more to learn, and I've never been particularly politically savvy, but if it's true that God doesn't withhold love to teach someone a lesson (and if we are presuming that the United States is seeking to teach Iraq a few lessons) then how can we withhold love, following the example of the Beloved? Those of us who claim to have been saved by the ultimate peacemaking effort, the death of Christ on the cross-- the nonviolent and loving response of perfect Jesus who reconciled us with the Father--imagine the consequences if Jesus responded to injustice and violence (his accusation and subsequent beating and death) like us. If this had been the case, he would not have died humbly, he would have waged war, thereby denying humanity reconciliation with God.

The only victor in war is violence.

Lord have mercy. Show me the error in my own ways, and bring Your kingdom.

fool

I got so prideful last night, thinking the Lord has given me a special blessing-- so self-righteous. How dangerous.

The following seem applicable:

"It's a grave temptation-- to want to help people."

"Many young people picture themselves to be immortal, as they are well along the road of arrogance. Young bright people are even further along-- all these smart thoughts to show to others. Young, bright, idealistic people are tempted in a special way by arrogance. The ambition they have to change the world can turn into a bullying of others and a terrible habit of patronizing everyone but themselves. I wasn't all that bright, but I could write fairly good articles, and I was full of idealism, and I was a young, politically-conscious person- we thought ourselves to be liberated- and the result was a fairly swollen head."

Both from Dorothy Day: A Radical Devotion

I do not claim to be bright, but I am young (in more than one way) and this idealism usually gets me into trouble somehow.

And I do have that terrible habit. Lord have mercy.

good news to the poor

"If we are to take seriously the opening sermon of Jesus at Nazareth recorded in Luke 4, his 'mission statement' in which he proclaims that 'the Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor,' there can only be one conclusion: no matter what else the gospel does in our lives, if our gospel message is not 'good news to the poor,' it is simply not the gospel of Jesus Christ."

Jim Wallis, The Great Awakening