"Everything in the universe goes by indirection. There are no straight lines." Ralph Waldo Emerson

I don't do well at this whole blogging thing. What I really want to write about is the amazing feeling I got in the depths of my heart at the anthem I heard the small choir share at an 8:00 am service celebrating the risen Christ.

But all I feel like I can write about is my current state. It feels impossible to draw on the warmth and hope I felt so early this morning. All I can feel is how I feel now. And I don't want to use this blog project to sort out my feelings because what the heck kind of read is that, for anyone who might read this? I want to be able to process things and reflect on what I really want to remember for the day. And here I go ... processing my feelings.

And what will happen after this is that I will leave the situation that is claiming my entire attention, and I will go to sleep. I'm great at avoiding things, I think.

I also know that this public blog is not the place to process all the things I need to process in order to have a functioning life. Maybe I will have to start writing (by hand!) in my regular journal again. That really helped in London. I think it needs to help now, too.

To anyone who stuck with this entry this far, thanks. And hopefully I'll have something better tomorrow.

"Life is partly what we make it, and partly what it is made by the friends we choose." Tennessee Williams

Here is a break from the Holy Week-themed entries of the past few days. Today, all I did was have fun. This is not intended to be a catalog of the days events, but today reminded me how life can be good, just by happening.

I woke up and picked up around the house, sort of got my stuff all together. I baked some cookies for our police officer friend, Suzanne, to have after she got off a 16 hour shift. I went bowling with Stacey, which was a lot of fun. I got 111 the first time (Stacey got 117) and the second I got 77 (Stace got 100). I also had bumpers! Oh man. what fun. I've not been bowling in almost a year. This was a nice treat. We took a nice drive to Dani's apartment to grab Stacey's swim suit; on the way home, she got some KFC. We started making cookies and then realized we needed more sugar, or some such thing. And that I also had forgotten my car in downtown Elmhurst! We went to the Jewel over by school and drove home listening to the same few songs on the radio (Telephone, Bedrock, Whatcha Say) I proceeded to spill oats on myself. Stacey rocked mom's mixmaster with oatmeal cookies. We put chocolate chips in some, craisins in some, and she put some walnuts in hers. We "did homework" while they baked, and by that I mean did NOT do homework at all! Suzanne and her daughter Olivia came over, so we played with her a bit; we had Domino's for dinner. Stace and I went swimming and it was fun; I'd not been swimming in a long time.

I like to believe that there is some lesson to be learned every day, or something to conclude, or some sort of take-away point. Today, that little nugget is not something to be described with words, it is to be felt in a new friendship, or in the life of a small child, or in the joy of laughter.

Jesus .. remember me when you come into your kingdom.

(I've not watched the images on the video, only listened.)

This song has been on my mind all day. It is Good Friday. God's Friday. This is the most poignant part of the crucifixion of Jesus, for me. There God Incarnate is. Dying. Near him are two others, dying, suffering just as he is. One mocks Jesus, pleading for his own life, asking Jesus to "save us, and [him]self!" The other man accepts that he is dying, right next to the Christ. He chides the first man, reminding him that they are both condemned justly, but that Jesus had done nothing to deserve death ..and yet, he hung their dying as well.

Imagine this man, turning to Jesus ..calling to Jesus. Imagine him saying with every desperate gasp of his dying breaths, "Jesus .. remember me when you come into your kingdom."

The entire point of the betrayal, the death, and the rising of Christ happens in Jesus next words.. "truly, I tell you: today, you will be with me in paradise." The man Jesus says these words to is a criminal. And yet, Jesus, as he hang dying as well, invites the man to be with him in paradise. Jesus makes a relationship with this man.

This isn't particularly eloquent or profound; Jesus takes all that credit today. I am glad to call him teacher and brother.

"Never make a defense or an apology until you are accused." King Charles I

Tonight, I participated in a relatively common experience, but still it was one I'd not yet had. Today is Maundy Thursday. It is the day in the Christian church when we remember the last supper Jesus had with his disciples before he was killed. At tonights service, I was given the opportunity to wash peoples feet. The first man who came to my basin asked if he could wash my feet as well, and I accepted. A mother came with her young daughter, and they washed each others feet. The mother asked the daughter if she was thinking about Jesus doing this same action, too. Others came and went in silence. Then a young boy, I would guesstimate around 8th or 9th grade, came and sat on the chair and started apologizing. His tone was not one of repentance or cleansing, but he kept saying "I'm sorry. I'm sorry." as if I would rather be doing something else. I wonder if there were other things on his heart. What drew him to leave his table and sit in the chair in the corner so that I may wash his feet? What may he be thinking now, mere hours later? I kept telling him not to be sorry, that I was glad to do this for him, that I wanted to. He wouldn't look at me or at his feet, but kept looking elsewhere. It is my hope that whatever might be lingering in his spirit will be shaken more with tomorrow's remembrance of Jesus' death, and that his spirit will be calmed by the new covenant created by Christ's resurrection.

"God has no other hands than ours." Dorothee Sölle

Well. It's been a while, hasn't it? I have intended to blog countless times. But as with all good intentions comes an often less good reality to get in the way. Today, though, life happened so drastically that I literally can't help but write about it in order to make something resembling sense. Some of you may remember the educational trip in which I participated with Lancaster Theological Seminary's young adult program, LeadershipNow. We traveled to the borderlands of Mexico and learned about migrant life through a program called BorderLinks with the intention of being advocates for the children of God that governments have forgotten. We built relationships: with each other, with migrants who had yet to cross the desert into the United States, with those who had been deported from the United States, as well as those advocating for the basic human rights for all migrants.

Last summer, someone shared an opportunity with me to become trained to visit detained migrants in McHenry County jail (a county or two northwest of DuPage County). I went to this training in the hopes of living the words and promises I had said and made to the people I met in Mexico. Months and months passed and I heard nothing from this group, so I added the training to a list of life experiences and moved on. Then, a month or two ago, I got a letter with the list of the ministry team of which I was a part. Today was the first day I visited McHenry County jail and the people there.

I met a woman at her home and she drove the both of us to the jail. She lives about 15 minutes away from the jail and an hour from me. I am quite grateful that my dad drove me to her home because 2 hours on the train to sit idle with my nerves would not have been helpful. I sat in her home and waited nervously for her to be ready to leave. Once we were in her vehicle, I asked her to describe what the day would look like; she did.

We arrived at the detention center and I was instantly doing it wrong. Instead of putting my drivers license through the smaller-than-mailbox-sized slot in the wall, I attempted to go into the office to give it to the guards. After my continued confusion with the procedure, I locked all my things away in a locker and clipped on my red visitor tag. We were taken to a "library", if you could even call it that. We had a few minutes before the first group (all women) came in so I got to see the forms we were to use. One was a chart on which we could record information to make phone calls for the detainees, since making calls on their own behalf costs the money they don't have. The second sheet was a prayer request sheet that is passed on to local parishes that they might pray for those being detained.

Suddenly the room was full of women in orange jump suits. I talked to a woman from Mexico who has lived in Chicago her entire life. She has not seen her son in five and a half months. She has court next week. Please pray for her release. A woman from Korea can't be in touch with her mother because her mother's phone is blocked-- but her mother does not understand what "blocked" means, so the situation is not fixed. The women left. Men came in afterward. I will skip the second interaction I had and return to it since it is responsible for my lack of homeostasis. My third interaction was with two Polish men. One man was very excited to return to his family. The other couldn't figure out what he is meant to do with his life and hopes daily for some guidance. He couldn't fathom how I already knew what I want to do with my life.

We then broke for a half hour so the jail could do its head count.

After break, we met with another group of men. I chatted with an older man from Mexico who grew up here. He's only been around Illinois, Indiana, and Wisconsin. Our time ended and I chatted with a man from Zambia, as well as another man from Poland. The older man from Zambia has relationships with the others with whom I was visiting. His wife is in dialysis. Please pray for her. The man from Poland shared some of his struggles with regard to his faith. How moving that after a few short minutes, he felt comfortable sharing something so private.

After this, I was driven to the train station and I came home to my place of comfort and privilege.

Let me return to the encounter I skipped. He is a man of only 24 years, from Mexico. We talked and laughed together for the entire 15 minutes we were able to spend together. He and I had an interaction together on the grounds of the callings and convictions of my faith. He and I were Christ to each other. When it was time for our time to end, I reached out to him for a hug, and we did. I was then scolded quite sternly for providing such an embrace. The note about not hugging the detainees was in a letter I had not read in two months. It is against the rules of the detention center, among other things. At the time, I was terrified. I shut down. I was worried that I would be asked to leave, or worse, that we all would. I was terrified that the guard monitoring the visits would pull me aside to scold me as well. Every other word from my mouth was an apology, and yet I was not told "it's alright, just don't do it again". That was really tough.

I believe I did the right thing by hugging that man. It may have been against the rules, or breaking protocol, but it was the right thing. If God has no other hands than ours, how do I not use those hands to be Christ to others? I am still unsettled in my spirit; this is the first time, really, that I have blatantly disagreed with an authority figure on behalf of Christ. I know that no one ever said following Christ would be easy. I think I was not prepared, today, to take such a new course of action for my faith.

Feedback? Prayers, please.

"Everything in the universe goes by indirection. There are no straight lines." Ralph Waldo Emerson

School has been in session for two weeks now. I'm pretty sure I knew this would happen, but I'm already behind and a little burned out. Six hours per week will be committed to student organizations. Thirteen hours per week are dedicated to working tours and Niebuhr Center combined. Twelve and a half hours will be spent in class. That doesn't really sound like a lot, but it feels like a lot. I'd love to say that I feel like I am contributing and furthering my education, but I can't really say that at all. I'm not sure if I am becoming a better person. I'm not sure of relationships. I'm not sure why I do the things I do. I'm not sure if I'm breaking promises I made to myself, to friends, and to God. I don't know how to rectify those broken promises. I can't understand if I am betraying who I am and the things which I believe. I want to think I am changing the way I see the world and the way I display who I am. I also feel like I'm taking 2 steps in an opposite direction, not necessarily backward, just in a direction I was not anticipating. I've found that I'm not as good of a listener or comforter as of late because I'm too concerned with my own matters. I don't give to my friends the things they may need from me. I don't know how to be a friend anymore. I feel really out of touch with God and with nature and with people in whom I have distinctly seen God. I feel like I am not compassionate or empathetic. I fear that I have run out of time to feel anything. All I feel is like the beginning of Garden State, where Andrew Largeman (Zach Braff) is sitting on the airplane with chaos all around him, but he does nothing but sit there. I am engaged in the chaos, but I still feel like I am separate from it. I know exactly how someone else would see my life and what someone else would do, but I never do it for myself. I have become far too concerned with what others think of me; I value their opinions more than my own. I can't hold my ground in a conversation; I play on quick wit or sarcasm or teasing to get me through. I can remember about 3 times in the past two weeks that I have had a genuine moment with someone when I wasn't trying so hard to be something I thought I was ready to be. This will be how this semester is, or I need to learn how to say no and advocate for my needs. I've always thought I was skilled in those departments, but they seem to have disappeared in my confidence in them. It seems I have a lot of rearranging to do.

“Courage doesn't always roar. Sometimes courage is the quiet voice at the end of the day saying, 'I will try again tomorrow.'" Mary Anne Radmacher

This entry is dedicated to one of my best friends.

She is amazing and is inspiring me to take some more action with my life and my body. I love her and I hope to be more like her.