yesterday i came across this article on forgoing New Year's resolutions in favor of writing the story you want to live out. I love Don Miller and this blog posting specifically captures the writing style, and theology, which make me adore him so.
given that I'm a New Year's baby, my general resolution is to turn a year older, which always happens, and thus I always fulfill my New Year's resolution. Sure, it's cheating, but it makes me feel virtuous, for all of 10 seconds, at least.
but this post got me thinking about what I want my story to be. Although I'm not really the writer of the family, I love a good plotline as much as the next person. How I'm living my life in Chicago is a reaction to the fact that I had some not-so-great subplots in my storylife before...while I've loved being home and seeing family here in PDX, I know I've temporarily given up the storyline I live in Chicago in favor of the old storyline I'd been living here. And, after 4 months away, some parts of it don't fit as well.
Bottom line: I want to write a better story than the one I've been living. I want ALL of us to write a better story - one where people are fed, injustices are addressed, safety nets exist for all of us, and we wake up one day to see that we've built a part of God's kingdom and we rejoice that we'll someday see all of it.
So, without further adieu, here are the stories I'll be writing this decade. I'd love to hear (here or in person) what yours might be.
Storyline #1 - Cat gets arrested: okay, so hear me out on this one. Recently, i've become part of many communities which make up one amazing community of support. These are people I highly respect, who are committed to putting their physical bodies on the line for a cause. I've always been a little too shy about that aspect of things. But when I went to the School of the Americas protest this year, I began to realize how much that fear had kept me from doing lots of things which would truly demonstrate my commitment to causes I believe in. Getting arrested is just the climactic scene - a visible sign that I've used this decade to become a braver, gentler warrior.
Storyline #2 - Cat starts a family: so, this one, of all the storylines i want to write, is the scariest, most embarrassing one. but i feel like i need to write it down, so i can remember (and people who love me best can hold me to) the idea that this decade is the decade i stop using people as a way to work out my own personal issues and i start looking for someone i can build a communal storyline with - one that includes kiddos and a simple life and a common commitment to building the kingdom of God. It will take time and that's okay (probably for the best, really) and I just need to remember the end scene - bringing my kiddos to the SOA, for example, or living in community with singles and families, where my kiddos feel loved and supported by more than just their parents. It's a more radical example of the comfort and safety and love I felt growing up and it's something I feel called to do with my life. But it scares the hell out of me and I have a ways to go (and a lot to be honest with myself about) before I get there. This storyline will probably be the one that causes me the most pain before the decade's through, which is okay, I guess.
Storyline #3 - Cat becomes a restorative justice mediator with juveniles: It is possible that this profession will change, but this is the decade where I finally commit to a vocation. I love wandering and cannot imagine that I will stay at the same place for most of this decade. But I'm pursuing an expensive degree (well, two of them, really) and it's probably time that I really think about how to use them. I've always been pulled towards issues of nonviolence and I've always loved working with teens. Using nonviolence tactics to work with teenagers in a way that directly challenges our current criminal justice system is beyond thrilling to me. To keep this plotline going, I will be researching conflict resolution trainings I can participate in while in Chicago, as well as more fully researching organizations nationally which do this work and scheduling informational interviews with them. I understand that this is probably the least-riveting plotline, but not every story can have explosions of the literal or figurative kind, i suppose...
Thanks for reading (or skipping to the end) of this somewhat self-aggrandizing post. I'd love to hear any feedback folks have on the article linked above, or on New Year's Resolutions in general. I like learning how people celebrate my birthday :)
Saturday, January 2, 2010
Tuesday, December 15, 2009
that Jesus and his unfortunately-true life lessons...
today's Gospel reading:
in real world terms, i think this means that people i hate, people i think are making bad choices, people who i think is ugly or dirty or mean - chances are, they're all prancing into heaven while i'm lagging behind...because having faith when you don't have anything else good is important and holy and so hard to find...
who are the tax collectors and prostitutes in my life? will i know them as the stealth faith rolemodels they are? or will i just keep distancing myself in some sort of unholy self-satisfied judgement? dear God, let it be the former, not the latter...
Jesus said to the chief priests and the elders of the people:
“What is your opinion?
A man had two sons.
He came to the first and said,
‘Son, go out and work in the vineyard today.’
The son said in reply, ‘I will not,’
but afterwards he changed his mind and went.
The man came to the other son and gave the same order.
He said in reply, ‘Yes, sir,’ but did not go.
Which of the two did his father’s will?”
They answered, “The first.”
Jesus said to them, “Amen, I say to you,
tax collectors and prostitutes
are entering the Kingdom of God before you.
When John came to you in the way of righteousness,
you did not believe him;
but tax collectors and prostitutes did.
Yet even when you saw that,
you did not later change your minds and believe him.”
in real world terms, i think this means that people i hate, people i think are making bad choices, people who i think is ugly or dirty or mean - chances are, they're all prancing into heaven while i'm lagging behind...because having faith when you don't have anything else good is important and holy and so hard to find...
who are the tax collectors and prostitutes in my life? will i know them as the stealth faith rolemodels they are? or will i just keep distancing myself in some sort of unholy self-satisfied judgement? dear God, let it be the former, not the latter...
Monday, November 30, 2009
what i was doing when i learned my friends got arrested...
...which may be why my friends are so much more productive as activists than i am...
************************************************
Don't Pretend This Is an Allegory for Life
11/30/09
sitting at the back of the train
reduces the whole world
to light & sound.
everything is garish,
collision seems imminent,
& the only things you can see
are the places you've already been.
but the tracks are all well-marked
so you know just how to navigate yourself
around destruction...
or into it.
which helps, i guess.
and you get to catch people off-guard,
& see what they look like
coming & going
from places they love
or can't stand
screaming past the backends of houses
is a reel-to-reel of vignettes
of other people's lives
in 2 second increments.
it's a lot of tvs
& crying
& odd taste in furniture.
sometimes there's a kiss
that no one was supposed to see.
and after you've watched
miles of strangers flash by,
you're the last person to know
that you've arrived safely
at your final destination.
the imminent collision
must just have passed you by.
************************************************
Don't Pretend This Is an Allegory for Life
11/30/09
sitting at the back of the train
reduces the whole world
to light & sound.
everything is garish,
collision seems imminent,
& the only things you can see
are the places you've already been.
but the tracks are all well-marked
so you know just how to navigate yourself
around destruction...
or into it.
which helps, i guess.
and you get to catch people off-guard,
& see what they look like
coming & going
from places they love
or can't stand
screaming past the backends of houses
is a reel-to-reel of vignettes
of other people's lives
in 2 second increments.
it's a lot of tvs
& crying
& odd taste in furniture.
sometimes there's a kiss
that no one was supposed to see.
and after you've watched
miles of strangers flash by,
you're the last person to know
that you've arrived safely
at your final destination.
the imminent collision
must just have passed you by.
Monday, November 23, 2009
on being an adult and the process of re-radicalization...
at 3am, i finished a 4-day trip (with 26 hours of driving) to protest the School of the Americas/WHINSEC in Ft. Benning, GA.
Within that statement lives a world of confusion and joy and challenge and faith.
The last time I went to the SOA protest was in 2005 with the lovely JVC folks. I was young and hurting and in need of community. And I found it - I still have fond memories of time with Alex, hitting the Waffle House with Christine, and writing a wonderful poem for Erica at the JVC Atlanta house.
Now, I'm almost 30, still hurting but not so young. The world hurts in different ways now, and my response is different, too. Going down to Georgia with 16 semi-strangers (and the lovely Amy) and arranging all the logistics and managing personal dynamics and trying to make sure we had gas and cars and food and lodging helped distract me, temporarily, from how i felt being there.
But, eventually, when it all calmed down and I remembered that everyone was a grown-up, I didn't have anything to distract me. And that's when I realized how far I'd come from who I wanted to be. Being older than many folks here, I struggle with what it means to live like a grown-up. I haven't really sat down to think about the ways I've pre-defined my adult life. Adults don't protest. Adults don't get arrested. Adults don't drive 13 hours each way to learn things they might just have downloaded from the Internet. Adults don't really think that saving the world is feasible or that protests are effective or efficient. And, I'm nominally an adult so I expected myself to believe those things, too. But, then...
In our hotel room, after a semi-exhausting day, we made crosses. I looked at the list of martyrs from the slaughter at El Mozote to find a name to put on my cross. I found Telesforo Marquez. He was 35 when he was killed. He was also deaf and mute. It made me think of folks I've known with disabilities, including my own mother. I thought about what it means that my government had any role at all in training soldiers who then went home and committed these acts against their own people. Do you know how many children were on the list of the dead at El Mozote? Until we fully acknowledge the role that the US played in providing tactical training for these killers, we can't claim to be a country that loves peace and freedom. At all.
While writing down Telesforo's name and details, I realized how incredibly selfish and safe I've become. What good does it do to come to a protest with all my baggage and not fully examine the ways that I'm culpable, the ways I sin? Every Sunday, I stand with my Catholic brothers and sisters and tell them that I've sinned in my thoughts and my words, in what I've done and in what I've failed to do.
But I don't always think of sins by name. In that hotel room, I feel that I've sinned by not knowing more about the privilege I inherit as American and what that privilege takes away from others. I've sinned in not being brave enough. I've sinned in being safe. I've sinned in thinking that my form of world-changing is better than yours. I've sinned in my desire for comfort over the kingdom of God.
I'm sick of being a sinner.
So, this Sunday, I went to "mass" in front of the gates of Ft. Benning, Georgia. We offered to break bread with a cop, and we all provided the homily and the blessing over the bread and the wine. We looked through barbed wire toward a world that's not as it should be. And we prayed for it. And we prayed for ourselves. And we let the dead bury the dead, but remembered their names in the land of the living. With every "Presente!", we called the dead back to us, carried them with us, and set them down in front of the gates of Ft. Benning, with prayers and sorrow for all the ways that our country sins, in its thoughts and deeds, and in all it does and fails to do.
And it was the most adult thing I could have done.
ps-if anyone is interested in more information on what I was doing down in Georgia, here's a helpful FAQ. Or, ask me, and I'll tell you :)
Within that statement lives a world of confusion and joy and challenge and faith.
The last time I went to the SOA protest was in 2005 with the lovely JVC folks. I was young and hurting and in need of community. And I found it - I still have fond memories of time with Alex, hitting the Waffle House with Christine, and writing a wonderful poem for Erica at the JVC Atlanta house.
Now, I'm almost 30, still hurting but not so young. The world hurts in different ways now, and my response is different, too. Going down to Georgia with 16 semi-strangers (and the lovely Amy) and arranging all the logistics and managing personal dynamics and trying to make sure we had gas and cars and food and lodging helped distract me, temporarily, from how i felt being there.
But, eventually, when it all calmed down and I remembered that everyone was a grown-up, I didn't have anything to distract me. And that's when I realized how far I'd come from who I wanted to be. Being older than many folks here, I struggle with what it means to live like a grown-up. I haven't really sat down to think about the ways I've pre-defined my adult life. Adults don't protest. Adults don't get arrested. Adults don't drive 13 hours each way to learn things they might just have downloaded from the Internet. Adults don't really think that saving the world is feasible or that protests are effective or efficient. And, I'm nominally an adult so I expected myself to believe those things, too. But, then...
In our hotel room, after a semi-exhausting day, we made crosses. I looked at the list of martyrs from the slaughter at El Mozote to find a name to put on my cross. I found Telesforo Marquez. He was 35 when he was killed. He was also deaf and mute. It made me think of folks I've known with disabilities, including my own mother. I thought about what it means that my government had any role at all in training soldiers who then went home and committed these acts against their own people. Do you know how many children were on the list of the dead at El Mozote? Until we fully acknowledge the role that the US played in providing tactical training for these killers, we can't claim to be a country that loves peace and freedom. At all.
While writing down Telesforo's name and details, I realized how incredibly selfish and safe I've become. What good does it do to come to a protest with all my baggage and not fully examine the ways that I'm culpable, the ways I sin? Every Sunday, I stand with my Catholic brothers and sisters and tell them that I've sinned in my thoughts and my words, in what I've done and in what I've failed to do.
But I don't always think of sins by name. In that hotel room, I feel that I've sinned by not knowing more about the privilege I inherit as American and what that privilege takes away from others. I've sinned in not being brave enough. I've sinned in being safe. I've sinned in thinking that my form of world-changing is better than yours. I've sinned in my desire for comfort over the kingdom of God.
I'm sick of being a sinner.
So, this Sunday, I went to "mass" in front of the gates of Ft. Benning, Georgia. We offered to break bread with a cop, and we all provided the homily and the blessing over the bread and the wine. We looked through barbed wire toward a world that's not as it should be. And we prayed for it. And we prayed for ourselves. And we let the dead bury the dead, but remembered their names in the land of the living. With every "Presente!", we called the dead back to us, carried them with us, and set them down in front of the gates of Ft. Benning, with prayers and sorrow for all the ways that our country sins, in its thoughts and deeds, and in all it does and fails to do.
And it was the most adult thing I could have done.
ps-if anyone is interested in more information on what I was doing down in Georgia, here's a helpful FAQ. Or, ask me, and I'll tell you :)
Thursday, November 19, 2009
on Georgia and the Berrigan Brothers...
Tonight, at 9:30pm, I will head to Georgia with 18 friends and soon-to-be-friends, to put my body and my faith on the line at the annual School of the Americas protest.
This protest has been going on for 20 years which means that, from an American standpoint, it's an utter failure. Where are the results? Where's the individual satisfaction? Why didn't things change right away?
But, from a Christian standpoint, the protest against the School of the Americas is, and continues to be a success. Because we witness. Because we mourn. Because we just show up, which is so hard these days, when there are bills to pay and people to love and a severe lack of time, money, energy, and faith.
The challenge for me is to use this as a first step - I've limited my official protest of violence in our local, and global communities, to letter-writing, public speaking, simple living (or, simple-ish), and prayer. And I want to continue all of those things. But I know there's more that I'm afraid to try, or places I want to go in this world that I don't fully know how to enter.
Whenever I get in that space, I remember this challenging, and true, poem by Fr. Daniel Berrigan. I share it here to inspire myself .
Georgetown Poem (7)
The Trouble with Our State
The trouble with our state
was not civil disobedience
which in any case was hesitant and rare
Civil disobedience was rare as a kidney stone
No, rarer; it was disappearing like immigrant's disease
You've heard of a war on cancer?
There is no war like the plague of the media
There is no war like routine
There is no war like 3 square meals
There is no war like a prevailing wind
It blows softly, whispers
don't rock the boat!
the sails obey, the ship of state rolls on
The trouble with our state
-we learned it only afterward
when the dead resembled the living who resembled the dead
and civil virtue shone like paint on tin
and tin citizens and tin soldiers marched to the common whip
-our trouble
the trouble with our state
with our state of soul
our state of siege -
was
Civil
obedience
Friday, November 6, 2009
happy. sad. happy. sad
two new poems, written on the train. God bless long commutes...
windowpane faces
11/4/09
in the middle of the stairstepping rooftops,
and the crystalline brilliance
of a frigid, sunny day,
the light of God shines
with fierceness of all the love
in all the worlds
we've ever created for each other.
the light lets us know that
we shouldn't fool ourselves -
God already knows we're all
see-through bones
& windowpanes faces.
but love makes us solid
& loss makes us crack, so,
without this fierce sun,
we look like
neglected waterglasses
and busted-up vases.
But in this irrationally radiant light,
we shine
like infinitely valuable things,
like shards
reflecting The Greater Glory.
we shine
like we've got nothing better to do.
and we don't.
********************************************
oh, broken world
11/6/09
oh, broken world,
i walked your streets today
to the beat of plastic jug rhythms
& impatient feet
and i wanted to ask you
how did that beautiful man
learn to sing & lean on anyone,
when the night is so dark?
and do i say to my brother
who's yelling and crying
because his world doesn't add up to ours completely?
who's supposed to help him understand?
who's supposed to help us listen?
oh, broken world,
how can we possibly be the ones they're waiting for?
how can we put one foot in front of the other,
when we know we'll have to step over heartache
whichever way we go?
oh, broken world,
i'm tired & frightened of everything i've seen
& i wish it wasn't too late
for you to pick someone else -
someone faster,
someone braver,
some less-broken saint
instead of this scared little girl
oh, broken world,
you've wounded my brothers
& strangled my sisters
& everything tells me to run,
except that small voice that says
"everything you love can be saved"
and, oh, broken world,
i love you...
windowpane faces
11/4/09
in the middle of the stairstepping rooftops,
and the crystalline brilliance
of a frigid, sunny day,
the light of God shines
with fierceness of all the love
in all the worlds
we've ever created for each other.
the light lets us know that
we shouldn't fool ourselves -
God already knows we're all
see-through bones
& windowpanes faces.
but love makes us solid
& loss makes us crack, so,
without this fierce sun,
we look like
neglected waterglasses
and busted-up vases.
But in this irrationally radiant light,
we shine
like infinitely valuable things,
like shards
reflecting The Greater Glory.
we shine
like we've got nothing better to do.
and we don't.
********************************************
oh, broken world
11/6/09
oh, broken world,
i walked your streets today
to the beat of plastic jug rhythms
& impatient feet
and i wanted to ask you
how did that beautiful man
learn to sing & lean on anyone,
when the night is so dark?
and do i say to my brother
who's yelling and crying
because his world doesn't add up to ours completely?
who's supposed to help him understand?
who's supposed to help us listen?
oh, broken world,
how can we possibly be the ones they're waiting for?
how can we put one foot in front of the other,
when we know we'll have to step over heartache
whichever way we go?
oh, broken world,
i'm tired & frightened of everything i've seen
& i wish it wasn't too late
for you to pick someone else -
someone faster,
someone braver,
some less-broken saint
instead of this scared little girl
oh, broken world,
you've wounded my brothers
& strangled my sisters
& everything tells me to run,
except that small voice that says
"everything you love can be saved"
and, oh, broken world,
i love you...
Sunday, November 1, 2009
on the eve of All Souls' day...
because i am in need of her advice more than anyone else's right now, and because i miss her now and always, All Souls' Day can't come soon enough.
Jesus said to the crowds: “Everything that the Father gives me will come to me, and I will not reject anyone who comes to me, because I came down from heaven not to do my own will but the will of the one who sent me. And this is the will of the one who sent me, that I should not lose anything of what he gave me, but that I should raise it on the last day. For this is the will of my Father, that everyone who sees the Son and believes in him may have eternal life, and I shall raise him on the last day.”
-John 6:37-40
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