CruciformMe

I ran/walked 2 miles last night. To be honest, I only ran about one mile. Regardless, I have to admit that it wasn’t as bad as I’ve imagined it to be. I had company, though, and that helped. She’s been running for awhile, so she knows what what goals I should set for this. At the same, she was very patient with my general lack of physical fitness.

A cool thing happened near the end, though. All of the sudden, my legs stopped aching and I wanted to go faster. I flew! I felt like I was floating above the ground. Then I realized that I’d left my running partner behind, so I stopped. I’d actually run past the two mile mark! And I wasn’t crawling across it, as I had halfway expected to at the beginning. I felt gooood.

That was yesterday. I woke up a little sore today. I’m running again tomorrow.

5 Rules for Running (or Life):

1. Stick with friends.

2. Find people who know more than you do, but who don’t rub it in; stick with them, too.

3. Set small goals.

4. Slow down occasionally.

5. Don’t forget to breathe.

Shalom.

I found out today that I can deal with a church with a church being pretty conservative doctrinally, as long as they can be welcoming. Feeding me and my friends after the service didn’t hurt.

__________________________

From Henri Nouwen’s In the Name of Jesus:

Look at Jesus. The world did not pay any attention to him. He was crucified and put away. His message of love was rejected by a world in search of power, effeciency, and control. But there he was, appearing with wounds in his glorified body to a few friends who had eyes to see, ears to hear, and hearts to understand. This rejected, unknown, wounded Jesus simply asked, “Do you love me, do you really love me?” He whose only concern had been to announce the unconditional love of God had only one question to ask, “Do you love me?”

These words struck me this weekend. How many of us are calling out to everyone around to find out if we’re really loved? And not just if we’re loved now, but if we would still be loved if everyone knew everything there was to know about us.

I think that I linked to Postsecret back at the old blog. But these words made me go back and look at again. (A word of warning: Not all of the ones on the website are as appropriate as the one below.)

Wow. What does the success of Postsecret say? We want people to know what we’re hiding, but only through anonymity. Building relationships that will result in total acceptance, bones and all, is unthinkable. This especially true on a large scale. Does anyone know all your secrets? Would you want everyone to know all your secrets?

That’s kinda scary, isn’t it? That a person could look at you and know everything there is to know about you. They cannot be impressed by high levels of education, skill, or income. A nice house or car would mean nothing, along with anything we use to try and impress people, because if they see who you really are, that stuff falls away. Even Christ desires to be loved. Nouwen suggests that there is freedom in imitating Christ by seeking no-limit love even while our wounds are showing.

Is it really possible? This is not a question about me - I’m sure many of you would tell me how you would love me no matter what. That’s not my point. I want to know if you think this is possible on a large scale - if an entire community could be built around not hiding. Can judgement be avoided? Or will people have to continue to hide through avenues such as the one shown above?

Jesus Camp

Can you guess why this bothers me?

Access Denied (content_filter_denied)

Your request was denied because of its content categorization: “Search Engines;Pornography”

This is the message I got when I googled Kinky Friedman, who, in case you live in a bubble, is a canidate in the Texas gubernatorial election. In a related story, I may vote this year.

I’ll admit it - I don’t want to be at school right now. I want to be doing something. I wasn’t wired to sit in a classroom. It doesn’t help that I found out about an orphanage in Peru that will give you a place to live and three meals a day, if you have any experience in working with kids. You just have to scrape together enough for a one-way ticket. No, Mom, I’m not planning on doing that, but it would be so much better than all this sitting around.

Speaking of sitting around, you’d think a class like Bowling would be fun, but nooooo, I had to go and twist my knee. After sitting in classes all week, I have to spend even more time sitting down now on the weekend. Elevation, ice, and Advil should solve that problem before too long.

*——*——*——*

This week, I spoke with a professor of mine from last semester, Stephen Johnson. He took a video camera into a community in Juarez that centers around one of the maquiladoras, and recorded a few interviews. His next idea is to take a group with him, film a few more, and make a documentary.

This is a little girl he met named July, pronounced Julie. She plays in the neighborhood (read: 6-8 shacks made out of shipping pallets and tar paper), but she has to remember where to jump over the illegal power lines that run along the ground to all the houses. With both her parents working, they still can’t make enough money to live on. The Mexican government has placed a cap on how much American companies can pay, so that Mexican interests can be protected. I’m sure General Electric and DuPont are real torn up about it, too.

When July gets older, she will have to go to work in a factory like her parents because she can’t afford to pay for high school, even though she can see over the river to El Paso, where she knows that school is free.

She told me you got cancer and died.

So goes a Facebook message that I got from someone I knew in high school. I don’t know how these kinds of rumors get started. I tried to make appearences once I got better, but I guess that just didn’t work. I wonder how many think I’m dead….