it’s amazing how the body responds to stress completely involuntarily.
I don’t want to feel this, it just happens. the rising pulse, inability to rest, alertness.
such is the state I find myself in when I hear the sound of the key forcing its way through the lock. those heavy footsteps, the door slam.
she’s back.
oh dear God, let me rise to occasion of speaking truth to her and relentlessly.
The Father spoke:
Come, child, let us journey together.
Where shall we go, Father?
To a distant land, another kingdom.
So the journey will be long?
Yes, we must travel every day.
When will we reach our destination?
At the end of your days.
And who will accompany us?
Joy and Sorrow.
Must Sorrow travel with us?
Yes, she is necessary to keep you close to Me.
But I want only Joy.
It is with Sorrow that you will know true Joy.
What must I bring?
A willing heart to follow Me.
What shall I do on the journey?
There is only one thing that you must do – stay close to Me. Let nothing distract you. Always keep your eyes on Me.
And what will I see?
You will see my glory.
And what will I know?
You will know My heart.
The Father stretched out His hand.
(Excerpt from A Woman’s Journey to the Heart of God by Cynthia Heald)
I went to another trivia night with two classmates and I was appalled by some of the behavior going on. Of course, it’s a bar, what did I expect? At the end of the 4th round, one group was given a lot of attention because they wrote on their answer page that they should get a round of beer because the Asian guy on their team just found out he “knocked up his girlfriend”. When the MC read the note aloud, the team started cheering and giving each other high fives and other grunts. The MC asked for clarification: “so uh do you plan on marrying the girl?”
Guy responds: “NO!!!” and then proceeds to cheer with his bros and they erupt into more primordial grunts and laughter. The MC tells the team they all get a round of beers on the house.
That entire exchange was altogether disgusting to me. The fact that the guy boasted about impregnating his girlfriend was disgusting to me. The manner in which the guy dismissed marrying his girlfriend, or in other words, committing to her, was equally disgusting. Finally, the fact that they were awarded free beers for this behavior was the final straw.
We’ve failed as a people to raise sons who respect, take care of, and cherish women. Instead, women are just used as tools to make men feel good.
If I could abort myself from this whole set up and live in a matriarchy or a world in which pathetic men did not exist, I would in a heartbeat. But since I don’t know how to do that, God, don’t let me perpetuate the sh**iness of patriarchy by finding worth in being a prop to spineless guys.
Per someone’s suggestion, I’ve been keeping tabs on my expenses and trying to start grappling with budgeting money by first recognizing where most of my expenses fall. From working at a DV shelter for low-income women, I’ve had skewed perceptions of what a living wage is. Some of these women were undocumented and only qualified for General Relief, public assistance given by counties for those who do not qualify for any other forms of public assistance and amounts to about $360 dollars per month. I need to check my notes again but it’s either that or $260/month- which is about $3,100/$4,300 per year. These individuals rely on shelters to provide food and housing but still! That’s way below the poverty line in California, which is about $12,000/year.
From working at the shelter, I started thinking that $12,000/year was extremely well-off!
Out of curiosity, I wanted to know what my annual expenses are and what income level I could live off of. Using this 6 month sample, I see that my lower bound is rounded to $1,100 per month and my upper bound is $1,900. Taking that average, $1,500, I could live off of $18,000 per year in LA without having any savings or security net. That’s a bit mind-blowing, since I was convinced I could live off of $12,000 without needing public assistance after working at the shelter.
My lower bound is when I’m living off of the bare minimum, with no tithing, no airfare home, and possibly accruing a lot of savings from getting meals provided for me on dates.
Anyways, interesting to see where the money flows, ie, landlords and those who own the means of production. Insert Marx/Engels – working men [and WOMYN] of the world unite!
I dragged Adeline to a class on essential oils and though I have benefited from rubbing peppermint oil on my face to alleviate a headache and inhale lavender oil to alleviate tension before going to bed, the class itself promoted a somewhat dangerous mentality. But first, a word on essential oils. Sure they are used in aromatherapy but they’re marketed as a panacea, altogether preferable over FDA regulated drugs because they are “natural”.
Adeline brought up
the counterpoint that there’s nothing natural about essential oils. They take a plant or herb that exists in nature and distill it so that the outcome product is 75-100* times more concentrated than the original. (*needs to be fact checked) In a similar vein then, we could say that high fructose corn syrup is natural because it comes from corn. So the “natural” language itself is problematic because everything is derived from something is derived from something is derived from nature.
Using that rationale, there’s not much difference from using essential oils to treat an ailment versus using penicillin, which is derived from a fungus. Both are equally “natural” or perhaps the right word is “unnatural”.
The biggest difference is that essential oils are not regulated by the FDA. If I sold essential oils, I could tell you that they cure x, y, z and I wouldn’t have to provide any evidence to prove that claim.
So my biggest take home from this class is that it’s rather dangerous to think you know, when you really don’t know. In the class we were told we could mix different oils together and drink some but not others. I think it’d be helpful for a pharmacologist to give us more specific guidelines. In conclusion, it’s much better to either know absolutely nothing and be fully cognizant of that or to actually know everything.
Though my dad has said many things that pissed me off or made me feel terrible throughout my childhood and adolescence, the greatest thing about having a dad who is INTJ is that he can only tell the truth and nothing but the truth, so help me God.
me: baba, if you had a disease or something, would you tell me?
pappy: of course i’ll tell you.
me: then why didn’t you tell me you had skin cancer!?
pappy: i didn’t have skin cancer, it was something that might have led to skin cancer.
me: you still didn’t tell me that you might have had skin cancer.
pappy: everyone might have skin cancer, then i could tell you that you might have skin cancer too.
Ecclesia – the called out ones.
Our conception of the purpose of church shapes our lived realities. The problem is that we may have an inaccurate conception of what the church’s function is because of poor translations of the original greek word. Church comes from the Old English term cirice, which means, “pertaining to the Lord”. However, the original Greek was ecclesia (the called out ones remember?).
The inconsistency in the translation of that one word shapes our lived reality in drastic ways.
Church from cirice implies a confined space where you go for things pertaining to the Lord. Cirice comes from the Greek word kyriakon meaning “the Lord’s house”. That’s not a bad thing, it just misses the purpose of the church. Pushed to an extreme, gathering in a space to do things pertaining to the Lord may result in a commodification of church related activity. For example, say I go to church to do the things I need to do that pertains to the Lord. Because that is the goal, whether the worship music is helping me get into the right mood or whether the sermons spark something within me to be on fire for God or how the hospitality team welcomes me become a big deal. The appeasement of my preferences becomes a big deal because the purpose of church is to be a place where you do things pertaining to the Lord and if those things don’t help do that, change them all!
Yet, ecclesia implies something entirely different. As the ecclesia, we are the called out ones of God. This has nothing to do with a stagnant building and everything to do with a people with a mission, to carry out God’s redemptive plan for humanity as his hands/feet/voice in this cold and brutal world.
More thoughts to come.
There is an older woman at my work who does housekeeping. She is the hardest worker I’ve ever seen. She cleans the bathrooms, mops the floor, empties out all the trash cans on our floor, wipes surfaces – basically does everything needed to make the office appear as if it’s not overtaken by people staring at computers and attending endless meetings, walking around untidying things.
Anyways, she’s about a head shorter than me, probably 4’3″, she looks like she is in her late 50s. We speak in Spanglish but mostly smile because though I’ve taken 5 years of Spanish, I can still only understand certain catch phrases like “como esta?” “mucho gusto” and “quiero taco bell”.
Maybe she’s not interacting with all the higher-ups and her title doesn’t contain the words “manager” or “associate”, but she is a respectable and essential employee who works hard at her craft and does good work.
I’ve had a strange relationship with the local church since graduating high school, which is strangely 9 years ago. My dad draws lots of comparisons between our relationship with the church and marriage. In his words, he commits to the local church and is devoted to serving it through thick and through thin. He loves his church and he would never cheat on his church. Given the marriage analogy, it makes him sad that I’ve been involved with so many local churches in the last 9 years. Yet, I disagreed with his analogy (since the marriage was between the Church and Jesus) and I didn’t see myself as cheating on a local church by seeking out the Church. By involvement, some I mean that I dabbled in, some I served regularly, others I mean that I jealously eyed and wished I were apart of. And I would attend fellowship activities or services of multiple churches in a week. Just because, here they are listed out:
In 2011, I had this desire to check out a different church each week in Oakland. The extent of what happened was going to Acts Full Gospel Church, a huge African American church in East Oakland that worshiped for hours! It was great. I really wanted to challenge my perception of the church as being confined within the walls of a building and see how the Church was a people, diverse and one big body extending across all kinds of invisible lines (racial/ethnic/cultural/class).
With a abstract commitment to the Church came a very loose commitment to the local church and loose ties to my brothers and sisters in Christ. Though I still don’t think it’s wrong to have relationships with other churches, I do see how the quality of the relationships are limited and it’s a capacity issue. Similarly, in college, I was apart of a handful of clubs and did a wide variety of activities, however, the depth of skills developed were quite shallow. I would compare my college experiences to A’s, who committed to one sport, worked hard at it, and represented the United States in an international tournament in Europe.
At the end of the day, my weak ties to the local church impacted my own relationship with God and with others. I’m too lazy to tie in the two verses but insert verses related to the calling of the church to make known the manifold wisdom of God and the body of Christ –
Ephesians 3:10-11 – His intent was that now, through the church, the manifold wisdom of God should be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly realms, 11 according to his eternal purpose that he accomplished in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Romans 12:5 – So in Christ we, though many, form one body, and each member belongs to all the others.
a moment of uncontrollable laughter with some coworkers woke me up from bleh-ness.
laughter, a most delicious medicine.
Out of Darkness 