/e passionate

E passionate
Wait the line
Bump bump ching
Clack grrrrrung gruuung pa cha

The brick fell all the way down
Let me go I’m grown
Lift up and inside are bright
Explosiv-sions
Revisions

You are worth it he said
Am i
Is he
Yes
Wait the line
E passionate
It’s not time
At the greyhound at 8:45pm,
I wait for you.

I like it when he comes home.
Then I can hug him and the puffy
Vest is bright and says shhhhhhhhhh

Tired Rubber soles

I found out recently that I have vegan shoes, yes, unwittingly I am vegan in my shoe tastes. Converse shoes are made of rubber soles and canvas so no animals are used nor animal products, in the making of my little shoes. But, do I ever feel like I am wearing these little shoes out. I've been burning the pavement with them over the last couple months and getting tons of miles out of them. I've been to San Diego and back by car from Toppenish, Washington. Which is a feat in itself. Stopping every where in between, San Fransisco, Eugene, Portland. Although, my mind/heart has been even more places than my feet it seems like. Yeah, I started running for the first time ever in my life on my own and so I finally feel that my life is reflecting something more of who I am. I certainly am a runner, not that I really enjoyed running for running accept for when I was little. In elementary school, I ran to school almost every day, there and back just because I could and it was like four blocks. Man I wore out my shoes fast, i was hard on them. Now I'm hard on my tires making them work overtime. In some ways it seems that Gods been doing his best to slow me down a little bit since I can remember. This time I hope I'm running with Him and towards something just as good as my life now. there is this song lyric I think by U2 that says "we're running to stand still." And I think that is part of the design in me, to run to stand still and not to just run to burn out. I'd like to think someday I'll find the way to run hard and rest hard. Right now my soul feels as warn and dirty as the soles of my vegan shoes.
Life takes us on strange pathways, the one before me is too big for me and I know I don't have what it takes today to handle the challenges of tomorrow. It is my hope that somehow on the way I'll find it, pull it out from deep down, give out and still find a treasure at the bottom of my gas tank, an oil field in the bottom of my empty belly. Often i find that is where God is the most tangible and present. Not because he's only there when I'm weak, but because it is there I am humble enough to notice Him. At times I am overwhelmed by the ever changing landscape of this life, with family disbursed, with dear friends out of arms reach, as I struggle to keep time with this chaotic world, and make sense of the decisions we must face in order to survive as whole people. Whole people, not the fractured pieces of selves we strip into to feel loved and accepted. Uncertainty is scary, but I wonder are we ever more certain than we are when we tuck ourselves in bed holding our tired feet and say to to the Holy skies, the mountains, our loved ones, the coyotes, and God almighty, "I'm thankful, whatever it is, I am thankful." With a sigh we are still thankful and that is how we know we're not beyond hope and its still worth the run.

Ode to the Old Sugar Factory Who Here Lies Dead

"If you're going to do something illegal, you might as well be smart about it, Right?" I said to Hans as we turned around in a gravel inlet by the Old Sugar Factory and headed back toward the street. He shrugged his shoulders and half agreed, but continued ahead without much thought. It was a lazy dreary Sunday afternoon and we'd decided to visit the factory one last time as we'd noticed most of it missing on a the drive by a couple minutes before. Strange to see what once was a vast factory laden with bricks and metal furnishings coming out its ears like a giant and ancient dog-eared book now just sort of missing...as if most of its pages had been suddenly ripped out leaving it naked and tattered. The factory I think has some special significance to Hans because he and is best friend had many adventures there, but also it was in a way the monument of the beginning of our relationship. In reality it was just the place where one hot June day we went to hang out and all the color drained from my face as the inevitable occurred and he expressed his feelings for me. I can't say either of us said anything memorable or intelligent that day...me least of all. Anyways, it was strange coming back to the place that now looked as different as we ourselves were different from the two people who walked the Sugar factory just five months before. I for one, was much less terrified, I had more color in my face and I didn't feel like running across the open field screaming "Get me out of this!" Instead of the place where the bulk of the building stood there was now a large slab of concrete bookended by two remnants of buildings, lots of wiry metal, scatterings of bricks and random factory looking objects. On the slab was a large frozen puddle that creaks and cracks when you step on it. Hans had a really good time with that. But, it was weird looking at a building with a floor sort of hanging out of a space like a blanket hanging out a window. We sort of just explored around the ruins of what used to be different looking ruins. The wrecking ball was surprisingly small compared to the vastness of the destruction and the space we had once wandered through like a maze. It was beautiful and fallen. We found the Men's room which was just a door sticking out of a wall two stories above us. We also found a monolith of sorts and resorted to our primitive primate state for a couple moments. We were suddenly incited to feelings of violence and hit the ground with sticks for a short time (if you haven't seen "Space Odyssey 2001" you won't get that joke).
But ape-like or not, here we were at the end of this era that had already ended a long time ago and was finally really dying. The factory had closed I think at least 70 years ago but still remained standing as a shelter for tagging and teenagers looking for a good time. But, something about that place sort of held our imagination in it's asbestos walls with wonderment. Seeing it made me feel more or less admonished, it held up for so long as an empty dangerous being hovering just out side of town but it never looked lonely, just well used. And, I thought, if this place could hold its emptiness for so long, our present lonely journey couldn't be that bad. I remember going into one room with these big steel vats and on the wall were these clocks and gauges that had stopped on their time and place so many years ago and had not moved since. At the time it felt like being in Star Trek and going boldly where no one had gone before... although people had gone there before.
We eventually climbed our way out of the ruins of what felt like an ancient city and I saw there on the ground, twisted and half gone, that same clock that used to hang in that big room there still lost in time. It was then that Hans said, "Good bye Sugar Factory we hardly knew you." And that was that, it felt like a eulogy of some sort and a saying good bye to an old era that we never really knew but effects us none the less. Someday perhaps, something new will be built there, a different factory perhaps, a day spa, a Golds Gym...ha not likely here on the Rez. But, I can dream can't I? Its strange to think of so much destruction paving the way for something fresh and new, but I guess that is one of those mysteries we'd like to know about so we search out places we're not supposed to go to like the Old Sugar Factory that here lies dead.

The Maddness of Thanx and Giving

Its kinda funny how the hardest thing for me to give up these days is my independence. But, when it comes down to it, alone or with others, my desire for self actualization is just one of those side quests that gets you distracted from the real journey. So, this last week I was sort of kicking myself for inviting my boyfriend to my Mom's for an early Turkey day, at my Uncle's house. I sort of tricked myself into it I think subconsciously, because I am weird enough to have one of those real voices of reason on one shoulder and the voice of dissension on the other. The the voice of reason wasn't speaking up, she must of got stuck in a locker or something by the other one. Anyways, I started to really get nervous, not about his feelings, or my Mom not liking him...they get along fine, but I was mostly feeling a little vulnerable at the thought of inviting someone else in to my crazy world of big family and the random quaint hippie-esk messy place I call home. The biggest "R" I was feeling wasn't regret, or relief, but regurgitation. Why the nervousness? What's the big deal? For some reason, Eugene-home has been an uncharacteristically hard place for me to be for some time now. I had always thought, if this or that improved things would be different...I was always looking around feeling this wave of regret, and sadness about my family, and all the while having an annoying impatience for my mom, mixed with lots of spiritual funk. I've realized for some time now my short fuse is not my mom's problem but mine. Still, I felt powerless to change.
So, having another observer in my little world didn't seem appealing to me at all. At the same time, inviting him along also felt like a needed stresser to ensue change. It is a five hour drive from where I live to my mom's house, and I sort of was avoiding myself, and the little ladies on my shoulders, most of the drive until a song sung by my Brother-in-Law came on my iPod. "Keep me alive, I'll never die, My soul sits and waits." The instant I heard his voice over the speakers sing those words my little heart stopped in its tracks and sang along. I touched down in that moment long enough to cry out to God, knowing my soul was waiting for a change of heart.
That night the change came, it was like a little room in my soul had been cleared out and a window created in just the right spot so I could sit inside and safely see out. Its sort of a longer tale, but the short version is after everyone went to bed, I prayed a bit and read some scripture. Hans(My Boyfriend) and I had just prayed for a girl we met who seemed in a dark place and I'd felt peace about that. As I sat there on the rocking chair in front of the hearth I'd played in front of and put many stockings on, my spirit was awake and not afraid, I wanted to fight for the good things I saw in my home instead of laying down under sadness and despair, being mad about the way things are now. Instead, I felt light and hopeful. Honestly, its hard to describe to you the difference I felt, but it has been a long time struggle between hoping and giving up on hope. The biggest sign to me that something in me was changing or shifting at least is that my attitude towards my mom had changed, I actually was being helpful and communicating semi-normally. Sometimes, letting someone else into our most vulnerable of places is a precursor for God being let in too. And that is something this year I feel Thanx and Giving about .

Cellofono blues

It was a week ago today, a friday, that I had a sort of negative revelation, I was beginning to feel trapped into service...cellphone service. Starting to question why exactly I was dreading talking to other people because i didn't want them to ask me to do anything for them...i was tired and grouchy, and well, at the end of some kind of rope. In moments like that, I think it best to stick with the negative feelings till better ones arrive. The trapped feelings came and went over the next week, and were magnified partly because I got sick, and still am a little.
Wed. came around and i woke up wanting to not get up at all, feeling tired heavey sick and with no ounce of energy to face my day of facilitating youth group without really my consent. The day had been thrown on me and again, the trapped feelings were rearing their ugly trapped heads. I said, "Lord, I have nothing to give to this day...so help, please." And there was this song that popped into the screen of my tired brain, almost like my subconscious was resuming even after waking. "Making miracles is hard work, most people give up before they happen, maybe that's something, maybe that's something more than nothing. You stretch out across a long table and without hesitation you say "I'm willing able."" It was that last line really got me, so what if i wasn't asked if I was willing to take over youth group for the night, if i was willing to give of myself, If I felt my job was a worth while task, then that was something more than nothing. The reality is that sometimes shit happens and sometimes all at once. But, I'd rather be cleaning up shit in the house of God than chillin' with the wicked. Not that playing games with youth kids is even close to as gross or unjoyable as cleaning feces. In fact youth group is mostly fun, and also dang hard work. Especially when the frozen turkey bowling goes crazy and the pins(pop bottles) decide to get broken on you. Its a long story. But, this is all to say, life is better when you give yourself to the good work instead of becoming Brenda Robot Duty girl. You can insert your name there if you'd like.

Harmony WHAT?

"The trees, the birds , the rivers and winds:
These had no choice but to follow the Way.
Man alone is given choice;
Man alone can follow or go his own way.
If he follows the Way, he will suffer with the pain of the world,
But He will find the Original Harmony.
If he follows his own way, he will suffer only with himself,
And within him will be chaos." (Christ the Eternal Tao, by Heirmonk Damscene)

So, it sort of sucks but I totally relate with the second scenario a lot more than I do with the first one. Dammit! This morning I woke up to a sound, it wasn't birds chirping, or rain hitting my roof, it was that dreaded sound...my cell phone. I ignored it hoping it would somehow go away, then fifteen minutes later there the sound was again. It was times like that in which I'd like to be able to make things explode with my mind powers...but unfortunately that only happens in "Heroes". For some reason the ringing this morning made me feel very trapped and angry, and within me was chaos.
I got up finally and turned off my cell phone and then slept uneasily for an hour or so dreaming of bugs (that was gross). The rest of the morning I tried to sit silently and pray, but still chaos reigned in my heart. At some point I began to realize this wasn't going to change by itself, but still I felt helpless.
My roomate/mentoree/friend and I had a meeting though, a meeting a felt equally unequipped for. But, I did one thing right and that was pray to begin. I'm not totally sure what happened after that, but in my giving of myself and time to another person I felt the Holy Spirit come and inside me i felt good again. Then it wasn't about my abilities or preparedness, but about the Everlasting God doing his thing and I wasn't as worried sick after that.
Most of the time I don't know what it means to follow "the Way"(Yeshua) and not my own way, but I think it has something to do with trust and love, something to do with giving and caring, something to do with good things happening in unexpected places. For me specifically, it has something to do with giving up my tendency to only see myself and what I can do and asking for help whether I think I need it or not.

When She Believes

In addition to being the title of a great song by Ben Harper, "when she believes" is the theme of this entry. Perhaps it is because it is so difficult to really believe, to against practicality and rational knowledge face life with undeterred belief that this phrase has captured me. I've recently been reminded to read Song of Songs by a friend. At first I was a bit thrown off to be told to read such a book from the bible. I can barely understand most of the book to tell you the truth. But, I thought i'd give it a try so I read the first two chapters today and the thing that caught my attention was one phrase. The Beloved says to the Shulamite girl that her eyes are a doves eyes. I recalled someone telling me that this was symbolic because doves mate for life, they only have one partner their entire existence. So to say someone has eyes like a dove is to say that they are only looking at one person, their vision isn't double or double minded, it is singularly focused. I had to sort of catch myself as i realized that this sort of devotion is not a strong point of mine. Its difficult to invest my heart in one place with certiantly or with the kind of devotion that says- "I am sick with love". In fact I kind of abhor this sort of thing, even if i admire it in others, I find "sick with love" undesirable. If only because it scares the living daylights out of me. Maybe its that thinking about being consumed by love or by anything is not that attractive when i really thing about it. But, You know what, I really want to be free enough to be blinded by love for God's sake. Is that weird or what? It's not the love part that is as attractive as the devotion, and the freedom to be out of sorts if the occasion presented itself.
When I was in Hong Kong I watched some weird TV special about this girl who grew up playing the violin well (surprise, every Chinese parent's dream). But she said one thing that struck me as well, "Every one should take the time to love at least one thing." That kinda makes sense doesn't it? Ok not a direct quote but she said something a long the lines of that. So anyways hurray for Song of Songs.