A quiet fury in my belly tells me I’m hungry

Note: This was written on Friday afternoon.

So it’s that time of the afternoon where I am getting hungry. I get cranky when I’m hungry. If I’m hungry for too long I get headaches and get really tired. It’s not there yet and dinner is soon, I just thought I’d forewarn you in case we’re ever together and I get irrationally angry.

I went over to Ashton hall last night for small group with the boys. Then I ended up hanging out there until about 2AM. I took a shower in those lovely community bathrooms. People always give me the “whatever floats your boat.” sort of comments after I express how much I like using community bathrooms. They only say that because they’re just satches (as my friend Nate would say) who haven’t experienced the glory that is showering and pooping next to other people. There’s some very valuable interaction that takes place in those moments…okay, maybe I shared too much information, but let’s summarize by saying that there are some great people in Ashton who I love seeing.

Today I went to class where I learned more about Colombia. I could go into great detail, but I think it would be better just to tell you that the US government is paying money to the Colombian government to fight drugs. However, the government pays some of that money to paramilitary groups who then do the dirty work that the military can’t (massacres and assinations) with the revolutionary armies. The government, the paramilitary groups, and the revolutionary armies are all paid by the drug cartels to keep out of the way…and the American populace makes drugs more profitable by actually buying them…not to mention that what we (as the US) are doing is driving the price of cocaine up (and thus the profitability of the enterprise too). We’re creating more of a reason for people to be selling drugs in the first place…ARG!

Note: This was where I started as of Sunday night.

I was reflecting on my frustration with US foreign Policy in Latin America and I was reminded of something. I talked with Dr. Nienhuis about the fact that I wasn’t going to go to the School of Theology’s “Why go to Seminary” lecture because there wouldn’t be any Latin American seminaries there…I want to go to one (if that’s what the Lord’s got for me) where the classes are in Spanish. I mentioned that I was apprehensive about making that statement, but Dr.Nienhuis looked at me and said something to the effect of, “That’s your gig man.” He definately used the word gig. It made my aspirations seem cooler. Yes. Things about Latin America, Spanish, and helping the people there…that may just be my gig. Neato.

Let’s see…Weekend highlights: Saturday was PA fun day. I got to spend the majority of the day with my lovely staff playing in the greater seattle area. Breakfast at Pike Place Market. Afternoon go-carting and put-put golf at Bullwinkle’s family fun center in Tukwila (better than the last time I was there with my graduating class in high school…life feels different after 3ish years), and then to Deleitant’s in Capitol Hill for dessert food. All in all a great day that had 2 great things especially going for it: 1) it was at least 70 degrees the whole day. 2) I made a great mix for every car to take. All the 2pac most people could handle…which was too much for some people on my staff anyway…sigh. They’ll get it. I know.

Saturday night (and Friday night) I was on duty. After PA fun day I took the hardest nap I can remember. Crazy dreams. I woke up with the shape of my ear imprinted on my arm…it took me some time to get used to life again. Then I spent the night playing fun games and watching movies with the boys on my floor. I also got unofficially invited to a guest-listed mocktail party down the hall. I felt pretty special, but I wondered what everyone else who wasn’t invited thought…hmmmm….

A friend of mine is experiencing the emotional roller-coaster that is a relationship. Everything seems to be going fine. By the roller coaster part I mean that people have emotions. The funny thing about emotions that I have learned is that you don’t get to control how long you feel them. You either give them the space to effect you as long as they are around…or you lose something of your humanity in shutting them out. Neither option is extremely funtastic. But, I guess I’d take being human over feeling no pain…because when you can’t hurt, you can’t have joy either.

I watched the movie called “the kingdom” with some of my boys. It was a rough film. It was about the war on terror as an FBI team coupled with Saudi police officers to find insurgents in Saudi Arabia. Things got ugly and lots of people died. They got the ‘bad guy”. At the end of the movie one FBI guy asked his friend what he said to make their FBI buddy stop crying in a meeting. At the same time a relative of the “bad guy” asked the “bad guy’s” grandson what he told him before he died. Both answers were the same “Don’t worry. We’ll kill them all.”…Forgive me, but that is very ugly.

Victory for “the good guys” in this film came at the expense of a lot of people dead. Watching violent movies is harder for me these days. I find myself thinking about the “bad guys”. Who are they? What is it that makes them think that killing innocent American civilians is okay? What are the situations in their lives that support that sort of thinking? Is killing them back the right answer? Aren’t they human too? Earlier that afternoon I was reading Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s Letters and Papers from Prison. He said:

“We must learn to regard people less in the light of what they do or omit to do, and more in the light of what they suffer…God himself did not dispise humanity, but became man for men’s sake.”

After reading that quote and seeing the violence that so many people in the world view as the solution to their problems…I cannot help but feeling sorry for those who see the only way out a particular situation to be violence. We really (in the case of the War on Terror or the War on Drugs) create a cycle of retributive violence. I wonder whether or not there will ever be enough people who will lay down their arms and refuse to retaliate in an effort to show love to their enemies. Check out this link. The Lego people say it well.

http://www.thebricktestament.com/the_teachings_of_jesus/on_love/lk06_17p20p27.html

One last thing. I went to falcon idol on Friday. People sang. Some of them very well (high fives to first and second place winners Karianne and Zach), some not so well. I got feisty in the crowd and asked the bald judge (by shouting) who was being really negative where his hair went. The crowd laughed. I felt kinda bad for that, because that wasn’t showing him a lot of Jesus’ love for him…but at the same time I didn’t feel too bad because he really was being quite a jackass.

The think I meant to say was that I think I’ve developed a bit of a superstition about girls that sing. I’m into it. Girls that can sing have another thing going for them in my book, but at the same time they scare me. Both times I got involved/tried to get involved with girls that sing I wound up being hurt pretty bad. No, they didn’t try to poison me. I just got interested and they weren’t and then it hurt quite a bit in the emotional sense. For months. Maybe I’m older now and more jaded, but I dunno. I think at the end of the day I’m honestly intimidated by girls that sing. For one thing musically talented people have had this ability to make me feel like anything I am is a sham. The other thing is that whole girl who sings attacking my heart superstition I’ve got going on. Okay so that’s that, here’s this other thing:

I’m going to tell you a series of facts that I don’t throw around. Before I begin to to tell you these things, know that I don’t mean to boast in any way. I can sing. I’m a Bass 2. I was in choir for about 2 years in college and took private voice lessons. The concert choir director wanted me to be in choir, and my private voice lesson guy told me that I shouldn’t stop singing. I’ve heard things like these for awhile. My mom tells me I’m good at math and that I should do something with it, my AP Bio teacher said I’d be a good scientist, my culinary arts teacher told me I could be a chef, and my friend Kenny who directed the one acts I was in during high school told me I shouldn’t stop acting…I haven’t done anything that any of these people said. I let all these things go to some degree. I still love to cook, singing is great fun, and acting is likewise. I liked math and science…but none of these things is really a passion of mine. I like them all, but I don’t really desire these things. I wonder if in not pursuing these things I let go of gifts that the Lord blessed me with. Did I waste what I have been given? Who would I have been if I had gone with any of these things?…I’m not gonna say it keeps me up at night, because it doesn’t, but I wonder who I might have been if I had chosen differently in life.

As it is I have all these little facts about me that cause people to say “You can sing?” or “You took Calculus?”…Yes.  Yet, the incredulous way in which these questions are asked are somewhat offensive. It’s as though I am believed to be what I show myself to be at each point. If I sing, then people know that. If I do math, then they know. Otherwise they assume that I can’t do either….even if I tell them. People do that with my ethnicity too. I get lots of “you’re Hispanic?” Yes. I am. I am half-Hispanic. My dad’s from Texas. I’m sorry I don’t look Mexican enough to fit into what you think Hispanic people should look like. I have a genealogy website from my cousin that I can show you…Sigh. Maybe we could give people a little mystery and not assume we’ve got them all figured out. I’m guilty too. I thought the guy on this video was just a cell-phone salesman…Watch. You’ll get what I mean.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1k08yxu57NA

Think it over. Maybe people can be mysterious.