6 Minutes

I have six minutes to write something here. 

I'm sitting in the Student Union, listening to Maná and drinking some peach iced tea. This is the present, full of the certainty of knowing that until my iced tea is gone I can drink more of it. Until I have class I can continue to listen to these classy Latin jams. 

Now there is four minutes remaining.

The future however is not so certain. What will happen in four minutes? Will I arrive to class and find it cancelled? Will I be able to speak Spanish confidently in class? Will I be alive at the end of this day? 

I know this is a common theme in my writing. I am uncertain often. And lately this uncertainity has been even more common than before. The only thing I am absolutely certain about is that there is God who loves me and is looking out for me. I take solace in that.

Two minutes. 

This moment doesn't seem like anything consequential. Maybe it isn't, or maybe this is something that will change my life forever. What if I lived my life like every moment counted that much? What if I lived sent by Jesus to impact as many people as possible? 

That would be something worth writing about.

Time's up. 

The Woods

Today I walked into the small woods in my backyard for the first time in a while. It used to seem so much bigger when I was younger, but I guess that’s true of everything. I remember spending days in those woods with my friend Nate. We would pretend we were soldiers, explorers, bounty hunters. You name it and we probably pretended we were it.

 I remember just walking in those woods was an adventure. There was always something new to discover. In the summer that meant fighting through the thorns and plant life, while the winter held cold, snow and ice. Clearings were made into staging areas, the stream into a vast expanse to be crossed and the hills into mountains to be scaled.

 Today, it was none of those. I went in there to take some pictures and video of the stream sparkling in the noonday sun. But the sense of wonder was gone, replaced with only nostalgia. If this is what growing up means, I have to say I miss being a kid sometimes.

But maybe it wasn’t the forest that shrunk, but my perception of it. It wasn’t mysterious or frightening anymore. It was no longer a struggle to find my way around. Does that change what it is? No.

 It seems like the older you get, the easier it is to lose the sense that things are still bigger than your life. People come and go, issues continue to haunt you and everyone on every side is telling you what it means to be successful. And there I stand, just as confused as I was a kid, but pretending that all is fine so much better. Somewhere along this way, I’ve made God small.

 He no longer is big and mysterious, because I’ve been down the same road so many times. I’ve thanked Him for His grace over and over, but I think I stopped truly appreciating a long time ago. I’ve written so many blogs about my failings and sat back thinking that that act alone would somehow atone for them. I’ve prayed He would take my life and relationships and serve Him with them, but created a little box in which certain things happen that I know will serve God.

 I would love to tell you all that after I left the woods I had some miraculous revelation and they regained their mystique, but that would be a lie. I don’t think they will ever have the same significance in my life again. I also can’t tell you that God dropped down from heaven and showed me how big and amazing He truly is, because that would also be false. But He may have freed my mind from the trap it has been in, and that’s the first step.

 

Pulp Fiction

Is it possible to find God in a postmodern morass of profanity and violence? Is it possible to find God when no one else is looking for Him? Can God show up in the strangest of places?

I think the answer to all three of those questions is yes, and I've seen God in Pulp Fiction, directed by Quentin Tarentino, which is filled with coarse language and violence. 

We begin the movie by meeting Vincent (John Travolta) and Jules (Samuel L. Jackson), two gangsters that work for the mysterious Marcellus Wallace (Ving Rhames). They are going into a building to retrieve a precious case that was stolen from Marcellus by some petty criminals. They go through the motions and right before they leave with the case Jules begins reciting Ezekiel 25:17 (actually a large paraphrase with much added) before killing the man responsible for the theft. In the very beginnings of the movie there is already a reference to God. Is this reference serious or is it simply a interesting thing for Jules to says before he executes a wrongdoer? That is still up for debate as the movie hurtles along to a different story. 

The first story of the movie focuses on Vincent and an evening with Marcellus' wife Mia (Uma Thurman). Riddled with drugs this story offers up the least redeeming qualities of the movie, but gives a glimpse into the purposeless lives that Mia and Vincent lead. They live from high to high, and Mia even goes into the bathroom while they are eating dinner at the restaurant to get high after an awkward pause in the dinner conversation. When they return to her house, Vincent goes to the bathroom and Mia overdoses on cocaine, which leads Vincent to charge through the city back to the man who sold him the stuff to help her come back to life. As they part after Mia has returned to semi-normal you can tell there is a real sense of gratitude in the way she talks to Vincent, but nothing has changed. They are both still stuck in the mess of postmodernity looking for something higher than themselves. 

The second part of the film finds Butch (Bruce Willis) running away from Marcellus after he does not throw a boxing match that Marcellus paid him to throw. We follow Butch through a series of interesting situations before we arrive at the oddest one yet, where both him and Marcellus are at the mercy of two hicks that are planning to kill them, among other things. They pick Marcellus first, Butch gets free and is about to leave Marcellus to escape before he has a change of heart and rescues the man who wants him dead. Marcellus is greatly and lets Butch leave. As Butch exits the store where they were captive he sees a motorcycle that quite plainly has the word "grace" stenciled on its gas tank. It gives meaning to what we just witnessed. Marcellus gave Butch grace for what he did, just as in the same way Butch came back to rescue him showing him grace. Butch drives away on the motorcycle free from his death sentence, showing how grace really can help us leave our sins behind.

The film draws to a close by revisiting the very first sequence and shows Vincent and Jules being saved from death by what Jules calls a "divine intervention." This divine intervention causes Jules to really think about his job and he decides to mend his ways. He tells Vincent that he is done with this work and he plans on leaving. Later in the story Vincent and Jules sit down to eat breakfast and continue to converse about this until Vincent goes to the bathroom and two people begin to attempt to rob the restaurant. This continues until Jules pulls a gun on the guy and begins to talk to him, and in this moment we can see the change that his encounter with God has had on him. 

"There's a passage I got memorized. Ezekiel 25:17. The path of the righteous man is beset on all sides by the inequities of the selfish and the tyranny of evil men. Blessed is he who, in the name of charity and good will, shepherds the weak through the valley of the darkness. For he is truly his brother's keeper and the finder of lost children. And I will strike down upon thee with great vengeance and furious anger those who attempt to poison and destroy my brothers. And you will know I am the Lord when I lay my vengeance upon you. I been sayin' that s*** for years. And if you ever heard it, it meant your a**. I never really questioned what it meant. I thought it was just a cold-blooded thing to say to a motherf***** before you popped a cap in his a**. But I saw some s*** this mornin' made me think twice. Now I'm thinkin': it could mean you're the evil man. And I'm the righteous man. And Mr. 9mm here, he's the shepherd protecting my righteous a** in the valley of darkness. Or it could be you're the righteous man and I'm the shepherd and it's the world that's evil and selfish. I'd like that. But that s*** ain't the truth. The truth is you're the weak. And I'm the tyranny of evil men. But I'm tryin', Ringo. I'm tryin' real hard to be a shepherd."

Jules has changed. He has changed because he had an encounter with the living God. He has seen God work in his life to save it, not just be a figurehead for his killing sprees. Vincent dismissed the situation as mere coincidence, but Jules sees beyond an earthly perspective. He tells him in the car as they leave the apartment where they incident happened that his "eyes are f***ing wide open," and that he is going to retire. While Jules doesn't suddenly become the poster boy for the 700 Club he has experienced a change and in the rest of the movie we can tell he is different, and if that isn't God shining through I don't know what is.

Was this glimpse of God worth the time spent watching a movie filled with language, drugs and violence? I'm not sure, but it was there, and more importantly Pulp Fiction shows us that God can turn up in the worst of places. The whole world is God's and He will shine His light where he pleases and use some of the strangest ways to show people His grace and love. Pulp Fiction asks some deep questions and shows a lot of people looking to escape this world through any means necessary, but the only two who make it are Butch and Jules. One escapes on grace, and the other through a divine encounter with the Most High.  

Born Into Brothels

Sex is big industry.

But in countries other than America it is a lot messier. 

Tonight I watched Born Into Brothels, a documentary about a group of adorable children in India who through the power of a simple camera are able to show us the lives they live in the Red Light District of Calcutta. It's a unique film as photographer Zana Briski gives the children cameras and teaches them about photography. The children's photography is quite impressive, but what is more impressive is their deep thoughts and incredible resiliency captured by Briski and co-director Ross Kauffman.  

In these children's lives there is no hope, no future. The girls will grow up to become prostitutes, following in their mother's footsteps as this is the only way to survive in the district. This is sex industry at its messiest. The girls and boys all know what their mothers do, and yet they still have the remains of innocence about them. This is in stark contrast to the weathered faces of their parents, carved deep by years of pain and shame. 

Briski tries to help the children, but most of them end up staying in the Red Light District. Some of them are able to go to boarding schools and carve a new life for themselves, but unfortunately this is the exception to the deadly spiral of the prostitution. 

I couldn't tear my eyes away from these children. One minute they are smiling and laughing, the next they are revealing these deepest fears and secrets to the camera with surprising honesty. I know things like this happen in the world, but seeing it firsthand--through the eyes of a child-- is a different matter altogether. 

As I sat there mesmerized a thousand thoughts flew through my head. Sex in America is so clean cut and easy. If you want to see a women naked just go online or head to your local video store and within minutes you will be satisfied. None of the physical scars, but the emotional scars are the same. 

Seeing these women in the documentary quietly resign themselves to this fate, made me question a lot of women in America today. Why are there so many women that will just throw away their sexual dignity for money, without being forced, doing essentially the same thing as these women? It's so easy to show some skin, sex up the movies for a little extra money, but why do women in America and other parts of the world embrace this as a legitimate job?

Is this why women in America are free? So they can do the same thing as women who need to prostitute their bodies just to make it by? That doesn't make sense to me and I'm not sure it ever should.

The men are not free of this either. I'm not better than any of those men who solicit the girls. The American man thinks when he looks at porn or when he lusts that he isn't doing anything on the same level as raping a prostitute. But he is. Jesus labels lusting in the heart as adultery. "We are all guilty of the same things, with sinning hearts that make us equal," says popular rock band Emery.

Yet amidst these trials the kids are still loving life, almost inexplicably to us as Americans. It brought me almost to tears on a couple occasions. Where is their hope? How can they have hope? At one point one of the boys, Ajivit, speaks of having no hope. My heart breaks for these kids, but what can I do? 

This is my heart breaking just one more time at the injustice in this world and then in a few days returning to its callousness. In America, even if we want to help, we never do. I want to help. I prayed for those kids and all of the other like them tonight in Warriors. I sang for them, hoping they would find their hope in Jesus. Maybe that is what I can do to help, and I hope I don't forget.

Born Into Brothels is not an easy documentary to watch, but watch it we must. The glimmers of hope are dim, but they still manage to shine through. I watch these terrible, horrible things not because I revel in them or enjoy them but because my heart needs to know the human condition. But I can't put it as well as Ajivit who uttering the last line of dialogue says this of a picture he is presenting to other children, "Although there is a sense of sadness, we must look at it because it is truth."

Old Myspace Blogs #2: Fall

Fall, the season where change is proclaimed most evidently, as the once green leaves change into orange and brown and drop to the ground signaling the death of summer. Fall, when school starts and the care-free days of the summer fade away like the daylight. Fall, the very word brings pleasant memories of sitting inside by the fire, watching the night envelop the day. Why does fall invoke such feelings?

     In life, things fade away but still leave a trace of supernatural beauty. The leaves disappear from trees, and even though they are gone the trees suggest a skeletal beauty, a beauty that says even when life is stripped bare it retains a measure of dignity. Fall shows us that life is in motion. It doesn't take much imagination to jump from spring to summer, but the cataclysmic explosion of color in the fall is much harder to imagine. Never lose sight of the way life moves in and out of its seasons, far quicker and for much longer periods of time than in the natural world.

    As fall moves quickly towards winter, stop and reflect in the beauty presented in the way the trees move, and the way light shines through the colorful leaves. Take a minute, stand outside and take a deep breath of fall air. Notice the way its crispness assails the senses with something unexplainable. Life and nature show us that sometimes we can get caught up in everything happening and not see the beauty of Creation.

I thought this was appropriate. It's also serving as a way for me to practice my editing skills. 

 

Un Ejercicio en Español

En ocho días solamente, saldré para Chicago. Necesito esta vacación de tarea y exámenes. No puedo esperar ver a Andraya. Primero dos meses de escuela son mucho tiempo ir sin un descanso. Tuve unos días relajarme, pero no fueron bastante. 

Esperamente este descanso en Chicago seré el tiempo necesito. Sin embargo, tendré una examen el día después vuelvo de Chicago. La tarea nunca para. Esto es bueno, porque este año aprendía a manejar mi tiempo mayor que último año. 

Dios me está enseñando cómo tener responsibilidad y me está mostrando su camino para mi vida. Todavía tengo mis problemas, pero sé Dios me está ayudando vencerlos. Y sé podéis ver este blog es en español. Creo que Dios me mostró que debo perseguir español y lo persigo. 

En inglés:

In only 8 days, I leave for Chicago. I need a vacacion from homework and tests. I can't wait to see Andraya. The first two months of school are a lot of time to go without a rest. I had some days to relax, but they were not enough. 

Hopefully, this rest in Chicago will be the time I need. However, I will have a test el day after I return from Chicago. The homework never stops. This is good, because this year I have learned to manage my time better than last year. 

God is teaching me how to have responsibility and is showing me his path for my life. Yet, I have my problems, but I know God is helping me overcome them. And I know you all can see this blog is in Spanish. I believe that God showed me that I should pursue Spanish, and I am pursuing it.

I'm sure there are some grammatical errors in the above post. You can alert me to them if you wish. :)

dream

If it was just a dream

It was the best dream I've had in ages