Amurika!

I don't understand. Label the right nothing more than bigots with big guns yet all the left's "open-mindedness" does not extend to seeing more than rednecks of the right? Where then is your tolerance? And all those rednecks with their bigotry and anger will love Jesus in one status and yet demand the downfall of their President in the next?

I'm standing on the line and discouraged if I should land on either side.

I believe there was once a time when at the day when the President became Mr. President, democrat and republican stood together behind their countries chosen leader simply because that is what the position demands. Yet today the mud-slinging and hate rises to immeasurable levels as we the people give voice to our frustrations. I absolutely believe in standing for what is right, in fighting for liberty, defending the helpless and bringing judgment to injustice; but when your "beliefs" tear our country down the middle, pitting citizen against citizen and widening the gap between unity and cooperation, what is there to gain? Will strong-arming your opinion validate it when you are the only one left standing?

I'm standing on the line watching my country trample one another to get their "American Dream."

Greed overwhelms us. The American Dream is no longer a gift to the body of our nation, but each individuals right to have and to hold no matter the cost to their fellow man. Our problems are not welfare, or the deficit, or the military, nay these are only symptoms of a deeper evil; greed and desire overtake us laying waste to us like some disease. We, as a nation, have been reduced to whoredom to get what we cannot have if all we have to give is ourselves, our integrity, our virtue, our character.

America is but a shadow of her former glory. A statue of justice, peace and freedom, she has been brought low turning on all she once stood for.

Who knew God was in peanut butter?

I stole some peanut butter. Not exactly a federal offense and yet it set off a morning of inner dialogue that ran me down like a Mac truck on I-10. But pause, here I am, jumping into the middle of things again. I live in a match box on the bottom half of a homemade bunk bed, if mosey right on up those three wooden stairs you will find a long haired albino most likely in a Texas shirt of some sort, this is my roommate. She is the most American American I have ever had the pleasure of knowing and will let you know just as soon as you meet her. To her the most important things in life are Jesus, family, football and steak. Did I already mention she is a Texan? What can you do, its in our blood. I must be anemic. Continuing. We have been living together for about seven months now and so I can't claim that I haven't learned a few things about her. For instance, she hates when people reach across her plate to grab something instead of just asking to pass it down. Or that she loves coffee flavored ice cream, yet she is always cold. These are the small seemingly irrelevant things you learn about a person as you spend more and more time around them. We share just about everything and she has no problem with that, she just really likes to be asked first. No big deal, right? Right.

I stole some peanut butter. I just took a big spoonful and enjoyed it as an afternoon snack. I'd like to say I just wasn't thinking, but that wouldn't be the truth of the matter. Have you ever seen a dog eating peanut butter? Stuck on the roof of their mouth, their not sure whether to be enjoying the flavor or freaking out at this substance on their tongue so they decide on a combination of the two which turns into knitted eyebrows in confusion and a half smile at the delicious taste. Come on, its kind of funny. This is me at the moment, trying to enjoy this peanut buttery goodness but worrying because I forgot to ask if I could have a tad. But, being me, a human who will most always pick wrong over right, I override the thought and keep on, keepin on.

Later that afternoon...
Roomie: How was class?
Me: *Eyes cast down in shame* Good.
Roomie: Cool, hey listen, I don't mind sharing but would you ask me next time you take my peanut butter?
Me: *How did she know? Note to self: check for hidden cameras* Yeah, sure.

This conversation lasted maybe 30 seconds at the most. Yet I found myself at the end of it blind for the film of red I was seeing through. Enter inner dialogue: How dare she? What is her problem, she already said I could use it yesterday. I should just "accidently" knock the jar off the shelf. Yeah, retaliation is the answer. What am I thinking? I could have just asked, why am I so upset? It isn't even a big deal.
For a 30 second conversation I was dwelling on it for the next 30 minutes before I began to think. I didn't understand why I should immediately feel so defensive, I had to have another conversation to get to the bottom of it.

Sitting in class completely distracted:

Me: God, I don't understand what the root of this is in my heart. I try so hard to seek you, to love you, why do I do the things I don't wish to do and all the things I don't want, I do?
God: Please, Adri, this isn't about peanut butter, you already know what the root is. (My inner Jesus has a bit of a sarcastic tongue)
Me: *Sigh* Yeah, I'm pretty sure I do. In her small request she displayed all the pride in my small inconsiderate heart and I didn't like it. I feel like she is so "holier than thou" though, always pointing out where I go wrong without even having to say it directly. I hate that about her, how am I supposed to love her?
God: So you must hate me too, eh? (Inner Jesus is also Canadian)
Me: No.
God: So love her the same way you love me.
Me: Yeah... I guess you're right. Do you always have to be right?
God: Yes. Oh and p.s. try opening your eyes to what I'm teaching you here, Ray Charles.

So I stole the peanut butter.

VIVIR

"For the thief comes to kill, and steal, and destroy. I came that they may have LIFE and have it abundantly."

I have a problem with Christians.

I have a problem with myself.

I write this blog because the more I see, the less I know. I don't know what it means to live "abundantly", to practically live out this Christ life. The more I see of  Christianity the more confused I become about Christ. I suppose I see it like a simple silver ring. So very... not complex and at the same time beautiful in its gleaming simplicity. Yet over time through the motions of life that ring becomes tarnished. Gunk starts to build up. This gunk takes away from its purity and hides its heart.

This is what Christianity has done to our Christ, we have taken a simple, sweet message and begun to add our own "gunk", rules, regulations, theology, doctrine, ideas, translations... in the end we can no longer see what lies underneath. What once was truth, silver and pure, is now a notion of our greater "understanding", forever tarnishing the freedom hidden beneath.

So how does one live in the midst of Christianity? How do you see Christ, truly see him, when we have all the answers?

 Do we even know what it means to live?

Heart burn.

"Let you alone! That's all very well, but how can I leave myself alone? We need not to be let alone. We need to be really bothered once in a while. How long is it since you were really bothered? About something important, about something real?" -Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451

I wait tables. Being college age and waiting tables almost always equates to an empty or negative bank account and obscene amounts of singles. Which being a girl, or an attractive man even, can get you a lot of awkward stares in the check out line at Target. But, thats not that point I was getting to. In the last year alone I have made thousands of dollars in tip money, yet standing here at the beginning of a new year looking at my tax return forms, I could not even begin to tell you where that money has gone. 

Which is the point I was getting to. On the loom of American culture there is one thread that intricately makes its way throughout all the rest, tying them together, without which we would seemingly fall apart. Seemingly. The entire world revolves on the axis of a copper cutout of Abraham Lincoln's mug shot. We can't deny it, we can't disprove it, but if money makes the world go round then materialism holds us down. Not like gravity however, more like fried chicken, saturated in grease with a side of clogged arteries, please. If you have ever stepped into the ring with American cuisine by the end you most likely rolled out, unable to button your jeans, ready to re-cooperate with a long intimate afternoon with your couch, a bottle of Pepcid and package of Roll-aids. If you listen closely to what your stomach is telling you, you're never full in a way that  replenishes you but you're always ready for the next round. 

This is the way it goes with stuff. We go to college, undoubtedly collecting debts that we will be paying off to the end of time, so that we can get a good job to pay for our stuff. We go to work everyday so we can pay for stuff. The new stuff turns into old stuff and then we find it two months later in the box you meant to donate to Goodwill. We need more stuff to replace the now old stuff so, we go back to school to get yet another degree, and more student loans, so that we can get a better job and upgrade our stuff. Then we have a mental breakdown (also know as the "mid-life crisis") because for the briefest moment we realize that in the middle of all our stuff we are unhappy. After a short stint with a personal therapist, we get back up convinced that the solution to our problem is obviously, more stuff. Better stuff, bigger stuff. But the craziest part is that everything is stuff to us. Things we can buy, careers we can change, people, friends, husbands and wives; the latest version, the newest model, bigger, better, bolder. Stuff.

So in all the logic and brilliance of our 3 pounds of brain, also the weight of steak eaten by an average Texan family during the SuperBowl, we have basically come up with this conclusion: The things that we have do not fulfill us, therefore we need more of the things that have not satisfied us because that will ultimately bring us happiness. It is probably sad that I haven't thought this deep about the human condition since Supersize Me came out on DVD. And I can follow this thought process all the way back to a TurboTax form telling me how much money I have made this year, and wondering where it all went. Thank you IRS. In all of this though, I have to wonder further if our materialism is the disease or just a symptom of? Is the root of this issue found deeper in the heart of this world? 

There was this man, some would say a crazy man, a revolutionist, about 2000 some odd years ago that questioned the same as me. Better yet I think he knew the answer. He didn't have a home, so he would just go town to town teaching people, staying with friends, chilling with the poor and the unwanted. Green Peace would love this guy. Anyway, walking from town to town he stopped to talk to a lady drawing water at a well (pretty big social taboo by the way, they didn't have feminists yet, but like I said, this was a radical guy, breaking through social norms was a daily occurrence) and he begins telling her that more than the water she needed for her body, she needed water for her soul. See much like us she spent her time looking for the newer model and after five or so husbands, hadn't found it but this man, Jesus, knew the issue wasn't on the surface, the issue was in the heart. The woman's need went deeper than a man to provide, or a craving for a younger more attractive man; what she was in search of was love. A love that could fill the emptiness she felt.  

We've been lied to. Day after day, through media, politicians, corporations, sadly even in our churches. They keep telling us we need this stuff for fulfillment, if we could only get more of it we will be satisfied. But the reality is we are trying to fill something in our flesh that is missing in our soul. Our hearts are clogged with grease and we salve the heart burn with the temporary fix. Pepcid, our savior. We don't need as much as we have. Honestly, we need hardly any of what we have. 

I haven't waited tables in a while, and a couple of months ago I had the opportunity to visit an orphanage in Honduras. The kids may not have everything they want, but they have everything they need, they are loved. In trying to teach the kids about responsibility they have art and jewelry making classes through which they make a small allowance. Every once and a while, when there is someone available to take them, they go into town to spend some of their money. On clothes, or toys but usually on precious commodities, namely, chips and candy. On this particular day one of the girls went into town to spend some of her limited funds, like the rest of the kids when she walked out of the supermarket her bag was filled with chips and juice something she probably hadn't been able to have for a while and wouldn't be having for another stretch of time. The volunteer with her went walking ahead not realizing he had lost the girl behind, upon realizing this he turned back to find her giving all of her treats to a homeless lady on the road. He hadn't even noticed the woman. The moral to this story could be, give to the poor, to the homeless; and this would be a good moral. But the real moral is this, in her act of kindness she gave to the lonely and loveless.

And after all, that's all we really want, isn't it?