Wednesday, October 14, 2009

I love you too.

I got quite a few emails sent to me today discussing Obama and how he is passing legislation for gay people in America that allows them to be in the military openly now. People are incensed apparently. Apparently also:
"Good christians will respond" and "Obama is furthering the attack on American families" and on and on. Yes, I voted for obama. Yes I like him. I dont think he is Jesus, nor is he the Anti Christ. Below includes an email reply to one of these emails. I would like to repeat that in following Jesus, there are more things to worry about than those women who have abortions and those who are living gay. I love all women who do have abortions. I love all people who are gay.And I love you, no matter what you did, because you too have done horrible things. I have too.

I guess my thoughts on this are what if we were all so heavily persecuted for our sins as much as gay people? What if because I lied, or swore or had sex outside of marriage I couldnt enjoy the same privileges as others? Everyone has sin. We are all filthy dirty and hopeless outside of the cleansing and restoring power of Christ. Im not anti so many things, but for things, like for grace and mercy and love. I understand conviction of sin, but plenty of other sinners are walking around us all the time and we arent horrified at their lifestyles, they are not so completely denigrated as homosexuals are. We arent running campaigns against child abusers, or adulterers who also are "attacking the institution of family." I love the fact that whoever sent that email originally put that "being gay does not make you another race or gender" and I would add that does not make you in a sin so horrible that Jesus cannot wash you clean by his death on the cross as quickly and completely as He washed me.

Right now,daily I am working on the fact that i should be horrified at my own inability to reach the bar of perfection and thus on my knees in gratitude for Jesus. That doesnt leave SO much time to be horrified at others actions, and desire to limit their actions and freedoms.

Jesus came for the sinners.






(thats all of us)

Friday, October 2, 2009

I really want to graduate college.

My dream is to graduate college. Seriously. I honestly never really thought I could do it. I was so convinced that it wasnt something I could attain that it took until I was 26 to even begin to think about HOW to apply for school and HOW to finance it. I'm sure I went about it the wrong way and maybe made some stupid decisions with my aid BUT I DID IT. Alone. My mom didnt go to college...most of my family, save a few cousins half way across the country, did not attend college so they werent sure how to navigate a process like that. Most of my friends didnt go to college. I tell you this to show you its a miracle I went, am still going and actually have one year left. Really, it was not until this quarter, or maybe the end of last quarter when I realized that I really was most likely going to graduate.

I have all aid. All. My education is funded by a tapestry of grants, and awards, a scholarship, and 2 smallish loans from the government. One grant I receive is a MAP (monetary aid program) grant from the state of Illinois. Mostly, MAP grants go to students who come from low income households or who are first generation college students.

This past month, MAP grants were all but cut. This has not affected fall quarter/semester but it will affect the rest of the year at all colleges in Illinois. The next quarter grants will be reduced by 50% and the spring quarters will be non existent.

I am one of 137,000 students in Illinois that will lose a significant portion of their aid if the state legislature doesnt overturn the decision in their meeting at the end of October. The portion of tuition I would be responsible for is beyond my means and I will be forced to withdraw from DePaul after this quarter.

Can you take a minute and help let our reps know the impact this will have on students?

Call
Senator James A. DeLeo (773) 237-2525
Rep. Joseph M. Lyons (773) 286-1115
Rep. Michael P. McAuliffe (773) 792-0749

Please tell them how important the MAP grant program is to college
students, particularly those from low income backgrounds and first generation college students. Your calls, letters, faxes and e-mails can make a difference.

Please visit the following website: http://capwiz.com/naicu/il/home/ for more information on how to contact your state representative today.

Thank you for responding....

lord of the flies.....

But the 1980s crack era and Reagan administration reversals of many of those very minimal gains [civil rights] destroyed the fabric of our communities, ripped apart families, and, all these years later, has left a generation of young people, male and female alike, living their own versions of William Golding's Lord of The Flies. If you think I am exaggerating, then simply Google the video of the Derrion Albert beatdown. Only people who have lost all hope, who have no sense of spirituality and the preciousness of human life, would resort to this kind of savagery, the pummeling or shooting of each other until death is there, sprawled on the ground, blood gushing from the head, as was the case with young Derrion.


---Kevin Powell

Read more at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/kevin-powell/chicago-obama-the-olympic_b_307564.html

throwing yourself on the honesty grenade

I have trouble sharing - not like my toys, or money, or hugs, or my car. But sharing whats going on with me. Fortunately, people are very busy with their lives and I can be shy so ne'er the two shall meet. I read this post tonight on another blog and was like Yes! The gift of going second. . . . .
Have you ever been in a small group with people that confess safe sins? Someone will say, “I need to be honest with everyone tonight. I need to have full disclosure and submit myself in honesty. Like ODB from the Wu-Tang Clan, I need to give it to you raw!” So you brace yourself for this crazy moment of authenticity and the person takes a deep breath and says … “I haven’t been reading my Bible enough.”


Yeah, thats happened to me.

Ugh, you, dirty, dirty sinner. I’m not even sure I can be in a small group with you any more. Not reading your Bible enough, that is disgusting. And then once he’s gone someone else will catch the safe sin bug too and will say, “I need to be real too. I haven’t been praying enough.”

Two of you in the same room? Wow, freak shows! I can barely stand it.


yep.

But what happens when people start confessing safe sins is that everyone else in the room starts concealing their real junk.


thats deep. and real.
And that sucks. It sucks that as broken as we all are, as desperate as we all are for a Savior, we feel compelled to clean ourselves up when we get around each other.
As if we arent all filthy dirty and so incredibly desperate for the cleanliness of Christ.

I cant keep up appearances. I try to all the time...I try to take my bad stuff and clean it up and store it away, or convince myself that people dont know that or cant see it.

This world/People like you more if you are all pretty, and neat, and not needy but concealed.
But so what?
So what if people know I am scared, and i feel broken and alone alot.
So what if my brokenness bleeds out at the edges the harder I try to hold it in.


Letting it all hang out may be the first step to God healing it.

When you go first, you give everyone in your church or your community or your small group or your blog, the gift of going second.

It’s so much harder to be first. No one knows what’s off limits yet and you’re setting the boundaries with your words. You’re throwing yourself on the honesty grenade and taking whatever fall out that comes with it. Going second is so much easier. And the ease only grows exponentially as people continue to share. But it has to be started somewhere. Someone has to go first and I think it has to be us.

We’re called to give the gift of second to the people in our lives. To live the truth, to share the truth, to be the truth.



Now I just have to pray for courage....




(quotes taken from stuffchristianslike.com #502)





"Jesus paid it all...
All to him I owe...
Sin it left a crimson stain...
He washed it white as snow..."