Sunday, October 29, 2006
Thursday, October 26, 2006
Monday, October 23, 2006
Father, let me think your thoughts and feel your feelings for the people I see
My thoughts
Sometimes they get all messed up, they get all jacked up, they get all tripped up
I see the tough guy with the wife beater under the double x t shirt
Gold chains hanging down and a scowl on the brow
And I feel threatened, I feel offended, I feel defensive
I see the hipster with the precocious smirk, listening to some band he’s proud to know because other people don’t
The t shirt with the cute little graphic
New Balance shoes, Cool tattoos, the funky hat
The Ritual coffee cup and the road bike that makes him peg his right pant leg
On his oh so tight jeans
My thoughts get all messed up in my head
I’d like to love but I’d rather not
My own insecurities and my own peculiarities are calling
The little boys hop the fence into the half way fixed up park
Pipes and rocks are used instead of the baseball bats and balls that never came on Christmas morning
Rocks are whizzing past my baby girl’s head. Anger rises in my veins like a wave at Mavericks.
What feelings am I feeling now? What thoughts race through my tired brain?
When the man at the park scolds me, shaking his head, for not bringing him a bicycle
While my family sits the drunken man knocks on the window of my car and complains that we will not give him food. He shakes his head in anger and disgust, scaring my two lovely ladies
What now? Thoughts, feelings, thoughts, feelings, thoughts, feelings
I need to breathe. I need to stop. I need to rest.
My God says He loves, He cares, He sympathizes, He wishes well
He created…………In HIS IMAGE
He grieves when He sees the heroine needles
He cries when He sees the lonely child
Jesus spoke of a life abundant
A life He came for us to have
Echoes from my Sunday school childhood ring in my ear…
Change my heart oh God, Make it ever true
Change my heart oh God, May I be like you
Let me be so in tune, like a head bopping to a Jay Z tune
My thoughts full of your thoughts
May my brain be full of good thoughts, full of generosity
May my heart be filled with a compassion it has never known
May my feelings find direction and inspiration from my Creator
May all of us and all of them become simply all of us
And may we all feel His love,
ALL OF US
Swim around through it
Run in it without getting tired
Rest in it without getting bored
Float in it forever and ever and ever
May His love ooze out of our pores
And make us new
Sometimes they get all messed up, they get all jacked up, they get all tripped up
I see the tough guy with the wife beater under the double x t shirt
Gold chains hanging down and a scowl on the brow
And I feel threatened, I feel offended, I feel defensive
I see the hipster with the precocious smirk, listening to some band he’s proud to know because other people don’t
The t shirt with the cute little graphic
New Balance shoes, Cool tattoos, the funky hat
The Ritual coffee cup and the road bike that makes him peg his right pant leg
On his oh so tight jeans
My thoughts get all messed up in my head
I’d like to love but I’d rather not
My own insecurities and my own peculiarities are calling
The little boys hop the fence into the half way fixed up park
Pipes and rocks are used instead of the baseball bats and balls that never came on Christmas morning
Rocks are whizzing past my baby girl’s head. Anger rises in my veins like a wave at Mavericks.
What feelings am I feeling now? What thoughts race through my tired brain?
When the man at the park scolds me, shaking his head, for not bringing him a bicycle
While my family sits the drunken man knocks on the window of my car and complains that we will not give him food. He shakes his head in anger and disgust, scaring my two lovely ladies
What now? Thoughts, feelings, thoughts, feelings, thoughts, feelings
I need to breathe. I need to stop. I need to rest.
My God says He loves, He cares, He sympathizes, He wishes well
He created…………In HIS IMAGE
He grieves when He sees the heroine needles
He cries when He sees the lonely child
Jesus spoke of a life abundant
A life He came for us to have
Echoes from my Sunday school childhood ring in my ear…
Change my heart oh God, Make it ever true
Change my heart oh God, May I be like you
Let me be so in tune, like a head bopping to a Jay Z tune
My thoughts full of your thoughts
May my brain be full of good thoughts, full of generosity
May my heart be filled with a compassion it has never known
May my feelings find direction and inspiration from my Creator
May all of us and all of them become simply all of us
And may we all feel His love,
ALL OF US
Swim around through it
Run in it without getting tired
Rest in it without getting bored
Float in it forever and ever and ever
May His love ooze out of our pores
And make us new
Barrio Libre!
I've heard rumors that some people really dig these posters that are all over the Mission District and want to meet whoever it is that is behind them.
Thanks to Ryan and Holly for designing these...
Thanks to Ryan and Holly for designing these...
Wednesday, October 18, 2006
Greyhound
A friend told me he has been seeing commercials for Greyhound Buses full of smiling, happy people enjoying their deluxe trip on the bus. I feel like I should have taken actual footage last weekend and put it up on YouTube.
We (Adam, Mark, Josh and I) were dropped off by Lisa at the Greyhound station in San Francisco. After walking by several homeless men sleeping in the walkways and a few people screaming at each other, we made it to the ticket counter. We asked Ryan, the man behind the counter, if he had any tips for our long trip to Albuquerque, New Mexico. Ryan said that we need to remember not to drink alcohol or smoke anything on the bus, but that if we saw any ladies we could feel free to take them to the back of the bus and have a little fun. "If the bus driver looks at you funny, it's just because he's jealous." Okay, thanks for the tip. Ryan then informed us that it was our lucky day. Not only would we be riding on an Express Bus (the first of several times we heard of these mythic super buses), but there were going to be some strippers on our bus!! Could it get any better??
The only thing I cared about was getting some sleep on the first leg of our trip which started at 10 PM on Saturday (San Francisco to Los Angeles). Alas, the story started off a different way. A woman sat behind Adam and myself and asked us not to recline our seats. She then spoke in a very loud voice the entire drive. As I drifted in and out of consciousness, never really sleeping, I heard lots of talk of praying and pastors. The ironic thing is that I don't think I saw one other cell phone amongst the hundreds of other Greyhound riders I came across during the trip.
We stopped in Oakland, Coalinga and Glendale on the way to Los Angeles. At Coalinga most of the other passengers grabbed some quality food at McDonald's. Having read Fast Food Nation a couple weeks ago, I definitely passed and thought about standing at the entrance and begging people to not eat the stuff, but instead I stood in the parking lot and stretched.
Upon our arrival in Los Angeles, we took a look at the waiting room full of metal chairs and interesting smells and decided to take a walk downtown. As soon as we reached the sidewalk we were offered bikes for $10 each by some local businessmen on the corner. We thought about it but continued to walk. We passed an organization I had heard of called Midnight Mission with around a hundred people in the courtyard (this was around 5 in the morning). On the surrounding streets were dozens of tents and makeshift homes of cardboard and shopping carts. Trash filled the streets along with boxes of clothes that had apparently been donated to the people of the street. We wondered aloud how much good was being done by this type of rescue mission. The presence of the mission seemed to have created a dense ghetto that chased away the rest of civilization. A heavy spirit filled the air and the complexities of helping the American poor rushed to my thoughts.
We returned to the station for the 7 AM to Phoenix and were about to board when a woman yelled to stop. There was no more room on the bus. The crowd quickly accepted the bad news. I was puzzled...no one would complain? We asked the woman, all the while suspecting that the bus was full of people who had tickets for the 9 AM trip to Phoenix. She gave us some meal vouchers for the food area and promised that the 9 AM bus was an "Express Bus" that would get us there right on time. Sure...
After choking down some free food and wondering where the bacon and eggs originated, I found Mark and Adam sleeping on the floors on opposite sides of the room. I tried to make my old Ipod mini work, but since the batteries have been on the fritz for a year or so, that didn't quite work.
Finally on the way to Phoenix!! We stopped in San Bernadino for 10 minutes, and I hopped off the bus to enjoy the sun and call my wife. After listening to a voicemail that Ryan and Holly Sharp had a new beautiful baby named Paxton, a young man, probably 18 or so, suddenly yelled at me that I could not stand there. "On the bus or in waiting area!!" was his command. A part of me wanted to yell back and inform the young man that 1. No one talks to me like that 2. Ever heard of a thing called customer service? 3. Since when is it illegal to step outside? After the 5 second burst of anger rolled through my veins, I smiled and nodded and slowly walked back into the bus, feeling like a part of a herd of cattle. I later chuckled when Adam recounted Mark being called "boy" when an agent demanded his ticket.
We needed to arrive in Phoenix in time to get on the 4:25 bus headed for Albuquerque, but we took several stops that were a bit too long and got there at 4:45 or so. We were told that there was another bus coming in 10 minutes so we had better hop in line. After waiting in line for half an hour we sent Mark to the ticket counter. Before long we finally were informed that the next bus wouldn't depart until 11 PM, but we could have some free meal tickets :) We met a woman with her son that told us there was a bus at 5:30. Suspecting she had been lied to we talked with her for a while and advised her to head to the ticket counter and make sure she got the scoop. After we took a walk in the rain in Phoenix and turned down some Rolex watches, we were finally on our way to Albuquerque, and we were scheduled to arrive at 10 AM Monday morning. The problem is that I had booked a hotel on Priceline that we had planned to enter at 3 AM. We realized that you can't make firm plans when riding Greyhound and wondered what it was like to live like that. On top of that no one had cell phones, so it added up to some serious waiting around and never knowing when you would arrive.
The crazy thing about the experience is that our tickets cost $79 and my return flight from Albuquerque cost $94. Add in food at McDonald's and the Greyhound stations (we didn't see anyone else get meal tickets) and not only have you thrashed your body but you've also spent another 15-30 dollars. Factor in having a job that pays by the hour and does not include vacation time, and Greyhound is a seriously bum deal. I suspect that many of the people on our buses do not know how to find cheap tickets on the Internet and may not factor in the total cost of the entire trip. You also don't need a credit card as you would to book a cheap flight ahead of time. I think our bags were checked once the entire trip, and our ID was never checked. We saw many prison tattoos. What really got me was the single Moms with their kids. Little humans being yelled at by their mothers for not being willing to hold more things in their laps. I heard whispers of former husbands and boyfriends and lives of frustration and desperation.
Someone had an interesting thought: is there any company that is geared to serve poor people that is run well? If anyone has a thought I would love to hear it.
As for me, I am committed to carving out some time to calling and writing a letter to Greyhound to complain about some of their practices and how they treat people and take advantage of them. It feels so luxurious to ride in a car these days...
We (Adam, Mark, Josh and I) were dropped off by Lisa at the Greyhound station in San Francisco. After walking by several homeless men sleeping in the walkways and a few people screaming at each other, we made it to the ticket counter. We asked Ryan, the man behind the counter, if he had any tips for our long trip to Albuquerque, New Mexico. Ryan said that we need to remember not to drink alcohol or smoke anything on the bus, but that if we saw any ladies we could feel free to take them to the back of the bus and have a little fun. "If the bus driver looks at you funny, it's just because he's jealous." Okay, thanks for the tip. Ryan then informed us that it was our lucky day. Not only would we be riding on an Express Bus (the first of several times we heard of these mythic super buses), but there were going to be some strippers on our bus!! Could it get any better??
The only thing I cared about was getting some sleep on the first leg of our trip which started at 10 PM on Saturday (San Francisco to Los Angeles). Alas, the story started off a different way. A woman sat behind Adam and myself and asked us not to recline our seats. She then spoke in a very loud voice the entire drive. As I drifted in and out of consciousness, never really sleeping, I heard lots of talk of praying and pastors. The ironic thing is that I don't think I saw one other cell phone amongst the hundreds of other Greyhound riders I came across during the trip.
We stopped in Oakland, Coalinga and Glendale on the way to Los Angeles. At Coalinga most of the other passengers grabbed some quality food at McDonald's. Having read Fast Food Nation a couple weeks ago, I definitely passed and thought about standing at the entrance and begging people to not eat the stuff, but instead I stood in the parking lot and stretched.
Upon our arrival in Los Angeles, we took a look at the waiting room full of metal chairs and interesting smells and decided to take a walk downtown. As soon as we reached the sidewalk we were offered bikes for $10 each by some local businessmen on the corner. We thought about it but continued to walk. We passed an organization I had heard of called Midnight Mission with around a hundred people in the courtyard (this was around 5 in the morning). On the surrounding streets were dozens of tents and makeshift homes of cardboard and shopping carts. Trash filled the streets along with boxes of clothes that had apparently been donated to the people of the street. We wondered aloud how much good was being done by this type of rescue mission. The presence of the mission seemed to have created a dense ghetto that chased away the rest of civilization. A heavy spirit filled the air and the complexities of helping the American poor rushed to my thoughts.
We returned to the station for the 7 AM to Phoenix and were about to board when a woman yelled to stop. There was no more room on the bus. The crowd quickly accepted the bad news. I was puzzled...no one would complain? We asked the woman, all the while suspecting that the bus was full of people who had tickets for the 9 AM trip to Phoenix. She gave us some meal vouchers for the food area and promised that the 9 AM bus was an "Express Bus" that would get us there right on time. Sure...
After choking down some free food and wondering where the bacon and eggs originated, I found Mark and Adam sleeping on the floors on opposite sides of the room. I tried to make my old Ipod mini work, but since the batteries have been on the fritz for a year or so, that didn't quite work.
Finally on the way to Phoenix!! We stopped in San Bernadino for 10 minutes, and I hopped off the bus to enjoy the sun and call my wife. After listening to a voicemail that Ryan and Holly Sharp had a new beautiful baby named Paxton, a young man, probably 18 or so, suddenly yelled at me that I could not stand there. "On the bus or in waiting area!!" was his command. A part of me wanted to yell back and inform the young man that 1. No one talks to me like that 2. Ever heard of a thing called customer service? 3. Since when is it illegal to step outside? After the 5 second burst of anger rolled through my veins, I smiled and nodded and slowly walked back into the bus, feeling like a part of a herd of cattle. I later chuckled when Adam recounted Mark being called "boy" when an agent demanded his ticket.
We needed to arrive in Phoenix in time to get on the 4:25 bus headed for Albuquerque, but we took several stops that were a bit too long and got there at 4:45 or so. We were told that there was another bus coming in 10 minutes so we had better hop in line. After waiting in line for half an hour we sent Mark to the ticket counter. Before long we finally were informed that the next bus wouldn't depart until 11 PM, but we could have some free meal tickets :) We met a woman with her son that told us there was a bus at 5:30. Suspecting she had been lied to we talked with her for a while and advised her to head to the ticket counter and make sure she got the scoop. After we took a walk in the rain in Phoenix and turned down some Rolex watches, we were finally on our way to Albuquerque, and we were scheduled to arrive at 10 AM Monday morning. The problem is that I had booked a hotel on Priceline that we had planned to enter at 3 AM. We realized that you can't make firm plans when riding Greyhound and wondered what it was like to live like that. On top of that no one had cell phones, so it added up to some serious waiting around and never knowing when you would arrive.
The crazy thing about the experience is that our tickets cost $79 and my return flight from Albuquerque cost $94. Add in food at McDonald's and the Greyhound stations (we didn't see anyone else get meal tickets) and not only have you thrashed your body but you've also spent another 15-30 dollars. Factor in having a job that pays by the hour and does not include vacation time, and Greyhound is a seriously bum deal. I suspect that many of the people on our buses do not know how to find cheap tickets on the Internet and may not factor in the total cost of the entire trip. You also don't need a credit card as you would to book a cheap flight ahead of time. I think our bags were checked once the entire trip, and our ID was never checked. We saw many prison tattoos. What really got me was the single Moms with their kids. Little humans being yelled at by their mothers for not being willing to hold more things in their laps. I heard whispers of former husbands and boyfriends and lives of frustration and desperation.
Someone had an interesting thought: is there any company that is geared to serve poor people that is run well? If anyone has a thought I would love to hear it.
As for me, I am committed to carving out some time to calling and writing a letter to Greyhound to complain about some of their practices and how they treat people and take advantage of them. It feels so luxurious to ride in a car these days...
Friday, October 06, 2006
Bus to Glorietta...oh yeah
So four of us decided to ride the bus to New Mexico for the Emergent Gathering.
If you've never heard of the Gathering you should check it out...it's a wonderful time.
This year will be a bit different. I'll be co-leading some conversations and somehow I become the point person for hospitality, making sure people connect and feel welcome and all that. All of a sudden it feels like an old home with old friends...a family gatheringo of sorts. It was just two years ago I attended for the first time, my airfare paid for by Creekside Community Church. I knew no one. I was a little freaked out.
Anyone out there that has ridden Greyhound across a couple states? I think it's twenty four hours or so. We figured if we're always talking about walking in the ways of Jesus and we think Jesus would ride the bus...well, maybe we should actually take the bus. My only experience with buses has been dropping off my brother a couple times, and in that limited experience I know that it will be a fascinating trip. My only thing is that I really hope I can sleep during the night...I'm a wuss about not getting enough sleep.
Thursday, October 05, 2006
Picture Share
A brief moment of happiness on the "Big Girl Bed" before the last few nights of torture with Kayla demanding that me or Andrea sleep with her. When she falls asleep we slip out of the room, and then she wakes up at 2 or 3 AM and remembers that she doesn't like to be in the "Big Girl Bed" alone, at which point she screams for Mommy and Daddy and we start the process all over again. I think I'm losing my mind. She has an uncanny ability to sense when I am about to make my move out the door, and she suddenly becomes fully awake and screams in horror that I am not with her...I've been reading that this phase can last for 6 months or so...I'm not sure I can make it. Perhaps God is getting us back into parental shape for the boy coming in November, or perhaps He is punishing me for owning too many pairs of shoes...
Monday, October 02, 2006
2
two
two women
two women with black hair
two women with black hair turning grey
i could see them out of the corners of my eyes
one to my left and one to my right
two
two women
A slow and stubborn gait
Weathered hands and faces
Blank stares marching forward
Marching towards my lime green seat in front of the laundromat
Suddenly, in unison four eyes open up
two heads rise and two smiles form
two weathered and beautiful faces
four hands move upwards and point towards the others
The legs have new life
Springing forward as if they were still young
two hands meet two hands and hold each other
now two full bodies embrace
quiet words are spoken
i cannor hear
a language i cannot understand
but i do understand
and i feel joy
like the joy at a happy ending of a movie
only this is real
this is simple life
as the two part one passes me
still smiling and I cannot help but smile myself
my hello is met with a blush and a chuckle
realizing i have seen the meeting of these two
a minute or two passes
the two have moved on
another woman, dark skin, black hair turning grey,
a slow gait, weathered hands and face,
but no one on the other side
at least no one who cares
or at least no one who knows
there is one
the legs never gain speed
the eyes never light up
the smile does not come
one
surely she has comanions on another street
surely she has someone who makes her smile
who gives her life
does she
two women
two women with black hair
two women with black hair turning grey
i could see them out of the corners of my eyes
one to my left and one to my right
two
two women
A slow and stubborn gait
Weathered hands and faces
Blank stares marching forward
Marching towards my lime green seat in front of the laundromat
Suddenly, in unison four eyes open up
two heads rise and two smiles form
two weathered and beautiful faces
four hands move upwards and point towards the others
The legs have new life
Springing forward as if they were still young
two hands meet two hands and hold each other
now two full bodies embrace
quiet words are spoken
i cannor hear
a language i cannot understand
but i do understand
and i feel joy
like the joy at a happy ending of a movie
only this is real
this is simple life
as the two part one passes me
still smiling and I cannot help but smile myself
my hello is met with a blush and a chuckle
realizing i have seen the meeting of these two
a minute or two passes
the two have moved on
another woman, dark skin, black hair turning grey,
a slow gait, weathered hands and face,
but no one on the other side
at least no one who cares
or at least no one who knows
there is one
the legs never gain speed
the eyes never light up
the smile does not come
one
surely she has comanions on another street
surely she has someone who makes her smile
who gives her life
does she
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