Fam...

I love my parents...


...and my sister, too.

Blahgs

Hey, I followed in Ryan's footsteps and ALSO made a list of blogs....please let me know if you want me to take yours down (or put yours up).

The bug...

I'm getting the travel bug again, that itch under my skin to leave the country...FAST. We Americans do have a problem staying put...being invested in one place, commiting our time and energy to a specific community for the rest of our lives. We are a mobile people, rootless and roaming, like the band of hippie ministrals Matt and I saw this weekend at the peace protest. There's something about the nomadic life that is sexy and, I'm sure in many ways, idealized. But it's appealing, at least to us here in the Estados Unidos.

Then again, the nomadic life is exhausting, especially if you are doing it alone, traveling from place to place, starting over wherever you go, establishing relationships and then leaving again. Going from Gordon to Romania to Portland to DC in less than a year was a bit overwhelming. A little too much transitioning if you ask me. But as of right now, the thought of being here another year feels...weird. I'm not used to it. I'm only used to biting off small chunks of time, a few months here and there rather than entire years.

So that being said, I feel the urge to be...somewhere else, somewhere none-US. Somewhere African or Eastern European. Uganda has settled firmly in my heart and mind as The Country To Return To. And Romania doesn't beckon to me so much as the people who are still there -- Dana and Brandi and Diana and Victor. I miss them a lot. I love to travel. I love the awkward, fish-out-of-water feeling you have for the first month, and then I love settling into the place, learning obscure local lingo and lore, feeling "at home" in a new setting. I love the excitement of being surrounded by so many new things - new foods and sites and customs. There are a lots of hardships and frustrations with traveling, too, of course. But the enjoyments far outweigh them.

I wonder if there will ever be a day when I feel read to settle down, take root somewhere, a day when a one-year committment will seem like a piece of cake rather than something daunting. It's not that I'm non-committal. It's just that there are a gazillion things I'm interested in and want to do and see and experience. Trying to pin down just one and stick with it is....against my nature. But not unlearnable. I am doing a lot of things lately that are "against" my very nature...like bills and schedules and meetings gallore. We can all learn to do even the things we aren't good at and don't care to be good at.

I've talked to Steve about potentially visiting him in Cairo next winter. Or meeting up somewhere. We shall see.

Some nice news....

Group Homes Get More Va. Funds

By Chris L. Jenkins

Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, March 8, 2007; Page VA03

The General Assembly has dramatically expanded a program that provides community care to people with mental disabilities in Northern Virginia, approving funding that will add group home beds and pay more to agencies that offer services in the area.

During the 46-day legislative session that ended last month, lawmakers pumped enough money into the current $74 billion state budget so an additional 330 people with mental disabilities throughout Virginia will have access to community care, such as small group homes. Northern Virginia will likely receive about 60 of those slots, with the majority going to Fairfax County residents, said Alan Wooten, director of mental retardation services for the Fairfax-Falls Church Community Services Board.

In addition, state officials increased funding by $5 million to agencies in Northern Virginia that provide services to people with mental disabilities to help the agencies manage the high costs of doing business in the region. State reports estimate that the cost of providing those services in Northern Virginia is at least 30 percent higher than elsewhere in the state. Currently, agencies in the region are paid the same rate for their services as those elsewhere in Virginia.

The additional money will boost funding to Northern Virginia agencies by 15 percent, which will largely go toward increasing salaries to direct-care workers.

Advocates and state officials said the extra $5 million from the state will go a long way toward helping organizations stay in the region.

"This will go directly to paying our workers better," said Nancy Mercer, executive director of the Arc of Northern Virginia, which organized a regional push to get the extra $5 million from the state. Combined with federal funding, the region's agencies will get an increase of $10 million annually starting in fiscal 2008.

"We're also hoping that this will help our agencies here in Northern Virginia to stay and not have to move someplace else, where the cost of doing business is cheaper," Mercer said.

Advocates and officials said the higher compensation might encourage other agencies to open in Northern Virginia.

In all, Virginia allocated about $15 million statewide for those services this year, an amount advocates and state officials called significant.

The new funding will help whittle the long waiting list for services in the area. Nearly 950 Northern Virginians with mental disabilities get a Medicaid-funded waiver to receive services, largely group-home beds, in the community instead of being placed in institutions. Because of long-standing funding shortages, hundreds are on years-long waiting lists to receive community care, which generally costs less than institutionalizing people in large facilities downstate.

State officials and lawmakers said the General Assembly was swayed to make the investment this year because of a focused effort by advocates.

For nearly a year, advocates in Northern Virginia have been pressing lawmakers to help increase funding for the area's providers. Every Northern Virginia lawmaker signed onto the legislation to do so. In addition, the budget amendments were sponsored by area lawmakers, including Del. Vincent F. Callahan Jr. (R-Fairfax) and Sens. Janet D. Howell (D-Fairfax) and Charles J. Colgan (D-Prince William).

"The Northern Virginia advocates really pushed statewide, and the legislature heard them," Howell said.

The alternative version....

My dear friend Ryan, who seems to have serious disdain for my personality type (despite the fact we differ on one degree....take that!) left this 'alternative' version of Type 7 as a comment, but it was too funny to leave it there to collect dust, so I will post it here.

Opportunistic Idealism (Ennea-Type VII)
Gluttony, Fraudulence and Narcissism
Trait Structure
Gluttony
Hedonistic Permissiveness
Rebelliousness
Lack of Discipline
Imaginary Wish Fulfillment
Seductive Pleasingness
Narcissism
Persuasiveness
Fraudulence

I hae to say it, but he's pretty right on. Especially the "seductive pleasingness."

Uh oh...here we go again.

So...I found ANOTHER personality test, the Enneagram 9 Types (http://www.9types.com/), and I am a number 7. Does my love of personality tests make me obsessed with self? Or just interested in being self-knowledgable? I must admit this is pretty right on. I bolded the ones that hit the nail on the head (aka, all of them).

Type 7: Adventurers are energetic, lively, and optimistic. They want to contribute to the world.

How to Get Along with Me:

Give me companionship, affection, and freedom.
Engage with me in stimulating conversation and laughter.
Appreciate my grand visions and listen to my stories.
Don't try to change my style. Accept me the way I am.
Be responsible for youself. I dislike clingy or needy people.
Don't tell me what to do.

What I Like About Being a Seven:

being optimistic and not letting life's troubles get me down
being spontaneous and free-spirited
being outspoken and outrageous. It's part of the fun.
being generous and trying to make the world a better place
having the guts to take risks and to try exciting adventures
having such varied interests and abilities

What's Hard About Being a Seven:

not having enough time to do all the things I want
not completing things I start
not being able to profit from the benefits that come from specializing; not making a commitment to a career
having a tendency to be ungrounded; getting lost in plans or fantasies
feeling confined when I'm in a one-to-one relationship

Global warming as "tool of Satan"

Christians, particularly the fundamentalists of the Religious Right, fascinate me. I'm both repelled and attracted to them, much like roadkill....you know it's gonna be nasty but you can't help but look. Here are some particualrly amusing sections from an article I read on global warming and Jerry Falwell:
_________________________________________________

Falwell Says Global Warming Tool of Satan by Bob Allen, 03-01-07, http://www.ethicsdaily.com/article_detail.cfm?AID=8596

Moral Majority founder Jerry Falwell, who has worked for decades to involve conservative Christians in politics, said Sunday the debate over global warming is a tool of Satan being used to distract churches from their primary focus of preaching the gospel. "If I decide here as the pastor and our deacons decide that we're going to get caught up in the global warming thing, we're not going to be able to reach the masses of souls for Christ, because our attention will be elsewhere, " Falwell said in Sunday's sermon at Thomas Road Baptist Church in Lynchburg, Va. "That's pretty wise for Satan to concoct." ...

Falwell didn't deny the earth is warmer than it once was, but he said fluctuations in the earth's temperature have nothing to do with human activity. He described the "truth" linking global warming to a rise in man-made carbon dioxide gases as the "greatest deception in the history of science." ...

Falwell cited two Bible verses that he said apply to the global-warming debate: Psalm 24:1-2, which declares "The earth is the Lord's, and the fullness thereof," and Genesis 8:22, which says there will be seasons of spring, summer, fall and winter for "as long as the earth remains."...

"Now how long will the earth remain?" Falwell asked. "It will remain until the new heavens and the new earth come. And that won't happen until, well, over in the last two chapters of the Bible--after the tribulation, after the thousand-year reign of Christ, then new heavens and new earth. Why? Because the former things are passed away. The earth will go up in dissolution from severe heat. The environmentalists will be really shook up then, because God is going to blow it all away, and bring down new heavens and new earth."

In recent years, "since Al Gore invented the Internet and then accelerated global warming," Falwell said, "our world has been in turmoil." Unfortunately, Falwell said, "naïve Christian leaders are also being duped," jumping on a bandwagon with "persons who are on the left of everything." "I agree every Christian ought to be an environmentalist of reasonable sort," Falwell said. "We should certainly pick up trash. We ought to beautify the earth as best we can. We ought to keep the streams clean. But we shouldn't be hugging trees and worshipping the creation more than we worship the Creator, and that is what global warming is all about."

Falwell said a better name for Gore's film, which later the evening following Falwell's Sunday morning sermon won an Oscar for best documentary, would be "A Convenient Untruth--convenient for him to alarm the people for his own political advantage, without any background."
___________________________________________
As I said, pretty hilarious. But then there is this, http://www.christiansandclimate.org/statement, which renews my faith in the Church. I bought a book today called, "It's Easy Being Green" with all these pratical steps to make your lifestyle more eco-friendly. I would really like to implement some of these enivornmentally sound practices into our life in l'Arche. Perhaps I will post an entry with some of the ideas I find. More on that later.

Waves...

What is the appropriate, socially acceptable amount of time to mourn for a bereaved pet? A few days? A few weeks? Maybe it depends on the number of years you've had the pet. Or perhaps the age and maturity level of the surviving owner. Maybe it's a combination. I've had Cinnamon for 16 years. I was 7 then and I'm 23 year now. That means for 2/3s of my life, 66.66%, Cinnamon has been around. It's like he became a permanent fixture...I just always expected him to be around. And then, on Thursday, I came home to find him gone. He's been declining in health since December but was psychologically healthy. Never seemed to be in pain, even though he was losing weight. Never became a recluse. Never ceased to want to be around people, to give and receive affection. His sister, Oreo (yes, yes...we named them when we were in early elementary school), has been psychologically wack for the last year or so...like an angry, crazy aunt who lives in the basement and never sees the light of day. But Cinnamon....rocked. We were thoroughly attached to one another. We had our rituals...waking me up in the early morning, meeting me on the stairs, greeting me when I walked in the door. Ugh. This hurts a lot.

It really does feel like such a loss, no matter how minor a cats life may seem to the world. Funny, there are plenty of people on this earth who treat human life as frivolous and unsacred. I can only imagine what they must think of me, blubbering over the lost life of my sweet cat. My friend made a good point when he said, "The world can be a very lonely, alienating place. Those creatures that help us overcome our loneliness, that provide us with companionship and unconditional love, are a great gift to us. Their loss can be very devastating." That's really all it was with my cat. I cared for him. He cared for me. Nothing else, really. No human baggage. It's hard to lose that companionship, the unconditional love of a non-human friend.

Man...I sound like one of those freaky cat lovers who collect all-things-cat, and have cat calendars and shirts printed with their cats' faces on them, and little cat tombstones for their graves. I never had Cinnamon pose in our family portraits or ever referred to him as a "little human being." But his absence is profound, and the devastation I feel makes him seem more than just a pet. So this is what grief feels like. I've experienced grief before, of course. I've experienced very painful loss -- the disolvement of certain friendships, breaking up with Nick when I was in highschool, Melissa going away to college, leaving Uganda, the loss of my faith, crying my eyes out in the basement of Ferrin when I broke up with Steve, the death of classmates. I'm blessed (or maybe not blessed?) to never have experienced major loss of life...no relatives or friends. Just my dear sweet cat who lived a long, happy, contented life and who died peacefully and without pain. And I'm sad. I know this will pass. Grief comes in waves. First it crashes down. And then it subsides. And the waves come, but they come farther and farther apart.

But the loss does feel profound, however embarrassing it is to mourn for the loss of a pet. Given my habit of grieving for the roadkill squirrels and lion-hunted antelope, this probably should come as no surprise. I'm an emotional sap. I cry a lot. I often have profound, deep, earth-shaking emotional experiences and I value these experiences, however painful they may be. I just hate the finality, the loss of control. And I am overwhelmed when I think about all the death in the world, the retched, senseless deaths of those killed in suicide attacks or natural disasters....if I feel this bad about the death of my cat, what of the 50 who died today in Iraq? The twenty-some children killed this month in Palestine? The lonely deaths of the elderly and disabled in institutions? The untimely deaths of my classmates at Gordon? The woman taking groceries out of her car in DC who was struck and killed by a bus? What of all these lives? How many people are mourning their deaths?

Death is earth-shaking, life-shattering. Grief comes in waves. But the loss of life itself comes like a giant crash of a boulder in still water....ripples moving out and out and out and affecting ....everyone really. Everything is disturbed. And my heart aches for those grieving mothers and fathers and children and friends and loved ones. My heart aches for them because, though my loss feels significant, I will move on mostly unscathed. But imagine...your baby dying in your arms? Death overwhelms me. Life ripples in a pond, like waves in the sea.

Cinnamon

My cat died today. I found him in the living room when I came home for the weekend. I've cried a lot. I'm sad. He was a part of my life for 16 years. That's 2/3 of my life. Now he's gone. Death sucks.

In opposition to the recent VA law...

I referred to the recent VA law regarding the withholding of funds for non-profit groups that provide services to undocumented folks. More or less, these non-profits provide services to anyone in need, regardless of documentation (imagine: someone comes to a free clinic with a gushing wound, near death, and the doctor must search him for proper US documentation first. If no documentation found, the doctor can't treat him! Cruel? Yes...) This is f'ing messed up. Do you know how many times I've entered countries without proper documentation? I've been an illegal alien in various places around the world....my visa expired several months into my stay in Uganda....I didn't even get a visa for Romania because it was too much of a hassle. I was there, for all intents and purposes, illegally. Anyway, we are becoming neo-fascists. The movie, Children of Men, is quite prophetic in its portrayal of a near-future Europe that has come to demonize foreigners, forcing them into camps that closely resemble the Jewish ghettos during WWII. Anyway, the below link allows individuals to contact their senators regarding this atrocious law. I encourage all to take a stance.

http://www.democracyinaction.org/dia/organizationsORG/LAJC/campaign.jsp?campaign_KEY=6550&t=VJC.

Community and sickness....

I'm coming down with something. This is what happens when 9 germ-producing-and-expelling bodies live together under one roof. Ha! I was listening to NPR the other night after I dropped the folks off at their exercise class...one of the news stories was about the flew epedemic that swept over the world at the turn of the century. Virtually every inhabited continent on the earth was affected (and infected) and millions upon millions died. The story focused primarily on 6 communities in the US that survived the flu 'plague' unscathed, with no deaths reported. These communities included a military base, Princeton U, several other schools, etc. Researches found that the reason these communities were able to live out the epedemic without loss of life was the practice of sequestering the healthy from the outside world. This is just the opposite of qaurentining the sick off from the healthy (think Camus' The Plague). These sequested communities didn't allow any vistors and remained isolated for months. And they survived. I was thinking about what would happen if a flu outbreak happened today. My committment to this community, l'Arche, means I'm responsible for the lives of people in this house, people who are more medically fragile than most. And as a Christian, I'm responsible for my neighbor, those in and outside of my community. This is something to think about, with all this talk of impending flu. How will the Church respond if and when something like this occurs? How is the Church responding now to the AIDS epedemic in Africa? Will remain faithful when our own bodily health is on the line? I'm thinking out loud here...I'm much better at asking questions than answering them.

Oh, Virginia, mired in racism and xenophobia.

I am rarely proud to associate myself with this state, Virginia, when it comes to its historically racist past and homophobic, xenophobic present. Virginia was one of the first established colonies in the New World and Jamestown, VA, the first settlement. And yet, even after 400 years of existence, we are still producing laws and policies that are overtly racist and xenophobic. Interestingly enough, more presidents have been born and raised in the Commonwealth of Virginia than any other state in the Union. Virginia has a lot to offer, but it has offered so little in regards to justice, tolerance, and humility over the past 4 centuries. In honor of Black History Month (starting tomorrow) and to quench my own curiosity, I've done a bit of research on Virginia's ugly past and present:

*1619, first African slaves arrive in VA
*1661, in order to maintain needed labor on Jamestown's tobacco plantations, VA legislature legally recognizes slavery
*1667, VA legislature declares Christian baptism does not "exempt slaves from bondage"
*1705, VA legislature passes statute on "casual killing of slaves" that states, "If any slave resist his master...correcting such slave, and shall happen to be killed in such correction...the master shall be free of all punishment...as if such accident never happened." (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slave_codes)
*1723, free African-Americans in VA are forbidden by law to carry weapons or associate with slaves.
*1762, the VA legislature passes law forbidden black males from voting.
*1792, northern States begin freeing slaves. With invention of cotton gin, demand for slavery increases and Virginia law forbids free blacks from entering the State.

Jumping ahead to Jim Crow era...

*1870, VA passes education statute prohibiting white and 'colored' children from being taught in the same school.
*1873, VA miscegenation state code: white persons who married Negroes would be jailed for at least one year, and fined a minimum of $100.
*1900, VA passes statute requiring railroads to offer separate cars for black and white passengers
*1901, city of Alexandria passes city ordinance requiring segregated streetcars
*1912, VA residential statute passed, stating "the preservation of the public morals, public health and public order, in the cities and towns of this commonwealth is endangered by the residence of white and colored people in close proximity to one another," authorizing cities and towns that adopted the provision, to be divided into districts known as "Segregation districts
*1924, to reinforce anti-miscegenation laws passed in the 1600s, VA passed law that prohibited whites from marrying anyone with “a single drop of Negro blood”
*1930, VA state code requires segregated audiences of every theatre, movie theatre, opera house, and other places of entertainment
*1930, VA passes bill for the "preservation of the white race," defining a white person as on with "no trace whatsoever" of non-white blood.
*1967, in court case Loving v Virginia, an inter-racial couple married in DC are arrested upon returning home to Virginia. The Supreme Court ruled anti-miscegenation laws unconstitutional.

Here are some incidences of racism and xenophobia that have happened more recently:
-former Senator George Allen's uses term 'macaca', a racial slur, in referring to a young man connected with the campaign of his opponent, James Webb
-Virginia Representative Virgil Goode went on record as opposed to newly-elected Minnesota Congressman Keith Ellison's intention, as a believer in Islam, to use the Koran in his swearing-in ceremony.
-Virginia state legislator, Delegate Frank D. Hargrove, Sr., offended African-Americans and Jews in his comments in opposition to legislation which would have the state apologize for slavery. Virginia apologizing for slavery in its past, Hargrove said, would be similar to having Jews apologize for killing Christ. When Delegate David L. Englin, who is Jewish, called Hargrove's remarks "inflammatory," Hargrove told Englin his skin was too thin.

And most recently, I read this headline today on the front-page of the Washington Post: "Va. House Approves Bill On Illegal Immigration: Aim Is to Block Access To State, Local Funds." (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/01/30/AR2007013001780.html) This bill could force the Virginia Association of Free Clinics and the Salvation Army, among other groups, to verify immigrant status before offering assistance to those in need or lose their funding (according to the article). Sponsor of the bill, Del. Miller from Manassas (my friggen' hometown) says, "The ultimate goal is to make the commonwealth of Virginia an unwelcome place if you are in this country illegally." The article also stated that Virginia has passed a number of other bills to make life "difficult for those who have entered the country illegally" - denying in-state college tuition to illegal immigrants, punishing employers who hire undocumented workers, expanding the power of police to apprehend undocumented persons.

The ACLU chapter in Virginia provides some more information regarding the infringement upon immigrant rights in Virginia: http://www.acluva.org/pages/ImmRights.html Are these policies and those during slavery and the Jim Crow era not intimately related, rooted from the same distrust and hatred of the Other? Something must be done....

Immigration: The Migration of the Desperate

The church Hazel and I go to most Sundays, Our Lady Queen of Peace Catholic Church, places an enormous amount of emphasis on issues of social justice, advocacy, and reform. In last week's newsletter was this insert regarding the current immigration crisis in America. I found it profound and important to share.

Looking at Root Causes: Why do Immigrants Come to the US?
*"We must never forget that many immigrants come to this country in desperate circumstances. Some have fled political persecution, war, economic devastation... Others have wagered on finding a better life in this country in the face of economic desperation at home. As Pope John Paul II has noted, 'In many regions of the world today people live in tragic situations of instability and uncertainty. It does not come as a surprise that in such contexts the poor and the destitute make plans to escape, to seek a new land that can offer them bread, dignity, and peace. This is the migration of the desperate..."
-US Catholic Bishops, Welcoming the Stranger Among Us: Unity in Diversity, Nov. 15, 2000
*Economic injustice still plagues most of the world, providing a strong impetus for immigration. Given the current situation, any true "solution" to illegal immigration to the US must take into account the root causes of the poverty from which many immigrants are trying to escape.
-There are 60 countries in today's world that are poorer than they were 30 years ago.
-A fifth of the world's population (1.2 billion human beings) live on less than $1 per day.
-Almost 50% of the world's population (2.8 billion human beings) live on less than $2 per day.
-Each second, a child dies of malnutrition.

An Unjust Trading System *The poorest countries of the world account for only 0.4% of international trade, yet they lose an estimated $700 billion a year due to unfair trade policies. The US and other developed nations are currently pursuing "free trade" agreements with developing countries. These developing countries, which often utilize higher levels of tariffs and taxes on incoming goods in order to gather revenue for their governments, are forced to eliminate these tariffs and taxes as a part of the free trade agreements. Yet, many people concerned with poverty are pointing to statistics which show that unregulated, "free" trade primarily benefits wealthy corporations and wealthy countries; poverty is INCREASING around the world despite increased free trade. The gap between the rich and the poor as increased under fair trade policies -- the median income of the richest 10% is 122 times HIGHER than the poorest 10%. From the perspective of Catholic Social Teaching, this is not authentic human development for all groups of people.
*One of the most unjust aspects of the trade system is the use of agricultural subsidies by the US and EU. The US provides hundreds of billions of dollars on agricultural subsidies, most of which goes to a few large agri-businesses who control most of the agricultural production in the US. This allows agricultural production to occur en masse and to knock smaller competitors -- both in the US and in developing countries -- out of business. (my interjection: Please see the documentaries "Life and Debt" and "Black Gold" for more information).

The Failure of the "Washington Consensus" *In the 80s and 90s, the international financial institutions, such as the IMF and the World Bank, promoted a set of policies called the "Washington Consensus." Many developing countries were pressured to liberalize trade and the financial sector, cut bank on social spending, and privatize services that were run by the state. For example, many countries in Latin America followed the recommended policies, but found that economic rates were better before the changes than after. The region remains poor. Many experts agree that this was a major setback for Latin America. Unfortunately, some of the same policies are still being recommended by financial institutions.

The Continuing Debt Crisis
*Despite recent initiative to reduce the debt of poor countries, such as the Heavily-Indebted Poor Country (HIPC) Initiative and the Multi-lateral Debt Relief Initiative (MDRI), dozens of countries still have not received relief and are still enslaved to debt. High levels of debt hurt the poor because the money that governments must spend on paying interests on debts takes valuable resources away from much-needed social services in poor countries (my interjection: check out Bono's One Campaign -- http://www.one.org/).

Insufficient Development Aid *In 1970, at the UN General Assembly, developed country governments pledged to devote .7% of their GNI on Official Development Assistance by the mid 1970s. However, NONE of the developed country donors reached this goal. Instead of .7% , the amount of aid has been closer to .3%, some $100 billion short. The US has donated the least of all developed nations, allocating just .22% of its GNI to ODA. (Norway .93%, Denmark .81%, Sweden .92%, Austria .52%, UK .48%, France .47%, Canada .34%) (my interjection: compare this .22% with the 49% currently allocated to defense and military in the national budget.) In 2005, the EU pledged to spend .56% of GNI on poverty reduction by 2010, and .7% by 2015. People concerned about global poverty are calling the US to take similar action.

Prayer to Change Our Hearts, Our Policies-Undocumented persons among us are often accused of break the law. Let us remember that it is our poverty-producing policies which break the law of human dignity. Change our hearts and our policies, O God.
-Our leaders see these people as burdens. Yet, if we came from a life without opportunities, wouldn’t we do the same? Change our hearts and our policies, O God.
-We long for a more just world, where families need not be separated for lack of opportunity. Inspire us to challenge the system and structures that perpetuate poverty. Change our hearts and our policies, O God.
Amen.

Those weeks...

It's been one of "those" weeks where you look back and think, "Did I really make it to Friday?" Oye. It's all a blur, somewhere in my subconscious, properly suppressed next to the death of my cat Skittles when I was 7 and the time I fell off my bike in front of some neighborhood kids......or the time I had a panic attack and broke my babysitter's window and then pretended I knew nothing about it (until they called the police because the broken window looked suspiciously like a break in...and the officer held his flashlight up to my fingers and compared them to the ones on the window...and I knew it was over then). Ha! So much for suppressed, traumatic memories....they are boiling back up like volcanic lava. Isn't that what good psycho-therapy is? Unleashing the latent memories that haunt us and stunt our growth? Well, at least I'm freed of those.

No, really, the week was not traumatic like that incident with the window and the police officer. But as I explained it to my brother-o-law on the phone, "I'm a bad assistant." I really am, at least when it comes to dates and finances and paper pushing. I would make a horrible bureaucrat. But I'll take that as my own personal compliment. A bureaucrat came and visited our lovely home the other day and we were shaking in our stocking feet. She was from Medicaid Waver, and essentially has the power to make or break our life as a L’Arche community. It Is MA that provides our slots for group housing. It is MA that houses and feeds the supports the core members through monthly funding. It is through MA that we assistants have a salary (or stipend, rather). We are really at their mercy. So, when they show up unannounced to check up on our records, it's always a bit disconcerting. I hid in my room, until my addiction to caffeine lured me from my monastic cell to the kitchen where I caught glimpse of a real live bureaucrat, slaving away over her laptop with our schedules and med records and maintenance check lists strewn about her. But then, as I commented on the flurries outside (to myself), she looked up from her work and said to me, "Oh yes. Isn't it beautiful?" and I decided then that she wasn't two-headed monster waiting to rip our throats out....she was actually a blood-and-flesh human being. So that was nice. And she had mercy and grace on us for not signing this or that form.

This will be my job next year, battling the bureaucracy, keeping files up to date. The house is, essentially, screwed. Ha! No...as Debbie and I figured out tonight when I was making chipatis and peanut Thai noodles on the stove, I develop certain capacities when under stress, particularly the S and J of Myers-Briggs. If you are an S and a J, you are impeccable, probably Type A, highly organized, neatly pressed. I am not these things...most of the time (I actually went out of the house today wearing fleece from head to toe, without my teeth brushed, and my shirt on backwards). But Debbie, a usual SJ, when under stress, becomes an FP, evidenced by the fact that she put a metal bowl in the microwave to dethaw the broccoli, which I promptly pulled out, thanks to the help of adrenaline and the SJ coursing through my blood. We did had a mighty feast tonight, and 5 guests to dinner, including a developmentally disabled person named Jong who was pretty raucous. He found and ate three of our bagels in about 5 minutes flat. We were shocked into a state of awed silence.

Well, I've digressed. This week, Tuesday, I was supposed to take Eduardo to the dentist. I had scheduled and rescheduled this appointment twice and was very aware of the day and the time, not to mention the office called and reminded me on Monday. Blah blah. And yet, Tuesday morning rolls around and (due to a late night session with Stephen Colbert), I find myself turning my alarm clock off for another hour and .5 until I wake up at 10 -- the EXACT time I am supposed to be at the dentist with ED. Problem is, the ED is at work and the dentist is 20 minutes away. This is where I begin to perspire with dread. Fortunately, the office was merciful (maybe my shaking voice helped) and ED was slow but easy-going, and we raced there and made it in time for ED to have a new tooth.

As we were leaving the parking garage after the appointment, I realize I must pay $3.00 to a machine, rather than a teller. So, I pull out two crumpled ones and try desperately to stuff them into the machine, only to have them spit out again and again. The cars are lining up behind me. I'm leaning out the window, cursing at the machine all the while ED is smiling at himself in the mirror, until I prompt him to "look around for quarters." So, he finds me about 10 pennies (who knew?) and enjoys the "game" while I am perspiring with dread again and the line of cars behind me is approaching 4. Finally, a miracle of the Lord, some quarters are sent down like manna from Heaven and we make it out of the garage. ED is unfazed but I'm a wreck.

We drive out of the garage onto the main highway, and I sense something is wrong and ED, the perceptive one, says, "What's that funny noise coming from your car?" Like finding a lump on your back or coughing up a bit of blood, your first inclination is to ignore it, because it could only be something awful and it's much easier to deny it than face it. So I ignore it but it gets worse and it feels like I'm driving over gravel, though the road is smooth. Finally, I pull into a parking lot and, with dread of course, start the solemn walk around my car, checking each tire until....I find the last tire in the rear is flat. Completely flat. ED is not concerned and continues to smile at himself in the car mirror. Yay for Zoloft. But I begin to sweat again and my SJ kicks into action -- pull out the tire pump in my trunk, blow up the tire, and try desperately to make it the 13 miles home without totally ruining my rims. We make it, but just barely. The nice man at the shop on Glebe found the leak (which was not hard because it was whistling air out at a loud and rapid rate at the site where the cursed nail had punctured it) and plugged it and then over-charged me. I am sweaty and haggard and let it go.

That was my Tuesday morning....from slumber to total chaos. Such is L’Arche and life, I guess. That evening was my birthday celebration which was a sweet affair. It was then that everything was redeemed. And it's Thursday night and Eduardo's tooth hasn't fallen out yet which I'm counting as a miracle. Call up the Pope. The weeks really do fly in L’Arche. It's almost February. I just turned 23. I thought by this age, I would have my shit figured out, but I guess we all have our strengths and weaknesses and will have (many of) them for the rest of our lives. Today at our team meeting, Barbara was affirming all of us for being so "competent" and I looked at her and laughed. "Barbara, if you only saw me Tuesday." She replied, "We all have our days."

More wisdom from JV:

Many of [the handicapped] have not developed their capacities of reason; so they live in a situation of trust…Religious faith comes easily to someone who lives on trust…For somebody who lives on reason, though, faith is not very interesting or easy.
The Other Side, March '86

Community is the place of forgiveness. In spite of all the trust we may have in each other there are always words that wound, self-promoting attitudes, situations where susceptibilities clash. That is why living together implies a certain cross, a constant effort and an acceptance which is daily and mutual forgiveness.
Community and Growth

One of the things that we discover when we live with the poor, is that they awaken our hearts as we tell each other's stories; they open us up to people; but they also reveal our own poverty.
Address to Lambeth Conference, July '98

We shouldn't seek the ideal community. It is a question of loving those whom God has set beside us today. They are signs of God.
Community and Growth

My hope is that more and more people will discover that the peace we all yearn for is not just the work of governments but the task of each one of us. We can all become makers of peace.
Finding Peace

God is not to be found in the ideal but is hidden in the poverty of the present moment, in all that is broken and inadequate in our communities and in our own hearts.
Letter from Trosly, August '03

This is kind of sad....

Man. I thought I was well-traveled. But the Earth is so massive and I've been...hardly anywhere! I need to hop down to Mexico. I feel obligated, being their overbearing, ignorant neighbor to the north.



create your own visited countries map
or vertaling Duits Nederlands

Jean Vanier insight

“The Word became flesh to communicate to us human beings caught in the mud, the pain, the fears and the brokenness of existence, the life, the joy, the communion, the ecstatic gift of love that is the source of all love and life and unity in our universe and that is the very life of God.”

a wedding.

Melissa and Jacob are married. I am an official sister-in-law. They're wedding was beautiful, as far as I know. It's hard to have an objective perspective (an oxymoron) when standing next to the bride and groom. I was, perhaps, a bit obsequious...fawning over Melissa's train like a lackey. It was a delightful experience to be in a wedding, to witness the union of two people you love - one whom you've known your entire life and another whom you've grown to love in a short time.

The homily, given by one Dr Ellen Davis of Duke's Divinity School, encouraged Jacob and Melissa to "preach a sermon" with their marriage. And what would that sermon be? What would they preach to the world through the example of their marriage? Peace-making, care for the earth, respect for life, love for children, delight in simple things. I really do think marriage is meant to benefit the world. I think I read a Sojourners article on that once. Marriage for the common good. Strange way of saying it, but I do agree with the premise.

Will and I talked a bit in the car on the way over to the rehearsal dinner about the great risk that is taken when entering into a marriage covenant with someone. We are all going to pass away. We all must say goodbye someday. When we enter into a union with someone, we are bearing their humanity, their mortality, along with ours. "Sickness or in health. Until death do us part." Damn...if people really listened to the vows they made, really thought of their weight, their intensity, the divorce rate would be much lower in the United States. And the marriage rate would be lower, too, when you think about it. Marriage is no joke. It involves the most joyous aspects of life, and the deepest sorrow. And, as spouses and friends and family members, we must endure all of it together.

Strange Debbie food combinations:

-tomato sauce with French toast
-peanut butter on an everything bagel
-dried squid and peanuts

I'm sure I will update this list later.

The great divorce...

And so, it is finished. The Episcopal Church is broken in two. Martyn Minns was on the cover of the Washington Post yesterday, embracing a vestry member as the vote tally was read. I may feel theologically and politically alienated at Truro, but I was raised in that church, baptized and confirmed in that church. It is truly my home church, and no matter how different my understanding of the world and my faith, it will never cease to be my home church. Therefore, because I disagree with their dissenting and their theo-political understanding of the Gospel, do I leave? They have left the ECUSA, of course, so does that give me liberty to leave them? Once again, I feel spiritually homeless. I love the Episcopal Church, even with all its disfunctionalities, and I am intimately connected to Truro Church, one of the main leaders in the "fight to break away." This almost feels like being the child of divorced parents. You must pick a side! You must choose who you want to live with! Who will be your guardian now? This a hard place to be, especially when both "parents" are berating the other, equally as militant and self-righteous. It's enough to make me want to find a new family altogether.