Gift

A short one for a significant day.

Many of my friends took a task to write a blog titled "One Thing."  The idea was to identify the one thing that drives you as a person, the one thing that takes priority over all other things.  The question is interesting.  What is the one thing that will keep you going when everything else falls apart?

Today reminds me of my own life and that, regardless of whether or not I have realized it or not, there is one reason I live, One Thing that keeps me going.

And that one thing is the Truth.

From the ignorance of being a child, to bitter moral depravity, to the rabbit trail I find myself on, I have always, in some way or another, wanted the Truth.  The Truth about life, the Truth about myself, the Truth about existence.  My ultimate fear is not finding the Truth to be inconvenient, but being fooled into the lie.  When I finally go, I hope for nothing more than to be known as someone who lived the Truth, no matter how uncomfortable it was.

So what does this say about the nature of Truth?  In the world we live in, the Truth is a naughty word and an improper abdication of the right of everyone to determine their own independence.  But my question will always be, what effect does this have on the truth?  Does your level of comfort with an idea change its veracity in any way?  Can any hair change its color by your will alone?

The more I live, the more I start to realize that my emotions do not and never will have any impact on this terrible, amazing thing called the Truth, which makes the search for it all the more paramount for the existence of every human being: as I have said thousands of times, I believe more than anything that more than any responsibility that mankind holds, the responsibility to the Truth is the most important.

Today, I'm reflecting on the Truth that I find.  That the Truth itself became flesh.  That the Truth did not come with power, but with humility.  Was not born in a palace, but in a trough.  Accompanied not by celestial armies, but by farm animals.  Exalted not by noblemen, but by shepherds.  The friend of fishermen, prostitutes, tax collectors, and foreigners.  Blesser of the meek, healer of the broken.  The Truth knew all, yet broke not a reed; saw all but uplifted the unworthy.  The One who saw us all for the filth we were, yet submitted to death; dying for its redemption, and rising for its invalidation.

Today, more than any other day, we celebrate the glorious Truth that undermines everything we know about power structures, that flips the world upside down in a terrifying and unbelievable way.  A way that makes rulers shake and mobilize the lowest of people to hope and love.  If we accept this to be true, than nothing is what it seems, and there truly is hope in the gutter, and love for the unloved.  It changes the nature of existence in a way that leaves many uncomfortable, but cannot leave anyone unchanged.

If we accept that God can come as a baby in a manger, can we ever be the same?

Today, we celebrate gifts, and I want nothing more than to live for the most important gift of all, regardless of its consequences: the Truth.

The painful, glorious Truth.  And the Truth will set you free.

Merry Christmas.
  
~Jared

Lolly Pop Jesus

This is a short post on something that continues to confuse me.

This is the story of "lolly pop Jesus."

Once upon a time, Jesus came to earth.

2000 years later, people start to read Jesus's teachings, life, and works through the Gospels but come to an interesting conclusion: "He was a good teacher, but he couldn't have been Divine."

Ok, then it seems to me you are facing a problem here.  Even the earliest Gospels record Jesus as making claims to divinity: "Son of Man," "God's One and Only Son," "I and the Father are One" "I am the Way the Truth and the Life."  He does not, as most Jewish teachers of the day did, speak in meager terms, but called it "My Father" "My Kingdom" which is no doubt why the Gospel records many times in which the Jews pick up rocks to stone him and finally send him to Pontious Pilate to be crucified for heresy.  Aside from that, most outside historical sources affirm that he was crucified for heresy and made such claims, many calling him a "sorcerer."  So how exactly do you address this?

"No, you see all that divine stuff was added in by later people who wanted to see him as God.  Really, Jesus was just a teacher."

Ok, now youve got another problem, and the most important one: you've made the bizarre and unbased assumption that all of the Gospels were originally a bunch of humble statements with no claims to divinity when, all the sudden, a bunch of scheming apostles come along and write in a bunch of Jesus saying divine stuff despite the fact that A) the Gospels name specific witnesses that would have been alive to testify against them and B) the Gospels make the apostles look like the dumbest people on planet earth, yet they didnt think of changing them to make themselves look good and C) the apostles changed their own fate from being simple followers of a Jewish teacher to cultic apostles that would all get brutally murdered later.  If the apostles did write these things in, they must have actually been the dumbest people on earth.

Despite the holes in that argument, the main problem is this: you've asserted that the Gospels have been tampered with and changed, so now you have destroyed the credibility of the same sources where you get Jesus's teachings.  If the Gospels were so obviously tampered with as youve asserted, then by no means can you say with any certainty that Jesus said "blessed are the poor in spirit" or "turn the other cheek."  For all you know, these are also just random additions by apostles, and possibly not even the same person (welcome to the Multiple Jesus hypothesis).  As it stands, there is no point praising Jesus's teachings and at the same time negating their authenticity.  At this point, Jesus's good teachings are no better than a feel good quote on an Urban Outfitters handbag, cited "anonymous" or would be better at home in a random quotebook of Hebrew proverbs than in any sort of organized biography.

Not only do I think this thought process is fraught with errors, but also just plain intellectually dishonest.  What historian would ever think its ok to ignore some of the things Plato said because you found some of it offensive?  What fervent atheist philosopher would be ok with you taking offensive passages out of Bertrand Russel's "Why I'm not a Christian"?  Is not picking what you want and discarding the rest intellectually dishonest and disrespectful of history?  So why does this differ with Jesus?

Funny enough, even after 60 years, the old Lord Liar Lunatic argument still readily applies here: people are always looking for the middle way with Jesus, a way to soften him up and make him more cuddly and cute and instead of the guy on the street corner who's claiming divinity and talking about hell; but the fact is Jesus is who He was, and denying that doesnt make you open minded, rather just makes you the fool who wants to look all day at the landscape he painted instead of going outside.

And this is the story of the lolly pop Jesus: a prophet that fits in your pocket, good for five minutes of enjoyment, and can be thrown in the trash can later. 

That is all.

~Jared

The Command of the Open Hand

This is a blog mostly inspired by this blog post from a good friend about giving; something that should shock and challenge us, but fails to.

"Give generously to him and do so without a grudging heart; then because of this the LORD your God will bless you in all your work and in everything you put your hand to.  There will always be poor people in the land.  Therefore, I command you to be openhanded toward your brothers and toward the poor and needy in your land" - Deuteronomy 15

"And if you lend to those from whom you expect repayment, what credit is that to you? Even sinners lend to sinners, expecting to be repaid in full.  But love your enemies, do good to them, and lend to them without expecting to get anything back. Then your reward will be great, and you will be children of the Most High, because he is kind to the ungrateful and wicked.  Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful." - Luke 6

Giving is always a sort of tongue in cheek subject in the States: something we know is important, but doesnt ever seem to register too much.

One of my friends here in Chile is a Haitian man who I bizarrely befriended on the street one day (apparently out of all the people he would try to start a conversation with, I was the only one who turned around and responded).  Ivers has been in the country a little over a month now, and works at a bakery making a small amount of money.  One day, I saw him on the metro and said hi to him, noticing he's drinking a box of chocolate milk.  Without hesitating, he sees me, leads me back to a random snack stand and buys me a chocolate milk as well and then walks off.  This sort of thing, as an American, usually just leaves me flabbergasted.

Another friend of mine, Heyner from Peru, walked with me one day to go get an ice cream cone and bought mine without any hesitation.  I try to be polite and throw out a "oh no really you shouldnt" or "I'll pay you back" but its usually in vain, and just provokes some weird looks from any of my friends.  To them its normal to buy things for friends and in the end for them an ice cream cone or a chocolate milk is a small and expected cost to pay when you're with a friend.

Conversely, Im used to experiencing something like last night when I was in Valparaiso with some gringo friends.  As the check comes forward, all joyful conversation comes to a stop and we discuss business; "how much per person?" "whats 5600 divided by four?" "how much is that with tip?" "All put in this much, and you'll just owe me" "how much do I owe you again?"  The check dances around from person to person, as the amount that each person pays must be a carefully, crafted sum that neither cheats nor overly benefits anyone.  Once the check and the money given are carefully scrutinized by all parties involved, a satisfactory conclusion is reached and everyone can leave comfortable.

Its such a funny thing, isnt it?  I see myself so needlessly close handed for no other reason than that it is the way that my culture has raised me.  I try so very hard to fight against this, but my Americanness cant help but calculate the cost of everything, make sure I pay back everyone the exact penny I owe, and find non-chalant ways to remind people they owe me money.

Yet, my friends from other cultures seem to live in a way that is so effortlessly open handed about money, even when they give in need: both the friends I mentioned gave not out of their excess, but out of their poverty.  Charity out of necessity becomes much more than just the object itself, but rather a symbol of friendship and of love.  It reminds me of one movie, called Ushpizin about one Israeli Jew who hosts two escaped convicts at his house.  They abuse his hospitality constantly through the movie, yet he continues to serve them out of his poverty.  Those who have been in Arabic cultures know that it is extremely hospitable, possibly more than any other culture in the world.

Yet interesting how one ancient Middle Eastern text, the Torah, says very explicitly that God commands people to be open handed.  What we treat as a suggestion, a post-script, a good idea when the time is right, is, according to Deuteronomy, a mandate as strong as any other.  When Christ shows up on the scene, the idea is reiterated with the idea that you should not only love your enemy, but also lend them your things and never expect anything back.  I would hazard to guess that even for a Middle Eastern culture this would have seemed crazy, and for Americans its just plain ludicrous.

In fact, do an experiment for yourselves: show any God-fearing Christian that Bible verse and watch how the excuses will pour forth!  They will no doubt squirm and say "yeah, but," frantically reach for the book of Proverbs, hoping there's going to be some verse in there that says "thou shalt make wise decisions with your money and not give it to people who dont deserve it," and finish their justification by saying "well thats just not wise!"  And God wants us to be wise right?

The fact is, no one is comfortable with this verse: I've never heard a sermon on this verse, never see it held up at football games, and never see anyone write it as a Facebook status to get any likes from the youth pastor (because everyone is on facebook, dont you know).  There is something so ruthlessly brutal about the suggestion of lending to the evil that brings up every justification in existence to be able to shove it into a corner and never speak of it again.  Arab or American, Peruvian or Haitian, no one likes to see their money go to waste and no one is ready to be taken advantage of.  The command of the open hand, if actually followed, implicates a shift in one's life and philosophy that few have the stomach for.


But lets think about this, I mean really think about why Jesus might have said this.  What are the results of living a life that follows the command to be open handed and lend to the evil?  My take:

1. It invokes a serious change in how people begin to see you.  When you do something so brutally against everything the human race seems to be chasing after, there is no way that people cannot notice you, and no way that people can continue to equate you with any other person or culture.  You are no longer defined by your own cultural precepts, but by Christ alone.  It is no coincidence that Christ follows up this command with the promise of a new title: "you will be children of the Most High."

2.  If you truly follow the command of the open hand, it is impossible to be attached to any sort of material thing.  Can you truly have your work schedule depend forever on a rented car?  Base your life around a rented apartment that you must someday give up?  When we truly realize the command, nothing becomes your own, rather a good to be passed to someone else; we stop thinking of how long we can hold on to something and start thinking of how we can pass it on.  Nothing, as Deuteronomy suggests, can any longer be held closed in your hand, but you must be able to let go of anything at any given moment.  Still many will say this is unwise and will lead to poverty (and those looking for a justifying Proverb will only find 23:5 - "Cast but a glance at riches, and they are gone"), but what does the author say?  "Because of this the LORD your God will bless you in all your work and in everything you put your hand to."

3.  The last, as my friends have shown me, is that when you learn to be open handed, wealth abdicates its lofty position and friends and relationships receive the due importance that Christ really stresses.  My grandfather is in the habit of stressing this, in a peculiar sort of way; we, his grandkids, loved to tell him hippy aspirations of living in poverty, but he would always look at us, smirk to himself, and declare the wisdom of Christ that too few people quote these days: "Make friends with unrighteous mammon!"  This verse I think hits home for alot of people in my generation who backlash from materialism and want to vow to poverty, cursing the result of greed rather than greed itself.  Wealth is useful, just not for the uses that we would like to think.  In the end, the wealth we receive is made to passed on to someone else, and only when we do this do we really see what material wealth was meant to be in the first place.

I can scarcely imagine what the world would be like if Christians (myself included) begun to really take this seriously.  So how can we implement this?  What are the practical steps we can take to begin living this way?

In my opinion, it seems to me one key is getting it in our heads as a command.  This is not a suggestion, Jesus isnt saying "oh gee wouldnt that be swell" and Moses isnt a passive-agressive mother sighing to you saying "oh dear, well I'd rather you listen..."  This is a command, just as serious as any other.

And last, Im thinking its like getting to Carnegie Hall: "Practice, practice, practice."  One ice cream cone, one box of chocolate milk at a time.

If youve read this far, then surely you wouldnt mine giving your own two cents in the issue.  What are practical steps we can take in getting there?  How should our view of homeless people, beggars, and the people we hate change?  Comment button is below.  Just sayin.

~Jared

The Eye of the Needle (Why I am an Abolitionist)

"Then Jesus said to his disciples, 'Truly I tell you, it is hard for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of heaven.  Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.' When the disciples heard this, they were greatly astonished and asked, 'Who then can be saved?' Jesus looked at them and said, 'With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.'" - Matthew 19
  

"Friends of Goodwill, be dissatisfied with your work until every handicapped and unfortunate person in your community has an opportunity to develop to his fullest usefulness and enjoy a maximum of abundant living." - Edgar James Helms, Founder of Goodwill

 This post is dedicated as a letter, specifically to my friends and future friends in Washington DC, Chi Alpha Christian Fellowship.  My hopes that the mere words I type into the web can somehow spread from here to others, and tell why the issue of Modern Slavery is important to me. 

Dear Friends,

As people of the 21st century, and most notably as people at AU, you are no doubt bombarded by thousands of ways to be charitable.  In a globalized world, there are now more than a million countries, projects, schemes, and funds that you can devote your time and finances too, whether its people peddling bracelets on the quad or human rights films in the Tavern.  As the issue of modern slavery just appears as one in a million, you may ask why this issue deserves your attention and effort.

As far as I am concerned, I would hardly be any person to lecture anyone about optimistic change the world schemes.  I have been a hardened cynic most my life when it comes to those who spout goals of ending poverty, achieving world peace, and ending world hunger ("but arent they going to just get hungry 4 hours later?).  Even as a Nietzsche totting agnostic until the follower of Christ I find myself to be today, I have never been a dreamer of that sort.  I always thought it impossible, until freshman year.

"It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle"

I saw a film about sex trafficking in the Phillipine Islands two months into college, put on by some people from Chi Alpha.  I remember very clearly all the images on the screen, of 12 year old girls with sunken eyes and desperation dancing in every word of their speech, of the slums stretching for miles and miles and the dimly lit street corners littered with little girls soliciting every car that rolled by.  The images stuck in my head for days, and Im not sure they've ever left me.

For many people, this is where the story ends.  The images are disgusting, the reality is ugly, but for most it will fade back with the rest of the images we've been bombarded with of pot bellied children in Africa and never find their way to resurface.  The issue of sex trafficking has been a huge issue for many years, the fact of slaves has existed since the dawn of humanity itself.  What makes any of us think that it can ever be stopped?

"they were greatly astonished and asked, 'Who then can be saved?'"

Many of us will shove this issue back in our mind, choosing to live in blissful ignorance of something so horrible because, as human beings, we hate the fact that it has no clear cut solution.  We want a snap ending, not an indefinite problem.  But we were not called to ignorance, but rather truth; and all of us have a duty to respect it, no matter how ugly it is.

However, the story doesnt end here; believing in Christ, whether I like it or not, makes me an idealist, even an optimist.  Despite my cynicism I firmly believe, with all my heart, that we can see an end to human trafficking within our lifetimes, and this is why:

1. Slavery was stopped once, it can be stopped again.
 When one British man dared to challenge the status quo and demand an end to the Atlantic slave trade, there was no good reason for anyone to believe him.  Slavery has existed nearly as early as humanity can remember, and anyone demanding an end to such a time honored practice might as well have been demanding an end to hunting and gathering: its simply something mankind has done for survival, and will likely always do.  As one historian put it, the question is not why did slavery continue, but why did it end.  Despite everything against him, William Wilberforce, driven recklessly by his own Christian idealism, dared to demand what no one else thought possible and, shockingly enough, brought one of the most decisive steps against slavery in the history of mankind.  In our world today, we not only must finish what Wilberforce started, but also confront the oldest profession in the world.  It wont be easy and may even seem impossible, but we have a reckless duty to try; without Wilberforce's reckless duty, who knows where slavery would be today.

2.  This is a backyard problem.
Unlike many charitable causes, this is as much an American problem as it is a Filipino or Cambodian problem.  You dont need to go to a foreign country to see the horrors of slavery and sex trafficking: simply look in your own backyard.  The United States Justice department recently recorded nearly 17,000 people being trafficked into the states a year.  10,000 of our population are forced laborers that we know of, and the number is probably much higher.  Atlanta, Washington DC, and New York all rank as cities with high levels of human trafficking activity.  Its happens in our cities, it happens in our restaurants, on our very streets.  This is not someone else's problem, this is our problem.

3. Awareness Matters.
Its a known fact that in America the most popular charitable causes are the ones that require the least amount of commitment; also known as "raising awareness" and waiting for the problem to go away by itself (see: Stuff White People Like).  However, human trafficking is one of the few causes where awareness is one of the principal challenges and the principal way of defeating it.  If human trafficking really happens in the house next to you or in the back alley of your route home, then one of the principal ways of bringing people to justice is simply to be aware of it and report what you see.  Many people in forced labor or prostitution are waiting for just one person who is concerned enough to call the police.  As simple as it sounds, awareness is no easy task as most people have trouble coming to terms with the fact that it happens in such a civilized country.  Therefore, the challenge begins with yourself: educate yourself, educate the people around you.  This is in no way the ultimate solution, but its the most practical step that people can take to clamping down on the problem.

For me, these are the three most convincing reasons why human trafficking, out of all the causes we are bombarded with, deserves your support and attention.  As a generation of millenials, we are in a unique position that no generation has ever been in before to effect change.  As Mordecai says to Esther: "who knows but that you have come to your royal position for such a time as this?"  The only question is, will you be part of the solution?  What legacy can we leave to our children: a legacy of ignorance, or a legacy of reckless duty to truth?

 So my advice is this, similar to the advice that the founder of Goodwill gave:

Do not be content.

Do not be content with what is happening in our own cities
Do not be content with what is happening in far away nations
Do not be content with the millions suffering
Do not be content with apathetic empathy

And above all, do not be content with only trusting man for the solution; trust the One who gave you the idealism and the spark, trust the One who gives a truth to fight for, and trust the One who can do more than we can ever ask or imagine.

"Jesus looked at them and said, 'With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.'"

~Jared

The Age of Inundation

"When you give everyone a voice and give people power, the system usually ends up in a really good place. So, what we view our role as, is giving people that power." - Mark Zuckerburg

“Over the course of the last generation or two, a variety of technological, economic and social changes have rendered obsolete the stuff of American social capital.” - Robert Putnam

Im sick in bed today, without much hope of doing anything else rather than express my opinions from a computer.  Regardless, trends in social networking and social capital have always interested me, and I feel that the recent changes in Facebook, an incredibly powerful company in this day and age, start to really reveal what it is people desire in both social networking and in social capital in general.

First of all, we should ask what is social capital.  Social capital, as defined by Collins English Dictionary, is "the network of social connections that exist between people, ... which enable and encourage mutually advantageous social cooperation."  Simply put, social capital is any and every way that people interact and build relationships with each other.  Social capital is anything from playing cards with neighbors to lending someone money, and the capital that we build is theoretically used just like any economic capital is used.  Its incredibly simple, despite any sort of technical jargon you add to it, but its role in development and poverty studies has only recently been realized and really respected.  Today, we actually begin to look at social capital as something as incredibly necessary as any sort of basic good. 

Leaving theory behind, the real question is what role social networking is playing in social capital.  Well, it sort of depends on who you ask.  Robert Putnam, a distinguished political scientists, wrote a whole book titled "Bowling Alone" to argue that social capital is on a steep decline in the United States and that technical advancements in social interaction through the internet is partly to blame.  Though he doesnt explicitly mention Facebook in the book (from what I can remember.  been a very long time since Ive read it), one can only imagine what he would say about thousands of college students and young professionals maintaining nominal relationships through their computers and doing less of actual social interaction.  For people of our generation and age group, more and more social interactions are taking place online instead of in person, and this is perhaps worrying to some people (including myself) but also supported by others who view it as augmenting social capital, not destroying it.  So which is it?

Electronic savior?

One thing is for sure, Zuckerburg is pretty sure of his own position.  The young billionaire, along with owning one of the most successful social websites in history, sets himself up as a starry eyed idealist who, rather than lining his pockets, seeks to revolutionize humanity and our methods of communication.  "The thing that we are trying to do at facebook, is just help people connect and communicate more efficiently," he says.  

For Zuckerburg, at least this is what he claims, Facebook is a revolutionary idea that gives the voice to the voiceless, mobilizing the world and making people more open minded about sharing information.  And with this claim, who could really be the one to criticize him?  By blabbing on about democratic ideals of representation and transparency, Zuckerburg hides behind a wall of good intentions that assures all critics and naysayers that Facebook could not possibly be up to no good, but only has your best interests in mind.  Thus, when Facebook roles out new changes that open your information to new people in ways you didnt think possible, how are you going to be the one that protests to transparency and representation?

Despite Zuckerburg's lofty ideals, being in charge of a social networking site means that he is still accountable to the people that use his service.  He can only give them what they truly want and, if they dont like it, they are free to leave.  But if Google + has taught us anything, people are cemented to Facebook for the very same reason that people criticize it: a compromise of your privacy.  

Behind the lofty ideals of its creator, Facebook is un-sexual voyuerism, from its beginnings as "Facemash" to the giant database it is today.  When someone logs on Facebook, they are given the opportunity to scan thousands of people's preferences, pictures, and lives without anybody knowing that their watching.  The same inkling that sends thousands to movies to watch stories play out from a safe position and urges literally millions to watch porn on the internet is, at its basis, the same inkling that keeps people Facebook stalking for hours at a time.  Scanning people's lives from the comfort of your computer takes out the risk of social interaction, since you can gather information with no risks and, this is the best part, they literally have no way of knowing that you're doing it.  People can now know more about you than you will ever know, yet this innocent voyeurism isnt seen to be strange, because it is voluntary and widespread.  As Zuckerburg remarked once, people are sharing more and more information about themselves than they ever have before, and dont even seem to mind it.  In fact, trends show they are encouraging it!  Zuckerburg, in the end, doesnt claim to be in any sort of wrong with lowering privacy because, in the end, its what Facebook is based off and what people will always be seeking.

So how does this affect social capital?  In the end, and in my opinion, what we see is a dispersing effect, not an augmenting effect.  Facebook, though originally only intended to reflect the relationships that you already have in real life, has become a way of making friends in of itself.  So, one could argue, how is this any difference from having friends over e-mail, or even over letters?  Since Facebook has such a wealth of information about preferences, beliefs, and to some extent personality traits, it can partly satisfy needs for social capital in a way that nothing before it has been able to do.  By constantly feeding you information through your newsfeed, Facebook gives the user a feeling of being nominally connected to thousands of people which nearly eliminates the need for close connections.  Obviously, you could argue that Facebook is what you make of it, and that the people who want to maintain thousands of nominal connections will and those who want fewer, closer connections will keep them.  However, the changes in Facebook show that Zuckerburg and his team are not neutral in the matter: they know people want to see more and more information, become deeper voyeurists in a way, and will therefore make sure this happens by feeding people as much information as possible and to cement them into using their service.

Should we be panicking?  Too soon to tell.  Maybe the trend will begin reversing and people will want their privacy back, but whats clear is that this generation is enchanted by sensory overload.  All internet services in one way or another seek to inundate the user with information since its more available than it has ever been in the history of the world.  How this will affect how we interact with each other will be sort of interesting I think.


I have too much of a headache from sickness to continue this thought. 

~Jared

The Alien

"When I was very young and the urge to be someplace was on me, I was assured by mature people that maturity would cure this itch. When years described me as mature, the remedy prescribed was middle age. In middle age I was assured that greater age would calm my fever and now that I am fifty-eight perhaps senility will do the job. Nothing has worked.... In other words, I don’t improve, in further words, once a bum always a bum. I fear the disease is incurable." - John Steinbeck, Travels with Charley 

"You and the alien shall be the same before the LORD." - Numbers 15

I have just hit the halfway mark here in this land called Chile, and the experience mirrors my last ex-pat experience in one very important way: I've done very little noticing of the actual people and more noticing of the immigrant population.  Lately I've been starting to wonder why that actually is.

Just recently, I met a Colombian girl in one of my classes who was studying abroad here in Santiago.  After class, we discussed some of our culture shock and observations of Chileans.  It was pretty similar to what a Peruvian friend of mine said.  I'm no person to lump countries together, but I had always thought I had the monopoly on culture shock for being an American, yet even a next door neighbor doesnt know what to do when he steps on through the threshold  Whether Nicaraguans in Costa Rica, Mexicans in Georgia, Ethiopians in DC, or Peruvians in Chile, the familiar loneliness of migrant living is a pain that's completely universal.  Yet its a pain that many are so willing to jump into out of necessity that it becomes a universal phenomenon at the same time.

In La Paz I did a lot of walking.  Unlike Santiago, La Paz always had something happening you couldnt quite ignore; whether the calling cadences of bus caller leaning out van windows or the seasoned voice of an old Aymara woman singing to flutes and guitars.  All my life I had dreamed about what Bolivia would be like, over time constructing a carefully drawn fantasy cradled in the Andes mountains.  When I arrived, this image was gloriously shattered by a real and very complicated reality of what Bolivia actually is: not a flimsy fantasy, but a real, breathing, living entity of epic proportions with its own tastes, fears, and passions.  Its own rumba de vida that wasnt going to be like anything else in the world.  In the end this is much frightening and complicating than any mental image could construct, but more gloriously overwhelming than any fantasy could ever capture.

Walking through poor neighborhoods turning to rich neighborhoods turning back to poor, the sheer immensity of La Paz always took me by surprise.  My epiphany of being in La Paz was that I remembered what I really cared about in life:

• The very fact that every single one of those small little houses was inhabited by someone, and its possible they need your help. 
• In a world where self help books flood shelves and people linger over the topic of "learning to love myself," I wanted to truly love my neighbor, whether I'm poor or rich, crying or laughing, and maybe even teach people to do the same.  
• To foster connections between communities that would not simply give them a few extra dollars in their pocket, rather to provide a lifetime of support to the "poor and the alien" that would challenge people to realize the love of Christ as a tangible reality, not a fleeting scheme of conquest.  
• To see the Church realize its real potential in this world as the one who cares for the downtrodden and does the work no one else in this world will do, and does it in a way that's helpfully informed by economic thought and development theory.  (Microloaning in churches? Why not?)
• And finally, that I may never be calloused to the reality of suffering on earth.  Summed up, to cry when the world laughs, and to love when the world hates.

The second realization is that immigrants are very much at the center of this for me, precisely because they are such a universal reality in the world; for this reason the Torah talks so specifically about caring for both the poor and the alien.  In all senses of the word, the Israelites were aliens in their land, and were always encouraged to treat the aliens they met with the same fairness.  For this reason they are "the same" before the LORD.

Unfortunately, this is not the reality and being an immigrant is perhaps one of the hardest struggles in our globalized world; immigrating is becoming much easier to do but not any easier to handle.  As the world becomes flatter, often times attitudes become cemented, and whether or not borders are closed, the worst part is that hearts are being closed.  Please dont confuse this for a political statement.  Open border or closed border, loving the poor alien is still a great challenge for most the world, and I think its key we think about this, regardless of your view about illegal aliens.

This is what I'm thinking about lately, though I have the feeling its only sketching the surface of a much bigger issue; one that will not be solved any time soon, but one that requires the thoughts and considerations of everyone taking the title of "Christian" and anyone who claims to practice the teachings of Jesus Christ.

This is a long process, but I think I'll have to find joy in the process of figuring out what this issue is really going to mean.  I know very little now and, as a friend of mine once said, "maybe someday I'll think about the rest."

~Jared

John Steinbeck on Church and Hell

From Travels with Charley In Search of America, a good read if you a couple hundred pages to kill sometimes

"I took my seat in the rear of the spotless, polished place of worship.  The prayers were to the point, direction the attention of the Almighty to certain weaknesses and undivine tendencies I know to be mine and could only suppose were shared by others gathered there.

The service did my heart and I hope my soul some good.  It had been long since I had heard such an approach.  It is our practice now, at least in the large cities, to find from our psychiatric priesthood that our sins aren't really sins at all but accidents that are set in motion by forces beyond our control.  There was no such nonsense in the church.  The minister, a man of iron with tool-steel eyes and a delivery like a pneumatic drill, opened up with prayer and reassured us that we were a pretty sorry lot.  And he was right.  We didn't amount to much to start with, and due to our own tawdry efforts we had been slipping ever since.

Then, having softened us up, he went into a glorious sermon, a fire-and-brimstone sermon.  Having proved that we, or perhaps only I, were no damn good, he painted with cool certainty what was likely to happen to us if we didn't make some basic reorganizations for which he didn't hold out much hope.  He spoke of hell as an expert, not the mush-mush hell of these soft days, but a well-stoked, white-hot hell served by technicians of the first order.  This reverend brought it to a point where we could understand it, a good hard coal fire, plenty of draft, and a squad of open-hearth devils who put their hearts into their work, and their work was me.

I began to feel good all over.  For some years now God has been a pal to us, practicing togetherness, and that causes the same emptiness a father does playing softball with his son.  But this Vermont God cared enough about me to go to a lot of trouble kicking the hell out of me.  He put my sins in a new perspective.  Whereas they had been small and mean and nasty and best forgotten, this minister gave them some size and bloom and dignity.  I hadnt been thinking very well of myself for some years, but if my sins had this dimension there was some pride left.  I wasn't a naughty child but a first rate sinner, and I was going to catch it.

I felt so revived in spirit that I put five dollars in the plate, and afterward, in front of the church, shook hands warmly with the minister and as many of the congregation as I could.  It gave me a lovely sense of evil-doing that lasted clear through till Tuesday... All across the country I went to church on Sundays, a different denomination every week, but nowhere did I find the quality of that Vermont preacher.  He forged a religion to last, not predigested obsolescence." 


~Jared

A Year Older, A Year Younger

random story that may or may not need be told.  trying to get better at non-fiction.

 On the cusp of a rainy Saturday night, the streets of suburban Santiago were drenched and cold, like a stray city dog.  You could hear the cars whimpering through the puddles, the bright window lights shivering up and down the cozy block, and the drops shattering in noisy protest against tin roofs in the damp twilight.  From the outside of every house, it seemed the whole street was listening to the clatter in hushed expectation, yet with subdued disappointment.  The whole world was holed up, some never intending to leave.

Inside of one house, I was at a birthday party.  Despite the sound of it, take every nostalgic image of balloons and cake out of your mind; imagine instead a twenty year old gringo in the middle of six middle aged Chileans sulking around one flickering television set in a cozy den.  The news spewed forth tragedies and the adults sat around, making sparse commentaries in the din of the TV and reclining on couches in a way that preached professionalism and apathy all at the same time.

I was too young for these people.  That became clear early on in the night, but surprisingly not so clear over the phone when I was invited earlier that day.  I had heard plenty of other Americans getting invited to random birthday parties and thought that I should try and not be rude and decline.  After exiting the metro stop and waiting for the twenty-seven year old birthday girl to pick me up, I briefly wondered why I was going but quickly gave up.  When you're huddling under a bus stop hang over in cold freezing rain in the middle of foreign suburbia, the why becomes very unhelpful.

After some more comments and some awkward hellos, the six middle aged Chileans and I adjourned to the table and began to eat dinner.  The food was delicious and the meat tender, and the group became more lively.  A thirty-year old man with light hair and a calm demeanor at my side began chatting with me about what I was doing in Chile, and I explained I was an economics major and somewhat haphazardly let slip that I was dedicating my life to helping the poor.  He mulled over this fact a bit while chewing a piece of meat as a married couple shuffled into the room and sat down next to me at the end of the table.  As we began scraping the last bits of corn into our mouths, the man next to me asked me how people are going to get out of poverty.  I responded as best as I knew with some garbled answer about attitudes and resources, while he nodded like one nods to a kid with a great imagination.  He turned to his plate, pondering my response like a less than satisfactory piece of modern art. I might has well have been in diapers.

As plates were collected by the birthday girl's mom, who I affectionately called "abuelita," tea, coffee, and mugs were passed around to everyone and the short matriarch meekly took a stool from the kitchen and sat down at the table.  As the whole table lit up with talk of adult things, I politely refused tea on account of my insomnia.  The wild eyed man who had sat down to my left looked slyly and at me and commented "I guess only old people drink tea, huh?"  The end of the table settled into chuckling while I nodded along.

Soon, the everyone at the table began talking about the country side, a foreign concept for most people in Santiago.  "I prefer to be where the people are," the wild eyed man said proudly.  "I would go crazy out there with nothing but countryside."

Suddenly, the matriarch of the household began to lift her eyes and speak in a slow, seasoned tone of voice.  As she spoke, awed silence descended on the whole table.

"I remember living in the countryside.  Everything was very spread out, and your neighbor might lie miles in another direction and information ran slow.  In fact, I remember during the earthquake, it was hard to hear about how everyone was doing, because no one had televisions and very few radios.  Might have to travel a while till you came to a place that had one.  You know that main plaza west of the center of the city?  I remember there was one television there, and the whole world gathered around it.  That was how we got information.  That's how it was."

She sipped her coffee, while all seven of the guests sat in reverent silence, pondering a thing beyond their pondering.

"I suppose nowadays we carry TV's in our pockets," I said.  The whole table nodded along, eyes grasping their dinner plates.

"Now," abuela said.  "Who wants cake?"

We sang happy birthday and ate the delicious cake.  Despite the fact that one person was getting older, everyone felt just a little bit younger.

~Jared

Rain

I saw those clouds start to creep
Behind the cordillera on a cold windy street
Their fumes bask the city in dusky gray
And the buildings shiver with the threat of rain
the Mapocho was swelling, steady and slow
While I stand small and humble below

In my room I have all to which my life has lead
My Bible, Steinbeck, a desk and bed.
On a borrowed guitar, melodies float and fade
In the hushing dance of the midnight rain
And the family I live with is joining the tune
Their chores throwing light on the window of my room

As the midnight struck, I still lay awake
With thinking of days for memories sake.
the patter of raindrops carried it away
The past is dead, or so they say.
        
I live like the stranger in this southern cone
Yet the tin roof clatter is my welcoming home
No thought of wine nor precept of yeast
Could deafen the silence in the very least
Though the rays of the day can awaken my sorrow,
The hush of the rain always hopes for tomorrow.

~Jared

Beyond

I am beyond this body, beyond this doubt
beyond the sickening sway of fear and misery
because no night of mine is stronger
than the one that silences the cursing mind
the sensation of the clock echoing through voids
to the churning of your stomach, the beating of your heart

I am beyond rhyme or reason, beyond rationed thought
beyond the food people claim me to be
beyond blind dismissal of encounters with truth
though my heart revolts inside a hollow frame
never a sound, just a broken heart
in the face of all I've been promised

I am beyond simple death, only sketching real life
on the skirts of what I'm told is worth every tear
so I forge the chains of carnal desire all through the sun
and release myself to the embrace of infinite midnight
I'll pray once more tonight, when the cup of sorrow spills
beyond this bed, I'm no more, no less
      
        Than a soul in service
        A soul at rest.

~Jared

Clara

Unearthed a random poem I wrote months ago


Clara
 

No joy of mine will last in the drop of the cup
The slip of my step, the blink of my light
But hers is what weaves through the dark and the heat
Of that burning Mexican night

  The fool of her mornings
  The joke of her nights
  The butt of her laughs
  All of them I
  And all the oppression
  Of my year long fight
  Melts in the heat
  Of a Mexican night


Old man on the corner of the dusty road
Crying for salvation in the twilight heat
With the God of my parents, the God of my friends
The God of my intellect, but not of loose ends
To have some peace, I can hear him cry
To the sound of the Mexican night


  "You're a waste of breath,"
   My soul tends to cry
   Through the hollow spirit
   And coddled mind
   But she's still smiling
   Even if I cry
   Clara still dances
   In the Mexican night


And the heat is a reflection
Of the souls of its people
Like a cry in the wilderness of reason
We tend to not tremble, even when we should
Tend to laugh when we should cry
The God of my life says "a time for everything"
And after the sun sets, the tension builds
And falls in the heat of the Mexican night


  Am I doomed to despair?
  Am I the dust on her feet?
       Yet Clara laughed softly
       On that Mexican night

~Jared

Digging Blue (12th Grade Poetry)

Poem I wrote when I was 17 that I found whilst cleaning out my room.

Blue, a point of view
When nobody is broken except you
Above it all, this life is small,
and the past is still blue

Blue, its always me
They call me out but Blue I see
Who's a friend?  It all depends
If all you see if blue


Blue perhaps its you
Don't dig in deep cause you're blue too
I run apart, till a next year start
But here all is blue.


Blue, I might descend
And suffer things that none can mend
When its you I spurn, perhaps you'll learn
Don't dig when I'm blue.


Also, another random 4 line 4 stanza poem I scribbled on the next page:


Rending
Ticking
Whispering
Dying


Strands break
Bell rings
Opened eyes
Man dies


There is hurt
There is time
There is truth
There is life


Hurt is Freedom
Time is Eternal
Truth is Hidden
Life is Death

Still trying to figure out what I was going for there.


~Jared

A Truly Decent Proposal

This is the first time I have gone away from short story writing to write about politics in a very long time.  Lets see if I'm a bit rusty.

I feel that I need to express my opinion on this trending issue, despite its inherent controversy, because a) it has become increasingly important in our country and it will no doubt be something my kids will read about in the history books, so its incredibly important how we react to this issue. b) Its an issue that is currently tearing apart many of my brothers and sisters in the Faith all across the country.  Let's be honest, many of us are wondering whether we will be on the wrong side of history on this issue.  The result being that we either see our fellow Christians as too permissive or as too stringent.

Anyways, on to gay marriage.

Before I say anything about my political beliefs, I have to address my own personal convictions about homosexuality in general.  When I was about 17, I changed from being an agnostic to believing that Jesus Christ was the the Messiah, and so I put my trust in the things that He says.  Far from being blind faith, I accept my own humanity and fallibility, and must accept the fact that God, if he truly is the God of the universe, must know better than I do (His ways are not my ways, as the Good Book says).  Therefore, I accept the authority and veracity of the Bible.  

From my reading and study, I cannot agree with the view of some of my fellow Christians that homosexuality is permitted.  In my view, the Bible is quite clear that homosexuality is a deviation from the way that God originally made us to be, and the methods that other Christians have used to prove otherwise are, in my opinion, highly suspect.  I must be intellectually honest with my self and accept that I believe in the Bible, and the Bible says that God (not me, you, or the government) defines marriage as between a man and a woman.

This does not mean, however, that I hate homosexuals.  Even if I were to view them as my enemies, my Savior calls me to love my enemies!  I love my LGBT friends to death and will continue to pray for them and serve them in anyway I can, but I must respectfully disagree with their lifestyle, just as they respectfully disagree with my own views.  I would encourage them to identify themselves in Christ alone, and not in who they have sex with.  

This is where I feel the church has completely failed the LGBT community countless times, in that they have treated them like hopeless outcasts and not sought to receive them with open arms in the same love that our Savior greets us with.  On behalf of the church, I wish I could apologize to all LGBT's for how the church has treated them.  We are far from perfect, and the church has a lot to learn.  However, Christ has not given up on me, despite the countless times I let him down, therefore I have no right to give up on the church, even with its flaws.

With that out of the way, I want to explain what my political views on gay marriage have been for a decent amount of time.  In fact, they are pretty well summed up in this New York Times op-ed piece: "A Decent Proposal"

 As so aptly put by Ron Paul (who never ceases to disappoint me), it's pretty simple: “Get the government out of it."

 The government made a mistake in the very first place by even usurping the authority of declaring what marriage is and isn't.  As this article so aptly puts it, expecting the government to be able to grant something like marriage would be akin to expecting the state to "serve communion or baptize."  Marriage, after all, is a religious concept, not a legal one.  In the eyes of the law, there is no marriage but only civilly bound individuals who share rights to property and other possessions.  Marriage in some parts of Africa is like this, in that it is strictly legal and does not necessarily involve sex or affection.  

Now, if the government were to say, back off from the term marriage and reduce everything to civil unions, this would both give homosexuals the rights they desire and not tarnish anyone's religious beliefs (on a side note, why do you never hear about Islamic beliefs against homosexuality?).  Anyone can therefore by manacled to whoever they please and then take the additional step of legitimizing it through their respected religious institution.

For those of you who are Believers and think that I am flushing society down the crapper by thinking gay marriage should be allowed, a few things:

1. Gay marriage will be legalized.  Get used to it.

According to polls, 70% of people between the ages of 18 and 34 believe it should be legalized.  Its even higher among those in highschool.  Regardless of your beliefs in gay marriage, it will inevitably become legal throughout the entire country, probably within the next 10 years. 

2. The US is not a Christian nation, and therefore cannot be expected to advocate our beliefs.

In fact, its a popular and now well debunked myth that the US was ever a Christian nation to begin with.  The vast majority of our founding fathers were free masons and deists who held more fielty to the principles of the Enlightenment than they did the Bible (see Thomas Paine, Thomas Jefferson, George Washington, Benjamin Franklin).  Though it is accurate to say that the Enlightenment ideals are heavily influenced by Christian thought, it is inaccurate to say our country was founded on Christian thinkers.  We are a nation founded not on Christian law, but on democracy, which allows for the people themselves to define what is law.  By living in a democracy, we knowingly allow the possibility of contrary opinions and therefore laws that are contrary to our beliefs.  This is not to say that Christians should not fight for their own opinions and for their rights in society, since this is the essence of democracy.  However, it is foolish to act like we have a sense of entitlement above other citizens because we hold the belief that the government should advocate our beliefs above someone else's.  The government is by the people; if the people change, so will the government.

3. The Christian life is one of persecution, not of domination.

One of my reasons for not supporting banning gay marriage is that those who want to make it illegal, whether you call them the religious right, GOP, or whatever, are clearly not fighting for Christian morality, but solely for political gain.  Lets face it, the GOP doesnt care about what we think is wrong or right.  What they do care about is that Christians make up a large majority of their voter base, and therefore will use gay marriage as their means of gaining political power.  The minute it becomes inconvenient to them and the tide of gay marriage support overwhelms them, they will dump it because it no longer benefits them.  That aside, Christ has never promised that we will be powerful and rule over society, in fact he promised the exact opposite!  Though the Jews desired domination of the Romans, Christ promises that they will be hated for believing in him and what followed his Resurrection was intense persecution.  Just because we have the blessing of living in a country where we do not experience persecution, lets not forget that Christianity is the most persecuted religion in the world.  Our laments of legalized gay marriage no doubt look sort of pitiful to those Christians in the East who are being jailed and killed because of Christ.  In summary, suck it up.

This sums up how I feel about gay marriage.  Questions?  Comments?

~Jared

Part 2: Bridge to Humanity

Today is Monday.
 
I take my coffee with no sugar and a little milk, so that the cup has the dull, rusty brown without being black.  Its dull out.  All grey, little rain, no sun.

There were a lot of things to think about then, but I had to take some time to read.  Especially Foreign Policy magazine.  All those articles about fantastic places with fantastic problems; those fantastic dictators with fantastic speeches and fantastic suits, waving their hands against the establishment.  My favorite was always Gaddafi, if you're even allowed to have a favorite. It was mostly because he always wore crazy stuff.  Imagine, you’re getting bombed by NATO and there's rebellion on your coat tails and all you can think about is fashion statements.

I think that was the first time I saw her.  She was across the room, dressed in a black pencil skirt and white button up shirt talking to the barista and laughing about most everything.  That's the way she is, you know.  Just seems to smile her way through life, no matter the circumstance.  There was this one time I told about how some people in Africa are allowed to marry their cousins and she just smiled at me and said "that's interesting."  I told her I could tell she didn't care, and she just laughed.  She's like that.  Always made me feel like the wittiest person on earth.

That Monday in the cafe was a little slow and there were just a couple people silently puttering about and sulking into their mugs and books, and there she was, laughing and smiling.  As she turned to leave, I remember we had eye contact.  It was like two seconds long, but it seemed like forever and she gave me the smile of recognition.  Its the kind that's lightning quick, almost like a facial spasm, and it just lets you know you're not invisible.  I gave one back and she stepped into the rainy streets of the District and walked away.  She really was beautiful.

Putin tried to sing "Blueberry Hill" once on TV.  Cant even imagine.


Today is Wednesday

Today I'm taking it with no milk, but a little more sugar than normal.  Its kind of sunny out.

I was reading this really arduous book about witchcraft in South Africa when she came in.  I can't even remember what the book was saying about witchcraft in South Africa, but it seemed really insistent on proving some sort of point and changing the way I thought about South Africa or witchcraft.  If only I could find out what it was really saying, or maybe why it insisted on saying it.  I'd always like to be the kind of person that knew a lot about things like witchcraft and South Africa, maybe just so I could spout off a random opinion about it if it ever came up in conversation.  The person may not even care about what I said, but now he sees I have an opinion on something important.  That's how you win.  It's all about the opinions.

"Excuse me, are you done reading that?"

Just like that, there she was, standing right in front of my table.  She was dressed more casual than the first time, wearing jeans and a sort of ratty looking thrift store gray sweater.  Anyone else wearing it would have been a joke, but she was beautiful and beautiful people get away with everything.  All about the confidence, as they say.

"Um, no I still have a couple chapters left, sorry."

Her dark eyes squinted as she laughed.  "I meant the Foreign Policy.  Are you done with it?"

"Oh!  Yeah, I'm done with it, sorry."  I offered some laughter.

"Well, maybe I should just come back in a few days and I can get the book from you too," she said smiling.  "What is it about anyways?"

"This book?"  I looked at the cover and thought for a second before remembering.  "Oh right, its about nothing."

She smiled quizzically at me.  "Its about nothing?"

"Yep."  I held my ground.

Her eyes drifted to the book cover. "It says 'Witchcraft, Violence and Democracy' on the front."

"Yes, it does."

"But it's not about that?"

"No, its about nothing."

She considered my words, her face a little sadder now.  "All that ink and nothing to say?  That's a shame..." she sighed because it really was a shame.  "So why read it then?"
"Well, it seems very insistent."

"On what?"

"On saying what it wants to say."

"Which is nothing?"

"Yes," I said as I sipped my coffee.  "But," I continued, "the fact that he's so insistent might make it something, and no longer nothing.  That is, if he's insistent enough."

She sat down across from me and put her elbows on the table, speaking in grave inquiry.  "So if you push anything hard enough, the nothing becomes a something?"

"Sure, because no idea can be nothing if you've been made to think about it.  The minute you've given it any credence, you have in some fragile way validated its existence, whether it be serious thought or half-ass consideration.  Even if I reject an idea, like, say, South Africa, my necessity to reject its existence means I have already given it the credit of existence.  You cant reject nothing, because there would be nothing to reject.  But once I reject or accept the nothing, its now a something."

I could have sworn she would get up and leave after that existentialist treatise, but she stayed seated and looked like she was actually enjoying talking to me.  Her head turned to one side and rested on her hand.  She looked intently at me, locks of her dark curly hair lightly falling on her face. 

"So what you're saying is that South Africa and witchcraft haven't quite jumped out from the realm of nothing quite yet?"

I laughed at that.  "No, but I guess we'll see.  Do you read FP alot?"

"Yeah, at least when I can.  There are so many fascinating things going on in the world, I cant help but want to know.  Like maybe if Argentina changed their monetary policy, or South Africa has sunken out of existence."

I laughed along with her, wondering if she might remember me the rest of her life as "the guy who didn't believe in South Africa."

"Don't tell anyone, but I actually always underline and circle stuff in the magazines here," she said slyly, her eyes lighting up.  You would have thought she had just admitted to shoplifting.  "I wonder if they ever notice."

"Oh, that's you?  You have good taste in articles.  I like how you always circle the ones about dictators.  I kind of like dictators.  I mean, I'm interested in them, I guess I should say."

"Me too!  Especially the things that Gaddafi wears."  I agreed and we laughed about dictators for a couple of minutes, eventually going on to other things and drinking a couple more cups of coffee. 

"I guess it's nice that someone appreciates my random mark ups.  Hey!  I don't even know your name!"

And that's how it was.  It was nothing, and then it was something.  Maybe from a half-ass consideration on her part, but to be honest I was a little in love.  She really was beautiful.


Today is Saturday

I take my afternoon coffee with a lot of milk and two sugars.  It's really nice out today, a clear blue sky.

"Their cousins?"

"Their cousins," I confirmed.

She gazed into the sunlit street, sipping her coffee.  She then turned back to me, smiling as always.

"But see, they can only marry certain cousins," I pushed on. "They're called 'cross cousins' and you determine them by seeing whether they're related through the mother or father...and if their gender is the opposite...or maybe its the same...I don't know, something like that."

Her hair was tied back and she looked really beautiful nodding at my rantings.  "That's interesting," she said innocently.

I let out a sigh. "Alright, I can tell you're just humoring me and don't care about African cousin marriage.  What do you want to talk about?"

She laughed happily and blushed since I read her disapproval so well.  She always liked to think of herself as someone who could fake interest.

She shifted in her seat and sipped more coffee, looking at me questioningly.

"Tell me why you drink so much coffee."

I was a little startled.  No one had ever asked me.

"It's safer than crack and cheaper than Prozac," I declared, holding my coffee cup as an example.  I put it down, smiling sheepishly.

"I've always had a problem with happiness and such, one that no one else could ever understand."  I paused, looking for better words.  "Coffee is my equalizer, you could say.  The enemy of despair. Makes me a little bit easier to understand, for both parties involved.  It makes me... relateable."

Her face began to drop at my words.  "You don't think you're relateable?" 

"I know I'm not," I insisted.  "Life has done a fine job of draining every drop of optimism from me.  At least for now."

I sipped a bit more and chose my next words carefully.

"This coffee is I feel my bridge to humanity.  For these few little moments in this coffee shop, I get to sit with the rest of human kind and read, drink coffee, feel happy, talk to people, and see what the normal life is like.  Feel the grass on the other side, I guess.  I wouldn't be talking to you if it weren't for this stuff, right?"

As I looked back at her, she was gazing at me, but her eyes looked a little glassy.  As the sun began to peek out from a cloud, she looked at the floor and began rolling up the sleeves of her gray sweater.

"Nothing is normal," she said after a few moments.  She was smiling, but it had a touch of tragedy. 
 
That was the first and last time that I held her hand.  I tried to smile, and her smile became deeper and more authentic as a result; always doing the things I couldn't.

"Coffee next weekend?"
 
There were two deep scars up both her dark forearms.  She really was beautiful.


Today is Sunday

I take my coffee black.  Just like the night sky.

It had been two weeks since I held her hand.  We had other conversations, other cups of coffee, but eventually she told me about the guy she started seeing a week ago.  Like many random loves, it started out as nothing and, through careful insistence, became something.  I think he worked in her office or something, and one day this guy just sort of walks up to her and asks her about such and such memo to such and such boss and then finds a way to slip in that well worn technique of the ambivalent romantic:

"You want to get a cup of coffee or something?"

Now pay attention, because each part of this question is very, very important and integral to the whole. 

"You want" seems innocent enough, but its very strategic, you see.  The word "want" immediately brings forth the concept of desire and urge.  Yes, what do I want in life?  Do I want a cup of coffee?  Do I want true love?  Do I want to buy a toy poodle to fulfill my need for children?  What does my heart truly desire?  If even a twinge of romantic desire exists in the person, the "you want" is sure to unearth it.

Now the "cup of coffee" is a very important medium of romantic expression, precisely because of its innocence.  Most people would quake at the idea of a whole meal or movie with someone, but you wouldn’t refuse to drink a beverage with someone, would you?  I could just as easily ask if you want go drink a glass of water with me, but at the same time the coffee is immensely important.  Why?  Because two people at a coffee shop can elicit a myriad of interpretations.  Are they business partners discussing important contracts?  Are they co-writing a screenplay?  Are they cousins?  No one will ever know.  And if worst comes to worse, the casual air of a coffee shop can allow for a quick and subtle retreat if your ambivalent romance goes sour.

Lastly, we arrive at the seemingly unimportant suffix "or something."  The importance of "or something" lies in its ability to say nothing and everything at the same time.  If I tack on a "something," I am handing you endless possibilities to be shaped by your love, indifference, or disgust for my proposition.  "Something" stretches itself to mean from "you can walk me out of the building" to "let's go to my house and make passionate love" and everything between, so there is no way that you can be threatened by my offer.  In the context of this question, it's the ultimate safety and the ultimate innuendo all at the same time.

They got coffee that afternoon with all sorts of innocent pleasantries.  She kept telling me he was the love of her life, but I get the idea he was so sure.  Through it all, I smiled.  I nodded.

That night, I sat and sulked into a mug and read a book of Emily Dickinson poems.  Did you know she got dumped about three times?  Then she locked herself in a cabin, away from all of humanity, and wrote some of the best poetry known to mankind.  It makes me reconsider my own view of life, that I should be joining human civilization.  Was the real key to burn the bridge?

"Would you watch my stuff?"

Some gangly looking hipster in a v-neck was going to the toilet.  Yeah, sure, I said.  I wondered, how many people in the history of "watch my stuff" have ever just plain taken off with it?

After he got back, I told him my thought about watching stuff.  He was actually a pretty cool guy, and we had a decent conversation.  Although it got a bit weird near the end.  I had never even heard of "dubstep." 

In these moments, I had finally learned the wisdom that she had tried to teach me all those times: just smile and nod.


Today is Friday

I take my coffee with milk, but just a little sugar.  I've learned to appreciate it this way.

It was a very beautiful afternoon.  After getting my coffee, I sat down next to a stack of magazines and began looking for a Foreign Policy.  I wanted to read about some fantastic problems, or maybe some fantastic solutions.  I'm not quite as cynical as I used to be, if you can believe it.  Life hasn't quite drained my optimism yet; nothing that a cup of liquid optimism can’t solve.

It was kind of crowded that day I think, or maybe it wasn't.  All I remember is that there were tons of fascinating looking people there.  Two middle aged men with baseball caps were playing the loudest game of chess I had ever seen in the corner, and one old lady sat behind one of the men and poked his ribs every time he said a curse word.  On the other side of the place, three nannies were loudly chatting with each other, somehow simultaneously shoving food into the mouths of three wailing blue-eyed babies.  Near the door, a man in a cardigan sat typing on his apple laptop and insisting to every passerby that he was working on something very important, and yes it’s a secret.  And finally, in the corner, I saw a couple, casually drinking coffee and pretending they didn't enjoy each other’s company.  I don’t remember much else, but I remember that it was glorious.  

After about five minutes, I found a copy of Foreign Policy.  Just as I was about to open it, I saw her passing by out the window.  She looked a lot happier.  As she saw me, she suddenly started pointing at the magazine, telling me to open it.

Every single article about dictators was circled and underlined.  Putin's picture had a mustache.

I gave her a thumbs up, and she just smiled back at me.  She really was beautiful.

~Jared

City of Dogs

Daniel missed, but just by a little bit.  The pebble fell short of his target, an indifferent, black dog with white spots sprawled out in the middle of the road in the hot sun.  As the pebble fell, the spotted dog briefly raised his head and considered the pebble.  Then he considered Daniel, the stout Mexican man silhouetted against his Mayan hut in the shade of the papaya trees.  He briefly considered getting up to move, but found sleep the better prospect and immediately dozed off.

Daniel cursed to himself, and straightened his back, shifting his position on the rock right outside the gate.  It was a hot day, and he put aside some special time for himself to sit outside his house on the side of the gravel street to watch the people trod by, watch the sun crawl across the sky.

Today he was distracted though, cause he just really wanted to hit this dog. 

In a lot of ways, Tunkás, like many Mayan villages, has gone to the dogs.  It was just crawling with them.  Those mangy, flea ridden, emaciated animals.  Weaving their way through chairs, yards, gardens and huts, sniffing, scratching, laying in the middle of the road.  Licking the crumbs of your dinner and rooting through the leftovers in the street.  They come in big and small, black, white, brown, red, male, female, fat, and skinny.  There are loners who lumber around on their own, tongues hanging in the heat, or maybe the gangs of three or four that sneak around the town like a couple of kids skipping school.  

Yucatecos have been kicking them in the faces for ages, throwing them into the street to build their houses and feed their families.  The village has grown around them, children filling the streets and the smell of tortillas piercing the jungle air.  Yet, despite the many strikes to the ribs and brooms to the face, the dogs are here, even if in they are confined to the streets.  They hold that special place in a relationship that's abusive, yet strangely symbiotic.

His eyes narrowed as he gazed at the spotted dog in the street.   

"You think you're better than me, don't you?" he growled.

The spotted dog did nothing to deny this accusation, but instead kicked his leg in the dust.  A tubby, brown dog was politely pooping in the road right behind him.

Daniel spat in the street and scratched his bare stomach, quietly boiling over in resentment.  He wondered what the spotted dog was dreaming about.  Whatever they were, he was jealous of them.

"I oughta smack you for lying in the street like that, gettin' in people's way," Daniel shouted.  "You're nothing but a stupid animal!  What have you got to show for it?"

A cackle erupted from the swinging hammock in the hut behind him.  An old, toothless woman, sprawled in her hammock, was swinging to the rhythm of the radio with a wide grin on her face.

"Shut it, vieja!" he shouted back.

The woman shrugged, and cackled a little softer.  

Daniel scratched his stomach again, this time less as habit and more as a thoughtful gesture.  It was about the middle of the day, and the heat poured down from the heavens like rain.  It was too hot to take a walk, too hot to mend the fence, too hot to check the garden.  Nothing to do but sit in the shaded road side and consider the foot traffic, consider life.  On any other day, he would have made conversation with his neighbors that were passing by at that moment, but he only had one priority on his mind that afternoon.  He picked up another pebble, and aimed for the spotted dog once again.

As he aimed, Luis, the old neighbor down the street, strolled up to Daniel, kicking his worn out sandals in the dirt and making clouds as he walked.  Standing next to Daniel, Luis looked at the dozing dog for a few seconds before turning back to Daniel, who weighed the pebble in his hand and held it up to his eye, looking for a perfect shot.

"Ma'alob' k’íin," said Luis.

"Good day? There's nothing good about today," said Daniel.

At this, he took his shot and nailed a turkey in the yard across the road.  The turkey shrieked in protest and shuffled off to the other side of the yard.

"Not even close," Daniel muttered.  Another curse, another spit, another cackle from inside the hut.

"Where are my manners?  Señora!" Luis said with the grace of gentleman.  "B'ix a bèel?"

"I'm not too good," the woman yelled back.  "I'm sick."

"What do you have?"

"Old age!" she yelled back.  She cackled again, though with less enthusiasm.

Luis sighed in agreement.  "'Life is nothing, everything ends, and only God makes man happy,' as they say," he mused, wondering if he believed what he was saying.  He stared off down the road, eyes glazed by cataracts, at two ladies at the panaderia fighting over the last piece of bread.  His face was worn, but well chiseled by his Mayan heritage.  He had the stone face you might imagine in a carving on the side of a temple, and a growling voice that spoke eons in every syllable.  His thin shirt hung loosely on his skinny body, but his hands were strong and callused, carved from rocks.  He placed a boulder hand on Daniel's shoulder.

"You hear about the man from the city?" he asked.

"Yeah, I saw him walking around," said Daniel.  "What was he sayin?"

"Oh, the usual," said Luis.  "Talkin' politics, talkin' bout our homes, talkin' bout our children and future.  He talked about the voting booth, our salvation.  Turns out the only ticket to heaven is an x on a ballot, not a prayer to God.  Makes me think that maybe one day when we get to heaven we won't find any pearly gates, but we'll find one big bureaucracy.  Angels with rolled up sleeves, cherubim with picket signs.  A whole new set of speeches, signs, and people telling us they know our pain.  A whole new set of sympathy, a whole new set of sucking up to do."

Daniel shrugged.

"It's fine.  It's all were used too," Luis admitted.  "Although they say its better across the border.  You know, you've been there right?"

  

Daniel considered his memories and scratched his stomach, as if he was brushing away years of his life.  "That was years ago," he muttered.  "When the Dream was alive.  Turns out, its terrible in Los Angeles too.  After paying my cousin for the trip, I ended up in a dingy apartment with a bunch of other guys.  Wasnt even enough room to think to myself or hardly relieve yourself in peace.  I went to work everyday by sitting on the side of the road waiting for a job, and at night I got to back to being a caged animal.  They call it the Dream, but its the same nightmare we've always known, only over there the politicians are pasty white and you work through the afternoon.  No wonder so many of our friends have died over there."

Luis and Daniel inclined their heads in respect for the dead.  After a few moments, Daniel began to speak again, slower and more deliberately than before.

"That's not the life for me.  Many of them over there would rather die on the job than have to die with dignity, maybe kick this life with their heads on a desk and their hands bleeding.  I say, better to die on my own dusty street with dignity than to die in a foreign land as some filthy animal for the sake of someone's Dream.  You wouldnt even have family to bury you over there.  Instead of wasting your life, I say take to the streets, make your home out of everyone's way.  Then find a woman who can feed you when you're hungry and stays out of your way."

As Daniel spoke, a middle aged woman began walking down the street.  She was holding the hands of both her children, kicking away dogs as she went.  As she passed, she looked at Daniel with a mixed expression of pain and resentment, the wrinkles extenuating every grieving thought etched in her face.  Daniel avoided her gaze and began searching for more pebbles in the dust, but her soft gaze continued.  Years before, she was his wife, the one who would call him in from the street, fix his food, raise his children.  Now, she went to an empty home with her two small children, with hardly a bite to eat.  Despite Daniel's pitiful appearance, she never forgot what he looked like the day he returned from the States, eyes blazing with passion, arm around another woman.  He looked alive then, but still in a pitiful way.  It was the look of an excited beast that thought of nothing better than humping anything that moved.  Now it was just her and the kids, and Daniel continued in the dust, being called into dinner by his new wife, mending her fences, and putting up with the cackles of his mother in law.  As the memories hung in the air like the dust of the street, the woman Daniel loved directed her gaze back to the road, kicking the tubby, brown dog in the ribs as she passed him.

The tubby, brown dog, tongue hanging out, wandered off down the road, less from hurt and more from boredom.  A couple of other dogs nearby began to slowly follow him.  As the dogs slowly wandered down the road, a man in a suit paraded in the background with several other Yucatecos following him.  As he passed, words like "freedom" "good wage" and "your future" drifted on the wind.  Luis let out a long sigh, said his graceful goodbyes, and slowly began to wander after the man in the suit.  

Within a few minutes, the trains of dogs and people had gone to another part of the village, and only Daniel remained.  Picking up another pebble, he threw it at the sleeping dog and nailed it straight in the head.  The dog cried out in pain, and quickly ran off down the street.  Daniel, laughed wildly, eyes glowing with passion and head thrown back in glee.  The barks of the village dogs rose up on the afternoon air, laughing right along with him.

 ~Jared