Joy and All of His Friends

"When we are such as He can love without impediment, we shall in fact be happy." - The C.S. Lewis, The Problem of Pain

(I usually dont discuss religion or spirituality here, but whatever.  its my blog anyways)

Got back from Spain last night.  Quite honestly, the whole experience was amazing, but I sometimes wonder if it all really happened.  Waking up on the return flight to Madrid, I half-imagined that the whole thing was just a dream I had.  I dreamed the people, the place, and the lessons I learned.  Waking up, I descend back into the bowels of everyday life, which never seems to lack depression, pain, and defeat.

Dream or no dream, I feel the most content knowing that I learned things there.  My expectations going there were mostly that I was going to speak Spanish alot, but surprisingly every time I opened my mouth I felt like my speech was impeded, almost as if I wasnt supposed to be speaking, but just observing.  My arrogance wasnt enough that the Hound of Heaven wasnt pursuing me still.  and he caught me this time, because Joy exists.

In college, I have suffered from some of the most intense depression of my life.  There have been days at American where I didnt feel like getting up again, where I wanted freedom from the endless waves of despair and misery that would come over my life.  For me, happiness is a foreign concept, but joy is the most foreign.

Praise God, I have hope these days, and I can muddle through the crazy depression of college with my sanity intact.  I learned what David meant when he said "I wake again, because the LORD sustains me."  In the past, I often prayed for death everytime I went to sleep.  Praise God, I start seeing every day, every sunrise, as a miracle, since every day is another day I'm alive.  Its a perspective that keeps me alive and full of hope, but it doesnt necessarily involve having joy in your life.  Sometimes it impedes it.  Still, I purge away happiness and Joy from my life.  I dont understand it, and most of all I dont feel I deserve it.  I didnt even know what it could look like

In Spain, I actually saw what it looked like, and I saw that it was attainable.  I met people who had it, but even had it in such a way that it was contagious, like it was a thing that couldnt be content with staying on one person, but busied itself with spreading to any person it came in contact with.  After 7 months of on and off depression, I have gotten used to heaviness of heart, but on the wall of a dead Moorish castle, looking at all of Granada, I felt it lift.  For the first time in a long time, I laughed for no reason it all.

Now, I still live in the basement of McDowell, and I still experience depression, but I see the little things alot clearer now.  I'm getting the bravery to smile on a sunny day, or laugh at the simple things in life.  For me, having joy is learning to walk, learning to breath, and maybe the hardest thing I have to do.  But these days I'm becoming ok with the idea of having it in my life, and pursuing it.  Its out there, and thats reason enough.

~Jared

Wisdom From Calvin

Saw this on a buddy's facebook, had to post it.

"I used to hate writing assignments, but now I enjoy them. I realized that the purpose of writing is to inflate weak ideas, obscure poor reasoning, and inhibit clarity. With a little practice, writing can be an intimidating and impenetrable fog!"

I read this so many times as a kid, but college taught me how true it really was.

Right on, Calvin

~Jared

My Shameful Identity

At the esteemed University of American, we tend to get obsessed with having an "ethnic identity."  Much like the days when my generation used to pain for hours over a cool sounding AIM screen name, my fellow students often go to extreme lengths to have a non-white people group they can identify themselves with, just to have a cooler story than that girl who taught English in Nepal over the summer (if you think you know who I'm talking about, keep in mind there are several hundred girls that match this exact description on our campus, and probably wear Buddhist prayer beads to show how cultural they are).  It gets so ridiculous that I often hear third or fourth generation wasps define themselves as "scottish-americans" just to avoid that terrible word "Caucasian" or (God forbid) "white."  These days, admitting you're white is practically admitting that you personally peed on a Native American's land and then proceeded to invade a small Asian country.

Unfortunately for me, there is no getting around the fact that I am, dare I say it, 100% white (aside from the scrap of Cherokee that my relatives successfully covered up).  Even worse, the word I use to identify myself is "southerner," a word that continues to conjure images of hooded, Bible beating rednecks who watch "Song of the South" and think of the good old days in the minds of alot of people.  But I tried, dear friends.  I searched my genealogy and looked for a cool 64th to identify with and brag about in class, but in the end I've faced the truth.  I am a southerner, and I am tired of feeling embarrassed to admit it.

The reality is that Southern culture is so much more than what people make it out to be.  Living in the south all my life, I know that I live in a culture that has deep roots in a lot of beautiful things, and many of my fellow southerners will agree that it offers something that Northern culture cannot offer.  For instance, in the South we're not afraid to make conversation with complete strangers.  It still wigs me out how unfriendly people can be in the North.  Also, we're not afraid to invite people over that we don't know, even feed them.  We'll even stand on the porch and wave at you as you drive off in your cars.  I would even go as far to say that we respect our elders a lot more than people in the North care too.  Southerners sort of have an unspoken rule that anyone more than 5 years older than you is a sir or ma'am, which usually gets a strange reaction from a lot of people.  Finally, this is a little ethnocentric, but "you all" and "yous guys" are the most awkward things I have ever heard come out of anyone's mouth.  Common, ya'll.

But no one cares to see this anymore.  Instead, our region becomes the whipping boy of the nation, the butt of every joke about anyone seen as backwards or uneducated (For the record, we don't eat squirrels in the South.  We prefer possum).  Understandably, I realize that to some extent we've reaped what we've sown.  We held on to slavery, we held on to racism, and, worst of all, we tried to pass it off as culture.  However, at the end of the day, this shameful identity is the only thing I can really claim for my own, so I prefer to forget the past and the racist blood that runs through my very veins and hold on to the beautiful things that we can still offer our country (fried okra anyone?).

As a closing note, here's a portrait of the cousin of my direct relative, dear old John Calhoun.  He was a pro-slavery advocate, and it often causes a pit in my stomach to think I share an ancestry with someone who advocated the civilized genocide of human dignity.  Often times I make it my personal mission to spite him.

But then again, hard to take a man seriously when he looks like a muppet.

~Jared

Give us an inch, and we tear the world apart

It’s been about ten years since I last stepped foot into the Air and Space Museum. The museum had not changed too much, but I certainly had. Now, I am older, more aware, and more out of place. Most everyone there was a tourist, who totted their kids along the museum, while the kids’ eyes gazed in wonder at all the planes around them. It’s strange to think I was in there shoes at some point.

I’m sure that when I was a lot younger, I saw the giant model planes just as they did, but now, ten years later, the first thing I saw was the bombs strapped to the bottom. I would also bet that when I was younger I saw the big rockets, but only now did I notice the nuclear warheads that they were carrying. Did the Smithsonian purposefully make the instruments of war look so fun and educational?  Is this the reason we blew up dolls with firecrackers on our driveways?

When I was young enough not to notice bombs and warheads, I used to get sage advice from my mom, one of which was "give a person an inch, they'll take it a mile."  In the Smithsonian, they show old grainy photographs of the Wright plane, perhaps the most important innovation in flight. This happened in 1903. Next to it, there was a picture of the very same model, only this plane had a gun attached to it, and the photo was taken in 1909. In less than ten years, the military had transformed an innovation into a weapon. In another part of the museum, rockets that launched satellites into space were displayed. Sitting right next to it was a polaris missile.  Again, a less than ten year span between discovery and destruction.

Science has given mankind amazing power, but what have we done with our power? Most of the time, we’ve looked for ways to use it to kill the people we hate. Sometimes, hate and war is a bigger driving force towards invention than scientific inquiry. Some of the greatest discoveries in rocket technology have come about when hateful men sought for ways to destroy their enemies across the ocean. Innovations in breathing apparatuses came about to allow early pilots to breathe while on bombing raids. Technology gives us the inch, and when it gives us the inch we take it the mile. We then see what its really like to tear the world apart.

Walking out of the museum, I kept thinking about the movie 2001: A Space Odyssey, particularly the scene where the monkey discovers how to use the very first tool, a bone, and the first thing he uses it for is to kill a tapir (what tapirs were doing in Africa remains a mystery to this day.  I plan to ask Zombie Kubrick that some day). In midst of cheesy costumes and several tapir maulings that would make any PETA activist cry, Arthur C. Clarke knew what he was talking about. The twisting of invention to satiate man’s desire to kill. It still happens, just with different monkeys and different bones.

~Jared

What a person I am

Its 1:30 am and I feel very personal right now, mostly because im running out of time.

In two days, im going to American University, to the city that will likely be my home for the next 5+ years of my life, and to do my best impression of someone that likes meeting new people, or new people in general. Someone told me I needed to open up to the people there. That sounds strange considering I can barely open up to people ive known for a year. What a person I am.

Considering the prospective future I find myself on the brink of, I am facing some of the worst parts of my personality, notably my knack for wanting to shove people I love as far away from me as possible. The fact that I care about them makes me want to shove them away, and the fact that they might care about me scares me to death. Why would I rather shove them away then love them more than I ever have? What a shitty person I am.

I can't type another word. it would only be more useless self loathing tripe. all I really want to say is that i'm sorry. i wish I wasnt like this, but you know by now, Ive never been an easy person.

sorry.

~Jared

Faith Like A Child

Sorry for everyone that has been waiting for a new blog entry. Here it is.
I was in Los Guido today, as I am every single Saturday, doing the kids service in the morning. There are two boys in particular that I have been seeing every Saturday that I have gotten to hang out with a lot, and it always surprises me how much kids will attach to people that just love them. I’ve been to children’s homes and among different groups of street kids in Mexico and I experience the same thing. Some kids just seem like they are dying to be loved.
There was one boy I remember in particular from the children’s home I went to in Mexico. Most of the kids in these children’s homes are sent there because they are orphans or their parents can’t take care of them, or even because some of them have been sexually abused. One boy there was there because his mother couldn’t take care of him, and his mother had busied herself with having a boyfriend. In the end, his mother had come up to him and told him “I don’t love you.” After that he attempted suicide two times. Luckily he found help, or help found him, in time. Some are just dying to be loved.
Today, I saw something amazing. At the park where we were meeting, I saw the boy I had been hanging out with accept the sacrifice Christ made and alter his own destiny. Many would tell me that hes been pressured by the circumstances of his child hood, or peer pressured, but there is something I will never be able to explain in the way a child looks when he prays. Its faith and sincerity that can put any adult to shame. I love it. I want to see that every single day.


~Jared

My new love for country and soccer

On Tuesday I went to my first futbol game ever. I can say with all certainty that I am a changed man now. I’ve never been into watching sports, but watching a live futbol game is like nothing you have ever experienced. It is three times better than any sport we have in the United States. People have wondered why I, as a member of the male species, don’t enjoy watching sports. Well, turns out I was just in the wrong country.

In Costa Rica, we have two futbol teams that really matter: La Liga and Saprissa. In the villa, most all the staff are fans of Saprissa, so many people joke that if you want to succeed in the GAP program, go for Saprissa. On Thursday, I saw them play D.C. United and they tied 2-2 :(. It was kind of dangerous being a gringo and being there, but luckily I was wearing my insurance.

Other things, spanish class is a little boring, its done good to go over basics again. Yesterday I had to try and explain direct object pronouns to the class. I will never be a teacher.

The church I have been assigned to us is a place called Los Guidos, which is one of the barrios (poor areas) of San Jose. Most of the people the live there are nicaraguans who are illegal, and build their houses in this giant hole because the government cant bulldoze them there. Its very much like the situation we have in Los Estados Unidos, and many of the ticos (Costa Ricans) are very unwelcoming to them, because some of them dont work and they are all illegal (sound familiar?)

I am amazed by the pastor of my church there, Pastor Gabriel. When we were driving through Los Guidos, one of the poorest places in San Jose where everything seemed most desolate, he turned to me and all he said was "Es tierra santa" (its holy earth). I wish I had the heart this man had for the poor places of the earth. He was telling me that he and his wife prayed that God would send them to the place that no one else wanted to go, and they wound up in Los Guidos. Its amazing.

Today ill be there all day, doing the childrens meeting in the morning and going to youth group at night (which usually doesnt happen because its so dangerous at night in Los Guidos).

I will leave you with some u2 lyrics, of which I have been listening to as of late. They really speak to my heart.

"And love is not the easy thing
The only baggage that you can bring...
And love is not the easy thing...
The only baggage you can bring
Is all that you can't leave behind

And if the darkness is to keep us apart
And if the daylight feels like it's a long way off
And if your glass heart should crack
And for a second you turn back
Oh no, be strong

Walk on, walk on
What you got they can't steal it
No they can't even feel it
Walk on, walk on...
Stay safe tonight

And I know it aches
And your heart it breaks
And you can only take so much
Walk on, walk on"



~Jared