It’s 12:39pm on a Friday. Here I sit at the very school I have attempted to leave so many times before. This time graduated, which apparently means wearing black heels and dress clothes to the library. The career services interview a past success, despite a four-lane blocking accident delaying me fifteen minutes of my half hour window of “fix this on your resume” and “quickly, here’s our computer system” time. The Other Place interview now lost into the world of “I need full-time, not part-time”. Waiting on the Montgomery County machine to slowly get itself going. Whispers from rebellious platinum blond fashion queens echo copy machine cries and coughs. This place reeks of carelessness, acting and unemployment. My stomach complains. Laundry waits at the apartment. A hospital visit of a friend’s sister looms. Productive, one could call it. Hard-working. Or also just plain lost. This job hunt. But this freight train fails to find fuel. “None Available” burns into my eyes with site after site. But Hope still remains. The trees wave through glass. The wind active again. And with ideas long gone, discovery hangs… yearning… waiting. Alas, these black heels find pavement beyond the library doors. Across the street. Within her past hatred they wait. Until at last they find their home on the wood floor… empty. A morning gone, with red feet and wasted paper it’s products. Laundry calls. Visits persist. And then alas… rest.

Thus goes the story of today’s employment.

To the unemployed,
Sucks to be unemployed.
I feel ya.

Hoping to use this “wonderful” education,
me

To my husband,
I love you.
I’ll try to geta job here soon.
But refer to the above letter.

Hoping your education doesn’t proove as “bountiful”,
me

To the zit that just popped on my face,
Nasty.
Resentingly,
me

But when the Son of Man comes in His glory, and all the angels with Him, then He will sit on His glorious throne. All the nations will be gathered before Him; and He will separate them from one another, as the shepherd separates the sheep from the goats; and He will put the sheep on His right, and the goats on His left.

Then the King will say to those on His right, ‘Come you who are blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. For I was hungry, and you gave Me something to eat; I was thirsty, and you gave Me something to drink; I was a stranger, and you invited Me in; naked, and you clothed Me; I was sick, and you visited Me; I was in prison, and you came to Me.’

Then the righteous will answer Him, ‘Lord, when did we see You hungry, and feed You, or thirsty, and give You something to drink? And when did we see You a stranger, and invite You in, or naked, and clothe You? When did we see You sick, or in prison, and come to You?’

The King will answer and say to them, ‘Truly I say to you, to the extent that you did it to one of these brothers of Mine, even the least of them, you did it to Me.’

-Matthew 25: 31-40

I think it’s hard for the clothed to understand the shame of nakedness or for the free to comprehend the confinements of prison. In this passage, Christ makes the point that serving another brother is serving Him. But how can we serve another if we fail to see their desperation? This point has been made repetitively in the Social Work department. A social worker must empathize with the pains, stigmas, and griefs of a client’s life circumstances. But here, Christ goes beyond acknowledging mere bench-warming empathy, but emphasizes again and again the actions of the righteous in meeting a brother’s need. It’s the actions and serving that recognizes the brother’s worth, no matter what their life conditions and trials. Therefore, one does not need to become naked to understand nakedness, but merely value another enough to give them clothing.

But who ever said the clothing was ours to hoard in the first place?

Everything is the Lord’s.

-Everything!-

It’s amazing to me how easily we can live in our heads. If I don’t like what you’re saying, I retreat to my own thoughts. You can’t change those. You can’t touch those. We can live in this state of, “you think you know me… but you don’t.” We can live in this, “I can reason through it. I can fix it.”

I’ve just been thinking about old friends as I clear through more of the clutter that easily classifies me as a “junk keeper”. I’ve just been thinking about some of the conversations we had. And been wondering about where some of them are in their lives right now. Who are their friend’s now? What are their new hobbies?

But the real fascination I have as I flip through old chapters of my life is, when the lights go down at the end of the day and it’s just them and their thoughts, who are they? I’m just curious. Are they who they want to be? Am I who I want to be?

…

It’s so easy to stay in the comfortable. It’s so easy to remain outside of conflict, outside of stressors, outside of life. It’s so easy to sit behind a computer or a palm pilot and become just another fish in the sea. I’m not trying to imply that being on the computer or on the web or having the finances to be able to afford a palm pilot makes anyone a bad person. I’m just saying that face to face contact and actually going through the daily work of keeping a friendship or a relationship healthy is hard enough for anyone to desire to run away. But it’s in those moments of retreat that I wonder who my previous friends have become? Whom have I become?

… I was just thinking today…

Have you ever been afraid of something and later discovered it wasn’t that bad?

I was sitting on the couch, towel on head, enjoying “On Fire” by Switchfoot. The shower was good and hot. A stack of books lay on the floor beside my laptop on the coffee table, evidence of a final paper finished Monday. Boots walked by, as usual. Only this time Boots caught a glimpse of something out of the corner of his eye. I still have no idea what he thought he saw, but he took off tearing in the other direction. He poked his head back around the corner, wide eyed and timid. Thinking it amusing, I moved my foot and made a noise. He jumped a foot in the air and backed up, eyes bulging. He returned an additional seven or eight times in which he jumped a bit and rigidly rocked toward and away from the books. I just let him work it out for himself. He hesitated and sneaked around the coffee table for a while. Then he built up the courage to sniffed the books.

Ten minutes later, I picked up the cat as he walked by normally. I cradled him like I usually do and he tolerated it for a few minutes. Then, he caught glimpse of the stack of books and lost all control. Four puffy scratches later and I can tell you with hands down that irrational fear is not fun!

I too am as foolish when it comes to irrational fear. Lately I have done nothing but horrify myself with marriage fears. I have replayed them over and over again in my head, thinking about them in the most exhausted moments of late hours. I, like Job, have said things in the midst of my fear and hurts that are not reflecting of God’s character. And I have built up this irrational wall of fear that has kept me from enjoying the blessing that God has provided.

Its odd how books and four puffy scratches can remind me of a lifestyle better lived in light of God’s character. But the scratches still hurt.

When you’re ready to move:

• you get so excited about packing that you can’t go back to sleep at 7AM

• you see a tornado-hit room as a land of opportunity and joy

• your cat becomes all purry and friendly because he fears you are going to leave him

• pizza rolls look like a perfectly reasonable breakfast because it gives you more time to focus on filling boxes
• August 25th is 10 days away!