teacher.

So here I am again with my yearly blog post.

A few updates:

Cali and I have adopted two dogs: Jojo (Jack Russell terrier mix- we were not adequately informed about the breed prior to our purchase, but we love her spunkiness), and Cleo (Australian Shepherd Mix).  Both our wonderful and have been a great addition to our pack!

Cali and I have also both purchased our first house.  We moved in about 3 weeks ago.  No one warned us about the stress that would ensue with buying a house, but my was it worth it!  Our pups love their back yard, and the ability to have a space to call our own, to fix up, and to have break down on us, has been great.  Yes multiple things have already broken on us so no need to worry if we’ve been initiated into homeownership.

As you have probably heard, Arizona teachers had a walk out at the end of the school year.  This was the culmination of a #redfored movement that has moved across the country for the past several month.  When I moved to Arizona, I knew I was moving to a state that didn’t pay their teachers well, and whose education system continually ranked at the bottom.  I also knew that the state was in desperate need for teachers, so desperate that they would be willing they pay for my certification.  There are currently 2,000 teacher vacancies in the state, and there are teachers fleeing the state due to the fact that Arizona is the 48th lowest paid teachers in the country.

What I didn’t know about the Arizona education system was it has been suffocated of funds for the past 10 plus years.  Since 2008, budget cuts have drained public education systems of proper funding of the schools.  Now this makes sense due to the economic situation, I understand that.  But what does not make sense, is that with the gradual incline of the economy, the gradual incline of money coming into the public education system did not increase.

Apparently what happened was in 2000 Proposition 301 was passed which required the state to provide school funding with a 2% increase in funding to adjust with inflation.  This also prohibited per pupil school funding to drop below $2,687.  But, during the recession this money was not met nor given to the public education system as promised and a lawsuit ensued claiming it was in violation of the “Voter Protection Act”.  Proposition 123 was enacted to supposedly replace the missing funding and attempted to settle this lawsuit.

Since I just finished my first year, all of this history happened before I even lived in the state of Arizona.  So, I feel like I don’t know what I’m talking about, but from the experience of the teachers I have chatted with, neither of these propositions have made a huge difference in their salaries.  Whether that money is getting caught up in the legislature, the school districts, or it’s being distributed too thin, the money didn’t make the per pupil spending anywhere near what they were proposing, and it didn’t increase funding like they were expecting.  Classrooms are still falling apart, and teachers are still working for close to nothing.

The #redfored movement started in West Virginia and was a huge success.  It moved to Oklahoma and was not successful- or was shown as not successful by the media.  The teachers did not receive any of their demands and were ultimately told after two weeks to go back to work, or they would be fired.  The movement moved to Arizona.  None of it had to do with the union, it wasn’t political at all in fact there was no political divide.  This was purely for our students, our classrooms, and for our families.  The media portrays a certain aspect of a good story- they paint a political picture of a movement, that it was led by a political fascist, who is going from state to state, or we’re all communists and liberals, it’s not true.  We were teachers.  That’s all we had in common.  We were teachers who knew we could do better for our students and that’s what we were fighting for.

When I was in college, I never wanted to be a public school teacher.  I would sit in classes, and we would discuss standardized tests and the laws set forth about taxes, testing, how we measure learning, etc.  I found it all annoying, because all I cared about was seeing my students go from not knowing something to understanding and succeeding at something they couldn’t do before.  I didn’t think that could be measured, and I also didn’t think you could monetize it.  I sat back frustrated that there was money and politics involved and I told myself I could never teach in the public schools because there were too many politics involved.  And here I was.  Involved.  Speaking out and fighting for my students and what I knew my students needed- a classroom that didn’t have holes in the walls.  A classroom that had desks that weren’t falling apart in the middle of my teaching.  A classroom with windows that I could open without fear of them breaking.  A classroom with Wi-Fi that I can connect to.  A classroom where my students have access to 21st century technology- maybe even an iPad, or Google Classroom!  I was fighting for all of that.  On top of the small fact that I knew if I had a family, we couldn’t afford to live.  If Cali and I had one child, we couldn’t afford to send them to daycare.  If we decided to have a child, we couldn’t afford health insurance for them, or to send them to the doctor when they were sick.  Right now, all we can afford is to live for ourselves.  We can’t have a family and survive teaching.  And I don’t think that’s right.  If teaching is a career, than why do we need to work 5 jobs total in order to pay the bills?  That’s not ok.

Unfortunately, Cali and I probably won’t be teachers for the rest of our lives.  We love teaching and we love our students.  But we can’t live our lives like this.  We want a family and we see our lives differently than this.  If we have a family as teachers, we would struggle, and our family would suffer.  If things don’t change, we can’t be public school teachers.  This breaks my heart because I really am passionate about the kids that I teach.  I love what I do, and the lives that I change, but it clearly is not valued like I value it.

 

 

gays exist [revised].

This has been adapted, modified, and edited.  I wrote this blog post about 3 years ago.  It shows part of my experience in accepting what being gay meant, and what it meant for my relationship with God.

So. I guess this kind of was on my mind today. I know that title seems very obvious. It seems obvious because people identify themselves as gay all the time.  But there has always been a question of whether they “actually” exist.  Meaning, do they actually just choose to be gay?  Or do they develop into being gay?  Or did God create them gay?  Did God intend for them to be gay? and if he did, then why is it a sin for them to pursue who God created them to pursue?

Before I “knew” any gay people (I know, and am convinced I know gay people who just didn’t come out to me for various reasons), my thought was always that seems so unnatural.

Homosexuals are ‘unnatural’
The reason homosexuality felt unnatural, and the idea of it disgusted me was because I was always told I was going to marry a man, we were all going to find a person of the opposite gender and marry them. Then life would be beautiful and satisfying. Therefore, when I think of women marrying women, it felt uncomfortable and strange, because in the culture I grew up in, it was.

This started to change when I took this class in college called Sociology of Sexuality. In this class we discussed how genders are actually cultural and social constructs. Meaning, that aside from the obvious biological differences between a man and a woman, what makes a man “manly” or a woman “womanly” is all just what the culture says it is.  Our culture says the color blue is for boys, pink is for girl.  Trucks are for boys, dolls are for girls.  Girls can cry, boys can’t cry.  This is because of American cultures’ influence on us, and our fitting of people in boxes.

We also read a book called “The End of Sexual Identity” which discussed the spectrum of sexual identity and how the lines are really blurred as far as sexual identity. Meaning, you may feel like you need to fit into being strictly straight or gay, but there is a spectrum that starts from straight and ends at gay.  So you could be “straight” but potentially have some attraction to the same sex.  Which means you aren’t fully straight, but not gay either.  Our society likes things all neatly packaged in little boxes such as “straight”, “bisexual” or “gay” each which mean 3 clearly different things.  But humans are much more complex than that and therefore not all of us fit into those three categories neatly.  Most of us actually force ourselves into those boxes.

This discussion and reading of the book really challenged my view of God and whether or not he could create a homosexual.  Obviously, prior to reading this, I believed that being gay was just a choice.  Slowly I started to question “who would ever choose to be gay? Not because it’s awful or terrible, but just because life is so much easier if you just fit in the box that society tells you to fit into- being straight”.  The other problem with choosing to be gay is: did straight people choose to be straight then?  I started thinking about Adam and Eve, and how they were the first “marriage”.  Some people think that Adam and Eve were the only two humans on earth at that time, but then where did all the other people come from when God destroyed the earth?  Also, I started thinking about the animals and how God only saved one of each gender when he destroyed the earth with the flood.  I questioned whether homosexuality was present in the ‘natural’ world with animals, which it is.  It’s interesting because sexuality is actually very diverse in the natural world outside of humans.  Why was it so constricted to heterosexuality in our own world?

Did God create Gay People?
We all have personality traits, ideas, thoughts, desires, and passions.  I personally don’t think that I picked these traits. As if I had a line up of ideas or thoughts and chose what I wanted my strengths to be, desires to be, or passions to be.  I believe that these gifts, strengths, weaknesses, and personality traits were given to me by God.  I believe that my desires and passions were not choices, but rather through God’s work and developing me to be more like Christ, he’s instilled those passions and desires within me.

For example, one of my passions is to see brokenness restored.  Through my family, through growing up around special needs kids, through God’s work in changing my heart and bringing me out of depression, I desire to see the brokenness of this world restored.  I have eyes to see the world the way it is and I want to see restoration.  I don’t think that that desire came from within me and myself.  I believe that was God’s plan to give me that passion.  I think God created me for a purpose and I think that everything he created within me has a purpose as well.

I started thinking about God, who he is aside from the creation of homosexuals.  One big thing that I realized about God is his creativity.  I mean, look at anyone around you.  The hair, the the eyes, nose, height, skin color, hair color, and that’s literally just scratching the surface.  On top of that, think about God’s creativity in creating personality, thoughts, thinking patterns, dreams, aspirations, desires, loves, strengths, weaknesses, etc.  Could he not extend his creativity to those who are attracted to the same sex?  It just didn’t make sense to me that that was the one place where God cut off his creativity- in creating only straight people.

Homosexuality is a Sin and a Choice
I also thought that homosexuality was just a sin that you either indulged in or you didn’t indulge in.  Like alcoholism, pornography, drugs, etc.  This is what I was taught.  That it’s just a temptation that we must abstain from and avoid at all costs.  But I don’t believe God makes alcoholics, drug addicts, porn addicts, etc.  I don’t believe God is like well this person is going to be an alcoholic, this person is going to be a drug addict, and this person is going to be gay.  I believe that those sins are sins chosen by people.  They fall into those sins where gays don’t know of a time that they weren’t attracted to the same sex.  Taking the example of alcoholism, alcoholics have the hope of knowing they haven’t always been an alcoholic.  Gays don’t.  Gay people have always been gay, it’s not like all of a sudden they began “indulging” in being attracted to the same-sex.

I don’t want to shut this down too hard, because this is ‘Side B’ of the homosexuality debate, and there are very good Biblical reasons supporting it. I’ve realized that the Side A and Side B are more of personal decisions for each side.  But my struggle with Side B is that I compared alcoholism, pornography, drugs, lying, and any other sin to same-sex, committed relationships, and there really is no comparison.  Not only is alcoholism shameful to admit, most alcoholics aren’t willing to admit it.  For homosexuals, admitting that you are LGBTQ is actually freeing to admit.

I also had to think about sin.  What does sin do?  It destroys.  It destroys something.  Your physical body, your spiritual relationship with God, the relationships around you, whatever it is, it leaves you alone, stranded, and broken.  Why then, when I would say “I’m bisexual, attracted to men and women” did I feel free and more full?  Why did I feel like my relationship to God was deeper because I was able to accept his love for me to my bones, not just what I thought was right and wrong?

Sins also make sense.  It makes logical sense to not tell a lie, to not hate someone, to not get drunk all the time or do drugs, to not seek God first in your life.  Those sins make sense. There is never a time where you can be an alcoholic and not destroy something.  But homosexuality and having a committed, same-sex relationship with someone doesn’t destroy your body, it could destroy your relationship with God (I’d argue that would partially have to do with how the church reacts to homosexuality today…).  But all in all, being gay does not destroy anything.  Basically, I don’t see how homosexuality could be destructive aside from any other straight relationship.  A straight relationship could be considered a sin as well if put in the right context.  I struggled to find the real difference between a straight relationship and a same sex relationship.  Any destruction a same-sex relationship could do was the same destruction a straight relationship could do.

I’m not asking you to change your mind, nor am I asking you to read this blindly.  I’m asking you to see another side, to understand the possibilities of other ideas that maybe you weren’t taught growing up, or maybe that the church historically hasn’t embraced.  God is beyond all of that- beyond the church, the other possibilities.  He is the mastermind behind us, his creation, and he is vastly greater than we could ever imagine.  Could he not have created a diverse group of people with different desires, loves, passions, and thoughts?

Whether you want to ignore the ostracized gay community of this world, or embrace them for who they are, they exist and there really is nothing you can do to get rid of them.  God created them that way, and God has a plan for each of them, just like he has a plan for you.  For some that may mean celibacy, for some that may mean seeking same-sex relationships, but either way they are there.  There is a reason they are here, and God is calling us to love them with his love no matter what you think about them as people.  He has called us to love, the greatest commandment and often the most challenging commandment- to love one another.

changes.

I’ve been really bad at consistently writing in this blog. As a result, I have decided to make a few decisions about my life and where I’m headed. First of all, I want to write much more. I’m a very intra personal thinker and processor, and therefore writing is a great outlet for me to express myself, so look forward to seeing more posts and thoughts from me. Second, I recently found out I have PCOS (poly cystic ovararian syndrome) and hypothyroidism. My upcoming goals are to allow you to journey with me in my struggles with these health issues, and show you some things that have helped me and things that haven’t. Third, I am making a commitment to meditation and quiet. I don’t want wellness to be a part of my life, I want it to be my life and permeate through my entire life. Lastly, I’m going to continue to write about my struggles with faith and sexuality which is a major part of my life- where I’ve found hope, what I’ve learned about Christ, and how I’ve grown closer to Him. 

Journey with me! 

between.

In a world that demands labels, identifications, and sides, it’s a nightmare to be stuck in between.  To not be “normal”, “average”, “white”, “straight”, “American” or “majority” is a constant struggle between two worlds.  I witness this uneasiness everyday working in a high school.  Students are constantly attempting to conform, change, shove, and push their way into the popular, smart, hip, skater, or emo group.  The labels high schoolers place on themselves and peers add pressure to ‘be’ and ‘act’ a certain way.  I especially see the struggle of my students with special needs as they try to make friends, and try to reach out to students who don’t understand why they look or act a certain way.  It seems as though they are seen as different from the start, and their struggle to “fit in” is so much harder than other students.  My heart breaks for them to know how much greater they are than they can even imagine.

I often reflect on my own life and what these labels mean and do to me now.  Life and it’s labels are given by society instead of the peers and colleagues around me.  The expansion of these labels have taught me a lot- mainly that I don’t belong.  Do we ever really belong?

I am a Christian, half Japanese, half American bisexual woman whose labels don’t describe who I am.  The complexity of a human being is fluid and much deeper than any label could describe.  I have felt caught in between many of these labels- it’s a pretty lonely place.

In particular I struggled with my “Christian” label and “bisexual” label.  When you think of what a “Christian” is, you think of a moral, conservative, creation believing, Bible thumper who has all the answers, right?  They are confident about where they’re going, what they believe and sometimes they seem to tell people they’re wrong if they don’t believe what they believe, right?

When it came to my sexuality, I had a picture that Christians were straight.  If they weren’t, they were celibate, that was expected and taught.  So, when I realized I was bi, I felt my “Christianity” was like oil and my sexuality was water.  They couldn’t and weren’t supposed to mix.  I couldn’t be both bi, and Christian.

Because I was told my number one identity was always supposed to be “Christian” (because I believe in Christ), I shoved my struggles with sexuality away.  I wrote it off thinking “I can’t think like that, that’s wrong”, and most of all sinful.

When I think about sin, I think about actions that pull you farther from who God is in a destructive manner, whether that’s destructive toward oneself, ones relationship with God, or ones relationship with others.  When I look back on my denial, ignoring, and bottling of my feelings towards the same sex, I realize how destructive it was towards not only myself and who I am, but also my relationship with Christ and how I relate to Him.  I felt shame, loneliness, uncomfortable, and stuck between two worlds.  When I began to come to terms with my sexuality, that’s when I felt a weight off my shoulders.  I felt God telling me it’s ok, the struggle is ok, and (most importantly) I am ok, the way I am, the way God created me.

The most dynamic, life-changing, view altering thing I’ve learned since coming out to myself and others is how great, deep, and expansive God’s love for us is.  No matter who we are, what we do, or how we hurt ourselves, His love is far deeper than we could ever imagine.  He has taught me how to love Him more deeply, and how to love others more deeply.  Even others who disagree with me.  I’ve realized Christians aren’t tied down to certain stereotypes, certain labels like I described before.  There are Christians who are liberal, independent, straight, gay, transgender, scientists who believe in evolution, smokers; Christians who drink, who aren’t sure, who don’t know everything, who don’t understand all of the universe, and most importantly who don’t know how God works all the time.  When Christ is involved, labels aren’t needed.  Christ is bigger than Christians in this world.  He’s greater than how we label ourselves, and if we go to church every week, or if we go to the biggest church in the country or the smallest.  He is bigger, his work is bigger, and his love for you is bigger.  He is not contained in a label- he’s not contained in a church, or a culture, or a specific bible passage.  He is so much bigger than all of those things.  I’ve found when I step beyond the labels, when I’m stuck in between the labels, although it’s deeply lonely sometimes, I’m able to grasp more fully an understanding of who I am in Christ- and nothing more.

deserted.

Well, it’s been WELL over a year since I’ve written.  So much has happened and I’ve learned, changed, grown, and experienced a lot.  One important thing that has changed is I’ve been able to come to terms with my sexuality- I came out as bisexual officially, found a woman who I fell in love with, and recently married her.  We moved from Chicago, Illinois to Tucson, Arizona in a small, cramped Honda Civic.  It’s been a huge adventure.  God has taught me so much and I can’t wait to start writing again.

Being from the Midwest, I’ve never really experienced living in the desert.  Since I just moved here there are a lot of things I’ve noticed about the terrain, environment, and weather.  It’s a huge massive change from living in the lush, green, flowing Midwest.

The Bible talks a lot about the desert, dry, barren land.  I mean let’s be honest- parts of the Bible were written and inspired in a desert.  I always thought of the desert as a completely dry, fruitless land with lots of tumbleweeds and mirages (thanks to Fievel Goes West). Since being here, I have only seen one tumbleweed, and lets be honest, mirages are everywhere.

Another thing I’ve realized is this is not barren land.  It’s monsoon season here, and there has recently been a decent amount of rain.  For example, yesterday it rained basically all day.  As a result, so many plants grew.  The mountains no longer were brown, but within a few hours, they were green.  There is life in the dry barren land.

When you feel as though you are in the desert spiritually, look for the rain.  Look for the sweet relief and take it in.  Life is not dry and barren- even in the most dry places.  It is full of rich potential, waiting on the rains of the Lord to flow down.  Sometimes rain hurts because of the dry patches of the soul- you can’t absorb it as quickly as it’s coming down, but eventually it will sink in.  There is hope- even in the desert.  Even when you feel as though reward is out of reach, too far off, it’s right around the corner.

“He spread a cloud for a covering, and fire to give light by night.  They asked, and he brought quail, and gave them bread from heaven in abundance.  He opened the rock, and water gushed out; it flowed through the desert like a river.  For he remembered his holy promise, and Abraham, his servant.”

Psalm 105:39-42

hiding.

Sometimes it’s hard not to hide behind the jokes and smiles.  Sometimes it’s hard to admit  I feel alone, unwanted, and unneeded. Making people laugh is easy, spending time with people is enjoyable, but deep down, I feel alone.  I am missing fulfilling, deep, life-giving friendship where I am known, loved, and forgiven.  I have grown so much and learned so much about myself in the past year and a half, but I have grown in independence, and as a result my heart is empty despite the constant people around me.

I feel alone in a room full of people.

In a sense it’s because I’ve lost a dear friendship, but I don’t think that’s the only reason why I feel alone.  I have also grown incredibly busy where my time is spent either teaching or working at Chick-Fil-A.  There is no down time for me, and when there is down time, I’m sleeping.  I’ve realized over the past year for me making friends is so easy.  I’m comfortable to be around, I can make people laugh, I can quickly find people to have a good time with.  As a result, I have a lot of “friends” or people I’d be comfortable spending time with.  But because of my likability, I’ve spread myself thin.  I know people only on a surface level, and therefore there are very few friends that I feel comfortable being fully myself around.  And sometimes even them, I fear just being.

As a result, I hide behind words, behind definitions, behind choices, to cover up who I actually am.  Maybe it’s my own fault for not being able to fully trust people with who I am.  I’ve been hurt, broken, rejected, abandoned, and sometimes it feels safer to keep a safe distance with people.

I’ve broken myself into pieces which I individually hand pick which parts to reveal to each of my friends.  So no one fully knows me, and also so I don’t put all my trust in one person.  Maybe this is healthy, but it sure doesn’t feel very thrilling, exciting, or fulfilling;  I guess healthy doesn’t really mean anything of those things.

How often do we do this in general?  How easy is it for us as a generation to hand pick who we are to people?  When we live in a world of social media, this is so easy.  When the words we say are recorded for all of history to read, we have as long as we want to figure out which words to type out and post on someone’s wall, or text to someone’s phone.  As a generation we’ve lost the ability and sense to be vulnerable, real, and honest with each other.  We hide behind the jokes and smiles, forget who we are, and numb what we’re feeling.

who are you: rethinking evangelism.

Hi. Again it has been awhile, and I apologize. I’ve been working two jobs and finding time to think about things outside of methods of teaching and Chick Fil A has been a challenge, and it will only become harder as the fall approaches.

This post might be hard for some of you to read, it might be challenging, or it might anger you. 

A few weeks ago I spent 4 and a half hours talking to one of my coworkers from Chick Fil A (Hi Sharon if you’re reading this). It was wonderful. It was a great talk and I look forward to when I’m able to do that again. In the four and a half hours we talked about a lot ranging from stories about Chick Fil A to Southern Alabama and lots of other things I honestly don’t remember. One story really bothered me though.

She told me about one day after work when she was sitting with a group of my coworkers and a woman came up and asked this question “Do you guys know if you’re going to go to heaven or hell after you die?” The question took the table aback and some responded with “I hope I’m going to heaven, I mean I’m a good person” etc. The lady then began evangelizing to my coworkers for about 20 minutes telling them about Jesus and heaven and believing and faith.

When I heard that story I was so angry it wasn’t even funny. It reminded me of when I went to Wrigleyville with a few friends and I was handed a “Get Out of Hell Free Card” stating that Jesus will save me from burning in hell if only I believed in him.

I find it hard to accept a way of evangelizing that makes those who even have faith feel guilty. I also find it hard to accept that some random woman coming up to a group of Chick Fil A workers preaching the Gospel with her words and preaching judgement with her actions is an acceptable way to bring people to Jesus.

It broke my heart to know that her lack of grace and understanding more than likely pushed every one of my coworkers further from Jesus.  

Why must we as Christians feel this obligation to preach to people we don’t even know?  I am a strong believer in the Holy Spirit and the Holy Spirit’s ability to convict, but when we take the Holy Spirit’s power into our own hands and rely on our own intuitions, I’m pretty sure we do more harm than we realize.  Do we feel like better ‘Christians’ when we walk up to random people and hand them a “Get Out of Hell Free Card”?  Random people who you don’t even know their names? Do we some how get the satisfaction that “I’ve done my part to evangelize in the world, and therefore I’m better than those Christians who don’t evangelize at all”?  

I understand there is passion with Christianity and when you first become a Christian there is a fire to tell everyone, this isn’t what I’m talking about.  I’m talking about the lack of Grace and lack of desire to actually understand people in the church today.  If anyone knew some of my coworkers, they would know that that kind of action to “evangelize” to them wouldn’t work at all.  In fact it made most of them angry.  

My question for you is, who are you to tell people what they should believe and why they should believe it?  Who are you to judge someone immediately by their response to you question of whether they are going to heaven or hell?  Who are you to assume that people hanging out in Wrigleyville are going to hell and are in need of a “Get Out of Hell Free Card”?  The problem with this way of evangelizing is there is too many assumptions about people and their lives.  Where this type of evangelizing might have worked 20 years ago, this generation will not respond positively to that.  Maybe we should rethink our thinking and learn to love those around us as opposed to throwing our beliefs on them.

You are a Christian, but you are also a human.  A broken, sinful Christian who is saved by grace alone.  A Christian who occasionally messes up, lacks faith, doesn’t trust, doesn’t believe, doesn’t love, doesn’t care, doesn’t desire Jesus enough, doesn’t seek Jesus enough, sees the world through human eyes just like everyone else.  The only difference between you and a non Christian, is your faith.  Although that faith is a HUGE deal, it doesn’t make you any less of a human and more of an angel.  Jesus’ blood saves you because of you’re sinful.  Nothing you can do will ever make you less sinful than you are.  Not even evangelizing to random humans who you don’t even know their names.  

changes and consistency.

Well hello there. It’s been awhile.

After graduating I realized how much I had changed in the past 5 years, and on top of that how much I had changed in the past year after my friends graduated.  I realized that the people who said they would be there for me weren’t and the people who I had met in the past year were there for me.  I realized people are flaky and that people say things they don’t mean.  As a result, graduation was inwardly painful but also a good time for me to realize my life is moving on, and the people who aren’t in my life won’t be in my life.

Life is interesting that way.  It’s unexpected, change happens, you’ll be somewhere in 10 years you would’ve never expected.  I don’t want to be cheesy, but it’ll end up happening eventually- one thing remains.  The faithfulness of God throughout our entire lives.  Whether we turn from him, fight him, love him, trust him, seek him, worship him, or deny him, he will always be faithful.  I’ve learned this in a deep way.  I’m not who I was 6 months ago, nor am I the person I was yesterday. Change is constant for humans, but God is consistent and the same today, yesterday, in 10 years, in 50 years, in 10,000 years.  That’s what we should lean our lives on, the consistency of Christ, not the ever changing people, places, things, or community around us.

empty words.

Within our empty worlds filled with meaningless text messages void of emotion or feeling of any sort, lie empty words. Sometimes I don’t think we see the ramifications of the empty words we speak, other times we do. And we still speak them. Maybe that’s why I write. Just to read that I have some type of intelligent thoughts swimming around in my mind. And I don’t know the ramifications of the words I write nor do I see the ramifications play out.

But either way we say empty words.

Sometimes things change and words that were filled to the brim with meaning and feeling have lost all its sweet flavor. As if the time around us has created a rotten odor within the words we once spoke, destroying any life or joy within them. And they become empty words.

Sometimes bitterness creeps into the meaningful words we say and stain the meaning to nothing. As though we allow our words to lie unprotected and let the void within our hearts become jealous of joy we once felt. And they become empty words.

Sometimes our mouths are so impulsively swift and impetuous we say words we don’t mean. We cut deeply into those we love unintentionally wounding them leaving ourselves hopelessly trying to pick up the pieces and put them together again. Even empty words can cut and tear apart a soul.

Sometimes in the moment, we throw words with meaning to intentionally cut and destroy only to step back and realize we didn’t actually mean what we said. And we are left hopelessly trying to pick up the pieces and put them together again.

We can cover up, ask for forgiveness and attempt to change the words we have said but truthfully no words, even words with meaning can ever extinguish the words without meaning.

We live in a world where words are empty. Our interactions now are more than just simple words spoken. Words are read and interpreted with as many meanings as one can think of. Even the simple word “hi” can be given the meaning of annoyance or simplicity or just a simple greeting. But the problem with the many interpretations is that the word is left without meaning.

Because of the vast interpretations of a single word, our society has lost the meanings of words. Words can mean and be read as so many things and it has caused breaks in our relationships that are unnecessary and painful. We’ve allowed words of emptiness strike at our soul and eat away at who we are as human beings.

We’ve allowed it.

Now when we read a response from a person, we give it it’s own meaning even if it was unintentional. It doesn’t matter. We still allow it to hurt us and deeply wound us. Or annoy us. Or frustrate us. Or anger us. Or give us hope.

This is the problem I see with the society we are creating. We a creating a society of humans who are becoming less and less human and more and more fragile and broken due to our lack of patience for empty words unspoken.

life and death.

So, I realized the other day that the past few posts I’ve written are kind of depressing, and harsh.  I apologize.  This next post may be depressing, but after a much too long conversation yesterday with my mom, I began thinking a lot.

My mom just recently finished nursing school at Kent State University.  I don’t want to get into the ins and outs of why, how, etc., I realized yesterday she’s seen a lot.  As a nurse observing, etc., she has seen life emerging and beginning, life being preserved and saved, but she has also seen life ending as well.  I hear about all of these times.  We were talking yesterday about my grandma.  My mom has seen “do not resuscitate” orders taking place on patients, and she described the horrors of the pain that patients have to go through in order for their lives to be saved.  Usually DNRs (for short) are used for patients who are older, and I’m sure it’s some legal thing because a doctor has to help a patient write it or sign for it or something.  Anyways, my mom wants my grandma to have this.

Now before you decide that my mom hates my grandma and wants her to die, or any other nasty terrible thoughts you’re thinking in your mind, let me take you a step back for a moment.  When a DNR order is not in place, the medical doctors have to do everything in their capabilities to keep the patient alive.  Listening to my mom speak about this, this means CPR involved intense chest compressions which involves breaking ribs, defibrillator shocks, shoving things down the patients throat to make sure they can breathe, and usually ends in the patient staying alive through a feeding tube and breathing machine, etc.  Now, I don’t claim to be an expert on this subject, because I’m not.  But I call into question what life is.  Is life just breathing and eating, laying in bed all day not knowing what is happening around you anymore?  Is life to be enjoyed or simply just had?  Is life supposed to have a purpose?  And ultimately, is life supposed to end at a specific time?

As I was talking to my mom, she told me about how she had a conversation with a family doctor who’s been in our family for a very long time.  She told me he said something like this: “In our culture, we are obsessed with prolonging life, instead of accepting death”.  This really struck me.  It caused me to think about how we now have technology and instruments to keep people alive longer, even when their life has seemingly left their body.  It made me think about our culture, and how we long to live longer without realizing the implications of life lost on earth.

It made me wonder, if people who are in a coma, or stuck in a vegetative state who are breathing only through a breathing tube and only surviving because we’re pumping food into their stomachs, if they are in heaven, and if their body is just a cavity in which they once were.  I know miracles, happen, and I believe in a God who can do miracles, but what if we hope so much in earthly miracles we forget to see the miracles he’s already done?  Why do we feel the need to see miracles with our own eyes when in reality, there are miracles happening spiritually everyday?

I’m not calling for everyone who’s on a ventilator or feeding tube to cease to live, and I’m not saying that their life isn’t worth anything because it is.  There is beauty, great beauty in brokenness and dependence.  But sometimes I wonder if we let life continue selfishly, for our own good and purpose, to have comfort knowing that someone is still breathing, even if only through a machine.

 

I apologize because I realize now that this post is still depressing.  But to put some light on the subject, in Ecclesiastes 3, it says there is a time for life, and a time for death.  And I believe that God has a time for both of those things for all of us.  But the trouble is accepting it.  There is great, incredible beauty in the pain and loss through death, but I think we should cling to eternal life and not earthly life, because our God is greater than what we see here on earth.