Thoughts for a Thursday

There have been a lot of thoughts running through my head these past few days. But I always have problems articulating my thoughts, so I'm going to try to use this post today to sort through some of them.

*Praying in Color
I just finished reading this book (you can see a review of it, if you click on my goodreads link on the side) by Sybil Macbeth and it is wonderful. It has introduced a whole new prayer form to me - prayer in the form of art and in the process of creating a drawing. This really appeals to me because I love art and creating things and I also love the idea of praying in whatever we do. She even includes a chapter of how to "Pray in Color" on the computer. It just is a really, really neat idea and prayer form and I'm excited to really start practicing it. Sybil also a good friend of Phyllis Tickle's, who I know is greatly admired by a lot of my friends.

*The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls
I finished reading this book on Tuesday night and it is an amazing memoir. But I think the thing that has stayed with me since reading it is the depth of love that Walls has in relating her story about her family. The things that she and her siblings endured because of her parents' choices and personal battles, could have embittered them and created a wellspring of hate, but that is never apparent in the rendition of the story. What is apparent is the love that Walls had for her siblings, her mother, and most of all, her father - because the events that Walls relates could not have been written without it. That love shouldn't have existed, but it did, and it is an amazing testament to the strength and bonds of familial love - in spite of everything - horrible, awful things that no one should have to endure.

*The Oppressiveness of Getting Older
I know I shouldn't let my age worry me. There are plenty of people who are older than I am, but I can't shake this feeling that I've been living with ever since I turned 26 that things should be different than they are. That my life should look a lot different than it does. Like, what am I doing living in my small, provincial town during my twenties? That I should be in a different job, having a more important title, more important duties and responsibilities, more this, more that. That I should look like I am successful and important and have accomplished all of these world-changing things that I look around and see other people my age doing. That there should be a PhD or MBA after my initials.

Where does this come from? It would be easy to blame my parents and the pressure I feel from them to always go that extra step. But I am the one that gives them that power - I can reject or internalize their words - that is my choice. Or I could blame it on the fact that I was named "Most Likely to Succeed" in High School. The fact is, this is a blatant lie that I am half-believing from Satan. But I am really struggling with trying to see past this lie and be content with the life that I have right now.

I was talking about this feeling the other night with one of my friends and she was relating to me that it doesn't really seem to matter what point or age in life you are in, this feeling that "I should be something else" is always there, lurking under the surface. It is something that we have to constantly fight against and know that our worth doesn't lie in what we do or don't do or haven't done. And I know this in my head - I really do - it just is hard to look past this lie right now and believe it in my heart.

Awakening

I could write this morning about how stressed I am with all the things that seemingly keep piling up on my desk (quite literally) and how I don't know how to get through it all and how there is so much I want to do, but I forget that I want to do it, and etc, etc, etc - regrets, regrets, and complaints.

But I am not going to do that this morning because on my drive in to work, which is one of the saving graces of my job, I was reminded in so many ways that spring is just around the corner.

From seeing the daffodils starting to burst through the freezing coldness of a harsh winter ground, to the buds sprouting all over the barren trees, it was as if I could feel life beginning again. The start of Daylight Savings Time has given me a new hope, with all the promises of warm weather and beautiful vistas to grace my eyes. With the sun not setting till 7:00pmish last night, I was excited that my days are now longer and that the brightness and light and nourishment of the sun will around for a few hours when I leave the confines of my cube. I love that I can go to the driving range at night now and that baseball is just around the corner because that promises me more time outside, even though here in VA that can quickly mean hot, humid days of a long, long summer.

But today I will be excited that spring is almost here, that warm days are almost upon us, that life is being renewed and that the day of celebration of when life was restored to us is almost here. Winter to me is like a long, long Lent, in which the seemingly never-ending darkness and coldness must be endured with a hard-fought, and oft-tested, patience and forbearance. So I thank God that this time is almost over and that the renewal of life is about to begin once again.

Not Much to Say

Other than Lost is one of the best TV shows I have ever seen. And in honor of its fabulousness, I am posting a picture of my fav character, Mr. Desmond David Hume from last night's amazing episode. Thirty seconds in and your mind is blown! You just can't beat this story!

Makes me sick...

There seem to be a lot of things that get under my skin lately, but when I read something like this, it riles me to no end. I understand business and actually do like companies and the business world, but this makes me sick - that a company like Exxon Mobil, who's annual PROFIT (not REVENUE, but PROFIT) was $40.6 billion will try to shirk its responsibilities for one of the worst natural disasters in history.

Hollow

Tonight, I had to write about a movie that I watched with my parents just a little bit ago called Beyond the Gates. This movie was about a young, idealistic man, a Catholic missionary priest, and how they were affected by the Rwandan genocide in 1994.

800,000 Rwandans were killed in the span of 4 months. From April to July, 800,000 people were macheted to death.

I have learned about the Rwandan genocide before, in class. I even remember seeing it on the news, but I didn't know what had happened - the sequence of events, why this occurred, why the people were fighting. In my African history class that I took in college, we did learn about all the politics and the scope of what had happened. I have seen and learned about that statistic before. But watching the dramatization of those events cut to the core because I know that it actually happened the way that it was depicted. UN troops could have protected the Tsutis from the Hutus, but because the organization in New York did not give them orders to stop the killing or to even protect those who were being killed, this genocide occurred. Because the Clinton administration refused to use the word genocide because of the political ramifications that that word has, 800,000 people's blood was spilt in one of the most cruel and horrid ways of death that exists. Babies - harmless little babies - were smashed against trees or were hacked to death.

And we did nothing. Absolutely nothing.

In fact, the UN - the United Nations - PULLED OUT the troops that were preventing some of the Tsutis that were taking refuge in a school from being attacked by the Hutus.

As outrageous as the facts are, they occurred. And the thing that angers me most is that things like the Rwandan genocide still occur today, and we do NOTHING!!

Sudan. Democratic Republic of Congo. Ethiopia. Somalia. Burma. Palenstine. Lebanon. Nigeria. Columbia. Uganda.

Nothing.

Rwanda.

Nothing.

Tell me, what will happen when the United States pulls our armed forces out of Iraq with the Sunnis, Shias, and Kurds tearing each other apart even while we are in Iraq? Turkey has already invaded Northern Iraq to stop the "Kurdish rebels".

Do people understand what is going on?? Do you understand the politicalness of the words that newspapers use? "Rebels"??? Are they rebels or freedom fighters?? What about the Kosovo Serbs that just declared their independence from Serbia? Are they rebels or freedom fighters??

Genocide v. ethnic conflict?? Tribal conflicts v. genocide?? Semantics that decide people's lives. And it also depends on how valuable those people's lives are to political agendas of different foreign governments.

And that is why I refuse to work in Washington. My parents and others always say that I should work with the government, in the CIA or some other political agency. But I refuse because I refuse to be a part of a system that decides who lives and who dies based on their worth to a foreign policy agenda. And it's not limited to just the United States. This is the way that all governments operate.

It is enough to know why these things occur in the world. And that is why I feel even more hollow tonight after viewing this movie. As the end quote said, "The opposite of faith is not heresy. It is indifference." (Elie Wiesel)