School

I'm back in school, which means that for a few weeks I buy into the misnomer that I'm too busy. I'm not. Life is full, but not to the point of excess. At this stage in the game, I just want to graduate... hopefully while excelling academically AND without allowing academics to define my perception of identity AND while keeping in perspective that school is merely a facet of life. And maybe in the process I'll become a better observer, a better writer, a better communicator.

This semester I have photojournalism 2, news editing, communicaiton graphics, Spanish 4 (once again with Meghan), and communication law. Yawn.

back in school
oh what to do
I remember free time
but now it's through
not my favorite
this life seems a zoo

I've managed to have class four days and three nights a week, including 8 o'clocks on MW, making this quite possibly my worst schedule ever, especially when I try to combine school and work.

This is a very uninteresting entry, but I'm sitting in class a bit disinterested and thought you might like in on the ride.

Irish Contemplation

I've been in Ireland since December 27, and today I started reading through my journal to review 2005 and ask God about 2006. I found this poem I in my journal, and I like it even though I don't remember writing it.

All I have to go on
never said aloud,
so a dream lies dormant,
a reality untapped,
lingering in anticipation.
I ache for wonder.

At Christmas You Tell the Truth

Mild He lays His glory by
Born that man no more may die
-Charles Wesley

First wonder goes deepest; wonder after that fits in the impression made by the first.
-Yann Martel

For those of you who are curious as to what a Blinn Christmas is like, above is a photo of the chaos. The wake-up call comes from little boys yelling down the halls, turning on lights and robbing their sisters and parents of sheets and sleep. They shriek and shout, and though they're getting older, they count down the minutes to 7 am, when Christmas is officially allowed to begin.

This year contained no diversions from the norm. Christmas morning continues to testify of our heavy investment in Gap and Lego, and this year guitars and AirSoft guns took the favorite gift category hands down.

Really, though, my Christmas came early this year. It came on Wednesday, when I was in Mexico with a team from the church that drove down to take a stack of shoes we'd collected for little kids who live in a colonia in Reynosa. When we planned the trip, I marveled that people signed up to go, taking three days out of their Christmas week festivities, leaving family and shopping behind, all for a scant day in Mexico, a day that would be busy and intense and sandwiched between two daylong drives. But sixteen people signed up, including two of my little brothers, and we all drove down together and gave out the shoes.

I found it all a bit overwhelming. The trip went fairly smoothly, but we got stuck at the border for five hours, waiting for customs to clear all of the shoes we'd brought down, each pair for a specific child, each shoebox packed with goodies. The word "extravagance" kept echoing through my head during the planning phases of the trip, and it somehow formed shape around the Christmas story for me thinking about this Jesus who loves me, this Jesus who I am slowly growing to trust.

Extravagance makes me think of love, of pursuit. It's a word that could easily be romanticized; it makes me think of songs and poems and art, things created not out of necessity but out of overflow of emotion, experience, desire to express something big, something profound. It's over the top, too much without being excessive. Crazy, perhaps, but great.

Extravagance sums up the Mexico experience, and it's the way I'm processing the Christmas story this year. Jesus in the flesh, God clothed in human costume, portrays extravagance beautifully. The story seems too good to be true. How could God cut himself down to our size? Giving those shoes to kids, seeing their smiles and hearing their laughs reminded me that we cry out for a tangible gospel, an indwelling God. I needed to see extravagance this Christmas. It wasn't so much that we gave extravagantly to the kids. It is that God gave so extravagantly to us. And he still does. Gotta love a God like that in a world like this.

Merry Christmas.

portfolio

Here are some pics from my final portfolio from my photojournalism class.

fragmented

Jesus in the song you wrote
The words are sticking in my throat
“Peace on earth”
Hear it every Christmas time
But hope and history won’t rhyme
Peace on earth
-U2

Hank Nava worked for the Fort Worth Police Department on and off for the last fourteen years before he was shot Tuesday while issuing an arrest warrant. Last night the top story on the ten o’clock news said that Nava’s condition had been downgraded from critical to grave about a day after he sustained a gunshot wound to the head. The reporters looked shaken as a swollen-eyed police officer made a statement about Nava and his family. Hank Nava is 39 and has a wife and two kids, a 9-year-old daughter and a son, 4.

I felt really sad for the Nava family when I went to bed last night. I prayed for a miracle, because the reporters on several channels said that they suspected Nava’s wife had decisions to make about whether or not to turn off the life support that likely is keeping him alive. I woke up in the middle of the night and got online to check the officer’s condition, and all day today I found myself clicking on dallasnews.com to find out if Nava’s condition had changed, praying and feeling grieved for the family.

The news rarely grabs a hold of me like this, but the Christmas season seems to heighten awareness of the good and bad extremes of the human experience. We get caught up in the birth of a king and the fat man coming down the chimney at Christmas, and we’re more compelled to give to those pot-bellied babies in Africa and the homeless lady who sits at the intersection of Six Flags Drive and 360. We overspend well into excess but in the name of celebrating those we love (and the occasional obligatory gift or two… let’s just be honest). This time of year, when fall shifts to winter, and the calendar ends to begin again, makes me hopeful.

But I hated being so aware of humanity’s brokenness last night. I hate that brokenness looks like an injured police officer whose commitment to justice may orphan his children. This hurting, fragmented reality creates a longing for something more, something better, something whole. It creates a need for the Christmas season to be more than just a gimmick to get consumers to max out their credit cards. It creates a need to remember and tell the gory details of the life of Christ, this baby born with a death sentence imposed by our fallen-ness, a sentence that promised to restore the broken parts and make us whole. How we need a God like that in a world like this.

Hank Nava needs this God of redemption, of grace, to make his story right, putting literal life back into his failing body and peace into his family’s heart. They stand to lose so much. So we pray. We pray for God to be himself in the midst of Nava’s story. And we trust that somehow in the midst of this fallen mess, we have a living, resurrected Jesus, who’s life means we can be more than the sum of our hurting, dirty, broken parts. This is hope.

meghan

Meghan said she couldn't forward my blog unless I mentioned her. I have a sister named Meghan. I also have a classmate named Meghan. I used to have a co-worker named Meghan, but I changed jobs. Additionally, I have a roommate named Meghan. Now Meghan can forward my blog. I strongly suspect this is only funny to Meghan. This is a picture of Meghan and I.

UTA

Pics from my photojournalism class taken on campus... Meghan says that I'm a hobby person. Photography is the most recent addition to my assortment of hobbies..

conversation

I'm posting some of the stuff I wrote when I moved from Toronto to Texas last year... it's not new but I wanted to remember and thought I'd share. I wrote this when I first started a month long vacation via train. By the end of the trip, the train was less than appealing...

“So if you're sat down, or even if you're right at the back, this would be a great point for you to start singing with us, you know, because we're not going to be in this speck of the woods for quite a while. So you might as well sing as loud as you can now…”
-- Chris Martin on the Coldplay Live 2003 recording in the middle of “Everything's Not Lost”

Once when I was watching the Coldplay DVD, I commented to a friend how much Chris Martin's stage presence reminds me of a worship leader. I suppose he is a worship leader, crafting out lyrics that describe heart cries… Chris Martin, husband of Gwyneth Paltrow, father of Apple, does not perform a concert. He invites his audience to participate in his music, his song, his dance. Something seems to happen to audiences at Coldplay concerts. They are taken somewhere.

I am on the train on my way home. It sounds funny to say that. Toronto, where I lived for the past twenty months, feels like home in a way Texas does not. And Texas, where I have visited sporadically and lived occasionally over the course of the last ten-ish years, is home in a different way. Texas is home because my family is there, and family secures my identity in ways my friends and community cannot. I am going back to Texas for a while, and the details of that will come later.

The train became a part of my getting home because I wanted to go on vacation. I wanted to do something different, something that would allow me a little time and space in between Toronto home and Texas home. As I explored the internet, I discovered a rail pass on USA's Amtrak and Canada's Via-Rail, a one month open ticket. It was far cheaper than flying and seemed like a unique way to see a lot of people I haven't seen in a long time. So here I am on the train. I'm almost to Chicago, where I'll connect with a train to Denver. My brother is in Colorado Springs, and we're spending the weekend together.

It was hard to leave Toronto. Really hard. The hard part started a few weeks ago when Lorna and Jer left. I had not anticipated such deep grief when they left. I did not anticipate the void in their absence. I loved my year with them, but I knew our friendships were secure. Still, we stood in Toronto's Peterson International Airport, and we cried together before they boarded their plane for Belfast.

The Chomlacks left about a week later. Chad and Stace were the reason I moved to Toronto to begin with, and I took them to the airport too. They had two babies during their time here, and I held Jadyn, now nearly two, in my arms as Chad unloaded their stuff onto Smartcarts. Stace gathered Caleb up and put him in a baby sling, and we all stood there and cried. Even Jadyn cried, although I think it was because he had just woken up after a too short nap on the ride to the airport. Still,
just between you and me, I'll pretend his tears were of sadness. He already missed me. He waved at me through the glass as I put the Blazer in drive, and then they were gone. I felt like I lost them at that airport, this family that has adopted me uniquely. Chad is like an older brother, Stace is one of my closest friends, and the boys, well, I adore them. I can't imagine missing their milestones. And they're still with me in my heart, but I want them with me physically…

After the Chomlacks left I spent about a week saying goodbye to numerous people, friends who had formed the community that has been my lifeline in Ontario. In leaving, I'm amazed at how deep and genuine those relationships are. There's been a lot of laughter and tears, a lot of conversation and coffees and beers. I cannot imagine this year without weekends and praise and prayers at Muskoka Woods, without Sundays at Good Shepherd and the Bachelor at the Wilkinsons. It's going to be weird.

In my time in Toronto I've learned that I appreciate Irish humor and pick up Irish inflection. I've learned that Linn Garden will forever be my Seinfield diner, the Abbot, my Cheers. I've come to appreciate liturgy at Good Shepherd and accompaniment through Paul Johansen and the way he leads our church. I've at times been forced to be vulnerable and weak, especially when my mom was really sick (She's in remission now, praise God!). I've discovered that in the midst of that, God's faithfulness is often revealed in the people he sends to hold up your arms when the battle is going on longer than expected or desired. People have given and given and given to me; they have believed the best for me. They have prayed and called and made me dinners and loved me. And it's been good, not always easy, at times confusing, and good nonetheless.

I think I thought moving away would produce some kind of big spiritual revelation of who God is and who I am because of him. And maybe it still will. But right now, I'm thinking about the way Chris Martin can draw people into his life in the context of a two hour concert. He allows them to be a part of him. And I'm hoping that even though my Toronto friends and I have now taken separate paths, at least for the time being, I hope we continue to sing loudly, remembering the melodies that were produced in our time together. I've moved a lot in the past, so I realize that in moving away, it's often surprising who remains close and who becomes less visible.

I read a Starbucks ad in a flyer for the Toronto Film Festival that said “The film ends but the conversation is just beginning.” May this be one long, deep and life-changing conversation.

Poor

And the least of these look like criminals to me...
-Caedmon's Call

You speak of signs and wonders
I need something other
I would believe if I was able
But I'm waiting for the crumbs from your table
-U2

You might not have noticed that social justice is cool right now. But you probably have. You've probably seen commercials with celebrities and heard about hurricane relief. You might have given money to the homeless or built a Habitat for Humanity house for the poor. It's good. It's important. It restores dignity and hope.

Lately I feel really sad, a sadness formed by a concoction of feeling broken and hopeless, when I think about the poor. This weekend I heard Cliff Young from Caedmon's Call speak about the Dalits in India. He said that in India the caste system is illegal in word but continues to oppress in fact. The Dalits are from the lowest caste, also known as untouchables. Their rights have been trampled for years, and often they don't cry out because Hinduism causes a resignation in its' followers. Their lot in life is determined by choices made in a previous life; they're reincarnated into the next life.

Cliff told story after story of the oppression of the Dalits in India. Dalits live in the shadows. They're not allowed the same rights as upper caste Indians. Cliff said that one Dalit man worked on a temple, painting gorgeous artwork. The temple he worked on, though, was not a temple for Dalits. Dalit temples are shoddy structures; this one was ornate, for the rich. The man wanted to see his artwork on display in the temple where it hung, so he went inside. He was killed for walking into a room that he didn't have the "right" to walk in.

My stomach knots when I hear stories like that. But I think we need to hear those stories. It's one thing to hear about a person starving to death every three seconds. It's another thing to hear a mother talk about holding her dying son in her arms, his skin unable to hide his lack of fat and muscle revealing bones, testifying of a stomach left empty day after day after day. And those stories aren't as far away as we might hope. I recently read an account of a school-aged child in the US who was asked why he didn't eat breakfast that morning before class. His response? "It wasn't my turn."

It's troublesome to think of AIDS and hunger and welfare and a fragmented world. It's easy to pinpoint problem areas but difficult to offer concrete solutions. As the holidays roll around, we sign up for angel trees and drop off canned goods in cardboard boxes at the front of Kroger. We drop pennies into the bell-ringers' collection tins. We tend to give a little more this time of year.

Maybe this is cynical or maybe I'm going through a bit of paradigm shifting, but I don't know if this is enough. Jim Wallis makes an interesting point about Mark 14 in "God's Politics". He says that Mark 14, which is the story of the woman anointing Jesus' feet with perfume and washing them with her hair, has more in it than some verses about extravagant worship, although extravagant worship is important. Jesus says "The poor you will always have with you, and you can help them anytime you want..." (Mark 14:7). Wallis says this statement has deep implications, because Jesus' heart in speaking those words was to convey that the disciples would orient themselves towards the poor. It's not that poverty cannot be eradicated, Wallis says, it's that friends of Jesus will always look for the downtrodden, the oppressed, the broken, the dirty, the dying, the poor; and live their lives alongside of them.

I think Wallis hits on an essential element of the gospel, one that I want to take a hold of my heart and force it outside of it's middle-class, Western comfort zones I seem so inclined to live within. I think my comfort zones suck the life out of me and callus my heart, preventing me from speaking words of life and restoring dignity to those who've never been loved. If the life and mission of Jesus has grabbed a hold of my life, then I will always have the poor among me. Maybe that's another picture of extravagant worship. Maybe it's one we can walk towards together, befriending the poor, loving the least.

I'm just working this out but wanted to share and hear what your thoughts are. It's a good process, one that brings joy even with the questions that are bouncing around in my head.