silence is loud, humility is so proud

it's hot. as blazes, perhaps. the heat made me, in a strange way want to hibernate today. i wanted to avoid the penetrating sun and stay very very still in an effort to not sweat anymore. i spent some time this evening in my roommate's room, where the air conditioning unit is stationed and blasting cool air.

i was thinking today how i wanted to get a new journal, and do some thinking on paper. recently my beloved friend court asked if the blog was a wash, and i thought it was, but then when considering buying a journal, i thought, why not just start blogging again? so i think i will supplement my no-journal-having-time with the blog. it may continue, it may not. where it stops, no one knows. ha.

so, life. i'll be another year older in a couple of weeks. i'm not terribly excited about it. i suppose i should be thankful for another year of life, which i am. and there are lots of things to be thankful for, but just the thought of getting older and not necessarily being quite where i'd hoped are butting heads in my mind. but maybe that will always be a possibility, and maybe i just need to learn to take life as it comes and to be content in all circumstances.

anyway, enough with trying to explain something i can't. i'm reading Under the Overpass right now, about a guy who'd been raised comfortably in a Christian environment, and one day at church wondered what he was doing at church when he'd driven by all of these suffering lost people on his way there. so he decided to put his faith to the test and see if he really did believe God when he had nothing as well as when he was comfortable. it's been really interesting, reading his accounts of the streets- his realizations, questions, struggles and blessings. i decided to read it because of my job, i thought it'd be food for thought, and it has been. he's made me again consider the perspective of the homeless, and also the role of the church. i think i was on a thought path that Christ followers couldn't just come down to the inner city once a year and feed the homeless and share the gospel, or come down once and pick up a homeless person, take them to church and drop them back off in the hood; that their "remembering the poor" needed to be consistent, a lifestyle. otherwise it was just a limp attempt at checking it off a list. i do think that that's true, in part. i think churches should be a presence in the poor parts of town the way social services are- that they should actually be doing (and hopefully better) what the social services are doing. but the guy who wrote the book talks about how blessed he is by random meals given to him, usually by Christian individuals or church groups, and most of those aren't by consistent people. usually it's a one time deal. so i think i can't say people shouldn't just come down once and share food and Christ, but i think it's safe to say it would be better if it wasn't just a one time thing.

i think i've had a hard time balancing compassion/professionalism, trying to figure out how to represent Jesus and still do my job.... how do you empower and not enable people, how do you have compassion for people while still telling them hard things, like "i can't really do anything, you just need a job"? some people that i encounter are really difficult because they've spent their lives working the social service system. they know the right words to get connected to services, to an extent. their fraud will eventually be exposed, and they'll be back in the same spot, but it's hard. it makes me skeptical of a lot of individuals who come through the doors seeking assistance, and i think it makes me frustrated at them, and the system, because of resources being wasted on people who are just looking for an easy way out- a housing voucher and a disability check- no bills and no work. so, in some ways i've become a little hardened to homelessness in the U.S. because of these things.

i think seeing and being aware of poverty around the world makes me feel less sad here. which maybe is a good thing, because just being sad all the time wouldn't help anyone. and i do tell people, "i can't do anything, you just need to get a job," and i continue to see them in the shelter and on the streets for months following. sometimes we have to take responsibility for ourselves. some people really can't do that- whether it's a substance abuse issue that goes back years and years or a mental illness that disables, these things require assistance in recovery. these people my heart does go out to more, but i still can't help but think of other countries, where poverty has nothing to do with drugs or alcohol or laziness, that it is oppressive not just by the welfare state and lack of funding, but by corrupt governments and systems that won't even allow people to get out of their poverty, no matter how hard they may work.

i think throughout my time at this new job i've just been seeing more and more how desperate out need is for redemption in the world. sometimes i want so bad for Jesus to come back, to declare loud and clear his hope, to replace the ashes with beauty, the shackles with diamonds. i would love to see some of my clients' faces when they hear it coming from His mouth. i guess i just have to continue to seek and serve and love God the best way i know how, and to beg for revolution and redemption in this world and in his church.