i'm back, but hopefully not completely.

i stumbled upon someone's blogspot and remembered that i once kept a blog (unfortunately). i am forcing myself to keep the previous posts (and title for a while) from 2005 and 2006 posted here just so i can remember how ridiculous of a person i am. if you read any of them, you are guaranteed to think less of me as a person.

i promise to never think that i am an amazingly deep and philosophical genius that i did at age 19 and 20. instead, i just want to start writing again and maybe even something that is worth people reading and commenting on from time to time. feel free, whenever necessary, to let me know when i am completely full of shit.

let the living and almost living begin... is that really what i named this blog? wow.

xariv

have you ever been overwhelmed by grace? grace is the reward you recieve after you've come in last place. it's working for an hour and getting an equivalent check as the man who worked 40. it's having a party thrown for you after you've blown everything that was given to you on worthless junk. it meets you exactly where you are and leads you into place you never knew in order to understand and give hope to a person that is where you once were.

i've wondered lately if grace could exist without sin... i'm sure it could exist, but would it be tasteless? going beyond what grace is... it seems to be available, in its fullness, only to the sinner. blessed are the poor in spirit... could these two be related?

i've sinned, i've been a slave to it at times. even though i know in the end that Christ has victory, continued to lose the battles along the way (and still do) saying, "not yet, not yet, but soon..." giving in, repenting, giving in, repenting and over and over. because of the length of time my struggle lasted; because of how evident my sin became, denial of a eed for mercy presents itself as an impossibility. at the same time, i taste the grace available to me more richly in a way because of the amount times i recognize when i've given into temptation... that might be grace in its essense.

simplicity

iasked th staff here last monday to pray for simplicity in my life:

my bike got ripped off a week ago, at about the same time i'm writing this entry. i stare at my helmet, water bottle and my u-lock key... and think, mockingly, "at least they didn't get this".
welcome to urban ministry.

ps. i don't really think the bike disappearance was a result of my desire to live a simple life.

uptown to upland

so... i've been feeling sick for about a week now. no fun. but it isn't the kind of sick that puts you out of work or school. it's that lingering sick that includes no appitite, always being tired and never feeling very good after eating anything.

regardless of sickness... i have exactly one 1 more week left in uptown, before i migrate back to upland. that in a way makes me sick as well, again not the puts you out work or school or work sick (because i do want to return to taylor).

i'm finally getting a style of my own at this ministry. i'm finally getting used to the streets. i'm learning how to know a little bit more of what's going on instead of just knowing what is happening. just when i'm finding where i "fit", i'm leaving.

i think this is the first time i've served and never felt like i shouldn't be in this place at this time. it will be difficult to leave the men that i have fallen in love with; the men that i've connected with and shared my life and my jesus with; the men i won't get to see before i leave. they have changed me probably much more than i have changed them (if that's even the way to put it).

pray for rico, i gave him my jacket on outreach and he came in today to get into treatment. he said because we ran into him, it proved, "there is a god". He said that "we helped save a voice that wouldn't have been heard otherwise".

missing out

it's hard to believe that i have only 14 days left at this place. my roommate nick moves in tomorrow. being here, i've poured myself into a life i never knew and i'm leaving it seeing how much more i have to know but won't...

i shall miss falling asleep to the sound of sirens and crying children, not so much the sounds themselves but the fact that they remind me of what is real.

i shall miss the conversations and complexities that make me realize that i don't have the answers, that stop me from speaking to quickly.

i shall miss feeling affluent and hating it.

i shall miss being the minority.

i shall miss the many more ways the jesus of uptown could have shaped and changed my heart and mind if i stuck around longer.

questions and answers

i've never been able to taste healing, in the past 3 years as i am able right now. yes, there are disconcerting pieces of life lingering in the scars of the past and present but they remind me that i'm weak and in need of a strength outside of myself. i recall before entering this summer, i wrote to Him about a lot of insecurities concerning this internship:

4.18 "maybe i shouldn't work at emmaus this summer? i keep asking this question. does that mean i should?"
4.16 "what am doing working with male prostitutes this summer? i need your help. i can't do it on my own."
4.05 "what makes me think that i can be in this type of work? i'm a mess myself."
3.39 "am i do this internship to run away again?"

i have been suprised, yet again by his faithfulness, his way of doing what's unexpected. there's no doubt in my mind now that this is what i'm supposed to be doing at this moment. i've been taken outside of myself in serving others but because of the nature of this place i'm forced to face myself at the same time. running away-- not possible. standing still-- also impossible. why is it that i still find it amazing that his answer is collectively: "i will help you".

8.2 "thank you"

sobering thoughts

made a cake for a man that turned 45 today. maybe he never had someone make him a cake in his life. that's a sobering thought... what would my life be like if no one ever made me a cake for or celebrated my birthday?

neighborhood tragedies...

July 19, 2006- Man Dies After Shooting In Uptown/Shooting Also Wounded 17-Year-Old Boy

(STNG) CHICAGO A 22-year-old man has died after a shooting -- that also injured a 17-year-old -- that police say involved gang and drug activity early Monday in the Uptown neighborhood.Cedric Adams, of 128 W. 163rd St. in Calumet City, was pronounced dead at 2:15 p.m. Tuesday at Advocate Illinois Masonic Medical Center, according to a spokeswoman from the Cook County Medical Examiner s office.Adams and another victim, 17, were walking near 4423 N. Sheridan Rd. about 3:49 a.m. Monday, when they were shot by an offender who fled, according to police News Affairs Officer Kristina Schuler.The 17-year-old male was treated and released from a hospital after he had been shot in the arm, Schuler said.The shooting was believed to be gang- and drug-related, Schuler said.


July 16, 2006-Teen shot on Lakeview street

A 17-year-old boy was shot on a busy Lakeview street early Sunday.
The shooting happened about 4:30 a.m. at 1000 W. Belmont Ave., according to police News Affairs Officer Amina Greer.
The victim was shot in the abdomen, Greer said. He was listed in serious condition according to a preliminary police report, she added.
Police had no motive for the shooting as of 5:10 a.m. and no one was yet in custody, Greer added.

July 3, 2006- teen stabbed and killed

A 16-year-old boy was fatally stabbed near the location of Sunday morning's shooting.
The stabbing, which happened on the street at 938 W. Belmont Ave. about 1:45 a.m. on the 3rd took place when two men approached the victim and got into an argument about why he was standing on the street corner, according to police.
The three got into a fight and the 16-year-old was stabbed in the upper left chest area. After he was stabbed, the victim, Shawn Sparks, ran away and collapsed on the street at 958 W. Belmont Ave.

makeover

i'm pretty happy with how life's going right now. for the first time in a long time i know what it feels like to be content but not necessarily comfortable. of course, it's only in moments but those moments are looking a lot more like stretches these days.

i look back at some of my decisions from the past year and wonder why so much patience is made available to me. i look even now at some of my decisions and it seems that the grace doesn't run out but instead of that being an justification it is becoming a motivation.

that's nice.

ps. i have dreads. they itch.