The Least of These...

I've applied for a 4 month internship in Sierra Leone with a wonderful community called Word Made Flesh. It runs from August to December, and I'll find out on April 5th whether I got accepted.
I'm also heading back to Zambia in July, for a very exciting project which I'll talk about on this blog soon!
This being said, I've been reading and meditating and learning so much over the past year about what it means to live in community with the poor, to be broken and share life together, and how Christ manifests himself to us in the opressed and vulnerable and marginalized, in order that they might lead us to the heart of God. I've written on this topic here before, but below are some thoughts. I didn't write them, but I absolutely agree with them, and will wrestle more along these lines soon..


WHAT THE POOR HAVE TO TEACH US:
* They know how deep our world needs redemption.
* They rest their security not on things but on people
* They have no exaggerated sense of their own importance and no exaggerated need of privacy.
* They expect little from competition and much from cooperation.
* They can distinguish between necessities and luxuries.
* They are patient, because they have known dependence.
* Their fears are more realistic and less exaggerated, because they already know that one can survive great suffering and want.
* They can respond to Jesus with an abandonment and uncomplicated totality-- because they have little left to lose.

Headlines and Hobbies

In other news..
New Hobbies I have taken up recently include:
Surfing! (a work in progress)

Salsa!

RockStar!

Libraries! (a forced hobby for the last year of my undergrad)

Learning to appreciate snow, even after 5 months of it..

If anyone still reads this, there's such a lot that has gone on since the last time I blogged. (However if I have you as a friend on Facebook, the pictures are all old news!)
There are many thoughts and stories that I want to begin sharing on here, so stay tuned.

Good Friday.

The late Henri Nouwen wrote a series of prayers during Holy Week 1986. Though he originally resisted writing about the Sacred Heart, a friend's request led him to focus on this traditional Christian theme. Below are selections from his Good Friday prayer.

Dear Lord Jesus,

You, “the image of the unseen God, the first-born of all creation, for whom all things are created in heaven and on earth, everything visible and everything invisible,” you hang dead on a cross. You have just spoken your last words, “It is fulfilled,” and given up your spirit.


*****
I look at your dead body on the cross. The soldiers, who have broken the legs of the two men crucified with you, do not break your legs, but one of them pierces your side with a lance, and immediately blood and water flow out. Your heart is broken, the heart that did not know hatred, revenge, resentment, jealousy or envy but only love, love so deep and so wide that it embraces your Father in heaven as well as all humanity in time and space. Your broken heart is the source of my salvation, the foundation of my hope, the cause of my love. It is the sacred place where all that was, is and ever shall be is held in unity. There all suffering has been suffered, all anguish lived, all loneliness endured, all abandonment felt and all agony cried out. There, human and divine love have kissed, and there God and all men and women of history are reconciled. All the tears of the human race have been cried there, all pain understood and all despair touched. Together with all people of all times, I look up to you whom they have pierced, and I gradually come to know what it means to be part of your body and your blood, what it means to be human.

*****
As I look, my eyes begin to recognize the anguish and agony of all the people for whom you gave yourself. Your broken heart becomes the heart of all of humanity, the heart of all the world. You carry them all: abandoned children, rejected wives and husbands, broken families, the homeless, refugees, prisoners, the maimed and tortured, and the thousands, yes millions, who are unloved, forgotten and left alone to die. I see their emaciated bodies, their despairing faces, their anguished looks. I see them all there, where your body is pierced and your heart is ripped apart. O compassionate Lord, your heart is broken because of all the love that is not given or received.

*****
Blood and water flowed from your broken heart. Lord Jesus, help me to understand this mystery. So much blood has flowed through the centuries: blood of people who did not even know why they were trampled underfoot, mutilated, tortured, slain, beheaded and left unburied; blood caused by swords, arrows, guns and bombs, tainting the faces of millions of people; blood that comes forth from angry, bitter, jealous, vengeful hearts, and from hearts that are set on hatred, violence and destruction. From the blood of Abel killed by his brother to the blood of the Jews, the Armenians, the Ukrainians, the Irish, the Iranians and Iraqis, the Palestinians, the South Africans and the countless nations and ethnic groups victimized by the evil intentions of their sisters and brothers in the human race, blood has been covering the earth, and cries have gone up to heaven: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken us?”

*****

Let the blood and water that flow from your heart give me a new heart to live a new life. I know that in this world water and blood will never be separated. There will be peace and anguish, joy and tears, love and agony. They will be there always—together—leading me daily closer to you who give your heart to my heart.

The long and winding road..

"Watch with glittering eyes the whole world around you, because the greatest secrets are always hidden in the most unlikely places. Those who don't believe in the magic will never find it."
-Roald Dahl.


I'M BACK! I've been really desiring to blog again for a few reasons.
1) To write about things can keep me accountable/keep things in perspective.
2) I really appreciate the feedback from people.
3) It helps me process life.
4) It will be my sanity over the next few weeks when every major paper is due!