The 26th Of February.

02.26.10

Sometimes it feels like my life is a poorly filmed movie...with bad actors, and a director strung out from 20 years of sporadic acid trips and heavy cocaine usage.

I think that when I was in high school I had this idea that life was like a movie. And I was the main character. And God was the director.

Since then, I've learned that if life really is anything like a movie, I play such a minuscule role, a viewer would have to watch and rewind the scenes I'm in like 3 times just to be sure it actually was me. And I don't really know what part God plays any more.

Its the "True" part, I'm sure. But I'm all out of metaphorical references on this one, because I don't know how much "directing" he does. Maybe He's the guy who calls the cast. Maybe he's the audience. Maybe he's the script writer.

Whatever, its a bad analogy anyways.

Point is, my life feels like a really low budget...local...painfully eclectic art fuck kind of movie.

Only less interesting.



Tonight was great.

Today was hell.

But tonight was its own secret little miracle.

See, I worked my way over stressful minimum wage coffee shop job from 9-5. With one break. Its Saturday. Dealt with the usual dysfunction. Got all huffy and puffy about the schedule for next week. Felt under-appreciated. Underpaid. Overqualified and inadequate all at the same time.

I would elaborate further on my frustration, but the last time I checked this is public domain, and I'm not trying to talk shit.

Every one knows how it is.

The thing is, though. I have a job.

I should be content. Beyond that, I should be happy. Further, I should be fucking STOKED because the unemployment rate is REALLY high right now.

Because I am one of the richest people alive right now in the world.

I have it real good.

And yet the negativity just radiates from my angsty little latte making hands.

SO. I went to the Turf Club after work. Had a little bitch-vent-fest with my good friend Erin. She was talking about the social drama at her work. She says its a real drag. She works at an uppity sort of hair salon in the suburbs, so I can only imagine the scene.

Had a drink. Something about a screwdriver. Went home, changed - because I'd gotten a nice splurt of thousand island dressing on near every item of clothes I was wearing at work. Then I looked up this church I read about in the Star Tribune on Monday? called Urban Jerusalem.

If you're wondering whether or not it was front page in the local section, the answer is "yes". If you're wondering whether or not it is a break-dance enthused hip hop church in North Minneapolis, the answer is "no diggity doubt".

Obviously, God had me in mind when he came up with it, so.

I decided to go.

To make a short, vague and rather dull story quicker then it already is-

I walked into the wrong church.

I thought at first, the reason I was the only white person in the building was just by chance or location or something - and maybe it was. But. It also turns out that it was their annual black history month celebration ceremony.

I might have lighter skin, but I want to celebrate black history just as much as the next person. If not even, maybe, a smidgen more.

So I did what any white girl from the suburbs under 5 feet would do alone.

I stayed.
I cheered.
I laughed.
I sang.
I payed attention, stood and sat on cue, bowed my head, clapped my hands and quieted myself to listen.

What baffled me the most, beyond the beauty of it all, was that I heard the same message preached tonight that I will hear tomorrow morning. Where people talk different, dress different and do life different. I will hear the same message at church on Tuesday night. Where the train hoppers, musicians, artists, freaks, weirdos and normal folk in their own right will meet over in the phillips neighborhood.

That message is this: That Jesus saves.

And THIS is what gives ME hope.

That no matter how BIG we will fail (and I do. more than most). That no matter how MANY wrongs we've got under our belts, how many wounds we've got from the wrongs of others, that no matter what language we speak, what color of skin we wear over our bones, whatever social circumstance we've been born into or have ended up in, no matter how lost or how found we think we are...

We are united by human condition.

By lack. By fault. By longing. By Suffering. By pain.

And we are united by the same hope.
And we are united by a God called Love.

And whether or not we stand united in FAITH, I believe that we all stand united by GRACE.

Because He died for us all.

and hallelujah, I have faith.
and hallelujah, I know grace.

And whether or not we know each others stories or names, we can look at each other and say

"Hello! Hallelujah. You are loved."
"Hello! Hallelujah. We are the Children of God."








I've been meaning to put this up for almost a month now. I'm what professors call a bit of a "PROCRASTINATOR". more to come soon.

love.