I've read somewhere about how salt of the earth refers to salt added into the manure (fuel) to enable the fire to last longer. Now I'm beginning to see a glimpse of what He meant. You get rubbed in all the wrong places, you get in with the seemingly undesirable. It stinks and it usually hurts.
I'm tired.
For the past week I have been listening to someone so adamant against love, hope and change, it's draining. I also read that sometimes you live to change the world and sometimes you have to live to keep the world from changing you.
Some things are simply beyond me and my heart is allowed to ache and break. So I'm beginning to see the cracks. Common sense tells me to seal up the cracks with putty or superglue, but these cracks are good. Water leaks from a crack, light breaks into darkness and grass pierces concrete.
As cracks are good here, salt is good for the dung. Even when they don't know what gives the fire its flame, meals get cooked, people are fed and kept warm.
Today I left the office early and went for a walk with my camera. I didn’t have to walk for long, but walks are good when you have nowhere particular to go and no appointment waiting.
So I spotted an old couple with their beat-up VW Beetle. They looked sweet together... he was wearing one of the thickest black rimmed glasses I have ever seen and her nails were stained with chipped pink polish. Way fashionable for their age. She told me in a hush voice of how her husband absent-mindedly left the headlights on and now their battery is dead flat.
“He and that damned car.”
Her husband was busying himself with a spanner, trying to get the battery out from the bottom of the back seat like it weighed an ocean. I know nuts about cars, but gave the thing a go anyway. It’s not everyday that I get myself greased.
Then she asked, “What is your religion?” A little taken aback, I told her that I believed in Jesus.
“No wonder. I guessed it... Jesus’ followers like helping people.”
I felt my perspective shifted and put into place like tectonic plates from a graphical diagram in the National Geographic, sending little quivers and quakes down my spine but expressed outwardly in goose bumps and a smile. Unexpectedly humbling. We went on to talk about faith and her weekend date with her girlfriends.
The heavily salt-crusted battery was soon dislodged and we waved goodbye. I watched them as they walked home together with the car battery in a trolley. Cutest couple ever.
How lost, how amazed, how miraculous we are.
There are two things I've been telling myself: breathe and love. Or rather, those were two things I've been reminded of these few days/weeks/months.
The children's home painting project was a disaster in every logical sense. I've heard more complaints than anything else. Some volunteers were complaining about how boring scrapping paint can get while some complained about the music from the radio. Others complained about being there.
(Teenagers.)
My friend tells me I have to filter. He's right. There's this giant invisible sieve hanging over me, reminding me to breathe and love.
There are also gems to be held from the filtering. Some pedophobic guys started to volunteer and my 13-year old brother decided to give away his comics to the kids because comics are/were important to him and the kids have only one comic book in their library.
So in the illogical sense, the home painting project was a success. I liked how we were doing it together, mothers, husbands, sons, daughters, brothers and sisters. Families don't always have it perfect, and that was what we were: family. Unknown to us at that time, we were following and being the hands and feet of the One who came down... literally covered in (His) dust and debris.
On another note, I received my credit card bill today and it’s one of the nicest things this week.
Total amount spent: $0
Love.
I had a good lunch with a friend yesterday. And this happens pretty regularly, come to think about it. We’d go for long lunches and talk, laugh, sigh, sometimes tear a little and eat and drink. A part of me lives for lunches like these.
We were talking about yesterday, who we were five years ago and what we will be five years in the future. I realized that I’m terribly shortsighted. I don’t quite remember much about the things I did and said five years ago. I’m very much the same person, but I think my outlooks changed. Yet the past seem like a blur… dusty even. The future on the other hand, is out of reach.
So we were there together. She was digging into her spaghetti and I was twirling my noodles. We exist now. Today we have each other. Today we live.
Today is all there is.
Today is now.
She suggested we write down our current state. She didn’t really explain why we should do that, but I think we both desire to remember who we were today and choose to be conscious of today.
So here goes.
Today I am:
◦ uncertain
◦ content
◦ yet a little bored
◦ eager
◦ hopeful
◦ smiling
◦ trusting
◦ holding on
◦ remaining
◦ a little sad
◦ a little happy
◦ tired
◦ ♥
◦ wanting to swim in a natural body of water
◦ overdosed on tea
◦ getting rid of ifs in my vocabulary
It’s been raining rather consistently lately and it’s just bliss. A stranger walked me across the street with his umbrella and new carps were added into the mini fish pool outside my house.
On the weekend I stumbled upon a second-hand book sale at the mall. I don’t like the mall in general (terrible artificial lighting, unnecessary spending and the crowd), but it’s kind of inevitable. I didn’t expect to buy anything, but I did. I left the mall with four second-hand books. I can be quite nerdy.
Here are my purchases:
Freedom’s Children: Young Civil Rights Activists Tell Their Own Stories
By Ellen Levine, RM3.00
This is a collection of true stories of 30 African-Americans who were children or teenagers when they fought segregation and discrimination in the South from the 50s – 60s. This book feels like a Ziploc bag on the verge of exploding its contents. If only all books can be so blatantly simple yet powerful. One of my favorite stories in this book (so far) tells of a black woman serving a homeless white man some food. And from that story, I found one of my favorite lines: “People are people, even though they are not always good people.”
Traveling Mercies: Some Thoughts on Faith
Operating Instructions: A Journal of My Son's First Year
Both by Anne Lamott, RM12.27
I’m currently reading Plan B and I couldn’t find Traveling Mercies at Borders and I love her writing. These two books are definitely a steal. I love the way she describes the unseen... the dust and wind and the holy. And how laughter is carbonated holiness.
Can You See Me? Images of Atlanta's Homeless
With introduction by Lee Walburn, RM5.00
Above is one of my favorite photos in this book. It’s by Louie Favorite (an awesome name, I reckon). The other photo of the two old men is by Billy Howard. Below are some of my favorite quotes from this book:
What is it that keeps the human spirit alive in a body that is always too hot or too cold, a stomach that is always hungry, and a hand that clutches a bottle always too empty?
What happens when they long for sex and reach to touch skin that is like peeling paint and smell the breath of decaying food and twice-tasted whiskey?
Do they fantasize about perfume and fancy colognes?
Or do they just want to go home?
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I’ve been living under this bridge four years now. Every year it starts getting cold, y’all come around with your cameras. You take lots of pictures. And nothing ever changes.
