New Blog

Hey guys,

I just wanted to let everyone know that I have started blogging at my very own domain!

http://www.shalomexistence.com

Check it out, subscribe, interact, enjoy!

Forced transfer to teacher of immigrants, legal or not....

I do not want to talk about how my heart swells to tears when I think about leaving my students. How I am crying and I know I don't want my next job but I feel forced to do so. I don't know how to deal with this! You think you have a plan and a passion given to you by God, then it gets taken out from under you. There is a price tag on everything in this country, except the war in Iraq. Borrowing and creating debt is not a problem to fight terror but it is unheard of when it comes to our children. In the education system, if the check for 1 million dollars comes in for XXX, money may only be spent on XXX, and YYY, and ZZZ. Oops, we don't have enough money for X, well that's okay. They can do without. These are not flavors of Haagen Daz, they are Humans. People complain because there are non-citizens in our schools. People do not want to pay for children whose parents are not contributing to taxes in this country. They call it unfair.

It is unfair then, that there are people who live in our economy, contribute to it, and rent our homes but are the first to have basic human rights taken away. Is it fair that when there is a 99 cent sale in school the students are the first things sold. And then the teachers can be thrown away. There have been major rivalries over the immigrant climate in this nation for years. What would YOU do to give your family a better life? Do you really think they are hurting you? Well, I bet that if you would open your arms there would be a lot more to learn than be hurt by. Being an adult means realizing that there are positives and negatives to everything, and that there are arguments that make sense on both sides of the immigration issue. But that when dehumanzing humans becomes part of the process, don't you wonder where our own humanity has gone? When did our citizenship become more important than another life?

I have an opinion: It's not. And, the "immigration culture" in this country. It sucks. It is full of hate, or worse, the apathy of the people that don't see anything wrong or even notice when they put white people first. For citizens and all the other humans living inside these walls. It keeps us from learning and growing. NOT the people, the opinions that breed the hatred.

It's a sad day in the US of A.

Da Da Da The D Word!

I don’t feel like being poetic or having anyone say “Well said Andrea.” What I do feel like doing is driving off into the deep end of the pool and sinking to the bottom until I can escape, air burning in my lungs, and feel something stronger than this. Dream something bigger than this. Hope something greater.

My dad says he used to love my mom, but was never in love with her. My mom says she had always loved my dad, but now she can’t anymore. I always thought that love was simple and that if one person felt in their heart something was right and the other person agreed, then it probably was. Not so says….well…people. I have to believe in love though. I have to give in to my optimism where my love is concerned. Or I will be haunted by things that cannot define but seek to control me for the remainder of this short life.

How though, can persons be so compassionate for the masses and so dispassionate towards those they know personally? How can people love, then hate, and walk away? I have done it myself- one time. And it is an action that never wants repeating, never lacks repulsion in its aftermath, and can create pain for more than only the selfish person who caused it. Sometimes you are lucky and you can come back. Other times you are not.

But say you think you never loved in the first place? Will both parties be better off from one’s decision to walk away. Or will someone always remained scarred. Not only haunted by the things that were said to them, but killed by the oppressive stench, air hanging in the rejection of that person who left and wears a smile, or did not offer remorse, or did not even turn around to glance back in the rearview mirror. How is hope passed down when such pain exists? How do marriages survive when one person always has a problem that seems bigger than themselves? I don’t know, but I have to believe. I have to believe, because I love more than I could have ever imagined. I want greater things for another than I want for myself. And I believe that is possible. And I believe that you don’t have to give up yourself.

I have to believe.
In Love.

No Child (Except impoverished, Unstable, English Language Learners, Collectivist, Full time working, and Poorly supported) Left Behind

If the United States is going to continue to proclaim its leadership in the world and its disparity between “our ways” and “their ways” it would seem that they would notice the large disparity created by their own laws which largely discriminates against the diversity of culture in the states and largely leans on a white educated middle class styling to support all of its students, which has seen a rise in a student achievement but has even more so recognized the gap, it would seem that the solution would be rethought and perhaps a less intrusive and more altruistic route could be taken.

Doesn’t it?

(Salutes) And I pledge allegiance to the.....

Is there anything for us to do about the state of the nation? With church change almost becoming chic, I wonder if we will lose touch with what everything is about in the first place. I hate that the images I see around me are almost high school-esque. Cool kids and cool churches, the not cool ones being the ones that aren’t listening to Jesus.

What the???

I don’t know when the heart of it all got left behind but it feels like it sometimes. I know it is difficult, so difficult sometimes, to not get caught up in ourselves, but if we start listening to Jesus I think we can make it. If we just read his word and follow his laws, not the laws of man, listening to our hearts conviction from the movings of the Holy Spirit, we will get by. I have been up and down, learning and growing. I have been cultivated, drenched, and starved. The drought never lasts long enough for death, and the rain and sun visit me often. There are blessings all around, there is God among us.

So our responsibility to our nation lies not in the duties of that nation, but rather to the one in which we were called most resemble.

Movements or allies, enemies and politics, why do we cling to you? Or…why do I? What am I looking for that Jesus does not already offer me? Nothing. That is why offering myself to others is the greatest way I can love Jesus. Simply one of the only ways we can love him here on earth. Yes, we honor him with our lives, and we honor him with our specified acts of worship. Yet how many times do we mess up, sin, live for ourselves, have our minds completely wander off to that new CD or where we will visit for lunch in our supposed “worship moment.” If we are serving others in the midst of our flaws and messups and hang-ups, is this not far better than having the same flaws and messups with a totally self-serving attitude. Belief that loving Christ is separate from how we treat others? He made us all. He MADE us ALL. The cross was for us all. Yes, it was for us all.

All: lovers and haters and fighters and Germans and and artists and Fascists and Socialists and Chinese and Buddhists and Catholics and Reformed whoevers and Eckists and saints and sinners and Jews and actors and the poor and the rich and the Gentiles and the Colombians and the Canadians and the hunters and the writers and the teachers and the Swiss and the chocolate lovers and the immigrants and the Americans and the George Bushes and the Tom Cruises and the minimalists and the anti-Semitics and the anti-Gays and the unionists and the Belgian and the Soviets and the lesbians and the Asians and the whites and the atheists and the Satanists and the crazies and the killers and the rapists and the child molesters and the young and old.

And in His way, let us not only love but reach out to and care for the poor, oppressed, the homeless and the widows. Lest we will stray too far from our calling.

The upside of truth and anger

Justice. How are Christ followers called to justice? How can we create a system of justice and seek justice in our own communities in the midst of strife and injustice inside our own walls. The world oppresses and in turn the church oppresses. In my lifetime and I believe probably since the Medieval church rose to power, the church, a large majority of the time, has accepted the status quo. The status quo being an acceptance of the systems that govern our societies. While we have always said our MORALS are different, giving us a certain air, we have not too often said our way of governing time, money, others, or our way of viewing the political and social system was defined as countercultural. Often subcultural in nature Christians will create a mirror image of society at large and call it Christian, because well, Christians are a part of it. Not that it is “Christ-like.”

How is it faith when it is not lived out and breathed out everyday. Are we really having faith or we living by fear? If we don’t know Jesus we have to know we will never desire to live like him. So if we are wondering where our compassion is, where our goodwill or right living is, we have only our relationship with Christ and others to examine.

The question is: Do we, as Christ followers, really want that? Or would we rather live from the fear of going to hell and continuously fulfill ourselves with empty pleasures and the extreme highs, lows and crashes that come with that. Do not misunderstand, everyone, regardless of lifestyle, will experience difficulty. But when you are going through these valleys, will you look out on desolation and gray sky, or will you be wrapped in the arms of your Father, seeing at least the hope of a light dawning?

I think my deep longing and question lies in not being able to penetrate this understanding into the Christians and so-called Christ followers surrounding me. There are sunny days I see hope. I believe that I am being granted a pure moment of joy when I discover other like minded people, but in the morning rain might be falling and the bombardments of worldly people, Christian or not, sits on my soul like a dark cloud.

How does the belief in justice change this? How does belief in Christ shape this belief? Examine the minute details that exist in your life that might accept the status quo. Houses being built on your street for $500,000 to keep diversity away…the political system that accepts and allows and desires minority groups to depend on the system. As long as you are dependent you lack the power to change things. Dependence causes a mindset, sometimes even subconsciously. Humanity, at least the ones who are aware, need to step up and step out of the shadows to raise awareness about the self interests everywhere, especially lying in the wake of American imperialism, that groups and peoples do not even know they have, because they do not even know it cannot be different. Well, it can. Jesus died, and with that he took away the division that the world still holds onto. What are we doing still grasping it like our security blanket?

What are you going to do about it??? Whatever you have conviction about, seek justice in that conviction. Seek the life giving justice that Christ so readily gives. And then thank Him for being able to…

Trust Trust Trust

It is a constant battle with my inner demons. The part of me that does not hold fast to the truth of the Holy Spirit and does not put immense value on my own person and who God created me to be. In these moments when I am certain of that woman inside of me, trust is not the issue. Ocassionally when I am free of these feelings I am attacked by pride, both being monsters in their own right. Both being things I want to desperately rid myself of.

Delving into your own mind and reasons for distrust is a minefield. When life tells you to avoid disparities and seek comfort and pleasure, you almost forget all the lessons you were taught, or weren’t taught, at an early age.

Many people that I love were taught very young that life was not fair. They saw problems in the world, many times even in their own families, but they were comforted by the fact that although physically or emotionally injured, they still came out alive, intact, in one piece. I think that I was falsely informed. I lived in what I like to still refer to as a Christian bubble. Granted, I was raised with a strong belief system and faith, but did the world have to be hidden from me? I am not sure. To further ask this question, I am compiling a list of things I believed (truly) until I was 12 or 13.

1. People do not kiss before they are married. This is an extreme sin, and to break this rule would truly upset God.
2. Musical artists like Amy Grant and Michael W. Smith were huge artists who were wildly popular.
3. I was totally unaware as to what anything sexual involved, besides it involving both a man and woman (At 14 I finally got the courage to ask someone what exactly a BJ was). Thus, pregnancy possibly came from “FRENCH” kissing. (gasp)
4. Using swear words was something that only coarse or vulgar people did. “Normal” people did not do this.
5. Drinking, smoking, wearing short skirts, all of these were sins so obvious that they obviously meant you weren’t a Christian.
6. Marriage could be perfect (heck, I believed that one until I was 15).
7. People who were not like us did not know what life was about.
8. The world that I lived in was normal and similar to many other people’s worlds.

These are just a few examples. Lately, I am realizing…. There are a lot of good things that I took away from my childhood, and I held onto my purity for much longer than most, but at what cost? I am not saying that to sin my entire life and be engulfed in the ways of the world would have made my life better. But to be made more aware, perhaps I would not have such a strong aversion to reality today. The issue is trust, and I think that I just no longer trust that the world is in any way as it should be, even in my own “bubble” for lack of a better word. The things that are right I seem to bombard with my mindful allegiance to how the world really works, and all the things I did not know as a child.

Does this make any sense? I am not sure. I just know that I am desperately calling out to the Lord to give me peace and trust in the plans he has laid before me and the blessings he has given me. They already exist right in front of me. Reality might be hard, but do I really want to go back to the bubble? I mean, wasn’t it really all pretend anyway?

Lord, please hear my prayer, teach me to trust in what is real and holy and true, all those things that are from you. The letdowns were huge, but you are still real and just and holy. Let me not be led by a spirit of fear, just because I learned the world’s systems at a later time does not mean that I have to be fearful of those things that are reality. But let me Father, personally, not be conformed by those systems but constantly call myself to your name and you Spirit, living a life that is renewed by you and dead to my flesh. Let me be a vessel Father. And let this be my prayer for all that I know who love You and live for You.

Amen.