I hate to wait. It is not that I am an impatient person. I can sit for hours and look at a painting. I can sit for hours and read a book. I simply hate to wait for the answers to my questions. I hate waiting to hear if I am going to get this job at Hot Topic. I want it. Bad. I want to have fun at work again. I do love the people I work with at Gas City. They are quite pleasant, and generally fun, but I want to be able to be me. I want to wear my nose ring, have a purple mohawk, get a tattooed sleeve, and not have to wear a uniform! Today I am dressed in a pair of khaki pants and a white shirt. It is so me. White is so diminishing, and I love khaki pants! I also love the pain in my ass of removing my nose ring everyday to put in a little clear plastic piece of crap. Does anyone who comes to a coffee house really care if their barista is wearing a nose ring? I wonder if they have to take out their nose rings at the Starbucks in India? What about the Starbucks in the Middle East, do they have to wear black or khaki pants and white or black collared shirts? Leather shoes? Just curious. You would think that because Starbucks was founded by a bunch of pot-smoking hippies, they’d be a bit more liberal! They offer domestic partner insurance (a good thing) for crying out loud, and I can’t wear my nose ring! Okay, I am not sure really where that tirade came from. I must not be very Lent-y today. Either that or I just find it more healthy to rant here than at some random customer.
Yesterday: John 7:1-30
Today: Jeremiah 11: 18-20; John 7:40-53
Jeremiah, more than any other prophet, intimately shows me that trying to live my life the right way is not going to be easy. That I will not always be lauded for doing good. And that I will fuck it up again and again. There is an Indigo Girls song that says: “Me and Jesus, we’re of the same heart, the only difference is that I keep fucking up.” I think Jeremiah might like that song, so might David and Bathsheba, limitless other biblical personalities, and probably a few “good” people in general. I definitely do. However, in this instance, Jeremiah is being persecuted for doing what he was supposed to do. He writes: “for to you I have committed my cause.” He is wholly committed to letting God take care of him. Amazing considering all that he has been through. Will I ever be wholly committed to letting God fight my battles? Probably not, because I still get irritated when people don’t hand me their money and put it on the counter instead. I feel like they think I am not good enough to touch when placing the money in my hand. I need to learn a lot. I realize more painfully everyday that I am filled with pride. I will fall. I know it.
It is interesting to me to think about Jesus’ trial. The trial that he goes through here in John is shady. He isn’t tried before a court of law, and apparently he isn’t really even tried at all. The people who are standing around gossiping about him just assume he is guilty. I love it, they stand around talking about each other just like we do. Solomon was right, there is nothing new under the sun. Nicodemus asks: “Does our law condemn anyone without first hearing what he is doing?” I think perhaps we should ask that question of our own laws. Do we listen to what people are doing before we convict them. I am thinking of the way we jump on political band wagons without even thinking rationally about what they stand for. Did I, on September 11, assume along with the rest of the nation that the Middle East was responsible fo the bombing? Probably, but only for a brief second. For one shining moment I wasn’t sucked into the political abyss. I remember saying in class that day, and receiving some very horrible looks and some nasty emails later, “Remember Oklahoma City. We blamed the middle east, and it ended up being our own citizens.” Now I know also that our own citizens who bombed Oklahoma City, were trained to kill by our own military for the first Gulf Fiasco. So this passage caused me to stop and wonder about myself: “Do I first listen to what people are doing before I condemn them?” In essence do I give people a chance, do I listen to who they are, do I see the value in them that God sees in me, before I dismiss them? Not usually. Do I love my enemies? Do I create enemies? Do I allow enemies to be created for me? It is easy to love people who love me, but do I love the business man who drives a compensation vehicle and orders a compensation latte? Can I honestly find it within myself to first hear what he is doing? Who he really is? Do I look past his seemingly hollow shell to see the man inside? I need to start looking into people instead of through them.
Reason Breeds Insanity 