In Search of Christianity and Authentic Love.

Life at ASU has been so crazy lately that it's been hard to keep up. Things are going really well; I'm involved, I am making new friends, I am trying so many new things. I am beginning to feel like an adult. I turn 21 in a little over 2 weeks. I begin a new R.A. position tomorrow. I'm finally actually picking up guitar. 

Everything has been going so perfectly, it's become too easy for me to center my life around things outside of Christ. And while it makes me feel good about "me", it hasn't really made me feel that great about anything else. 

I have this problem. I want to make everyone I like happy, I want everyone to respect me, I want to be taken seriously, I don't want to be a joke. I don't want people assume things about me that aren't true. I think that I sometimes downplay who I am and what I believe because I don't want to be lumped with the crazies....scratch that. I know I do.

I think one of the most beautiful (and frustrating) things about the way God has been shaping me over the past two decades is that I am always stuck in the middle. I don't have a place I "belong". I love my home and my family, but my ideologies no longer reflect the ones that typically characterize my hometown. I love my school and my friends, but there will always be a part of me that will never be able to understand why and how they operate the way they do. At home I get raised eyebrows and teased and labeled liberal because of what I am passionate about. Or just strange looks. At school, most people who find out I am a Christian assume that I am bigoted and Republican, or that I burn Korans in my free time.

I am president of Peace Club. Of the active members, I am one of two Christians. On one hand, that's great. It is wonderful to be able to interact with people with whom I can have interesting debates and stimulating conversations, especially when they are also passionate about peace. 

On the other hand, it's completely heart-breaking. And what's even more heart-breaking is that  people on campus who openly label themselves as Christ-followers respond with ridiculous statements like, "Christ could be violent too, you know," when I ask them if they are interested in helping Peace Club plan events. 

I know that I am not alone in my passion for peace and mercy and justice in the name of Christ, but at a secular school it's really hard not to feel that way sometimes. I keep waiting to meet people on campus who are in the same boat as myself. There are 15,000 students here....

Where is the Church? Where is the Church?

Where is the Church??

Skin

As my flesh wakes I
slip out of mind and into you,
oh  fragile sleeve - you
who sweetly surrender to curve
of muscle and bone.

Your tight fibers that wind around
my eyes and loose lips,
the cracks of my stiffened fingers,
gently stretch themselves
over broken veins and bad joints.

Tenderly you hold
the memories and mishaps of

trips, rips, risen scars;

to you they are bound.

You forgive, and mend to forget.

How quickly you yield

to make room for my harsh requests,

to take on demands.

Modeling generosity,

you never complain.

When summer comes your pigment blooms,

and peeling valleys, 

filled with freckle-dust, paper your

creases with sand-shaves.

Your folds never discriminate.

You have given much,
merciful membrane, that the whole
of life incarnate
should choose you as Love's pure vessel,
Divine sack for grace.

Solid sheet-wrap of timorous

flesh, you caress my

quiet thoughts so tenderly.
Dear skin, you are the
earth, sky and muddy water who
make their home my own.