ranting is good

I’m currently reading A Legacy of Ashes by Tom Weiner. He is talking about the history of the CIA in a novel like format – similar to how Bob Woodward write his books. In reading I was observing that the CIA, especially in its early years, would pay lots of money for “intelligence” that almost always turned out to be false. Based on that information the Director of Intelligence (and sometimes the President) would approve operations that ended up in a bunch of American CIA operatives getting killed. What was happening was that the Director was getting a bunch of wrong information and jumping to conclusions.

I was watching the news today about Hilary Clinton’s office in Rochester, NH getting held up by a guy with a bomb. First, the guy was a well-known local who had a history of mental problems. There were also a bunch of hostages. Then, there only three hostages and the all got out. Then there was one hostage left and the bomb guy was some kid’s step dad who has been drunk for 72 hours. Through the whole thing there would be three different news faces telling three different things that didn’t end up being the truth at all. That’s a very brief description of how the facts of the thing developed, but while I was watching it and noticing these changes I realized that the conclusions I had been led to only 10 minutes before were not right at all. Fortunately this was an example where the crisis was resolved in only a few hours. But when things go on and on for days or months, how much can we really believe what the news tells us. Well, we all know that we can’t really. But this is what we get and that’s fucked up.

MEDICARE – The political right uses the high cost of Medicare to explain why national healthcare is a bad idea. Government run stuff is inefficient. Lots of the pricing for Medicare benefits were based on 1980s market prices – so we still pay that much. Then, the issue is spun to make it look like people opposed to it are trying to “cut Medicare spending” so Democrats stay away from it, republicans alike. But at the same time the Republicans are the ones who want to cut costs. It is estimated that because of this pricing the government overpays for about 80 percent of Medicare recipients stuff. So the problem is not necessarily that government run Medicare is inefficient in its operation, but that it is priced so that it is inflated and looks like an inefficient program. It’s actually all really confusing and I didn’t to its complexity justice at all. But the point is that you should not believe a damn thing you hear. NOTHING!!

the gospel

Joshua sat with his friends outside of the church on a day like any other. Enough clouds dotted the sky to block the sun every now and then. The wind seemed colder than normal this time of year but had a refreshing scent to it. They had been through a lot recently. To relax like this was a nice break from the previous weeks. There were unanswered questions and a lot of concern about what their future would be. By now, Joshua knew that his time with his friends would soon come to an end. There are some things that you just do not say to anyone, indiscriminately. But enough was enough, and each of the men felt that he would be denying what was truly important if he did not take extraordinary measures in order to do what he knew was right.
The church they had been going to recently used to be a place where all were welcome. It became a place that they would go just to hang out. They could always find a good conversation, whether between themselves or with strangers. Joshua saw men coming in to give their offering. They would kneel, light a candle, say a prayer, kiss their coins, and drop them in the box. A homeless lady, who had developed a reputation of being beyond help, came in to do what these men were doing. She simply walked up to the offering box and dropped her coins.
Joshua pointed out to his friends what a show these men make about giving when they know full well that they have plenty to spare. This woman, however, was giving all she had. She may have been expecting to get something out of it, some magical gift from above that would get her through the rest of the month, but in reality she had just given up. She saw no need to hold on to these things if she had nothing to look forward to. The church does good things for the community, why not give back – that was her thinking.
Joshua began to rant. “I don’t know why they think this building is so important. You know that some day this will be nothing but a pile of rocks. I bet God would want it that way too. Do you really think that the money these men give means anything other than supporting the maintenance of a place they can go to show how holy they are?”
His friends had been with him for long enough to know that Joshua was God. They clung to every word he spoke, and just like the mysterious god they grew up knowing, they assumed that everything he said had some hidden meaning to it. They began to ask him when the church would no longer be important.
“You’ll see. There will be signs.” He listed several things that would happen upon the irrelevance of the church, things that would be sure to point to the fact that the church as they knew it was already meaningless. “You know what I have taught you is just and good. You know that this world looks on the things we believe and views them as blasphemy because they contradict the institutions that have become acceptable to these evil men. And I will add to that, that because of what you know to be truth, you will be hated; because of me you will suffer.”

my funny town

I serve this town called Scotts Valley. Unfortunately I don't live in the town because it's too expensive. I live in a small town down the road from it. But I feel a wierd sort of "calling" to be part of the town. It could be that I've just been part of it for so long and gotten to know so many families that I can't help but be part of it, but then there's this part of me that loves the town. I know that's kind of wierd, and it's hard to explain...it's just how it is.

Anyways. Over a year ago I started hanging out with a couple of Latino kids. They live in this particular apartment complex. As I started meeting other poor minorities in the community I noticed that they all lived in the same place. Unfortunately I rarely run into those kids anymore.

I was talking to a kid from the skatepark the other day that is a mexican kid. I asked if he lived in this same apartment complex. He does. Then I asked if he knows how I knew that he lives there. He guessed it..."because I'm mexican?" EXACTLY!! We had a good laugh about it. But now I'm trying to figure out if this is some sort of injustice (like segregation through low income housing measures) or if it's good that they can afford housing around this area.

This town is a place with lots of hurt. Parents who have no time for their kids or didn't even want their kids in the first place so don't know what to do with them, along with the fact that it's an affluent area so everyone buys into the magazine culture...girls - I should try to achieve this impossible image... boys - so...why is it wrong to objectify women?

To top it off, there's a whole section of the community that's tucked away in a little corner and forgotten about. Did I mention that they conveniently located this apartment complex right next to the police station?

A reflection on ministry...advice welcome

Tonight we had our first WyldLife Club. As you may know, this is the ministry I work with. Basically, we hang out with middle school kids. It's pretty fun.

I was at this place this last week where the only thing I knew to do was literally get on my knees and pray. I'm the type of person that has a tendency to worry about other people than myself. I don't mean that in a toot-my-own-horn sort of way but as a curse. My situation in life is such that I get to spend lots of time observing these kids in a way that most people don't get to see. For their teachers they are always trying to not get in trouble. For their parents, they are always trying to be who their parents want them to be. For their friends, they are trying to be something that they aren't. With me, in the various ways that I hang out with them, I get to see all of these different aspects, then see what's really going on with them. I don't know why, but kids (and adults sometimes) let me see sides to them that most other people probably don't get to see.

I call it a curse because I can't help but to take the weight of their problems and think about it and lament about it. It wears me out sometimes.

One of my favorite things is to provide an atmosphere where kids can get away from all that bull shit and just be kids. Care-free, happy, relaxed, and loved. Tonight was a good night in that way.

We're only having 'club' once a month, so we are making program pretty intense. The leaders did a great job at keeping things going and interesting so that the kids could just sit back and enjoy. I was excited about that. It was awesome to see them take control and do the best they could.

The most important thing in all of this for me is relationships - with God as the center. Though the kids don't necessarily know that God is in on these relationships.

At the end of each night we give a talk. This year, since we only have nine clubs I'm going to give all of the talks. Another reason is that I'm developing (with the help of my pastor) a new way of presenting the Gospel than the traditional 'look at Jesus. He did cool things...crazy things. You should like Jesus. Now, you are a sinner. You ruined your relationship with God. For that you are supposed to die. Well, remember that Jesus guys? He built a bridge in the form of a cross so that you can hang out with God again.'

Though it may be true, I think it's fucked that that's how we let kids know the story of God and his pursuit of us. It misses a bunch of stuff. It shows them something they should be ashamed of...it doesn't give them something that they might want to be a part of. Whether they know/feel it or not, kids are alienated and only live in the sins of their parents and our society. The last thing they need is to be ashamed of one more thing. They need to belong in a world where they don't currently belong.

I started tonight with creation. in a nutshell, I dismissed the importance of the 7 day creation and other shit we're taught and focused on why the story was told in the first place. One thing I focused on was that his first commandmen, as such, was "take it all!" NOT "don't eat from that tree". I also made sure that I communicated was that God put us here so that we could be his little helpers on earth. So that we could be in community with him. And that when we were created he said that we are VERY GOOD, not just good like everything else...VERY GOOD. Why? Because we are the keystone. He has entrusted us with the rest of his creation...to take it all freely and enjoy it. With that, I focused on "freely". The idea that we have absolute freedom to do what we want.

Next week I'm going to reiterate all of that a bit and focus a little more on the fun stuff. This week was basically "what life is supposed to be like". Next week is that, but with a little bit of "what life really is."

If you have any pointers they are appreciated. I want to try to find some themes like love, trust, community, and so on to tie back into the story later in the year. Any suggestions?

Rob Attack!

So, I just read in the paper that Santa Cruz County has a Superior Court judge named Robert Atack. I'm going to go ahead and make the assumption that it's pronounced 'uh-tack'. Like, "I was walking in the forest and got attacked by killer bees with ninja swords and fire."

Two things about this. First, that's a pretty intimidating name for a judge to have.

Second, that's a pretty kick ass name for ANYONE to have!

If that were my name, I'd take full advantage of all benefits that go along with it.

If I had a million dollars...

I asked one of my roommates the other day if he thought, that if I were to fly a plane from Las Vegas to Reno but got lost somewhere along the way, a search effort would begin, then after a few days the officials would say that they were going to expand the search for nearly two weeks. This obviously was in response to Steve Fosset's rescue effort. My assumption was that the only reason anyone gives a rip is because he's rich. Apparently there have been numerous planes that haven't made that trip but only now are being dicovered. "Teams have discovered nearly one uncharted wreck a day since the intensive search began" -AP. So, in looking back on my question... no, they wouldn't spend an ass load of money on a search effort to find me. I could make a point here if I wanted to, but I'll let this one go.

In the cards

I'm going to make a prediction and see how it turns out. I've had a lot of time on my hands lately. It's quite a long-term calculation, so it might be few years until the results show themselves...about 5 years to be exact, for the full thing to take place.

Start
Close to the 2008 presidential elections (somewhere between July and September), a bubble that will have been forming in the stock market will burst, sending the economy into a bit of a decline. The Bush administration, having redeemed itself a bit, in terms of economics, will pour a bunch of money into subsidies in order to keep things afloat. Because of this decline, a highly undecided population will completely lose faith in Republicans and elect a Democrat as their president. That president will be faced with the challenge of getting the market back to a natural pace, thus not needing subsidies. This will take a while. In the meantime, whatever new plans of socialization and reform that the new president ran his campaign on will have gone down the drain because of our tax dollars being used to boost the economy. The public will forget about the fact that the economic trouble began under the previous president, only focussing on the fact that this president couldn't bring us out of it and make good on his campaign promises, and consider his election a mistake and he will only serve one term.
End

We'll get a good feel for how on I am in 2008...this should be fun. Stay tuned!

Time for some news... A break from Cuba

I'll get back to posting about my trip to Cuba sometime soon. I've been getting caught up on society in the last 10 days since I got back from my month long time away. So...

The US along with British officials is fining British Airways for price-gouging. 121mPounds by the UK and $300mil from the US. These fines are going to accompany a class-action lawsuit that will be filed by millions of British customers. Apparently Virgin and BA colluded on this deal but Virgin pulled out and tattled on BA which is what led to this whole thing. The main thing was over how much they were making the customers make-up for the rising cost of oil...and here it is...is it at all possible that US oil companies might be doing the same thing? Of course it's possible, but would the US ever fine its own bread and butter?

The British military released a study that it conducted on the effects of mental trauma on its veterans of the most recent wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The results show that there is severe effects seen in family breakdowns, alcholism, and mental health problems. Isn't that amazing...somehow the British can manage to admit that war scars people but we, with many many more fucked up soldiers returning home are offering little assistance oreven recognizing the fact that they are indeed messed up. Oh, I know...US wars are about justice...wars like that don't mess people up. DENY DENY DENY. That's they way of our government...until of course enough evidence builds and then they slowly investigate.

Only weeks before Congress goes on a small break, they pass a bill that allows warrantless wire tapping and monitoring of international phone calls and emails. I just made a friend in Cuba who i've been keeping touch with...there's part of me that wants to say some shit that gets those fuckers knocking on my door.

Now, speaking of Congress going on a break. How many people do you know that get to take a month off of work without a huge blow to their pocketbook? I certainly don't know many. With that said, until Congress starts making conditions so that the people they represent get at least a month off without fear of financial ruin, I better see some town hall meetings going on every damn night while those assholes aren't doing their job in Washington.

One last good one...Since the beginning of the war the US military has lost at least 190,000 weapons and more than half of the supplies that were supposed to go the training the Iraqi military since they began their war in 2003. During this time they were saying that the sudden increase in armed insurgents must be because Iran is funding them. Now, I'm not saying that Iran is innocent but I have a funny feeling that we may have been paying to have our own soldiers shot at. Isn't that fun!

Tales of a Commie (Part 2) - Havana round 1

I fell asleep on the plane but woke up just in time to see us approaching Cuba from the Gulf of Mexico. I saw a small bit of shoreline before it was completely engulfed by costal fog. It reminded me of Santa Cruz. As we were coming in for the landing I felt less safe than I normally feel on airplanes. As far as I can guess this comes from my understanding of Cuba up to this point as a 3rd world country whose technology is not as good as in my country. The way the air-conditioning on the plane spewed out steam didn’t help with my lack of faith in the Cubana airplane. I realized that I was going to need to drop my previous notions of Cuba in order to fully experience it – that I couldn’t learn with whatever blinders I may have had on prior to this.
We landed in Havana sometime in the late morning. At this point I’m thoroughly excited because this is where my learning begins not to mention the fact that after all the sleepless nights and work we’ve done, the thought of getting to step foot on Cuban soil (officially breaking the blockade) was finally becoming a reality. I’m a staying at a church in a working class neighborhood of Havana with people from our group that are mostly in their upper 40’s or older. There are only two other guys that are close to my age. The reason I chose this place is because I figured I could observe downtown Havana any time I wanted by taking a cab there, so staying in the place close to downtown didn’t make much sense. A neighborhood like this I could only observe if I was staying in it…it’s definitely not one of the tourist areas.
On the way in to Havana from the airport I was expecting conditions to be like most of what I’ve seen in Mexico. Nothing was as I expected it. The scenery was amazing…I had never seen a tropical place before. But there was so much more. All around I see power lines and power sub-stations nearly identical to the ones we have in the US. This place isn’t traditional 3rd world. It’s developed (from a physical standpoint) to the best of its ability, which isn’t far off from most of the US. One major difference is the buildings. All of the buildings are old looking. Most of them look pretty dilapidated but in that, they aren’t gross like the housing projects in US inner cities. They maintain a certain respectability that I can’t really explain with words. I think it’s because they weren’t dumps…instead of being run-down they were just quaint. From the condition of everything, it made me wonder what it would be like if they were able to have enough money to keep everything fixed up. Is that one of their values or would they prefer to spend their time doing more meaningful things as long as the basic purpose of the buildings (waterproof shelter) was being fulfilled?
After dinner at Luyano (the church I’m staying at) I had a chance to look around the neighborhood before we left for our first cultural event. On almost every doorstep family members were hanging out with each other and their neighbors. In the middle of the streets groups of kids were playing soccer or rolling down the hills on makeshift skateboards. The older people mostly just hang out in their doorways, but the younger people, both kids and adults, will wave or say something in Spanish that sounds like a kind greeting. On the way to the William Carey Baptist Church for our first ‘cultural event’ I noticed that the whole city was full of people just hanging out and playing. The only hostility I sense is in the drivers – there’s a lot of honking, which I would later find out is how they drive courteously…they honk when passing people or entering certain types of intersections to let people know they’re there…that way they don’t wreck. All over the place there were people on bicycles. Most of them had more than one person though. On one, there was a mom with a kid in her lap who was sitting in front of the dad who was peddling.
The William Carey Center is another one of the churches that people from our group are staying at. It’s only two blocks from the main downtown tourist area. In their courtyard they had chairs and a stage set up that they pulled from their indoor sanctuary. The first act was some musical things – nothing all that great. The best part was the dancing. They are part of the best dance group in Cuba. They consisted of boys and girls anywhere from 10 to 18 who have obviously put a great deal of time practicing their dances to the point where they were perfect. The dancers were all perfectly in sync with each other. Just when we thought it was done every single one of the dancers came back out. They were all up and down the aisles and filling the stage. At first it was a very high-energy planned dance. Eventually it turned into more of an improv dance. Their body language and enthusiasm for the stuff they were doing is how I came to the conclusion that it was improv. There was a designated leader and what that person did the others followed…and they followed very well. When they finally left stage to their dressing room you could hear, over our rowdy applause, their own applause and excitement. The whole atmosphere was enough to make even a cynic like me damn near cry. This is the first time that it occurs to me that their culture transcends the material problems the people face. Their culture is so rich that the poverty they experience, in comparison to the wealth of Americans and other wealthy nations, is of very little importance. This is one of the first things to know in understanding Cuba. And here’s another thing…the training that these kids got in dance is free because their government wants to support the cultural arts.
The following morning is our tour of La Habana Vieja (Old Havana). This is one of the few areas of Havana that is in the process of restoring their old buildings for a prettier look. One thing that should be noted here is that when the buildings are restored the families who have lived in them still get to live there. It’s not like typical gentrification you see in the US. The tour guide gives us a brief history of the old garrisons that still occupy some of the city and history of the struggle from colonial times that the people of Cuba have come through to get to where they are today. There is a lot to see in Habana Vieja. Along every street there are locals who make themselves into photo-ops. Old women smoking cigars and dressed in extravagant clothing will let you take their picture for a few pesos. The people of the community still hang out and don’t seem to mind all of the tourists.
Later in the day we make a visit to the ‘120 year old club’. This is a group started by doctors who figured out a life style which they believe has the potential to keep them alive and healthy to at least 120 years of age. I personally wouldn’t want to live that long, but more power to ‘em for trying.
Instead of going back to Luyano I decide to stay in downtown Havana. For hours I walk around looking at the shops and people. It is weird not being able to communicate with people. Even though there are hundreds of people around me there’s a weird sense of loneliness in it. At one point a Cuban from one store spoke English to me. That catches me off guard so I buy ice-cream from him.
A group of us decide to walk to a hotel where there is a restaurant and bar on the roof with live music. It’s about a 5k walk through very urban feeling neighborhoods. It was a change of scenery to see real Havana locals hanging out in their own bars, not the tourist ones. On one corner there is a group of men surrounding a table in the middle of the street where they’re playing dominoes under a streetlamp. When we get to the hotel there is a guy making sure that no Cubans are coming in…it’s a law that unless working at tourist hotels, Cubans aren’t allowed in. My first reaction is that it isn’t all that nice that the people don’t get to go into the nicer places in their neighborhoods, but then again, I don’t go to hotels in my town. Later on I ask someone about that law. When tourism was pretty new to Cuba men from foreign countries would come over to Cuba and bring young Cubans up to their rooms to have their way with them. The Cuban government began pressing charges against these tourists, which didn’t go over too well with those folks countries of origin. Eventually this law was passed as a protective measure for the Cuban people. This is another thing to understand about Cuban society… most of the laws they pass are protective…not like the US where we need to pass a law for every little thing all the way down to how tinted your windows on your car can be.
On the way back to Luyano, Dan (one of the IFCO staff people my age) and I shared a cab. Dan speaks pretty fluent Spanish but since Luyano isn’t in Havana proper the driver doesn’t know where it is. He takes us a long way around before he gets close and stops to ask for directions. At this point I think that the place we’re staying is pretty run down. But then he drives us through a part of town that is really poor looking. All of the roads off of the main street didn’t have streetlamps. They didn’t even looked like they were paved all that well. Even without that though the people were still hanging out with each other. It’s about 11 at night and kids are still playing hopscotch and the adults are all playing dominoes or talking. At about midnight and a half I’m still sitting outside with some of the folks I’m staying with. All over you hear loud music and entire families still awake, just hanging out. Now I’m wondering why the kids don’t have bedtimes and why no one seems to work during the day.

Tales of a Commie (Part 1) - Getting to Cuba

This is the first installment of what I believe will be 5 describing my trip to Cuba. I've decided to write it this way because I want to make you really work to find out what I did in Cuba...since we can't really have a conversation in person in which I would be really vague, I'm just going to make you read a whole bunch. For some reason this part is mostly in present tense...i don't really know what's up with that. Enjoy!

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On 14 July 2007 I landed in McAllen, TX to begin my mission to Cuba. The group I’m with is called IFCO/Pastors for Peace (Pastors). They are a group that has been involved in promoting various types of solidarity work since the late 1960’s – from foreign work in Latin America to domestic groups in African American movements. At this point all I know of Pastors is that, despite the name, they are not necessarily a Christian organization. They operate on more of a Unitarian mentality, akin to many groups who claim to follow liberation theology. I’m interested to see what type of people I run into. Everyone on the caravan is there because they want to have a part in ending the US blockade against Cuba, and in my experience these types are very anti-American to the point that they blinded by hate from seeing the injustice on the other side of whatever cause they might be serving.
I have two goals for this trip. Primarily I want to learn as much as I can about Cuba in a way that is fair to the truths presented on both the pro and anti-Castro sides of the debate. As with most parts of my life I’m also very interested in meeting the people that I’m on the caravan with learning their stories – why they are involved in this work and where they come from in life.
Our time in Texas had two main purposes. We had to pack, mark, and manifest the aid we were taking into the vehicles that would take us to the Gulf of Mexico as well as learn the basics of what we were going to experience in Cuba and crossing both into Mexico and back into the states in direct violation of the US government. They leadership told war-stories of things that had happened in past year – times when they went on hunger strikes and were beaten by the border officials. Most importantly was that we were to be non-violent and stubborn in any attempt the officials made to pry unnecessary information from us. The worst-case scenario is that they will try to take all of the aid from us and prevent us from being able to take it to Cuba.
In order to save time and space I’ll skip the specifics about the days in McAllen. All that’s really important is that on zero hours of sleep I and busy packing buses and trucks, typing up manifests and translating them into Spanish (I don’t speak Spanish so that was fun), and doing at least one security shift at night from 2 to 4 in the morning. The purpose for security I will take the time to explain. There are two groups out there who will go to great lengths to sabotage the work we are getting ready to do. The first is a group of Cuban people who don’t live in Cuba (they mainly live in Florida/Miami) and are absolutely militant about not supporting the Castro government(1) . The second is the US government. Our fear is that one or both of these groups will attack the credibility of Pastors by planting drugs on our vehicles, so when we cross the border we will get negative press coverage. There’s also the fear of theft, but that isn’t as big of a threat as the former.
On my night shifts doing security there were a lot of cars with darkly tinted windows that would drive by very slowly, numerous times, often times changing the license plates between Mexican plates, Texas plates, and government plates. What were they really going to do? My guess is that it was really only meant as intimidation. The morning before we left they had been circling all night. We were keeping the time we left a secret, even to the people on the caravan, because one year they put up roadblocks so our vehicles couldn’t leave the ‘compound’.
At 4 in the morning we started waking everyone up. On the outside it looked like everything was normal. On the inside though the people were busy getting their stuff ready to rush out to the buses so the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) people wouldn’t try to stop us from leaving. At about 6 a.m. the exodus began. As I stood guard at one of the gates the people made their way to the buses. The buses started, we opened the gates, I boarded one of the buses and off we went to the border. All of the agents that had been patrolling gave us a nice little escort all the way through town to the border. When we got there, there were border patrol cars, lights flashing, blocking the road in order to direct us into a special inspection station. They did very little. We had to get off our buses and they scanned the buses with this giant x-ray machine they have. This is where they took our computers.
When they took the computers off our bus, they did the same thing they did a few weeks prior on the Canadian border when part of our caravan was bringing medical supplies across the border. They said that they would be held for no longer than 30 days in order to determine if they were duel use computers, meaning that they could be used for military purposes. The only resistance I heard about was a smart-ass comment made by the leader of the whole thing, Lucius Walker. A DHS officer asked if he could get a picture with Lucius to show his family and he replied, ‘why don’t you show them a picture of you taking our computers.’ Although that was a funny reply, our lack of resistance led me to question the purpose of our taking all this aid across(2).
The next part was getting through Mexican customs. They too had us pull into a special station. They then told us to take everything off the buses and out of the trucks. We declined their offer. We unloaded about 20 items from each truck so they could compare our manifests. They were told that if they wanted it all unloaded they would have to do it themselves, which naturally made them go by our rules. The communication of the Mexican officials was terrible. We (all 120+ of us) ended up waking back and forth across their whole border place several times before they figured out what the hell they were doing. We were having a problem getting visas for vehicles. Especially a bus that didn’t have a VIN number on it. This bus was packed full with aid. We were just about to get the bus when one of our drivers wrecked into a roof section of an area they told us we had to pull all of our vehicles into. The roof was too short but everyone seemed to have overlooked that.
We got to the border at 7 that morning. The main group left at about noon or 1. A handful of us stayed behind to do whatever was going to have to be done with the bus. On my end of things this was a great opportunity to hang out with some of the best people on the caravan. Eventually we were able to get one of our passenger buses to come and we proceeded to load all of the aid from the condemned bus onto that one. We left the border at midnight that day. We had to be up at 4 the next morning to begin our drive to the Gulf, and the group of us that stayed behind still had to eat and shower. I slept about 2 hours that night at our hotel in Reynosa, Mexico.
In the morning we had to re-pack everything in order fit all of the people and all of the aid in light of the fact that we had a full bus less space than we did the day before. Before all of this took place though a lady came up and offered to buy me a cup of coffee and breakfast at the 7-11. She ended up being one of my favorite people ever. Her name is Diane. She has been at this protest business for a long time. As an example how involved she is, she was invited to Loretta Scott King’s funeral. She has a condition similar to MS. About 90% of her muscle is deteriorating but that doesn’t stop her from going out there and getting arrested and telling the government what she thinks. I can’t really say what it is, but there is just something about her that makes her one of the most pleasant people I’ve ever met.
Back to the re-packing… Just as we got the plan together and began pulling all of the stuff off to re-pack, the sky bursts open dumping flood-worthy amounts of water on us. Despite that we continued to pack. Some people were complaining, but those were the people who complained about most everything. I guess they don’t understand that this trip isn’t a vacation. Finally we began making our way to Tampico, Mexico. We arrived close to midnight and unloaded all of the aid onto containers that would be put onto barges. That night we were to stay at a hotel that would have showers, breakfast, and a pool. The last group of us got the hotel at about 4 in the morning. We had to leave at 6 in order to catch our plane at 7:30 that morning. Most of us didn’t sleep. We swam, ate, and showered then got on the buses to the airport.

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1. Before the revolution most of the bigger industries of Cuba were owned by rich American individuals and corporations. Agriculture being the best example. On these massive farms Cubans were employed for very poor wages and kept in plantation style accommodations while the landowners realized huge profits. Most of these plantations were run by Cubans who were paid a lot by the Americans to keep the workers under control. When Castro assumed power he set out to redistribute the property. He gave much of the property to the workers who had been exploited for so many years. It was theirs to own and maintain for generations to come. The Cubans who had once enslaved their own people sought exile in the US. Here they tried to get their property back. The new Cuban government said that they would give them their property but only a portion that they could farm on their own. They weren’t about to let the people be subject to those conditions again and they were also concerned that too much useable land my go un-farmed. To this day those once rich anti-revolutionary Cubans wage a war to end the Castro government.

2. I’ve written a letter to IFCO saying that I think the trip needs to be more aggressive, not in terms of violence but in our active resistance, if we’re going to make any progress. I may post the letter some time.

Planes, Trains, and Automobiles

So, here I am in Denver, CO. Why is it, that in the middle of the country the people who run the hostel I'm staying at are creepy-ass Slavic folks? If I don't survive the night...Mike, you can have my useful things, and Jon, you can have my worthless things.

The past month seems like a blur. It began on July 4th when I left on a trip with 7 high school guys on a skate trip/camp to Oregon. I must add that this was a great 10 days. We drove home on July 13th arriving about midnight then I did my laundry and caught a plane to Texas where I didn't get more than about 2 hours of consecutive sleep for the next 7 days. I logged it somewhere, but off the top of my head, I think the hours of sleep I got from July 13th - 19th was in the low 20s.

I had a brief stay in Texas as posted before, and am now going to cry myself to sleep in creepy-as-fuck Denver hostel after a 20 hour ride on a more-than-usually uncomfortable bus.

But, on the train ride home I'll be typing up my thoughts on Cuba. No guarantee as to when that will be posted, but hopefully it wont suck. I learned a lot when I was there about both Cuba, the US, and the world in general. A few beliefs that I've carried with me over the years became more solidified and some less. It should be fun. Most importantly, I can't wait to sleep in my own warm comfortable bed.

A report from the Fair Mother City

So, here I am. A place I never really thought I'd be. The one and only Abilene, TX! Compared to the other parts of Texas I've seen over the last few weeks, this place is...well, fair. I'm hanging out with Agent B and friends enjoying the sights and winding down from my most recent adventure.

We crossed back into Texas from Cuba (by way of Mexico) on July 28th without incident unfortunately. As some of you may have read on Mike's blog we had the computers that we had with us seized when we crossed into Mexico. The US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) had to make sure that they weren't duel use computers - meaning that they needed to determine whether or not they could possibly be used to assist the Cuban military in a violent assault on the peaceful people of the wonderful US of A. Hopefully you caught the sarcasm. DHS had been patrolling our 'basecamp' in McAllen for a number of days before we crossed into Mexico, so they had to get something out of all the work they put in, making sure that our support to a 'terrorist state' didn't go unpunished.

Now, more than ever I am absolutely sick of the American Empire. Hopefully I'll be able to get some quality writing time in on the train ride home over the next few days, so I can share with you all my experience and the experience of the Cuban people.

For now, from the Fair Mother City I wish you all well. (although I'm currently in the company of one third of my viewers so, mike and james, that's for you) BUH BYE!!

Viva Solidarity!

So, I'm in McAllen, TX right now preparing to go to Cuba with Pastors for Peace. I've been here for two full days now. Meeting all the people and observing how a group this large interacts has been an adventure in itself so far. It seems that most of these liberal folks that I'm with are pretty laid back. They don't want to push anything on anyone else so most comments are passed off as merely suggestions. The most closed minded of the folks seem to be the younger ones. It's pretty damn funny to watch.

Anyways my whole point in writing is to say that we're going to leave here early Tuesday morning to cross into Mexico. This is the part where the caravan has been stopped in the past - computers seized, buses held, breast pumps confiscated, etc. Part of our group from Canada had a bunch of stuff held at customs when they were crossing into the US a week and a half ago. Events like that and the events of the past suggest that there is always the possibility of being hassled at the border. If in fact we do get hassled and it lasts long enough for the press to get wind of it, it would be great if you all (all four of you who read my blog) would be watching for it on various newsfeeds, and give your congressional representatives a call and say, "listen up fucker! I've got a friend down there and you better call someone and let that aid get to Cuba." I'll let you all know how it goes in a week or so.

a mind dump before I leave

As far as I know this will be the last post I will have for quite some time. Tomorrow morning I accompany a group of seven high schools tudents on a four day skate trip in Oregon followed by a week-long Young Life camp before I head off to Cuba for a few weeks. There’s something about the pressure of making sure I have everything ready for so many people to have a great week that I thoroughly enjoy. I almost thrive on moments like this. As my night was winding down I was driving along with this weird feeling. I didn’t know what it was. I wasn’t anxious, sad, happy, angry, desperate, or any of those common emotions one might expect when taking on such and endeavor. I called up a friend to let him know about a speaking position he might want to fill. He was happy that I thought of him, then asked if he could pray for me. I pulled over to the side of the road and over the phone he prayed for the kids and me and all that fun stuff. The weirdest thing happened…this odd moist sensation began to develop around my eyes. Suddenly there was this strange trickle of salty water hitting my lips. I finally was able to put my finger on what this indescribable emotion that was pestering me was…JOY. I’ll leave the explanation for it alone.

What this led me to was thinking about what a great responsibility I have ahead of me. I have to be the single adult in charge of these kids for four days until I get to the camp…not a big deal. Once I’m at camp I get a little relief but still the task of making sure the kids come away from the camp week, having experienced God (whether they know it or not), is now on my mind. At Young Life camps, they follow the traditional approach to teaching the gospel - Look at Jesus, this super cool guy…ooh isn’t he awesome, well lets find out what makes him even cooler…first the bad news, you’re going to hell for being a sinner…now that that’s over with, feel bad that it’s you that made him die on the cross…ok, now that you are emotionally broken, he rose from the dead in order that you may have life...don’t know what the hell that means but just trust us, you’re life is gonna be great if you follow our ways.

THIS DRIVES ME UP A FUCKIN WALL!!!

I started thinking how I can balance being contrary to the way they are presenting the gospel but not so much that the kids don’t learn something from the camp or possibly come away as bitter as I am. What is it that I need to say and do in order to make sure the kids have learned about Jesus and God without showing complete animosity toward the way it’s being fed to them from up front? I tried to sleep then picked up a book that I’m reading…Emma Goldman’s autobiography. Right where I left off was where she began her first lecture tour. She began describing her first lecture…she got up and something grasped her…true emotion, true enthusiasm for the subject on which she was speaking. In her following few lectures she wasn’t able to harness that and wasn’t satisfied with not having spoken from her heart. What got her first audience so excited was, as she puts it, ‘strange and magic words that welled up from within me, from some unfamiliar depth.’

I want that. Whether they accept it or not, my job is to let these kids know about a god that they might want to be with, not some god that they feel sorry for. The things that I’m passionate about, involving God, are complex in practice but simple in theory. Most notably, community. Like Mike talked about. A community in which you have to face things/people that you may not like but somehow you enjoy every bit of it. A community where everyone is welcome – even sinners (not something Christians are very good at promoting). The God I believe in loves people. He accepts people. He is patient with people. He also makes it possible for people to know they’ve screwed up (not to be confused with wrath or punishment). People don’t have to know him in order for him to know them. My god probably gets pissed off from time to time. He might even wish bad things on us so that we might learn. But above all that, he loves them and tolerates them.

That’s what I’m enthusiastic about. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again…I often think that I worship a different god than most Christians. It’s going to take a lot for me to not be a cynical bastard (outwardly) with a lot of things that I encounter at this camp but I hope that if I can maintain the composure to stay focused on what I’m passionate about, I, and these kids, will have a great week. That’s it. Nothing too profound…mainly just a mind dump.

A Short History of Progress (book review)

This is the first book that I've read all the way through in only a matter of days, in quite a while now. Ronald Wright, a Canadian novelist, essayist, and historian introduces his book with an explanation of a painting by Paul Gauguin, on which the words, 'Where do we come from? What are we? Where are we gong?' are painted. This is is the criteria for questioning that Wright follows in his assessment of failed civilizations over the span of human civilization. As he pulls from a large selection of anecdotal evidence, Wright paints a picture of the mistakes that civilizations have made over the last few millenia, from over farming to over production. One case he writes about is that of Easter Island, an island rich with forest that sustained a civilization for a good period of time. In the end, the people of the island became so greedy in their search for power and significance that they litterally cut down the last tree that they could have used in order make a canoe to get off the place because they were blinded by progress. Though there are funny stories like this strewn throughout the book, the overall tone is much more dim.

By the end of the book the feeling you get is that this is written as less of an informative history and more of a plea for change. He points out dangers such as the militarization of space, underproducing food for and overpopulated world, and echoes warnings of fellow writers (Huxley, Orwell, Coetzee, and Hoban) on globalization and complacency. In the final pages, Wright expresses his belief that the powers that be are simply ignoring what we are doing to the earth and the demise we are driving ourselves toward, on the hope that God will come fix at night what we've destroyed by day and goes on to say "none of this should surprise us after reading the flight recorders in the wreckage of crashed civilizations; our present behaviour is tyical of failed societies at the zenith of their greed and arrogance." He wraps the book up by showing that the fallen civilizations of the ancient world were at the time a mere speckle of what the earth had to offer as far as people and nature goes; but this time, with growing interdependance and the massive amount of people at the mercy of few, civilization faces a much more brutal fate, with possibly no hope for recovery - that 'now is our last chance to get the future right.'

It's a quick read. If you have time and read fairly quick, it can easily be an evening read...132 pages.

Oprah's Vajayjay

Yes, that's how you spell vajayjay. And here's what's going on with Oprah Winfrey's.

Bringing my two worlds together

When the President Talks to God

When the President talks to God
Are the conversations brief or long
Does he ask to rape our women’s rights
And send poor farm kids off to die
Does God suggest an oil hike
When the President talks to God

When the President talks to God
Are the consonants all hard or soft.
Is he resolute all down the line
Is every issue black or white
Does what God say ever change his mind
When the President talks to God

When the President talks to God
Does he fake that drawl or merely nod
Agree which convicts should be killed
Where prisons should be built and filled
Which voter fraud must be concealed

When the President talks to Godv
I wonder which one plays the better cop
We should find some jobs, the ghetto’s broke
‘No, they’re lazy George, I say we don’t
Just give ‘em more liquor stores and dirty coke’
That’s what God recommends

When the President talks to God
Do they drink Near Beer and go play golf
While they pick which countries to invade
Which Muslim souls still can be saved
I guess God just calls a spade a spade
When the President talks to God

When the President talks to God
Does he ever think that maybe he’s not
That, that voice is just inside his head
When he kneels next to the presidential bed
Does he ever smell his own bullshit
When the President talks to God

My coming trip...

In my travels this summer I will be heading to Cuba among many other places. In Cuba I am hoping to take a lot of pictures as well as talk to the locals to get to know the culture better. I'm going to do a little write-up when I'm done and hope to provide a well rounded look into the political and cultural aspects of Cuba. There are alot of good things that many people don't know about Cuba that I'd like to bring to light. In hanging out with latin american activist folks I've observed that most of these people spend most of their time defending Castro as well as other leftist leaders in south and central america. I would agree that these leaders aren't as bad as most American people think but there are also things that these activist folks ignore. For example, why, if as they say, Cuba is such a great place and Castro isn't that bad, do people risk their lives getting to America. Also, I heard a story from some people who hired a kid to drive them around for a day when they were in Cuba and he was a little scared that he might get arrested if anyone knew that they hired him...because he's not an official taxi driver.

My question to you folks is this...if you were to interview people in Cuba, what would you want to find out more about? What questions would you ask people or what subjects would you discuss? I know a few things I'd like to learn but what about you. I need a little help here to be more creative in my interview(ings). Please point other people in the direction of this blog so that I can get as much feedback on the subject as possible before I head off. For now I'm going to Montana! Thanks!!

What's the matter with the kids today?

Today I went to the college that I'll be attending for the next few years (San Jose State University) to take care of some business. I went into the Political Science department head's office to figure out what it is that I need to do to be successful in the program - maybe to get some advice on special things to do in order to make the most of the program. He was a pompous asshole. That was the first thing that made my excitement about going to school there dwindle.

Then I went to register for a writing test that I have to take in order to enroll in any of the upper division courses. The girl (my age) who was running the little office there kept using the word "HELLA". This is a word I don't like. I associate it with stuck up valley type people...you know, yuppies. It's something rich kids say. They say it before everything. For example, "Me and Marcy went to the mall today and had a HELLA fun time. We ate HELLA food at Baja Fresh and it was HELLA good dawg. We're gonna HELLA party HELLA hard this weekend at Jimmy's HELLA big house. It's gonna be HELLA tite!" Walking through the campus I heard that word in conversations. IT WAS HELLA STUPID!!

Then, I'm walking along and I see a guy walking toward me. He looked my age, seemed like a normal dude just from looking at him. As he got right next to me, he took one big step and off he went on his fucking Heelies...you know, those shoes with the wheel in the heel that send thousands of kids to the hospitals each month. Come on dude you in your twenties. That might be okay for a 6 year old but not for a college student!

A few months ago I was having a conversation with someone who graduated from that college. He encouraged me to get involved with student groups within my area of focus so I can get to know people and feel like I'm part of the community, that it may pay off some day when I need a job or some sort of connection. Judging from what I saw at the place today I'm pretty damn certain that getting to know people at that school wont do much good for me. There's a good chance that it might even lessen my chances of achieving some level of greatness. I'm still excited to be finally going to a 4 year university but I'm not looking forward to having to be around those people. Yes, because I think I am better than them!

A Few Thoughts

1) I've been following this story for the past few weeks about a UN inspector who is inspecting holding facilities in the US for illegal immigrants. When I first read the story, my thought was, ‘it’s about time the US gets investigated for something.’ Now most of the investigations have taken place. A few however were cancelled at the last minute and no reason was given. The only one that was given a reason was a cancellation in TX in which the facility spokesman basically said that they were in the middle of a law suit with the ACLU and didn’t want any incrimination brought about that could aide the ACLU. The whole part about us denying a UN inspector and not wanting to incriminate ourselves reminds me of the 01/02 time-frame when Iraq kept denying UN weapons inspectors. Just one more example of how hypocritical our government is.

2) I once heard an explanation terrorists are basically created the same way gang members are -- poor people (young men) looking for dignity but get into situations they can’t get out of. I’ve always like this, but put some more thought into it today. Terrorism has 3 attributes according to international law: a) the threat or act of violence creating a climate of fear, b) targets civilians, and c) is based upon political, social, economic, or religious reasons. (With this definition, basically everyone who commits a crime is a terrorist, but our national and state laws also define certain crimes, so people aren’t tried as terrorists for everything…that’s not my point though.)

The obvious solution to the causes of terrorism as described above is to alleviate the conditions of poverty and such things that cause this behavior. My recent criticism of this theory is as follows… by targeting poverty as the cause of terrorism we might ignore many other issues. Governments for example…our government has had a history of terrorist activities based on the 3 criteria above. (Sure, we don’t ‘target’ civilians we call it collateral damage.) Terrorist groups like al-Qaeda are made up of mostly middle-class educated people. At least one of the guys that hi-jacked the planes for the 9-11 thing had been in school in Germany as an example… not poor and ignorant like we want to assume.

So, as far as I can wrap my brain around it, the danger of focusing on the cause of terrorism being poverty, we might ignore our role in the whole situation and also ignore holding our government accountable for it’s actions. We are trying to ‘Americanize’ the entire world and people hate us for it. While doing this we are also taking part in terrorist type activities, holding ourselves to different standards, and further pissing people off. There was an even stronger point I had come up with but I seem to have forgotten it now. That sucks…it was a good one. Of course we should take some responsibility in alleviating world poverty, but not in the name of fighting terrorism. Our reason should just be, ‘because we can’

3) I’ve been reading the Old Testament because I never have and I don’t know many of the stories from it in depth. I want to examine a few things while reading it. When and why does God call for war? What things might be metaphor and not realistic? With that – why would it be important for certain things to not be seen as history but as symbolism? What notions do I have of God that might be wrong or at least not completely biblical or correct?

What I’ve found so far: Not only is Got a jealous god, but he is pretty damn forgetful too. A few times so far God is about to put his wrath on some people and someone says, “wait, what about your promises to us?” and God says, “Oh shit! You’re right, I almost screwed that up. Thanks man, here’s a treat.”

There’s more that I’ve learned, but that’s the most fun right now.

Mother's day

I saw this sign on the way down the highway today. Kinda thought it was funny...ironic I suppose.

Mother's Day
I haven't sent any flower or cards to my mom for Mother's Day over the past few years. A couple of times I've gone over to her town and taken her out to dinner but I try not to go there too often. This year she's married and was going to be in an even shittier town celebrating mother's day with her new husband and some of his family so I stayed in Santa Cruz. I have this thing where I don't like to buy stuff for holidays. I hold firm in my belief that most holidays are simply there for companies to sell shit. They may not have always had that purpose but since holidays have turned into marketing devices I refuse to participate. I could have made a card and sent it to her, but even then I would be buying supplies in support of the holiday. I've gotten some flack because I choose not to do this. The main arguement is that it's not about me it's about her. I have to admit that it is a little selfish that I might be making her kind of sad in an attempt to hold to my own values but hopefully she will understand.

Time for a rant!

In my frustration with the media coverage of the guy that crashed his truck in Oakland, CA I wrote a letter to the editor of our local paper that got published this past Sunday*. I was actually kind of amazed that they published it because I accused them of libel.

This whole thing has made me even more frustrated with the world we live in. Seriously, I hate our world. Everybody falls into one of three categories: 1) Assholes who only look out for their own interests (CEO's, politicians, and religious leaders) 2) Giant pussies who are afraid to stand up for what is right and rely on other people to make decisions for them, or 3) people who do the best make their point only to be dissappointed at the end of the day knowing that their world is just one day closer to being a complete shit hole. Why can't option 3, the people that really care about the world, have as much media coverage as category 1? I'm no genius, but I'd bet that the number of people in the world who are willing to put aside religious issues and other such hang-ups in order to create a more peaceful and safe world (2 & 3), greatly out-number the folks who want power at any cost(1). But no-one hears us.

The media has special protection under the consitution because of the importance put on personal freedom. The media is protected in order for it to be able to provide information that you wouldn't normally get from your government...because the framers of the constitution understood, as much as all of us do, that governments lie...not just our government, but ALL governments. I don't know where I was first introduced to the following idea, but somewhere along the way someone said that 'the government and media can't tell you what to think, but they can tell you what to think about'.

When AP and all the papers across the country publish one man's criminal record, when it has nothing to do with any crime committed or foul play of any kind, what is it that they are not telling us. What drives them to publish sensational bullshit instead of real news? My answer: the media can't get any answers from the government so they've given up. Just like in the Rawanda deal in the 90's, the U.S. and the entire world community is being cautious about calling the problem in Darfur genocide. If they were to do that, then according to U.N. agreements, they'd have to intervene. They have not been able to come up with anything, so the press leaves it alone. It's not sexy enough to print.

I have a bit of a theory. It's not original, just my own take on it. The world is getting dumber (or is it 'more dumber'?...yes I'm funny). Look at the US. Because of TV and other forms of motion media, people don't need to read. We see this problem in our own schools. News papers and other print periodicals can provide a vast array of mainstream and underground knowledge that you can't get anywhere else. But with the growth in illiteracy, or at least proficient literacy, less people are reading these, they're going out of print, and we must rely on the electronic media. What happens is that whatever is shown on TV is all people know about, and the only news they get. Such as the lack of coverage on the battle of naming what is going on in Darfur. In the mid 20th century, Nepal was faced with a massive change in government. There were communists, socialists, royalists, and the list goes on of different parties who were trying to control the county. What it boiled down to was who had access to radio and TV to get their views across because the vast majority of the population was illiterate. Same thing as in Rawanda; the Hutu extremists made use of radio broadcasts to get the people up in arms to slaughter the Tutsi.

What I think this leads to is simple. Since electronic media is funded mainly by advertising, the public is more and more bombarded with ads. These ads tell little boys and girls what they can and can't be. They tell kids that they need to watch "the OC" because that's where they'll learn how to be cool. All of this is done for the sake of money. The marketing firms and corporations are just out to make another buck...and they're doing it at the expense of us, and more importantly our kids. Higher teen pregnancy rates, highers death rates, school shootings, drug use...on and on and on.

What can we do? NOT A DAMN THING!! But it feels good to try.




*text of my letter:
I feel a deep sympathy for this Mosqueda guy who crashed his truck in Oakland. He was well past the TSA standards for driving hazmat and posed no threat. The whole point of prison and recovery is re-integration into mainstream society so people can show reform and become productive citizens — just like Mosqueda has done with his 10 years of sobriety and having a job. But as the way of the media, there must be a scandal. If anyone should be scolded and their reputation tainted, it should be AP for reporting this libel and the Sentinel as well as every other paper for printing it. The reports could have been excitement that, amazingly, nobody got hurt. But that wouldn't accomplish their goal of keeping the fear level at "orange!"

I've had my one-in-a-milliion situation in ministry

So, I gave a talk tonight. I'm never nervous about speaking in front of middle school kids because I do it often. Tonight however I was a little nervous. I gave my talk tonight on what this whole God/Jesus thing means to me. I started off by telling the kids that the've been dealt a crappy hand in life. That the world sucks. And that we went through the Jesus story to find a solution to our shitty world. I proceeded to tell them that at one point I stopped believing in God and eventually came back to faith because I re-discovered what God was.

Anyways...here's the fun part. After the talk, I was milling around and a kid grabbed me and struck up a converstation about my talk and how it interested him. How he is trying to figure out this whole God thing and he's not sure what to think, but what I said was intrigueing(spelling?). Then his friends came around and he stopped talking.

Every youth worker hopes at some point that a kid will engage them in conversation about God or whatever. It makes us feel like we're doing our job...even for me. I don't ever expect to "lead a kid to Christ" in the traditional sense, but I do enjoy a nice real conversation and l like to hear kids question things. All I want to do, is be there to help them think through things. This is probably the only time this will ever happen in the rest of my ministry career...and that's ok. James was the youth pastor at a church I went to in early high school. I wonder if I was that kid for him at all -- the one that he never thought he'd "reach" -- although i didn't really hang around him much. But I can imagine that if the NOW me was working with the THEN me, the NOW me would be pretty damn frustrated.

Anyways, tonight I as encouraged. That's nice for a change. I get verbal encouragement from people all the time, but this was a different type of encouragement.

My name is Thomas...or is it Judas?

I've been wondering lately what my purpose in working with kids is. What does God have in store for me? It's funny that Mike posted his recent 'Marginalia' post about the same time that I'm wondering many of the same things as him. It could have something to do with the fact that we live in the same place, but I'm not going to entertain that idea...it would be too easy. Although it could be something in the water.

Anyways, at the youth group I work with, we just finished the story of Jesus right around Easter. Since then I've been having the leaders tell the kids -- in the weekly talk -- about what this whole God/Jesus thing means to them. They've been telling these warm fuzzy stories about feeling accepted by God and being able to turn to God when they couldn't turn to anyone else..blah blah blah. Can I vomit now? The reason I say that is because I've never felt that crap. My entire history of faith has for the most part been brief moments of clarity surrounded by an assload of doubt.

I suppose my job, my purpose, is to share Jesus with these kids. Two problems: 1) I don't even feel like I have a grasp on that stuff most of the time. What is it that they need to hear about Jesus? My pastor and I were having a discussion the other day, and he elaborated on it in his sermon this past Sunday. He made the comment that in the church we have a tendency to lay out the story of Jesus as if he is saving us from God. That God is punishing us for being so bad and Jesus came to repair that relationship so we don't die. This is the part of 'sharing Jesus' that really turns me off to it.

At these camps we go to, on the night the speaker is going to talk about sin, he always encourages us leaders to let the kids wrestle with the idea that they sin and can't have a relationship with God. As if they've driven him far away. Do the kids not already have enough to worry about and to be scared about? Their parents are splitting, they get beat up at school everyday, and the list goes on... How then do I share about Jesus? This leads to problem 2): I'm not good at having conversations about spirituallity...especially with kids. I think the main reason is that I want to be absolutely sure that I'm not trying to convince these kids of anything. This whole Christianity thing is a HUGE deal. It's something that i want them to CHOOSE, not be talked into. I want them to come to this choice (if they do) completely on their own...so it completely belongs to them. So they know exactly why they are making any decision in regards to Jesus.

Maybe that's my place. Maybe it's perfectly fine for me to be the doubter guy that lets them choose this stuff on their own. The only way that I feel like I can share the whole Jesus thing with them is through actions. Man that sounds cheesy! I consider myself a pacifist and try to take that to the extreme. Not only do I not physically want to impose myself anywhere, but ideologically I try to shy away from imposing my views. In any public setting, I will only engage in spiritual conversations if it is brought up by someone else or 100% appropriate (such as camp or church). It's about letting people come to their own conclusions on their own terms. I'm pretty sure that alot of other leaders and parents and other folks who work with kids, see the way I interact with the kids, and wonder if I'm actually doing my job. Apparently they think my job is to convert these kids: to make sure that they are perfect little Christians.

Unfortunately, I don't have any conclusion to this.

I might have a fun idea!

I'm watching the Senate on C-Span right now. They are discussion medical insurance companies, drug makers, and how their relationships and competition makes drug prices cheaper for the American people. The arguement is whether or not to allow medicare to negotiate prices directly with drug companies or whether it's best to let private insurance companies negotiate their prices. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) says that "competition works" so if we let medicare negotiate prices we will undermine the market by interfering with the natural competition of the medical market. John Kerry (D-Mass) says that by not allowing medicare to negotiate their own prices the tax payers are paying higher prices for drugs through a federal program. I have an opinion on the matter but it doesn't matter.

What I see in this, is a deeper arguement of whether or not America should create a universal medical insurance system or the private companies should continue to have the upper hand. Congress seems to be passing all sorts of legislation regarding healthcare that is beating around the bush on the issue of universal healthcare. So, what do the American peole think? I don't know what polls say. But I do know that behind any issue like this there is a massive amount of money going into lobbying our Congressfolks. Does a poll on this matter even have any leverage here? Probably not...I can't make a poll and get an accurate count of what people think, but someone with money can. And there lies the issue that brings me to my point. Our relationship with Congress is based on money. Whoever has the most money has the biggest voice (in most cases).

All of this leads me to this thought - How would it work if there were national issues attached to the presidential elections every four years that gave the people a voice. If a national election could be held, not to pass legislation, but to let Congress and the President know how we stand on issues. For example, the congress passed a non-binding resolution that told the President their stance on the war in Iraq. There would obviously have to be limits on something like this. Maybe that would look like a certain amount of issues (i.e. gay marriage, universal health care, limits on abortion). They would be the most pressing issue surrounding the presidential election. The problem would be figuring out who got to choose what went on this list. Would it be Congress? Would it be a committee set up? Would it be the cabinet with approval from the current President?

Sure, this comes out of my distrust of Congress. I think that too many representatives don't actually pay attention to what their constituency wants and only play attention to who donates the most money to them. I don't have any answers, but if anyone out there wants to put in their own two cents on the idea i've proposed, it would be appreciated.

I Finally Won Something!

I had one of the most interesting experiences I’ve ever had tonight. About two months ago a professor of mine brought in some flyers for an essay contest to win a scholarship of $1000, toward a trip costing $1500, in which a group of people from across the nation bring medical, educational, and other types of humanitarian aide to the people of Cuba. The point of the trip is to protest the blockade that the U.S. has imposed against the Cuban people since the early 60’s. It’s required by federal law that anyone bringing aide to Cuba must acquire the proper permits to do so, which limit the amount of aide being taken to Cuba. We don’t apply for the permit and refuse to pay any fines that are then given to us.

So, tonight we had a dinner to celebrate community heroes who are active in Latin American affairs both abroad and domestically. I showed up to help set up and was eventually told that I was the winner of the essay contest. After a number of speeches I was introduced by Congressman Sam Farr. He read a little bit of my essay to the crowd then invited me up to accept the check and make a short speech…I wasn’t expecting to have to do this so I had to come up with something as I began to talk. I simply said that with all of the inspiring speeches made tonight I wasn’t going be able to say anything insightful, so thanked the 150+ people there for their support in the community and for helping people like me and the others like me to have the chance to stand up against the government and say in a voice of solidarity that their embargo is immoral a just plain wrong.

The Congressman praised my writing ability (something I generally don’t feel is too incredible). He was briefly heckled by the crowd to hire me on his staff… that was fun.

I was then invited to a little after party by the organization that put the contest on. These are all people in their 60’s to 80’s. We sat around until midnight discussing the various policies of our government and the different ways that they have worked to change things and how we could change things in the future. These people are very well connected people. People who know House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on a first name basis. It was a new thing to sit around in a group of like-minded people discussing things that we all have a good amount of knowledge about. This one guy who has been involved with Cuba and Nicaragua and other Latin American countries was talking about his experiences in the 80’s in working with the Sandinistas and contra groups in Nicaragua trying to fight the coups the Reagan administration was supporting. Crazy stuff.

Listening to some of the stories these people told I became aware of how very few people can make a huge difference. Though I often have conversations with one of my roommates about direct action like protesting and marching do make a difference, I don’t always believe it. Tonight gave me a new way to look at this stuff. The fact that I was presented an award from a U.S. House representative (one of the richest I might add) made me realize that I was closer to the action, to making a difference, than I feel most of the time.

So, in July I’m going to Cuba! This is going to be a tiring trip but meaningful. I don’t get excited about much but I’m excited about this. The people who gave me the scholarship told me a few things they want me to look into while I’m there. They want me to break away from the group to investigate things like the hospital and prison systems so I can write about them and hopefully spread the message to the American people that our policy in Cuba is ridiculous. I don’t know if I’ll actually be able to do that, but this whole thing is going to be fun!

Forty Days of Worthless!

Tomorrow (Monday) marks the beginning of my anti-lent. If you want to know more about my anti-lent, scroll down to read my post about it. I decided to create a new blog for this endeavor because I want the students I work with to read the stories if they want, whereas this blog is for regular people. Also, I wanted to make it so my regular blog could just be completely separate to make things easier, since there will be so many posts. It's called 40 Days of Worthless. I've made a link to it underneath this blog title so you can easily access it. It's probably going to be a lot of fun, you should stop by and check it out.

Nastolgia

I was driving home from the youth group that I lead tonight. I'm not sure what I was thinking about but completely zoned out. I finally came out of my daze and had no idea where I was but I knew that if I kept driving i'd end up somewhere I knew. I felt like I had been in my car for hours but it was really only about a minute or two. As I looked around it reminded me of the time when I went on tour with a band I was in. There were three of us in a van driving all over the western half of the U.S. We would drive all night so we could hang out the next day with other bands and then play our shows, get a free meal, hang out for a little more, then get on the road again.

There were a ton of times when I had been driving on some back ass country highway through New Mexico or Colorado and had no idea where I was. Sometimes we'd stop into a small town store that was open late at night and get looks from creepy locals who just happened to be hanging out in the store at 3 or 4 in the morning. This intense nastolgic feeling came over me. There's something I really enjoy about having no plan or idea of what's going on. So...

this summer I'm planning on going to Cuba on a humanitarian/protest trip. This whole zoning out nastolgia thing gave me a great idea. I come back in to Texas on July 28th. If time and money allows, I think I'm going to try to make my way back to California very slowly. It would be fun to just catch buses from city to city and stay in hostels nights that I'm not sleeping on a bus. There's something comforting about not having a plan or being bound to any time schedule. Plus, it will be a good way to take some pictures of fun things and meet interesting people. Maybe I'm looking for some sort of spiritual experience but I don't think that's it. There's those commercials from my childhood that had some messed up guy getting chased by a cop then an announcer says "Nobody says, 'I want to be a junky when I grow up'." I don't want to be a junky but I do wish I could be homeless and drunk most of the time. That would be way better than having a job and having to care about people. So minus the drunk part, i'm gonna try to live that as close as I can for about a week this summer...hopefully.

Done and done.

My Anti-Lent

I think lent ends in a week. I'm not sure if l(L)ent is supposed to be capitalised or not, so I'm gonna go lower case just for consistancy's sake.

Once again I didn't give up anything for lent this year. Well I did give something up, but not specifically for lent. Anyways, I missed the beginning of lent and I didn't want to start late for some reason. But I was thinking about how an ex-girlfriend's dad did lent. He would give up hard liquor and beer. He liked wine, but was a wine snob so drinking enough wine to get drunk would cost him a lot of money...he was also (probably) an alchoholic. So he decided that he could drink brandy since it was made from grapes, just like wine, and would be in the clear. This is really the first I had ever heard of lent.

In my thinking about lent it occurred to me that most people I know who practice lent, don't spend the time that they would have been doing the particular thing they gave up, with God... which I think (though I'm no expert) is one of the points for modern lent observers. So I decided that I'm going to practice an anti-lent of sorts. That 'anti' isn't to be interpreted that I don't like or support lent. It's just to say that instead of not doing something I'm going to do something. After all, my god is a god of action and he probably wants me to follow suit. Although I will admit that this little exercise that I will embark on doesn't really get me closer to God in any way. Unless of course one of my gifts is writing and I am honing the skill for the betterment of his kingdom, but i doubt that's the case.

So...the Monday following Easter will be the beginning of my anti-lent. I will publish on my blog one short story per day. I tried to think of something meaningful to do on those 40 days, but I really couldn't come up with anything that wasn't super cheesy, so this is what you get. When the time rolls around I'll post the web address for the new blog that is dedicated to my stories.

Place your votes!!

The 2008 elections are on there way and the candidates are beginning to campaign. When the candidates speak, it's important that they know what to and what not to do with their hands. Some candidates point with their index finger. Bill Clinton for example made the letter A in sign language then turned so the thumb was on top and would wave his hand on the left side, then the right side and settled in the center with the thumb point. Hitler had his entire right arm extended. That one's pretty much off limits to American candidates...same with the mustache.

So, here's the contest: Either pick a hand guesture that will be most popular regardless of candidate or if you're feeling really ambitious you can pick what candidate is prone to do which guesture.

Mine...Barak Obama will have the thumb and index signal. When he pounds on his podium he'll do so with his pointer and thumb extended over a fist. He wont point it directly at anything. It will often look like he's measuring something or in honor of Seinfeld, squishing someone's head.

Tickets to the gun show anyone?

I know this is a little morbid that I would get a kick out of it, but rarely do I get episodes like the following.

I pulled up to the house where I lead a middle school youth group (WyldLife) tonight. I was fine tuning the talk I was to give and looked up for a moment of thought. Right then, a car that had just passed by jammed his brakes. As the tires half rolled and half skid, I saw a creature come out from under the right front tire. I know... it's sad.

So, the guy sits in his car for a second. Puts the car in reverse, backs up to where he had hit his brakes as if he could rewind time. He sits a little longer. Then he finally gets out of his car. He looks around to see if anyone saw what happened. He was probably hoping he could just get in his car and drive away. Then he spots me. He looks at me. I just shrug. By this time, the cat had run from under the car with an interesting sideways limp, like it just had it's ass skid accross by a car. The guys starts to go to where the cat is, then decides it's not worth his time. He starts to walk to the house on the other side of the street, then stops and turns back to his car. Then the cat ran across the road again toward the house he had started to walk to. Then he looked at me. I shrug. He stands there for a few seconds trying to figure out what to do. He looks at me. I shrug. Then he gets in his car and leaves.

During the whole thing, I just had a fun feeling that this whole thing was like a show for my enjoyment only. I know there's nothing fun about a cat getting run over...as my mom puts it, "Oh no, somebody's baby!"

Thanks God, thanks for that little bit of morbid joy.

When the wind blows, it spooks the horses!

The subject line is the comment I made to my roommate yesterday. I went on to explain that 'the horses' are me. For some reason, when the wind blows I get all wierded out, don't want to leave the house, and I get anxious. And it's not because there are any trees that might fall on my house. I've been this way for as long as I can remember. Just thought I'd let you all know that fun little Rob fact (all 1 of you who read my blog). Thanks for your time, and good night!

F#@k the kids!

The title here is just to get your attention. Post number two in a single day...wow, this is a record for me.

It's really exciting to see what's going on with kids today. On March 18th the NY Times reported about a student whose case has made it to the Supreme Court. The student was forced by a school administrator to take down a sign that that read BONG HITS FOR JESUS . The students case is an example of a violation of free speech. Another case is that of a California girl who, with the help of a SF law firm and the California ACLU, is filing a case against her school district because she has been held to dress code violations such as wearing knee high socks of Whinnie the Pooh and once being sent home for wearing a drug prevention shirt! My guess it was a DARE shirt and since it has the color red on it, was considered gang paraphernalia. Another example is of Zach Hunter who, as far as I know, was somewhat the inspiration behind the making of the recent documentary "Amazing Grace".

ADULTS!! Take notice of how effective kids can be...don't be lazy! Good job kids, good job!

Congress v. the People

In yesterday's post, I put link to make it easier for anyone who stumbles onto my blog to write a quick letter to their representatives in Congress voicing their opinion. Sometimes it feels like that's about all I can do, so it's a little comforting to write a little email and send it on its way. Rousseau write a lot about 'collective consciousness' (as do many western philosphers) an idea we base our representative democracy on...republic. We elect leaders who in theory vote the conscience of their constituency. I'm not sure if congresspeople have ever really voted based on what their district wants, but they sure don't seem to now. The more I pay attention to Congress i realize that our elected officials take the role of protectors...that meaning, they know what the people think they want, but it's up to the representative to choose what is actually best. Why? Because they are smarter or better educated? I don't know if it really matters. What matters is that our representatives need to represent the consciousness of the people.

Reading an article in the NY Times today, this becomes clear that there's a good chance we may not have full representation of our beliefs from our Congressmen. The article by Jeff Zeleny is about the struggle between Democrats and Republicans on the issue of creating a deadline for funding, essentially for withdrawl, of our troops in Iraq. In the article it discusses two representatives specifically who have changed their vote from supporting withdrawl to now not supporting it. Dan Boren (D-OK) and Carol Shea-Porter (D-NH). Both originally followed their party line but after trips to Iraq to witness, first hand, the absolute mess it is, they changed their mind. So maybe they see something that we don't. Maybe they had some experience that softened them and that sympathy caused them to decide that we need to stay and help these poor people. Does that mean that we're wrong here in the states? Is it wrong that we sit in our comfortable living rooms and have the ability to detach ourselves from the reality of what's going on in Iraq? And if so, is our being wrong an excuse for the representatives of our will to vote different than what we feel?

I'm going to say no, it's not fine for them to choose their own vote just because they've seen something first hand that we haven't had the chance to. Some of us are morally opposed to war and violence under any circumstances...is our voice then obsolete? Some people may not understand the whole concept of how pulling our troops out of Iraq may effect the stability there. Does their opinion not count? I don't know what official polls say about the American public's stance on Iraq, but as Dennis Kucinich is quoted in today's article, "we used the war to help us [Democrats] win control of Congress." This tells me that the American people want our troops home and want to stop spending money on something that we think is futile.

Things are already in utter chaos. There is already immense instability in Iraq. There are already signs of genocidal tendencies on the part of religious sects. Things are falling apart regardless of our presence there. If we are to continue in Iraq, we would need political support from the majority of countries in the region and worldwide. Until we pull our troops out and let things fall apart, we wont be able to achieve the political solution that needs to take place for stability in Iraq because everyone is pissed off at us. If that's what the public thinks, then that's how our Congress needs to vote. It's our consciousness, not there's. And, if they do think that our minds need changing, then come to our towns and our districts and present your case, instead of to an empty chamber on C-Span.

DAMN YOU BLOGGER!!

I spent the last half hour typing out a new post in which I discussed the impersonal replies from my Congressional representatives to letters I had written to them at the beginning of last month. Somehow in the process of posting it, an error occurred and my post was gone forever. Here was my concluding point in fewer words... go to the text of Senate Joint Resolution 3 of the 110th Congress read it over. If you agree that it should be revised for more immediate action and also reworded to specify the use of remaining troops in Iraq after the withdrawl mandated by Congress, write a letter to your Senators and let them know your opinion. You'll probably just be as frustrated as I was when it took one of them 38 days to get back to me but it might make you feel a little better.

Sometimes I really hate church!!!

Today at my church, we had a guest speaker. He was a man from the higher up part of Covenant denomination who has been involved with helping our congregation coordinate a property renovation project. The campaign is called Generation to Generation (G2G) and is going to update the facilities we currently have as well as build new ones and improve our property overall. It has been stressed throughout the whole process of introducing the project to the congregation that the project itself is meant to expand our ministry and that part of the funds that we raise for the project will go towards a church plant. A church plant in the Watsonville area sounds like a really great idea as does the concept of being responsible with what the church has been given, along the lines of property and buildings.

First of all, I have to admit that when a sermon (or speech in this case) on giving to the church happens, I turn cynical and shut down. I say this so no one will think I'm trying to hide any bias I have. I think it comes mainly from the fact that I don't support the church as an official institution. I like supporting my community of believers but once the concept of that as an institution arises I am immediately resentful.

Our Guest Speaker
He dives right in to the fact that he's going to be talking about giving. Good...at least he's not trying to hide it. His point was that God calls us to give. He was using an example of the lady who dropped in two coins after all the rich people had dropped a lot of money into the offering plate. He presented the notion of equal sacrifice, not to be confused with equal giving. I like that...it's fair. I believe he is right here. God calls us to sacrifice ourselves and some have more, so they should give of themselves what is due to God's Kingdom.

In much detail he explained exactly how God is putting it on our hearts to give. He had a lot of backing from scripture, but I couldn't help but think that anyone who is asking for money in a church would pull those scriptures out of context to support their claim. Then he says, "Some of you need to grow in the grace of giving" in reference to people who may not want to give to this project. If I'm not mistaken he even pointed his finger. He then proceeded to say something along the lines of 'after you write that $30 check, you have communicated with God...'. What I heard here and other times in his speech was that giving money is the best way to communicate with God. There were a number of times that I couldn't help but cringe or even laugh at some of the things he said.

I was waiting for him to bring Satan, the Devil, the dark force of sin into the lecture. Sure enough, it came is the form of "the adversary"...that, in this coming week 'the adversary' would be working in our lives to keep us from giving 'over and above'. He would break our car, ruin some relationship, or various other things so we don't help grow the Kingdom. I personally do believe in a spiritual struggle between God and the Devil in whatever form they exist in that struggle. To be fair, he did say that he wasn't saying this to scare anyone, only to point out how real the threat is and not to be discouraged. But now, anything that happens in the next week is going to be blamed on the adversary. The reason I have an issue with this, is that people now have a tool to take the blame off of themselves. This is a free ticket to take personal responsibility in one's problems off of themself and blame it on a dark force...then to feel better, give money to prove their resistence to that dark force. Also, when something bad happens this week they'll say it's the devils work. Then they'll instantly remember what our speaker said and be coerced by this well crafted logic sequence into giving money to this G2G campaign...not out of desire to give to God or desire for this campaign to be successful, but because they think that what they experienced is truly the work of the devil and that this guy was right.

Last week at church, it was announced that this guy was going to come speak to us. I was under the impression that he was going to be talking about how part of our money from the church plant proposal in Pajaro/Watsonville and how awesome that is. It was barely mentioned. I was excited that he was going to talk about this because I like the idea that we are going to do something with our money that helps a less fortunate community. My roommate put it well when he said that $25 will go a lot farther in Pajaro than it would in Scotts Valley. Our help there is much needed and is truly something to celebrate. Instead of speaking at length about this or other church plants, he explained that it is our duty as part of "the face of the Covenant" to give money to grow this demonination.

In conclusion, I saw a number of new faces in the crowd today and was thouroughly embarrassed that visitors would be welcomed to our community on a Sunday like this. Hopefully these new people have actually been going to our church for a while and I just haven't noticed them. Though this would speak poorly of my welcoming newcomers, it would make me feel better knowing that their first impression of our church was something other than this impersonal speech on stewardship.

For the record, I am in support of our church doing this remodel and expansion thing. It's great that we want to make our facilities better serve the community as a long term goal and it's great to see that in raising the money for this we are essentially raising money that will directly benefit our community. There are some aspects that I think are unnecessary, like the outdoor theater, but the congregation approved it so it must be part of the collective conscience. With that said, I need to say that I am very unimpressed with this recent portion of the fund raising aspect of the project. To have such a impersonal approach to such a personal subject was not a good idea. If he was going to talk about the benefit in regards to planting a church and getting people excited about that idea, that would have been great. I don't know what I expect out of writing this, I just needed to voice my opinion, and probably what is the opinion of any new people who were at the church today as well as other people who think the same as me but wouldn't take the time to write it out like this. There's a lot more that I could add, but I wouldn't be able to make a very good case unless I could hear the audio...maybe my roommate Mike will do a better job when the audio of the speech is posted on the church website.

God of Rob or God of Chistendom?

I know this sounds pretty damn self righteous, but here it goes...I am becoming more and more convinced that I believe in a different god than most Christians. I do call myself a Christian because my belief is that Jesus died for my sins and created a new world in which his example is the model way of life, so I feel that I shouldn't be bashful about proclaiming my faith in his work. Many Christians now days say, "I'm not a Christian, I'm a follower of Christ", or ,"I'm not religious but I am highly spiritual". Here's how I explain this... too many people confuse Christianity with Christendom, which is where that shame of being labelled as a Christian comes from. Most people will probably say that Christendom died with the Roman Empire (which brings up a whole other issue of how much of the "Roman Empire" still exists...as far as ideology goes), but I think it's safe to say that Christendom is alive and well, and continues to be as much of a threat to the Kingdom of God and teachings of Christ as it was during the time when it was controlled and constructed by tyrannical emperors and popes.

There's more to come as far as my case for what Christendom is and how it is still with us today...it'll be a short comparisson between the history of the old church with today's church. I just thought this would be a good start.