Bernardo

I received a phone call from Bernardo's social worker. He is going to be placed with a different family for the third time since he left us. The social worker revealed that as he sat in her office last week he poured out his heart to her admitting that he realized D and I were never 'in it' for the money but that we really cared about him and wanted to help him out. He realizes this after living with families where money was the motivator. He wants to come back.

My heart is pulled. My conscience, my faith, my head and my feelings all tell me to take him back. My private self says, what about you? Your sanity? Your space? Your life? Honestly, if my sister in law hadn't just moved in with us I don't think it would be a question, I'd want him back with us in a minute. But my American side has kicked in saying--one more person in your house, are you crazy? Its funny that my main reason for toiling over this question is a matter of space. It has nothing to do with what happened last time, the police calls in the middle of the night, the court visitations etc...It's a matter of bringing someone into a private space that I want so desperately to call my own. But is that right?

I envision taking bernardo in again, in that prodigal son sort of way, celebrating this life returned because our family actually does love him. Maybe I am more the prodigal in this case.

we don't have much time to decide.

I work in an old convent

And right now, in the closet size chapel downstairs, a group of Vietnamese meet where they have been singing since I came into the office nearly 2 hours ago. It is good Friday. Whenever Christmas or Easter rolls around I always internally hope for it to somehow be different than the year before. I want to be impacted slightly more, I want the lightbulb in my head to go off suddenly and have a religious epiphany where god and life all of the sudden make sense and I never need convincing again.

I always come out sorely disappointed. Why should this surprise me though? Why should I hope for god to give me an extra special Easter when the rest of my days are spent occupied with other distractions?

So I signed this petition last night to forgive Osama Bin Laden. Then I read this poignant piece by a friend and just finished emailing the website administrator to remove my name in light of Dry Bones Dance's statement on forgiveness who said:

We can only forgive people for the ways that they have harmed us. We CANNOT forgive someone for the harm they have done to another person. If you had a loved one die on 9/11, then okay, you get to sign that letter. Otherwise, I think that kind of forgiveness is cheap. I could say that I forgive Osama, but that would require nothing of me. Truth is, he didn't hurt me all that much. I didn't know anyone who died, and I already knew the world was bloody and unfair, so it didn't even shake the way I see things. For me, the biggest effect of 9/11 was how the funding for non-profits took a nosedive afterwards. I don't hate him, but I do believe he should be found, imprisoned for the rest of his life, and all his assets confiscated. I also think he's a pretty evil man, although like all of us, not beyond redemption.

I don't know how to forgive. It has never been required of me. One of MLK's writings on forgiveness describe how he had to fast in jail for over a week in order to come to a place where he could forgive his oppressors and captors. I can remember reading that and thinking, I have no idea what forgiveness is.

How easy it is to declare my forgiveness for Osama with a few keystrokes because I momentarily thought it was the progressive Christian thing to do; but it requires nothing of me. He never directly affected me personally and I don't know anyone that died on 9/11. It's cheap. It doesn't matter.

Who am I to think I currently have the capacity to forgive someone such as Bin Laden. There have been slews of evil dictators through the years and even now that I've never bothered to forgive. I couldn't even forgive the Pizza Hut delivery guy when he brought me the wrong pizza. No, I had to write pizza hut corporate offices to declare the injustice I'd experienced and get a free voucher for a pizza the next time I ordered. I have so much vengefulness in my heart that I've encountered over the past few years. A lot of my stories are humorous in that disturbing sense. Let's just say Pizza Hut isn't the only place that has received letters from me. My husband on the other hand just oozes forgiveness. I don't get it. As a boy he walked to school over dead bodies, had his family repeatedly threatened by a corrupt government, was messed with in ways children should never be messed with, and the list goes on. I have so much to learn from him.

Regardless, I'm tired of cheapness. Cheap Easter, cheap resurrection, cheap grace. I'm not into that anymore. Give me the blood. Give me the challenge. Give me the god that was crucified in the midst of every day life which hardly stopped or took notice of the momentous event that would determine humanity's fate. I have spent sufficient time not taking notice. It is very easy to live life unintentionally .

May my remembrance of this year's resurrection be mindful in the midst of the mundane.

I am Peter Gibbons

This week i aspire to be Peter Gibbons. I don't work in a cubical or hate my boss nonetheless I am...This all stems as one more stop off point in my thought process post reading of Affluenza and Ecclesiastes over and over and over again. My new challenge is to determine how little I can work and still survive. Sure beats the cultural goal of 'how much to I need to work in order to support my consumerism.' Sure nobody actually says it that way but that is what it actually comes down to.

I'm not looking to loaf around all day and watch T.V. I'd rather spend time painting, reading, going to museums, spending time with people i care about, walking, or playing with my worm poop than dedicating my morning hours to something I don't really care about.

People will always try to make order out of our chaotic world but it's never going to happen. Cliche as it is, life is a gift. Life is to be enjoyed. We have done an amazing job at perverting that idea and turning life into something to be dreaded, slept through, unenjoyable, busy, busy, busy, and did i mention busy?

Anyone in favor of this new plan for regaining life and simplicity? Go rent Office Space this weekend and find some inspiration.

Autumn is a famously beautiful time of year in Maine. One fall Saturday when I was still in high school my best friend and I raked leaves from the early morning till late into the evening as a way to earn money to go on a "mission" trip. During those long hours as our hands blistered from holding the rakes we mapped out the plan for our lives. What were going to do?

We were going to finish high school. I was going to fulfill my highly ambitious dream of owning an old VW van and we were going to drive cross country. For some reason we determined that we would end up in New Orleans. I don't remember why or how we came to that destination in our imaginary life plan but we did. We were going to be waitresses in a checkered floor cafe, or maybe we would open our own. We would live in a sparsely furnished apartment. We would drink tea all day long. Our uniform? Holey jeans and white tank tops. G was going to pursue art and I was going to pursue writing. Maybe it was the exotic simplicity that attracted us to this hyper-glorified lifestyle. In the back of our minds we both knew we'd go to college but we never talked about that. We always maximized our time together. Even when graduation came (she finished a year before me) we fell into a heavy letter writing relationship that continues to this day. I haven't seen G in nearly 3.5 years but our letters still speak of that day together raking leaves and our plan for our lives. The three times we have seen each other since I finished high school almost six years ago have been filled with creativity. I am convinced we are each other's soul muses if such a thing exists.

Most days I feel as though I have walked far away from the leave raker and dreamer I once was. Occasionally I get glimpses of that girl but it is rare. When it happens I try to harness her and make the moment last as long as I can.

So while I don't think I'll be living out my VW van in New Orleans anytime soon I'll take the spread out bursts of creative word whether written or spoken. In the meantime, I'll continue to reminisce from my run down convent office where I'm wearing dry clean only pants because holey jeans aren't permitted.