♥Sanctity of Life♥

♥#1127♥

2010-07-06T20:46:00.000-07:00

Joseph's mom was a drug addicted alcoholic. She did not want her children. As a result, Joseph was taken away from her but not before he had to endure abuse and neglect typical of what the helpless must face when the broken are charged with their care and safety. Joseph lived in more than 12 foster homes before he was old enough to be discharged into a world where the people who volunteered to protect him from the abuse he was supposed to have been taken away from, perpetuated the cycle and abused him some more. Joseph's aspiration as a child was to become as U.S. Marine. So that he could legally kill as many people as he wanted to.

Joseph never got that far. The military tends to frown upon folks who have issues with substance abuse. 2 years after attempting to join the armed services, Joseph murdered a 64 year old man.

When Joseph was 29 years old he was executed by the state of Texas for the murder of Robert Ratliff.

Charles was born in Ohio in 1937 to a 16 year old who had no idea who fathered her son. Shortly after he was born, Charles' mother sold him to a waitress in exchange for a pitcher of beer. After time in prison for robbing a gas station, his mother picked him up from the home of the family who had taken him in, and the hug she gave him the day she got out of prison is the only happy memory he has of his child hood which was spent in dirty motel rooms with the woman who sold him for beer. Charles Manson is now serving a life sentence in prison for numerous murders in California. His most recent interview in 2007 was so incoherent and irrational, that most of it was unable to be used for broadcast. He is now 75 years old.

Christina Marie Riggs was the mother of 2 children. Both born after enduring abuse that she was called a liar for when she asked for help to make it stop. The fathers of the kids weren't much help, unless you consider punching her toddler son in the stomach to be a supportive role model. Christina worked 2 jobs, because she needed income to support her growing babies. But it wasn't enough. She had no help. She wasn't sure what to do. Every adult in the 3 generations of her maternal family that came before her had attempted or been successful at suicide. After her car registration and insurance expired and she had no way to bring them current, Christina slipped into a blackness that she decided was too dark to see a way out of. She obtained potassium chloride from her employer, a hospital. And injected both children with the drug after giving them a sedative to ensure that they would not feel their deaths. Postassium chloride forms ionic bonds, which then conduct electricity, which then disrupts them rhythm of the heart resulting in cardiac arrest. Christina's daughter died immediately. But her son awoke from the burning of the potassium as it entered his veins, and so she held and rocked him as he cried in her arms, until he died. Christina then injected herself with so much potassium chloride that a significant hole was burned through her arm, at which point she passed out and was found near death next to her dead children. Christina repeatedly begged the courts for execution, even as it was successfully argued that she suffered from severe depression as a result of a situation that seemed hopeless. Christina did not want her children to endure a life of being separated from each other after her death, and so she decided that they needed to die with her in order to spare them the same hopeless existence that she was now giving in to. She was ecstatic at her execution. Christina's last words were "Now I can be with my babies, as I always intended."

I could go on forever. We see these monsters. We look in their faces and would spit on them if we could. But we make them what they are, and then intervene with so much self righteous anger at what they've done to their victims, caring when it's convenient instead of when they asked for help, because it wasn't our problem.

Through out this past school year my daughter would repeatedly mention a girl in her class who's "A TOTAL GENIUS MAMA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! SHE'S SO SMART SHE'S LIKE ALVIN EYEBEAN! (Guess who's name she's butchering).

I met this little girl. She doesn't bathe. Her clothes don't fit. I watched her walk through a group of adults, having obviously peed all over herself, at 9 years old. They ignored her. Because she's not their kid. This precocious little girl, articulates herself in ways that no one taught her because they won't even talk to her. I put my arms around her and sat with her while she ate her cereal one morning. She wouldn't let go of me when I hugged her. I didn't know what else to do, and it hurt so much.

Statistics say that this little girl will be those evil people I talked about up there in a few years. We will hate her, and spit on her, shake our fists and point our fingers when she kills or maims. I think it makes us feel better. I don't know anymore.

But when she becomes that, and I pray desperately that she does not,
don't tell me that she "chose this." She did not. No one chooses that. By ignoring them, we're choosing it for them.

XO,

El Gibbor

2010-07-04T21:54:00.001-07:00

The SoL lady doesn't have anything to do with people. Once I go into my house, I don't open the door for anyone, for any reason. As out going as I am (and I'm very out going. I once told a woman in a bus station w/pig tails that she looked just like Willie Nelson with a big oh smile on my face. For what it's worth I was 4. I still do it though, just in a much more adult way). It's very difficult for me to allow others into my telephone booth. I know it doesn't make sense. Stop arguing with me in your head and keep reading. And so I was invited to go camping. With strangers!
I refused. As a result of a difficult situation, I've developed this residual symptom of said situation that manifests in extreme panic when I'm surrounded by strangers. The fear is overwhelming. I finally relented on the camping, knowing full well that there was a strong chance I would end up wheezing like Fatty McGhee and shaking uncontrollably if some stranger got too close. But, I did it so that my children could experience the wonders of the wilderness of the Great West.

I was finally able to calm down the second morning of our glorious "try not to pee on your feet but end up soaking your flip flops in your own urine anyway because there are no bathrooms" vacation. And actually allowed myself to be excited about the prospect of relaxing in some nice hot springs. So that's what we did.

On the way back from soaking in boiling sulfur water, we saw a woman on the other side of the river, screaming for help. Come to find out, there was treachery afoot. The river was calm up stream, but as the water moved downstream the current got more out of control. At the point where the woman was standing, there were fallen trees, the current was much too strong and there was no way any person in a tube or raft could make it through this particular spot without being thrown into the freezing water and drowning or risking serious injury.

We were in trouble. I was with my children, another couple, and their son. We had just passed a large group of the people we were camping with who were on their way up to the head of the river to tube downstream with their children. They had just turned our children away after they decided that there wasn't enough room for them. While the wonderful man we were with directed the hysterical woman down the cliff and across the river from us as to how to handle the situation and we decided upon a plan to find the people she had lost in the water, more people were coming through the bad area and falling into the water as we watched, horrified.

We realized that we were very far removed from any sort of emergency help, there was no one to assist us and we had to find the people already lost in the water while simultaneously preventing anyone else from going into the river.

We stood on the cliff above the water and watched empty tubes and life vests that had been ripped off of people by tree branches after they'd been thrown into the water as we searched for anyone we could help, and finally agreed to leave the guy we were with to continue to search for people as we drove Dukes of Haazard style back to the head of the river to stop our friends from the same fate that was now threatening the lives of strangers we were trying to save.

We were too late. Our friends had already gone into the river with their children, and there was no way to stop them from being hurt.

We hauled ass back to the original spot halfway between our camp site and the head of the river where we'd found the screaming woman, and now more people were struggling at the same spot in the water and/or had managed to climb out and were now stranded on the wrong side of the river. All 3 of us turned to look in the direction from where our friends would be coming, and as they came down the river with their babies, all of them were tossed as if they weighed nothing into the freezing water. We stood on that cliff absolutely stunned with a fear that no words can explain as we watched the people that we loved dying in that awful water and there was no way to help them.

I stood next to the woman and her husband, with two forest rangers on one side and a stranger to my right, all watching and doing nothing to try to stop what was happening. I finally figured that there was no reason to remain calm anymore and promptly began screaming at the forest rangers who stood non nonchalantly watching our friends and strangers dying in that water. I begged them to make it stop and to go into the water and save them. I tried to find a way down the side of the cliff but the sand was too soft and I was wearing flip flops and I couldn't get around the rocks and so I screamed at the man standing next to me to do something and he just looked at me and then back at the mamas and daddies and babies and husbands and wives drowning together, trying to stay alive. And finally one of the forest rangers turned to me and calmly said "There's access 500 yards that way if you really want to try to help them. But if they want to live they're going to have to save themselves."

In that moment I walked over to the woman I had just met that I'd just shared a relaxing moment in the hot springs with, and I held her hand and we cried as we watched our friend hold on to her little son for dear life in water that did not care that it was killing a beautiful soul and her child. I heard her husband scream her name as he watched his wife struggle and he too attempted to pull himself and their other child from that awful water and it was too much. I immediately thought of this name, "El Gibbor", the Hebrew name meaning "Mighty God." The God that calms the seas and tenderly plucks the abandoned and still bloody newborn from the field. I thought "Where are you?" He made this. He made this water, he knew this moment would come to be from the beginning of creation. He laid the bed of silt loam that I futilely tried to traverse to save these people and he made the cliff with his own hand that was now damning our efforts to stop the injury and death that we could only watch. He knew. He was, and is. This was him and I was so frustrated and I silently called his name because I knew no other remedy and my own strength was worthless and it was surreal to hear these calm voices tell us that there was no way to save these people and all of us watching were thrust into a nonsensical moment where the onlookers around were willing watch these people struggle to stay alive and do absolutely nothing. He made this, and only he could make it stop.

We finally found the last person in our party of friends, miles from where we she'd begun in the water upstream, walking, exhausted, barefoot and sobbing. We drove her to a place where we thought we could get down the cliff and managed to do so and we found our friends, alive. Somehow. And she ran to her husband's arms and the mama and the baby looked as if someone had beaten them to a pulp but they were walking. Somehow.

And we all went back to our camp.

I sat at the edge of our camp site and looked down at that water that I had come to hate. And I was quiet. And I thanked the mighty God that was there but wasn't, and who had infuriated me even as I desperately called his name to save these people. And then I realized. Had my children been allowed to go with these people, they would have most certainly died. There were only enough adults to save the children who had gone into the water. There were not enough hands to save my babies.

That mama and her baby were thrown under a tangled root system of a tree that was growing half in and half out of the water. It was the perfect place for her to grab and hold on for dear life. Her son was 4 years old, and had the wherewithal to hold his breath even as he was shoved under the mighty, moving water. He did not swallow a drop. No pneumonia. And he was allowed to be pulled just far enough from his mama that the tree roots did not break or bruise him. His brother had no help. Daddy was thrown one direction, and mama and the little one were thrown the other. This boy had the presence of mind to jump and hold on to another tree for dear life until someone could pull him from the water.

At each turn, that Mighty God that I felt had put handcuffs on me and the others who were trying to save these people, had done just that. He tied our hands and forced us to watch the same hand that created this chaos, tenderly orchestrate safety for people who had no business being safe after they'd been repeatedly forced into deep, raging water that should have killed them.

I was amazed. Amazed that He had saved my babies from death. Amazed that every person that went into that water somehow made it out alive. Amazed that He allowed me to see that the same God that made Heaven and Earth would find us in that isolated place and jump in for the save at the very last minute. So that I could see that He's here. I struggle with being alone as my husband is 6,000 miles away supporting this war. I struggle with a lot of things that have never gone away. These things talk to me all day, and through the night in my dreams. I struggle with understanding the God who says that He is personal and who's love is called tender. But that I've never felt.

I saw, as I sat watching that same water, order. I saw a plan. I saw love that shows up in ways that don't feel good, but that manifest in glorious hope anyway. I saw mercy and I saw these people who now looked as if someone had beaten them to within inches of their lives who had no idea that they were loved with a love bigger than anything I could ever express here.

God is here. He is ever present. It is said that our help cometh from the Lord. The Lord which made Heaven and Earth. He is our keeper and our strength. He does not suffer our feet to be moved, nor does He slumber. The sun shall not smite us by day, nor the moon by night, He will preserve our souls, even forever more. He will preserve us from all evil, and He will preserve our comings and goings, from this time forth and again, even, forever more.

He did that. There was order in the chaos. There was a plan in the helpless horror that we allowed to consume us because we couldn't see the hand of the Almighty moving in our favor, even as we denied Him an intimate place in our lives.

I was humbled by the living eyes of those people that He saved, knowing that they were His only thought in those dark moments.

And I was given a lot to consider that day.
I'm glad I went camping.

Not Even Close to Being Done

2010-07-01T23:22:00.000-07:00

Don't mind me. Camping, breaking up fights, training animals not to eat my panties, feeding children way too much pizza, and working on this, still. Bear with me. It's nowhere near finished.

xo,

Oops. :(

2010-06-28T13:56:00.000-07:00

I'm back. Due to desperate times, involving children who consume groceries at alarming rates, severely lacerate themselves in bath tubs, and otherwise suck the very life right out of my quickly aging body, I haven't had time for this. Ignore the ugly pink crap & the lack of formatting, appropriate lay out and all the other stuff that used to be here. I'll fix it as soon as I can remove my focus from the fear of the next face mutilating bike accident that's probably happening as I type this. Thanks for understanding, and,

xo!

♥More Sadness♥

2010-04-19T06:37:00.001-07:00

Out of deference to the "I'm really sad but don't really have a right to be" theme, I'm going to share with you what helped me tremendously last night.

♥My Favorite Color is Clear♥

2010-04-18T17:40:00.002-07:00

Hi there. Someone once said that in order to make it past pain, focus on others. I always say, beauty comes from ashes. So I'm going to focus on others. I don't feel that my problems are the business of the rest of the world. Unless you're going to gain something from it, there is no place for my burden on your shoulders. But I will try. Today, I'm going to be transparent. I'll use the bad things in a good way and pray that you grab on to them and see what's good and right and that way, those bad things won't have been for nothing.

Something hurt me. Something hurts all of us, every day. My pain is no more unique or special or worse than yours is. But I'm too weak to handle it. After 30 years I've finally said:

"It's my turn. It's about me now. Not you. I'm giving to me and not you and I've had enough and no one will ever hurt me again and blah blah blahBLAHblahannoyingselfrighteousselfishnonsense."

So, I went to the hair doer lady. And I told her to put as many colors as she could fit onto my head and give me a mullet. She did. I look like what would happen if this guy:

And this guy:

And this chick:

had a baby.

Next, I got something that looks like what a drunken sailor after church would have, tattooed all over my back.

I quit my job. I DO WHATEVER I WANT! IT'S AWESOME!

But not really.

My pain is bigger than me. It's finally come to a head. I've been mopping the hell out of my floors and vacuuming up specks of dirt I made up in my head that aren't really there and doing 948375 thirty-nine loads of laundry a day. Because I want to be perfect. If I can't be that, I have to face what hurts, and then I have to face that I'm not perfect, then I have to face that I look like what happens when Puerto Rican clowns attack and that I spent way too much on that and then I'd probably crumble to the floor and dissipate into whatever hateful, hurting almost middle-aged women dissipate into when they just can't handle any more.

I woke up this morning and my back was sore because I decided to have this huge statement thing carved into me. I'm going to look like an idiot when I'm 80. And it didn't change anything. I have a brand new car and I can do whatever I want whenever I want to do it but I can't bring myself to leave my garage unless I absolutely have to because the past eats me from the inside out and regret and the hurt that was never healed scream at me and I can't make them shut up.

I made up a game when my life was not so good. I would sit and say to myself,

"Hey! Live or die. Make a choice. Right now. If you're going to live, get up and live. Move your feet and your hands and the rest of you and do it. If you're going to die, get it over with. Kill yourself. Don't lay there and exist. That doesn't work. Even animals go after food until they can't anymore."

Then, I would think of what I had to be thankful for. Of all of the reasons why life was beautiful. I would say to myself:

I can breathe.
My arms work.
I have teeth.
I'm not cross eyed.
I'm really good at playing solitaire.
I don't have to eat bologna if I don't want to because bologna is gross and isn't even real food.....

So that's what I'm doing. When it hurts too much, when it's too big and you can't hold on. When the pain is so huge that you cannot breath and you're sick and damned tired of it. Just pick up your foot and walk. Move forward. Be thankful for toes and eyebrows and buttons on your shirt so your lady business stays dignified and steering wheels in the car because if your car didn't have a steering wheel that would suck. Just move in increments so small that maybe nobody else can see it. But do that. Don't be like me. Don't spend money on terrible hair and ugly tattoos and purses that don't really do a damn thing at all. Instead, decide to keep moving. Even if you have to crawl. If you need help with that, I'm always here.

xo,

♥Ugly♥

2010-02-03T12:47:00.001-08:00

Hi there. Long time no bloggy talking. I've been working, raising babies, exploding cakes in my auntie's kitchen. The usual. I haven't forgotten this place at all, but it's not until I'm compelled by something bigger than myself to share a message that, in the very smallness of my finite being I would be incapable of sharing without inspiration from the heart of the living God, that I say things here, for you to read. Do what you want with that.

Moving on, I just wanted to tell all of you about my job! I work with ugly old people. The way they smell is yuck. The other day one of the dear hearts told me that my hair is ugly and that I really should learn how to fix it. They spit on me. I dumped a bed pan full of bed pan water all over my back thereby saturating myself with the smell of the urine of a 97 year old woman the other day. Do not want, ever again.

So I've been storing up all sorts of interesting things that occur on a regular basis at my place of employment to share with you. I can't REALLY share them based upon privacy laws, so I won't use names or any other identifying information lest I should incur the wrath of the federal government. But I will tell you about the joy that yucky people we've thrown away have the power to use to change the whole world.

We run after graduate degrees. There are all sorts of jobs that we aren't allowed to do without a piece of paper that says we is smart. So we go get those pieces of paper and then beat other people over their heads with them to prove that we know the most. We're superior because we spent 03840835083486 dollars to be that. We know how to fill out pieces of paper the right way. We put our initials in the correct boxes, and use words in the way that they best make us look like we know what we're doing, and we're successful because of that. Nurses learn sterile technique at school and employ that with the utmost precision. And then win awards for that kind of ability. We save money, refine the bottom line, have impeccable credit scores, buy purses like this:

(That's a $200.00 purse.)
Eat things that cost way too much money because we can afford it. That's what makes us influential. We mail money halfway across the planet and tear families apart by way of adopting babies from S. America in the interest of "humanitarianism" instead of helping to put them back together. And that's what makes us important, and worthy.

But there is a woman I know that died unable to speak. The only way she could communicate was through a song. So we would sing Twinkle Twinkle Little Star to her. She was bent over and silent and food fell out of her mouth and her eyes were yucky because they were runny all the time. Before she got sick, she had many children. And was a prolific writer. And expressed joy at being alive, and spoke of life as a web to be woven with the choice to be happy. She didn't have the money to buy special coffee that costs way too much. Her clothes were donations.

There is another lady that picked cotton when she was young, and lived through the hell of an abusive relationship during a time when these things weren't spoken of. You just held on and never left. She's excited at the prospect of being awake and alive. She says, "I love you two times!" with every other breath. She's so happy to have her little red shoes on her feet, and her hugs are full of a strength that I don't have.

Ladies and gentleman, this is what's beautiful. These people fill me all the way up with a love that I am so humbled to be a party to.

And so I ask you to please, rethink beauty and success and the way you define "good".

xo,

♥People♥

2009-12-17T09:48:00.001-08:00

Helloooo therrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrre! Long time no much too verbose and emotional posts about loving people!

So, I work in a nursing home. You hear people say that they want to be nurses so that they can work in NICU (neonatal intensive care unit) or, pediatrics. Or critical care units. You rarely ever hear someone say that they want to be a nurse so that they can work in a nursing home.

But I will tell you some things, and implore you to start wrapping your arms around others in whatever way works with your gifts, abilities, and time.

♥XOXO♥

2009-10-28T09:32:00.001-07:00

So what is it that I alwaaaaays say repeatedly, ad nauseum, at least 1x/day?
Leave a Legacy.
Practically, how do you do that? BY WRITING STUFF AND LEAVING SURPRISE POST ITS ALL OVER THE PLACE! Duh.*

So I'm here today because I was drinking strawberry milk & reading the news and
I happened to find the ultimate wonderful thing in the world!

Elana Desserich was diagnosed with pediatric brain cancer. So here's this sweet baby, holding hands with death. And she's just 6 years old. I don't even know.

So, Elana wakes up each day to a wonder that isn't the amazing-ness associated with being 6. No finding out what butterflies do, or that ants are the human equivalent of a team of oxen.(Ants are not humans. I didn't realize that they weren't people until I came back and read the literary masterpiece that is my description of a pretend world where arthropods are people/beasts of burden. It's nice here in WeirdoNotVeryIntelligentTown. You should join us!) Nope. Elana learns what it's like to have your legs stop working, and to lose your ability to see. Elana takes her knowledge of the darkest aspects of human existence, and uses that to decide to spend her last days on Earth writing love letters to her parents to hide all over their home, so that they can hear her voice after she's gone.
To have that sort of forethought at such a tender age. Once again, I don't even know.

And you know, we have these tragic things handed to us. They're ugly. They're the worst sort of gifts, wrapped up in smelly ugly scary death paper instead of pretty bows and so forth. And we get so angry. Our natural inclination is to blame God, and search for an answer to our definition of unfair.

We're unwilling to stand back and see the purpose, which is a large piece of another thing I always say and that is that beauty comes from ashes ( an unoriginal sentiment that I stole from a very old book). In any case, this sweet baby girl took the ugly thing she was given, and used it to show others that their lives had significant meaning, with no regard for herself.

The loss of neurological function is complicated and mysterious and not easy to embrace for any human being. And so I marvel that a child who lost her ability to speak spent the following days of her life drawing pictures of what she thought love meant, labling said and then finding hiding places for these missives with a goal to be achieved long after her little heart stopped beating. To learn more about Elana Desserich, go here.

Don't tell me you can't do it. Go buy some Post Its. WHY ARE YOU STILL HERE?!
DO WHAT I SAY!

xo!,

*amongst other wonderful things.

♥Secrets♥

2009-10-14T09:55:00.001-07:00

Hi. I cannot continue our discourse with Christmas and all of the other benevolent days of the year that I adore coming up around the corner..like this.

It disturbs me that I might perhaps sound just a little too desperate to be viewed as altruistic/perfect-ish. As if this place is a way for me to prove that I'm good. So I need to clarify, because it's fixin to get crazy up in here now that I'm a little more settled, and, well CHRISTMAS IS COMING! YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY!

I do this anonymously. There are folks I know that I send here in order to force them to slow down and listen to me, because I want to be heard. I believe that my way is THE way. I'm stubborn and narrow minded in that respect. But I've never told anyone that I seek out the hurting and broken and that I made a conscious decision to look for people who have been places I've been, and places I haven't been, and let them know that their souls don't have to stay there. I've expressed on numerous occassions that I'm fascinated by human beings and the things that we are. We're so mysterious and not mysterious too. We do amazing things, and we're made in an incredible way, and I love us so much. So when I find the filthy and dirty, or the mean and nasty, the confused, the old, the young, everyone I see..I find them. I look for who they are and I love to find it and then I love to give to them so they can see the value of their lives. I like to feed them and surprise them and write them notes because we forget to marvel at the wonder of what we are and I think that's a huge part of why the world is so awful. So I tell you about the things I do, the food I buy, the conversations I have, the people I see and what they're doing and all of the ways I give because I want you to be excited and have a sense for what's truly precious. That's why I tell you.

I wanted there to be a place where I could give you examples of what it means to be a responsible citizen of this country, and this world. I want you to see that you can do it too. Mother Teresa made a choice, and part of that choice was a natural inclinication to apply the real meaning of love to every wound that she encountered. I don't understand why folks like her are lauded as if only certain people are capable of such things. ALL OF US ARE. So I want to show you, that this is what I do, and that you can do it, and that if enough of us develop a tenderness for what it means to be human, in all of its manifestations to include the ugly and gross and bad ones, that we can wrap our country in hope and it will fluourish and lives will be made whole.

So I tell you about what I do. These people I find are so amazing to me. And I only find them because I want to. YOU don't find them because, maybe you don't want to. I'm not sure really.

But you need to understand, that I don't want you to know my name. Because this has nothing to do with me. If you do know me, whatever prejudices or horrible things you may come up with regarding my desire for attention or need to feel good are sad, and I'm sorry if that's the conclusion you come to. Because there are regularly occurring moments when I hate that I am like this.

And so, I'm adressing it right now. I'm here for this sole purpose: I want you to see that there's another way. To stop and examine yourself, and your life and what you do and think and are, and see if there's a place for honest and unselfish love somewhere in there. I'm not here so you can look at me, or think about me, or praise me. I'm a human being just like you and all of the people I try to express joy to, and so if they have problems, and they are hurting, and they have idiosyncracies and not-right glitches in their souls that render them strange in accordance with the flow of acceptable sociological patterns, why can't I be as broken as they are? I was, and I am. I'm not purporting to be special. I'm those people, the worst of the worst. The ones that do horrible things that we can't understand. I've talked about dirty, bloody homeless women. I am that. I've talked about the death that consumes when hate is allowed to manifest. I am that too. I am all of these awful things that I talk about, which is why I am so full of hope and joy. I wasn't able to know one without the other.

So, however you'd like to view me or this place, know that it's not easy for me to be this way. And the only way I know how to deal with it is to share it with others in order that people stop staring at me like I'm an idiot when I pose a plan to pack up Thanksgiving dinner leftovers and go find people in the street to eat it with. This consumes me, and when you read what I have to say, it's because this is my way of putting it in a box, and giving it away to someone else so they can understand.

Thank you, xo.

♥Let's Follow Up♥

2009-09-25T19:34:00.002-07:00

This woman died today. She was a murderer. Her last public words were "My God is an amazing God." Remember this? If not, go read it.

To learn more about what happened with her, read this.

xo,

♥Out The Door♥

2009-08-19T05:03:00.002-07:00

Hello there! Long time no talks! The SoL lady is about to make an epic journey in the same vein as the Odyssey. Except without crazy mermaid ladies that will lure me to my death at large outcroppings of rocks in the ocean.

I'm driving across the country, and moving to a fabled land of potatoes and tumble weeds, and at every SINGLE stop I make I will be leaving my beloved Post Its full of wonderful messages that say all sorts of nice things! It will be surprise time for over two thousand, five hundred miles! If you spot one of my Post Its, I will give you five BILLION DOLLARS!*

Oh the excitement!
And so, now that I've informed you of my whereabouts and goings on, I would like to leave you with something else.

Every second of your life is a moment that you have to change the entire DESTINY of the WORLD! In spite of the fact that I lettered in drama in high school, I am absolutely not being hyper dramatic. You can do this. Recognizing that life is sacred and treating it as such, so that your countenance shines likes the stars in the sky is a doable prospect. What if you worked at McDonald's and someone handed you a note as they paid for their Big Mac that said "Hi, do you know how amazing you are? Just because you're alive?" What would you think? What kinds of thoughts would be born from that action? (Not stalker thoughts I hope. :( )

How bout if you were homeless and someone walked up to you and asked how you were doing? Or if you'd like to have some coffee or perhaps a nice bottled water and wanted to know all about how you got to where you were?

I'm reminded of this guy I found one time. I was doing my I-have-something-important-to-accomplish-so-I'm-walking-like-a-middle-aged-
woman-really-fast-powerwalk-to-thegrocery-store- walk in Miami one day.
This guy was in his 20's and sitting in the bushes up against the side of the
grocery store building and the humidity was like, one godzillion percent and it was so hot and I almost
missed him because I had a one track mind involving Coco Rico and guava paste. I looked down and here was this absolutely filthy man crouched in an upright fetal position against the wall. More than likely he had issues with drugs, and it seemed like he was having a hard time coming down off of something he didn't have the money for more of at the time that I found him.

I stopped. In a world where NO ONE stops, how could I not? I was made for this. I'm not able to keep going when I see this sort of thing. So I put my giant sunglasses on top of my head and knelt right there on the sidewalk. And said..."Excuse me, what are you doing?". He looked up at me, and I looked back and waited for an answer. And I asked him what his name was. And I looked in his eyes, and waited some more. He didn't talk much, but he said: Please. I just kept looking at him, and I saw that he had to be thirsty because it was so hot. And my heart just would not allow me to continue with my day as if there were no other hearts but my own in the world. I asked him to wait for me. And I went in the store and got 2 Coco Ricos, and some bottled water and trail mix, you know, for protein. Immunoglobulin formation is critical when you're homeless and are susceptible to all sorts of illnesses and that can't happen without protein! <3

So I sat on the sidewalk and we shared Coco Rico and trail mix and I told him to save his water the best that he could, and asked him how he was feeling and what he was thinking about. I stayed on the sidewalk for awhile, and told him that I too had lived the way that he had. Because I have. And I told him what hope is, and how precious and beautiful he was even in his filth and that I was proud of him because he sat and waited even if he didn't realize that's what he was doing and that his answer was here and the answer was that he still had incredible worth and a future.

I still wonder where he is. And you should know that I do what I do every day not because I feel obligated, but because I can't not. It is the theme of my life, and service to the forgotten and the mediocre and the famous and the beautiful and the ugly and the rich and the poor and every single human being I encounter is my dream for my life. I would like to work at a gas station because I enjoy people so much. I did work at a gas station as a matter of fact. And I would like to work in a nursing home too, and give hugs to the old folks who are a lot of time kind of gross. And I would like for you to see that I am just like you. I can be very mean. I can be very immature. When my day is done, I go in the house and do not open the door and do not leave and do not want much of any contact with anyone. I'm a person too. I don't do this because I chose to try to be some sort of humanitarian lady person. I do it because I got a tiny glimpse of the love of God for his children and even at our worst we are something incredible.

So I'm going to drive, and continue to extend my hand across all of those miles and I'm asking you to do that today. Decide upon a world view that is inclusive of the eyes and hands and actions of the people you see around you and choose to use the beautiful person that you are and all of your uniqueness to extend hope to those who think it isn't real anymore.

Please.

*5 billion dollars will be payable in invisible Ho Ho's as an annuity at an annual
rate of no percent.
xo!,

♥OH MY GOD..Most Adorable Thing # 564♥

2009-07-19T16:55:00.002-07:00

In case you haven't figured it out yet, the SoL person is a girl. And so is everyone that helps her with this lovely blog.*

This stated, I love adorable things. I JUST CAN'T STAND IT SOMETIMES! I find the CUTEST STUFF AND I HAVE TO TELL EVERYONE!

I am about to graduate from the school that nurses go to, so I really don't have the energy it takes to share my thoughts with you as I have in the past. So just to make sure you know I still love and care for you DEEPLY, I'm showing you the most adorable things I've found in the world.

You ready for this? IT'S BABY BOWS! OMG! HEART ATTACK! I LOVE THEM!
check this OUT!

OH MY LORD IN HEAVEN! Can you imagine that on a baby's head? YES! YOU CAN!

And look at THIS!

These things make me just want to find a baby and put a the biggest pile of vegetation/pretty things on their head I can find without causing irreparable cranial damage or other neurological defects. I just think it's the best idea I've ever seen in my life!

So, do me a favor. Go visit my friend. She makes baby tutu's (THOSE ARE EVEN BETTER! They make your child look like they've got stuck in the middle of "When Cheerleader/Prom Queens/ Miss Americas Attack". Oh it's just wonderous! So, back to my point, go visit Kayla at Hannah Banana and buy every single thing she makes. She does it all by herself, she's a genius, and she's making me ovulate even as I sit here and talk to you, my beautiful sunshines, with the hope that I too can someday have a baby girl with a giant pile of crap on her head.

p.s.
I really love that walrus. The first time I saw him, I cracked up so much that I just couldn't stop laughing. Walrii are so sweet and adorable to me. ♥

*For the record, there are no millions of folks working diligently to deliver wonderful things to you. I just say that so I can sound more important.

xo my beautifuls!,

♥nomNOM..The Easiest Way To Love♥

2009-06-22T07:20:00.001-07:00

:in a Fat Albert Voice: HEYheyHEY!So, one of the things that the SoL lady ADORES is food. I'm not a morbidly obese woman with a bad hairdo that runs around in sweat pants all day. Not that it would matter if I was. But, food is important to me. Through food, I can make sure that my kid's bodies are all healthy and working the right way. And if you ask my children if they'd like a donut they'll say: 'No. Mama says, garbage in, garbage out.' When babies are born we eat. When someone dies, we share casseroles. When electricity goes out, when the ones we love are ill, during hurricanes and at every holiday, it is food that we share first, before anything else.

The simplest thing you can do for your family is to make something wonderful and have a seat and even if it means all you do is make fun of each other and laugh really loud as your grandmother berates every other person at the table for talking with their mouths full, with her mouth full, you are letting each other know that you love the people you're sitting with.

When the SoL lady was a child, her Mammaw would create masterpieces of meals with recipes that required a 600 degree oven with flame throwers in the door in order to properly sterilize the food she was about to serve her family. Because, there's E. Coli in them cookies!! Promptly at 6:00 p.m. every evening, the SoL lady's 2 brothers, 1 sister and both grandparents would sit down to enjoy green beans that we'd snapped on newspaper on the front porch ourselves, meat loaf with oatmeal in it, white rice and corn bread or some variation thereof. Mammaw always cooked it on Sunday and served the left overs through out the week. While eating, the delightful SoL children would scream at each other for smelling like things that Mammaw would then scream at us for talking about because it wasn't gentleman and lady like and as we laughed ridiculously loud Pappaw would jump up and holler that children were absolutely forbidden to make any sort of human motions, sounds or gyrations whilst in the presence of adults and we'd refuse to shut up and Pappaw would bellow again from his big wooden chair at the head of the table until his face would turn so red he'd get pissed off and stomp away to watch Murder She Wrote with his teeth bared and full of corn bread stuck all over them and the rest of his face. When Pappaw showed his teeth, you knew it was time to run. And so it went.

Through the years uncles and aunties would come and go at the table and arguments over politics with the one rogue family member who dared to be a Democrat would ensue, the adults would yell at each other over who's cheating at spades, our house keeper's voice gradually grew louder as the phenomenon associated with aging that causes one's ears to work less and vocal chords to work more took over and we constantly found new ways to annoy the living tar out of each other.

These memories have never left me and are vivid to this day as I approach 30, and I now absolutely require, in an age where McDonalds is no longer a treat but a requisite, that my family sit down and eat lest I should yell at them with corn bread stuck in my teeth.

Life isn't the same now as it was when I was a kid, but we must make allowances for the things that are good and right, at the cost of our current lifestyle if necessary.

So make dinner and eat with your family. You'd be surprised at how threatening your children at the dinner table with a fly swatter for telling jokes about vomit and not using their yes ma'ams can leave an indellible mark of love on their little hearts. ♥

Courtesy of Joy In My Kitchen, I've included a recipe for something way yum that you can throw in the crock pot and enjoy with your family sometime this week. Do it or I'll get mad and come after you.

xo!

Crockpot Scalloped Potatoes and Ham

1/2 - 1 lbs of cubed, cooked ham
6-8 raw potatoes, sliced
1 C onion, chopped (divided)
1 C grated cheddar cheese
1 C grated mozzarella cheese
1 T olive oil (or butter)
1 can (4oz) of mushrooms, drained (may use fresh as well)
1/2 C chicken broth
1/2 C milk
1 T cornstarch

In a saucepan, saute 1/2 C onions with mushrooms in 1 T oil or butter until onions are translucent (about 5 minutes). Add chicken broth and heat to boiling. Mix 1/2 c milk with cornstarch until well mixed, and add to the boiling mixture, stirring frequently until thick (about 1 minute). Season with salt and pepper, if desired. Set aside. *

Put half of the ham, potatoes and onions in a crock pot. Sprinkle with salt, pepper and half of both cheeses.

Repeat layers. Spread home-made mushroom soup (in saucepan) over the top, completely covering the potatoes.

Cover and cook on low for 8 hours or until potatoes are tender.

*Alternatively, you can use cream of mushroom soup from a can.

xoxoxo!

♥Daddies♥

2009-06-21T15:05:00.002-07:00

To every man who drives the distance between California and Japan to collect his nieces on a moment's notice and raise them as his own, Happy Father's Day. To the uncle by marriage that sat in the delivery room waiting for his niece to be born and proudly held her in the palm of his hand when her father wasn't there; to the dads who don't hear from their sons for decades but embrace them as if they were still the tiny baby that they looked upon with tenderness and wonder at the day of their birth when that child shows up every few years for the briefest moment, Happy Father's Day. To the grandfather that calmly listens and explains with great patience how to make a peanut butter sandwich to his grand daughter on the phone when she calls in great fear because no one is home and she's hungry, Happy Father's Day. To the daddies that realized too late that they messed up and hurt their children greatly through long absences and lack of responsibility, Happy Father's day.

To every man that raises another's child as his own, wraps his arms around his pregnant daughter and tells her it'll be o.k. in spite of his own shame and anger in fear, to every man that pays the bills and walks away and comes back and sings songs to babies and embraces the sons of the single mom that lives next door, Happy Father's Day. And most especially, to the man that walked the SoL lady down the aisle when her own father was absent without reservation and instead, with the pride of a father who was escorting his own flesh and blood into marriage, the man who was a father to so many of the fatherless that went home to be with his own Daddy just two weeks ago,

Happy Father's Day.

RIP Mr. W., daddy.

♥How To Grow A Soul♥

2009-04-05T06:54:00.001-07:00

Hello again! It's April, which is amazing. SoL loves all seasons, because they're all beautiful in some way. In the early Summer dust storms in Texas, the sky turns brown. Everything is gross and the color of Earth and when the sun filters through the dirt into your windows it's as if your home is built in mud. Dust storms are also pretty eerie.

Then the tornadoes come. They turn the sky into brilliant colors that don't align with what makes sense in terms of atmospheric normalcy. Lines are drawn through the horizon, and the sky takes sides and is on the cusp of arguing with itself. It's as if good and evil have manifested in the Heavens, to ensure that we know they exist. Black and blue and green and the clouds race to move away from the argument that's about to take place and then the hail comes and all we can do is standby and watch and pray for no injuries and that we're able to hold on until the storm is over.

These storms give birth to bright purple blue bonnets that babies all over Texas are placed in the midst of for a traditional photo that only Texans can appreciate the sentiment behind. Indian Paintbrushes move with the wind that chases butterflies and nasty bees up and down the flat Earth.

After the short life of the spring flowers the wild fires move in and clean up the residual petals and leaves and force animals out of hiding.
Texas is an amazing place, and so is the rest of this Earth.

Did you know that there is an Island, part of Yemen, called Socotora? Socotora is an absolutely amazing, wonderful place. It looks like the setting of one of those crazy 70's movies with Ape people and dinosaurs with a Centaur for the mayor. The trees appear to be upside down, and have names like Dragon's Blood. The flowers sprout from things that appear to be the legs of triceratops. The cucumbers on this island grow from trees. Socotora frightens me, but in a good way.

To see the complexity and order on this Earth, is to take a look at beauty that has a definition alien to everything we hold to be true. There are plants that thrive in nothing but rock, and fish with horrifying mouths that live in places no other living being could survive. Bacteria that require thousands of degrees temperatures and the gift of cherry blossoms from Japan that our nation's capital wears as her prom dress for a moment every spring.

We have no reason to be without hope. Of course the probability that you live in any of the places I've described here is pretty low. But that doesn't mean that you can't stand at a puddle and wonder about what sort of communities are thriving on the sidewalk in front of your house. I actually do that too, because there's an indentation in the concrete of my sidewalk where water collects and I stand with my children and we silently look over the water in awe, at least a couple of times per week.

Call me special needs, but when you are of the mindest that this world is full of incredible possibilities, and that life will make every possible effort to find a way to survive even when there's nothing to support it's existence, you have hope.

I stand amazed at the intricacy of the design that our Creator thought of in terms of the infrastructure of this world. Every single living thing was patiently and perfectly made, in such a complete and thoughtful way. Perfection is what is to be found in imperfection, and as I stand on my porch and watch the baby bunnies try to hide from me in the giant pre-historic looking hosta in the back yard that was made just to shelter them, I can't help but be thankful that I have the opportunity to witness life thriving at my feet.

It's not possible to be sad in a place like this.
So, stand over a puddle and wonder at what's going on in there. Consider the vast universe going about survival and thriving to make it on a carved out piece of dirty concrete. If that doesn't move you, then you've chosen to ignore the fundamental truth that there's too much potential in you, and the rest of the world, to be wasted on sorrow.

to learn a little more about Socotora, visit this place, and be amazed!

xo!,

♥Cupcakes 4 Everyone♥

2009-04-05T05:20:00.001-07:00

Good morning sunshines! I just came across this amazing chick, her name is Pinky! OMG ISN'T THAT ADORABLE? she's such a precious pie! She has a blog where she posts recipes of great stuff like..omg HELLO KITTY CUPCAKES! The SoL writer LOVES Hello Kitty. When I was a little girl, my 2 favorite things were my Poochie dog and Hello Kitty. So I had to make sure that everyone here knows how cutie adorable precious this little blog is! Oh I LOVE IT! IT'S PINK! YES!
So, mosey on over to cupcakes.today.com and MAKE SOMEONE HELLO KITTY COOKIES ! TODAY ! DOOOOO ITTTTTT!

XO!,

♥Follow Us On Twitter!♥

2009-04-04T18:18:00.001-07:00

Follow us on Twitter. It's important that you do so. Why ? Because throughout the day I can be found doing all sorts of random things for folks to let them know how beautiful they are! Now you can find out exactly what it's like to live a life that's centered around surprising/loving/blessing/amazing the crap out of everybody you meet! Now you must go to http://twitter.com/SanctityofLiife so you can be nosy and stalkerish.

XO!,

♥A Couple of Demands ..or Else!♥

2009-04-04T16:52:00.001-07:00

I've compiled a list of pretty easy things you can do to bless people. Don't be mistaken, true and perfect love comes at a cost. Love is not convenient. It doesn't always feel good. You may not even get anything out of it, and the recipient of your love might still be a big butthole even after you're done doing great things for them. So while you're engaging in blessing the tar out of a stranger, I want you to remember that you may not get anything at all out of this. But that isn't the point, because it isn't about you. Continue reading and FOR THE LOVE OF GOD EMAIL ADMIN@SANCTITYOFLIFE.NET AND TELL US WHAT YOU'VE DONE FOR ANOTHER HUMAN BEING THIS WEEK. IF YOU DO NOT, I WILL COME AFTER YOU, AND I WILL ..
replace all of the silverware in your house with bent spoons and forks with only one tine.

1.Pay for the coffee/egg mcmuffin/whatever for the person behind you in line at McDonalds or something.

2. Put an extra $20.00 on pump 2 at the gas station. Tell the gas station person that you want to pay for the part of the gas for the next person who shows up. Don't announce it either. Just do it, and walk away.

3.Buy a nice potted plant and leave it on the porch of a neighbor with a card that says, "YOU'RE AN AWESOME PERSON HERE'S A PLANT!" or something along those lines. Don't knock on their door, just leave the plant there.

4. Pay a couple meters next time you're on a street that has them.

5. Tape some change to a pay phone. People still use them. Write a note that says, "here's some money for youuuuuuuuu!" Make sure you include all of those "U's" as well. It's a nice effect in my opinion.

6. If you live with people, write something like: "I love you more than the moon and the stars!!" on the bathroom mirror.

7. Leave a giant tip for the waitress next time you go out to eat. Also, get his or her name, and call the restaurant to tell them how amazing and wonderful this particular wait person was.

8. Bake something great, or (in light of how terrible our country has become, they'll probably be scared to eat it) show up with a gift card to Dunkin Donuts or Krispy Kreme or some such at your local emergency room, police station or fire station.

9. Buy some flowers or mylar balloons (no latex please!) and take them to the hospital and tell the receptionist at the main entrance that you'd like for them to go to a patient with no family or other visitors.

10. **this is my favorite!!** Go to the post office and ask them for a letter that's been mailed to Santa with a return address. Buy the gift that the kid has asked for, and mail it to them. OH MY GOD THAT'S THE MOST EXCITING THING EVER! PLEASE DO IT!

I'll add more when I think of things to put here. Send me your ideas! I eagerly await them!!

XO!,

oh no.

2009-04-04T12:34:00.001-07:00

hi. I'm editing my layout. it's a mess at the moment, and what you're looking at is in no way representative of the way this place is supposed to look. You'll notice that there are 2 ridiculous, stupid elements that I have no idea how to get rid of and have done every single thing I can to remove to no avail. I'm going insane over it, and in the meantime I have herds of people to feed. So pretend that you don't see those stupid horrible dumb things and that my blog isn't about 22 seconds from disaster. :(

♥SURPRISE!♥

2009-04-04T10:21:00.001-07:00

Well hall0 thar! *I bet you didn't expect to see anything from me so randomly of such a random nature.
*This has been a message brought to you by the Department of Redundancy Department

It's the end of another seemingly endless string of nursing school semesters, and I thought I'd take a tiny lil break and fill you in on some nice things. So let's make a list.

1. You're breathing.
No matter how terrible life is, you just took a breath. That means that more
than likely you'll take another one, so there's a chance to be had in there.
Who knows? You could be walking down the street, look up, see a falling baby,
happen to instantly develop the reflexes of Chuck Norris, or Millard Filmore,
catch the baby falling from 3 stories above, and save a life!
Like these guys did.

2.There's a shaking up of sorts going on in our country.
I won't posit regarding how our government is doing and what's wrong or not wrong with our nation. But I will say that this is a perfect opportunity to help a brother ..or sister..out. Lots of people are complaining and angry and hurting. Make somebody dinner. Give them a couple books.
Read these stories. Pay attention to your surroundings, and then act.

3. Act. Move. Don't sit still.
You have the power to do something about the world we live in. That doesn't mean to run around yelling about how mad you are. Talk is cheap. And don't do it to be a hero either. Just do it because it's your responsibility as a citizen of this world. Like this person.

4. Nobody running around your place of business with a shot gun?
No fear! You can still help out. Consider that every single moment, yes, EVERY MOMENT, EVERY SECOND, is an opportunity to change the world. Hand out some rice while you're watching crazy crocodile videos on YouTube.

5. There is no number 5.
But as soon as I herd my spawn away from their Hannah Montana and back to cleaning their rooms, I have some more that I'd like to share. Until then,

In the vein of children's fads and annoying teenagers who get paid way too much to do way too little, I leave you with this. Enjoy!

xo!,

Truth # 1: The Sanctity of Life Writer Loves Elvis Presley

2009-01-21T16:34:00.002-08:00

There's only a "me". No "we" to it. I just refer to myself in the plural to make you think there's a large number of professional sorts of thinking folks collaborating for the greater good. Sounds important.

So I wanted to be a little honest. I'd like for you to know why I do this. Or, don't do this, since I haven't been keeping up with this as much as I should. I know that not too many people read what I write. That's cool too. I don't need masses of followers or anything of the sort. I just think a lot, and I'd like for someone to be set on fire by the hope and love that I'm starving for the whole world to understand. When it's what compels you, there's a sort of desperation that takes over and you can't just shut up about it. Love is the "it", by the way. I tend to use tons of pronouns. I think that's a woman thing. Sorry.

I'm not much of anything. I've made mistakes. Everybody does. But my mistakes were epic. The kind rooted in pure selfishness. But in a different way. Since I'm a feeling sort of person, everything I do is in gargantuan proportion. Like the animals in the Galapagos Islands, my emotions are disproportionately, inappropriately large. I recognize this, so I don't really share them very often. When I'm mean, I'm ridiculously over the top ruthless mean. So, I've left a trail of brokenness behind me that's going to leave a legacy of so much hurt. I don't now live my life for others to make up for who I've been and what I've done. I do it because I was built this way. Even when I was hurting others, I still longed to un-hurt them. I'm not sure how to explain that either. I just know that my desperation for the human race is ultimately what has always driven me since I was very small and that love is not intrinsic to me. I'm not capable of caring really. I've run people off the road in ridiculous fits of road rage, with this horrible anger. And that thing that God put inside of me to love no matter what takes over and I go back and help them out of the ditch I put them in. It's not guilt either. I don't have too much of that or I'd probably have offed myself in a warm bath tub a long time ago.

I've got a point. Just bear with me, please.
You see, I've been wronged just like you have. But again, the thing. the "Thing". It makes it impossible for me to to do nothing else but love in return. Anger never lasts long with me. And I can't make you be like me. That would suck anyway because all the world would end up laughing constantly at things that aren't very funny, running into walls all the time because their mind works faster than their brain and making spaghetti and flan for dinner for 2 week stretches because they have weird food intensities like 2 year olds who will only drink apple juice and eat crackers for a year. Also, they'd stare at engagement rings all the time and talk about how Mr. T would handle situations when tough times arise. He's a great guy.

My point in all of this is to tell you that I'm the kind of strange that isn't cool. I stumble all over the place and get confused, I think a million miles a minute and most of life is hilarious to me. When it hurts, it's a searing pain that I have no one to tell. I say bad words too much also. And you know, all I want is for you to see the wonder and beauty of the gift of life for what it is.

There's the Evangelical movement. I'm talking about Jesus right now by the way, I know I'm pretty fragmented when I get to explaining things. Sorry. Again. So, moving on...
the Evangelical movement thing. I don't even know what that is. I know there are people that are on t.v. Sarah Palin for example. There was recently a picture of her with her hands raised, being "blessed" by members of her church or some such. So we see these images. Boxes of gestures, catch phrases like "blood on your hands" or, "HAVE A BLESSED DAY!". Pictures of folks in suits that carry guns on weekends and donate to Focus on The Family or something and listen to country songs like.."Jesus Take the Wheel." This box of Americans is what Christianity is known as today.

I'm not that. Those people tend to hate me. I'm a low income single mother with no education and not one pot to piss in. I have a really cool short bed truck though. I can't wait to get it painted too. My 20 year old Chevrolet > *. I don't dress as cool as I wish I could. I haven't found a church that I like. I love everybody, even when I dislike them in tremendous ways which is more and more common with me as of late. And my adoration for the heart of Christ consumes me and it never goes away. I struggle privately, again because of my mistakes. But I have a singular focus. Like I'm looking through a camera and all I see is a giant heart! This focus is so huge and amazing and I thank Christ for allowing me to see this tiny glimpse of the fundamental truth of who He really is. I swear to you that yes, I am a follower of Jesus Christ and that He is the reason for this blog because it's all I can really do right now with "The Thing." So that's what you're really reading about. The practical application of the heart of Jesus Christ.

Sometimes, true love is angry. It sucks too because it doesn't cater to what I feel. It caters to the bare honesty that's contradictory to everything our shattered souls crave to get us through another moment with out it. It's a baby with colic that's been crying for three weeks non-stop. They do that too. Love is confrontational, at best. It backs you into a corner and makes you madMADmad! It's intensely tender and strong and safe. It's not what those Twilight books poorly attempt to intimate. It's pure and doesn't tolerate b.s. very well.

So that's why I'm here. I'm a messy person that irritates a lot of people every day. I'm loud and obnoxious. But I'm quiet too. I'm so opinionated when I have no right to be because I've messed up so, so much. I'm desperate, desperate. I'm so desperate to show you that right where you're at, RIGHT NOW. IMMEDIATELY. I'm a mess. There is no difference between myself and the idiots that steal those Jazzy wheel chairs from the grocery store because they're drunk and it seems like a good idea at the time. You don't need to be an important person in a suit to have a voice. Christ was the guy took the time to care about a prostitute going about her business in the street. He was also the guy that didn't compromise standards for the sake of the pretend kind of love that that inevitably breaks our hearts after which we turn to yoga and Dr. Phil to sort through the aftermath. He's so much. I don't even know. He's huge and brilliant and perfect and not what you think He is and I know I don't have enough clout to get you to listen. I don't have a PhD in Jesus-ish. But I know enough.

Love is revolutionary and it's the thing we search for in pop culture and it's what we're reaching towards and it's right here for you to grab. But it isn't cool enough.

If you knew me you'd know that my life and who I am is a portrait of hopelessness and failure. You'd laugh at me and call me a hypocrite. I understand that too. If you knew the truth. I'm not even kidding. So I decided that there are a billion million trillion things on this planet, the realm that we live in. That need to be addressed in direct proportion to what's true and good and correct. Because I drew a line years ago and I don't deal in gray areas by the way. And you have to know these things. You just do.

This will most likely be the last time I directly address you from such a personal perspective. I don't like to do that, you see the results of me opening up. It's like somebody puked a bunch of sunday paper and you're trying to find the coupons. The beating hearts of the masses, everyone you see and hear. You too. Are crying out for revolution and there's an answer and I'm only one voice and I'm sure there are many who don't agree with me and think I'm wrong. But I wanted you to know that there's another way.

Thanks, and XO,

♥Psalm 27:10♥

2008-12-17T03:56:00.001-08:00

I promise I'm not about to preach at you. I'd like to begin this post by informing you of my position regarding the use of information. If it works, go with it. No matter where it comes from. Agree or disagree with the source, but if there's any value to be had in a statement or idea, no reason to throw it away because you don't like the author. Just wanted to clear that up before I continue with you thinking this is some sort of subversive attempt at shoving something down your throat that you don't want anything to do with. It isn't.

MOVING RIGHT ALONG!
Many of us have experienced some pretty heinous rejection in our lifetime. For a life to be thrown away, a beating heart. I'm really not sure what to make of that. They say that if you don't care for others, if you're so willing to disregard another life, you probably don't have much regard for your own. I don't necessarily agree with that. But that's for another blog. The point here, today, is the measure of human worth independent of the vacillating standard that sometimes says otherwise.

Between 1854 and 1929, hundreds of thousands of American children were herded onto trains to be sent to any takers that would have them along stops all over the country. These children were victims of poverty and disease, usually. A Christian man saw the plight of the sometimes very young babies that walked streets all over the U.S. with no shoes, wearing rags. At this particular time in American history, there were no social programs to assist our people in such large numbers. It was our job to take care of each other, and our citizens agreed.

These babies were picked up, scrubbed and given shoes and a change of clothes with a cardboard suitcase. Not every child on these trains was an orphan. Between the Stock Market Crash of the 1920's, and diseases with no vaccines to be heard of, mothers were dying and daddies had no idea what to do. One little man, who's family was torn apart this way, remembers it this way.

"since I was the oldest, I'd been instructed to look after my brothers. The pink, stamped envelope with Papa's name and address on it made a
crackling sound as I touched it. He'd given it to me the day before, when he'd visited the orphanage to say
goodbye. "Write me when you get settled," he'd said. Then tears began running down his face."

Up and down the aisles, the man continues to explain that you could hear tiny sobs and scared little voices whispering with the rocking of the rail cars. Dealing with a child's uncertainty meant being a man or a woman, and as my grandmother used to say, putting your shoulders back.

These children endured rejection of the searing kind. The generation we're discussing right now had no outlet for their pain, save their own shoulders.
And nothing is really new under the sun, as King Solomon told us many, many years ago. The same thing happens in every city and town all over the world today, just manifested differently. Three year olds wander garbage dumps in South America. They, as the children that came before them generations ago, don't have shoes either. Here in the U.S. the abuse and rejection has become creative. Hurting our babies has become almost an art. And so the walking wounded have Zoloft and Paxil and group therapy sessions. But the mother and the daddy, the hole, they can't be filled or replaced by manipulating neurotransmitters or attempting to move the pain from your soul to a statement to others.

So I'm telling you, that just like back in 1855, when a Christian man decided that it was his job, concurrent with his beliefs, to take responsibility for his community, that's what I'm asking you to do right now.

The name of the boy who lost his only hope in that pink envelope is Lee Nailing. Bitterness bloomed in his young heart immediately after he discovered the only thing he had to hold onto, his pink envelope with his father's address on it, was gone. He was shuffled through many homes until a Mrs. and Mrs. Nailing of the Christian faith, allowed their beliefs to guide them to this little boy. They called Lee down to dinner his first night in their home, and scolded him for grabbing a biscuit before grace was said over their meal. Mr. Nailing began his new family's meal by addressing "our Father", and ended it with thanking the same father for blessing them with a son, and asked for guidance in their choices as they raised him in Christ. Lee Nailing explained that as he listened to the prayer, he was amazed that these people considered him to be a privilege. He looked over at the empty seat next to him, with a simple, (even dumb by most standards) deduction that this invisible father must be in that chair.

Lee grew up to be a productive, successful Christian man. One of the very last statements he made when sharing his story to be documented as part of the history of the Orphan Train was that "Although I didn't know where Papa was, or how I could write to him, I had the
strong feeling that I had found not one but two new fathers, and I could talk to both of them. And that's the way it
turned Out."

Though his mother and father foresook (is that a word? I don't think so. crap. foresaked?) him, Christ received this little boy. The resilience that was birthed of this generations struggles built a nation who's shoulders we stand on today. The same shoulders they were told to "put back" and carry on through drought, starvation, disease and war.

So I'm telling you that you're capable. Your mother and father may very well have thrown you away. Someone has probably hurt you. That pain can be used to impart the most powerful, and only thing that can truly save this world. That thing is Love. Love equals hope. It equals the strength to push through and make beauty out of ashes. Through what some would call serendipitous events, Lee started off in a home with folks who didn't really love him after being taken from his father, and was kicked out for letting their chickens out of their coop too early in the morning; and thereby sent to a home with the parents who saved his life.

Like Lee, try having a little faith in providence. Then, use your pain to make this world a better place. So your shoulders can be the ones that hold up the broken long after you're gone. That's really what we're here for. Remember, it's never about you. And it never will be. For more on the Orphan Train and how it helped to shape our country, check out this video.

xo!

♥Politicization♥

2008-12-08T20:46:00.002-08:00

The title of this post came to be out of deference to the SoL writer's cousin. "Politicization" is not a word. Moving along, the above image took a very long time to compose; and alas, the SoL writer must sleep, and will continue tomorrow.
Stay tuned..
zzZ

♥Politicization♥

2008-12-08T20:43:00.002-08:00

With deference to the SoL writer's dear cousin, the birth of this post title came to be. "Politicization" is not a word.
Moving on, this post will probably be the longest one ever...
The image above took quite awhile, and so alas, the SoL writer has a Pharmacology exam tomorrow and must complete the rest of this post tomorrow. Stay tuned...