Halloween!

The scariest part of Halloween: being a vegan when everybody went out for barbeque at the end of the night.

I'm never going to live at home again. I decided while I was still there.

Not St Louis, exactly - the city itself was surprisingly cozy once I readjusted. I don't ever want to live with my parents, in that house, is what I mean. I liked living in a clean beige apartment in Brentwood, walking down Manchester and wooded back roads like the old days. I saw high school and bookstore friends, spent time with my brother (my sister's in Amsterdam til next year), and ran all over town with my bf. 

Pete himself isn't a muse, but he's definitely the channel through which mine regularly flows. We saw obscure films at the Webster film series, press screenings at the Tivoli, & two really terrific music shows. For Man Man, at the Bluebird, we had to stand in the cold in a serpentine pre-doors line that wound around the deserted downtown block - everybody was so excited & trendy & the best part was that I didn't recognize a single face, which was so great. (I really hate that if I meet ANYbody interesting in STL, they're bff w/ all the exact same hipsters I don't really like. Smalltown inescapability!) I ran into acquaintances at Of Montreal, & Rocky Horror (which paid me! Woohoo!), & Whole Foods, & the Journey, & the Apple store...

The most social day was with PCA people. I met Susan's adorable baby, and then she surprised me with a visit from Karin (!) and a vegan lunch. Very sweet!

At 4, Karin's mom & siblings (3 of the 5) came to pick her up, & sort of dragged me along. Since K was only in town for two days, & she lives w/ KT when she's here, I felt pretty bad taking away from family time. Plus, they're remodeling & half the house was wrapped in plastic. Mrs G went psycho control freak on Jonathan in front of all of us, which was SO UNCOMFORTABLE. The girls were about to call Dr G to come home & intervene when he showed up, phew! All the kids went outside & kicked around the driveway for awhile and then we all went to the Olive Garden for dinner & pretended nothing had happened. 

It was very odd, very high school, to ride in the family's crowded minivan, to play audience to 6 siblings bantering & shoving, to witness awkward or dangerous personal exchanges. It was actually homey & nice. Does that make sense? I felt out if place, but peacefully so, because a stranger wouldn't have been allowed to see any of that. & I used to see it all the time.

The whole day kind of felt like a tour of other people's houses, families. (Maybe the whole trip did, actually.) Because after the Olive Garden Kaitlin got off work (9pm) & I went home w/ her & Karin. Her house is very long & clean & neutral colored, except for her room, which is cluttered with anime magazines, textbooks, colored pencils, plushies, patched clothes & papers. Her walls are covered, too, & it's strange to spot the photographs that have me in them, & pages of art attempts I drew for her years ago. There are computer-printed pictures of Cloverfield (my brother's cat) as a kitten up too. 

When we first got home, Kaitlin poked her head into her parents' room so we could say hi. They were lying in bed reading, side-by-side, with twin lamps lit, like the Brady Bunch parents or something. It was surreal but cute. We stayed there until midnight, when KT drove me home because my mom refused to come get me. 

I thought seeing such old friends would be like an end, or a beginning. Like a doorway we could pass through to begin something new. But once I got back "home," I just felt kind if lost. Karin was perfect - I can't imagine a better friend than she is & has always been, to everybody - but otherwise it felt like everyone was really eager to find fault w/ me. Susan seemed rapacious for bad news about my family, esp mom & poor nonChristian Pete, & the G's lectured me forever about getting an education (by which, of course, they really just mean a title or degree, THEIR type of education). & Kaitlin just didn't seem to care. 

I don't know, I guess I just thought they'd be content w/ my choices now. I feel like I finally have the opportunity to do something good, & still people don't think it's good enough, because it's not their version of success. It's really disheartening. At first I felt sort of disillusioned - just sort of sad & scared & like what's the point? You know? But then I thought, screw it! I don't regret a SINGLE thing I've done (or not done), so why should I let somebody who doesn't understand me make me think I do? If I'm living it right - well - my life is never going to look like somebody else's, let alone what everybody else wants it to. & that's SUCH a good thing! Honestly. 

Returning to my house was depressing, my family was depressing. Lots of things were depressing. But I weighed them against my own standard, not ones borrowed from anybody else. So it was a doorway, I guess. Something small opening. Promising. Do you know what I mean? I can do whatever I want. Not in a go out & get wasted way -- almost the opposite. I don't know if I can explain it properly, but I'm finally grasping shades of gray. Not in salvation issues or commandments, of course, but in all the little rules I bind myself with. Like veganism? I really like it, but sometimes I'm bad at it. So what? Is anything really horrible going to happen if my cereal has .2% honey in it? 

I'm just tired of legalism & hypocrisy, mostly in my own life. I'm tired of reliance on titles to tell us somebody's worth. How can I grow if I'm always confining myself with tricky labels & half understood definitions? I know it's all very cliche, & I apologize for rambling. As stupid & obvious as these things seem, & as long as I should have known them, I feel like I'm finally opening up to embracing options I have taken. I know I've made the right decisions, even if it doesn't seem like it, & now I'm gaining the courage, through that, to make even better choices for myself.

Home again

Oo, I'm so glad to be back! Tony and Jorge (my first re-encounters) were kind of weird, but Vijay and Sharon and Nick and Jimmy and Dion and Chris were so reassuring! I was especially worried about Chris, but he punched me hard and friendly in the arm and shouted, "Hey! You're not in St Louis anymore!" laughing and sounding genuinely joyous. A lot of people thought I was pulling an Alyssa. But I'm back, and glad to be. The apartment was toasty and glowing like a real home last night. And I took a cab, alone! Painfully expensive (my entire Rocky pay with tip - over $40), but the guy seemed to think I knew my way around a bit ("Take the BQE, right?"), and it was bliss stepping out of that yellow fly-by-night onto the silent shining familiar streets of Chinatown. Sliding my own key into the deadbolt of 5209, smelling that same indefinable mission apartment air I first inhaled at 16. Rolling my worldly goods into the beloved place I have willingly and now fully moved into. Man. It was so hard saying goodbye, but it's good saying hello again. To know that I do belong here and am more and more making this community and these people my home.

Cloud Cult

Flying home.

Silverson Pickups

Two of my first graders passing the park between school and SAY Yes.

"I never would have got here if I'd followed my heart."

Ahh, staff meeting! Whit came and everybody shouted and sighed and pouted. I stayed quiet and happy. So content. Tony bought me burnt black coffee and as soon as VJ flipped open the enormous office calendar I announced I was leaving. Nobody complained, and Whit even volunteered to help with SAY Yes Wednesday and Thursday! What a relief.

I'm so excited for the holidays, too, for that rush of winter that starts, essentially, as soon as I get back from St Louis. On Halloween Emily and I are going to make "boatloads" of brownies, and then the youth group and a bunch of us are going to set up a table outside of church and hand out brownies, hot cocoa, and Halloween-themed tracts to the trick-or-treaters. (Free! 4+pm) And there's a staff Thanksgiving dinner, and a Christmas potluck....

So now that everybody knows I'm going, I'm pretty excited about my two weeks home. My goals are to bring back winter supplies, see my friends, be good to Pete, patch my clothes, gather crucial documents, make money.... I really wish I could raise support and NOT need a job. I want so much for my life to be made up of full-time church ministry and soup kitchens on the side!

Zachaeus, you come down!

One thing I love about my Redeemer Bible study is the way it's made classic, almost cliche passages fresh for me! Tonight we read the story of Zacchaeus, and what newly struck me is the difference in Zacchaeus once Jesus noticed him. Zacchaeus went to all this trouble to see Christ, and that's huge. But what if Jesus had ignored the outcast up a tree? What if, like it seems so natural to do, He had just kept going wherever he was going, with the same people following Him? Zacchaeus would probably have enjoyed what he saw, but eventually climbed down from that tree, gone home, and continued, albeit a little guiltily, with his life. He would have seen God, and that would have been great, but he probably wouldn't have ever MET God, let alone His grace. This honestly astounds me: Jesus sought this man out, and, just by accepting him, changed his entire life. Not only did Zacchaeus completely turn his life around, he made amends for his past sins. All because Jesus spoke to him, publically sought his company. He said nothing about money or transgression or redemption, but things changed anyway, because of who He is and what He's done.

I think what really hits me is the conscious interaction Jesus instigated. With all these Sunday school changes proposed, I've been thinking a lot lately about the point of our ministry. Thanks to Francis Chan, I'd come to the conclusion that we want to show others God - create a space for them to see and meet Him themselves. But I thought that giving kids - and adults - a glimpse was enough. I thought sharing a Bible verse or warm smile was enough to let them see Christ in me. And in some cases it might be, but, in others, maybe MOST, just seeing God from a distance isn't enough; it wasn't, I'd argue, for Zacchaeus, and it probably isn't for those Sunday school kids either. In order to truly change lives people have to MEET Jesus. And I've got to interact. I bear Christ's name and, hopefully, His spirit. My love, in action, is the fruit by which I am - He is - to be recognized.