oh, that chocolate mountain air

We left El Tunco today and headed north to Santa Ana to spend the night before heading to Guatemala in the morning. As I lay in this hostel, soaking in the heat of the midday sun as it shines through our stained glass windows and listen to the clattering of the street and the chirping of birds, all I can think of is the sweet smell that wafted through the bus earlier today.

Central America is an overload of senses, making it hard to fully absorb all that I'm experiencing. The new sounds of an unfamiliar language, the salty ocean breeze juxtaposed with the dry city air, the smells of fresh street food quickly snuffed out by the smell of burning garbage, the blossoming colors of the sun as it finds it's way under the horizon. The sensory experiences are endless, but today, as we rode through the mountains I was captured by an aroma that I can only describe as melting chocolate. It lasted but a few seconds and as I looked out the window I failed to notice any entity that might be responsible for this little gift. It came and went, leaving nothing but a mystery and a fond memory.

Now, hours later as I reflect on this aroma I'm captured by a verse of scripture that my brother sent me the day before I left for this trip: Therefore, be imitators of God as dear children, and walk in love, as Christ also has loved us and given himself for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet-smelling aroma. The aroma of melting chocolate has become a reminder to me today of God's sacrifice and promises. That what he has done, he has done for all and what he has spoken he has not spoken in vain. His words spoken over us may seem like a fleeting mystery at times but they are captivating in the midst of chaos and are a memory that is capable of sustaining us. But just as Christ is a sweet aroma so shall we be; if we do this life right, we will be just as the chocolate mountain air was to me, a pleasing gift of joy that leaves others deeper in the presence of God.

Here's to being melting chocolate.

Peace&Jesus

Que Dios Te Bendiga

I spent the last five days ministering to one of the most authentic, welcoming, and loving church communities I have ever met. It is a spanish church in Ft. Lauderdale about 80 people large, but it feels like a small and tightly knit family. I was there with my two great friends Jared and Joey and we had the privilege of loving this community and encouraging them in the truth that they are holy and righteous people reconciled to the heart of the Father through the life, death, and resurrection of the Son. Seeing the presence of God overcome person after person was an amazing experience but one of the most impacting moments was right before I headed home. 

Yesterday as Joey and I were packing to leave Ft. Lauderdale and saying bye to Jared who was staying until Wednesday, Gonzalo, the father of the house we stayed at, came into the bedroom and handed me an envelope. He said that he spoke with Oscar, his brother and the pastor of the church, and they wanted to give us a little something to help with gas. He then said that he had been waiting for a moment when it was just himself with Jared, Joey, and I because he had something to tell us. 

Gonzalo began to tell us about a dream that he had only shared with his wife. Three weeks ago, before Joey and I had any plans of going to Ft. Lauderdale, Gonzalo dreamed that he was hosting Jared and two other men at his house. The two other men he said resembled Joey and I, one with blonde hair and the other with dark hair. The three men spent the weekend ministering to the church and at the end of the weekend the blonde haired man and the dark haired man were getting ready to leave before the third man. Before the two men left he said they looked at each other and one said, "should we tell him now?" 

To which the other replied, "Do you think it's time?"

Gonzalo said the two men then began to shine brightly and revealed to him that they were angels and then left. He said that in his dream he began to rejoice saying, " I did the right thing! I opened my house to angels!" 

Two weeks after his dream, Oscar told Gonzalo that Jared and two of his friends were coming for the weekend. Oscar said that they could split us up and put us in different houses but Gonzalo told him no, that he wanted all three of to stay with him. 

As he finished his story Jared, Joey, and myself were blown away. Speechless, none of us could express how amazed and blessed we were by what he shared. Gonzalo expressed his appreciation for us coming this weekend and told us how much of a blessing we were. 

What I could never fully express though is how much I was blessed and honored by Gonzalo and his family through the love the showed to us this weekend. Forever I will be impacted by the Frias family, because if anyone shines like angels, it is them.

Wisdom of the Jaded Father

My biggest hope is that you never grow up to learn the truth in life. That you never learn that nothing in this life is real. That nothing in this life is trustworthy. That nothing is forever and nothing will ever truly care. They say ignorance is bliss and son, that's the best way to live. Don't search too hard because one day you might find it. Don't waste your time looking. The disappointment of never knowing is truly far less than the disappointment of knowing. 

If only I could turn back time and live that moment once more, that moment right before I learned. Oh how I would savor it like the last drop of honey tea on a cool November evening. It would be like the fresh breeze coming off a field of overgrown daisies; sweet, refreshing and fleeting. That moment is precious I tell you. More valuable than you could know. It is the instant that life goes from all things good to pain and discontent. Those last few seconds before you learn are the freest you'll ever be again. It'll be the last time you'll ever smile of genuine happiness rather than happiness in-spite of. The last moments before you begin a life of buts, ands, ors, what-abouts, how's bouts, and then agains. It is the last moment of your youth. 

I hope, truly hope you never grow up to learn the truth. 

By Chance

Plots are for stories, accidents for life. Chance seemed more significant than choice.

-John Dufresne, Johnny Too Bad

            It is by chance that I read these words in the last hour of my bus ride to Scranton just after Gail’s stop. It is by chance that I was even on that bus. By chance that I woke up this morning with the spontaneous idea to buy a ticket to LaGuardia to take a bus to the Port Authority in Manhattan to take the 11:00pm bus to Scranton, PA. It is by chance that I sat in the last empty row of four seats leading me to give up my seat so that a little girl and her father could sit next to each other and it is by that chance that I ended up sitting next to Gail.

            Gail is a middle-aged black woman who lives in Mount Pocono, a onetime Brooklynite from the Adirondacks. She is a gentle woman; she speaks softly but is assertive. She has just a dash of grey coming in around her temple and her voice is reminiscent of an old time Blues singer. She works for the police department in Brooklyn doing clerical work but desires so much more. A missionary at heart, Gail mobilizes people from her congregation and hits the streets to bring the love of Christ to those in her neighborhood. Wanting to serve and love better Gail recently received her certification as a Nursing Assistant so that she can offer more to her community. She wonders if it’s possible to go to another country to do missionary work.

            As I sat by myself in the very last row of the airplane headed to LaGuardia I hoped that I’d meet someone interesting on the bus and that we’d have great conversation. Gail is more than interesting she’s inspirational. We discussed daily life, aspirations, and religion. I taught her about the Chinese language and she taught me about the bus route. Mostly though, Gail taught me about myself. In the two hours I spent seated next to Gail I learned about who I am, how I relate to God, and why I love people the way I do.

            Gail got off the bus the stop before mine, leaving me with forty minutes to coast through the darkness of Pennsylvania in deep reflection. The last twelve hours have made me come alive inside. It was as if God was breathing air into my lungs for the first time. I was overwhelmed with joy and appreciation. It made me realize that in people I find God and in spontaneity I find his freedom. I’ve never been one to fly through the clouds or stand beside the mountains or look out on the ocean and be amazed by what God had created. To say to myself, “there is a God and this is his work.” But on that bus I looked around and said just that. Look at the people that God has created, he is real and they are his works.

            While Gail was getting ready to leave the bus she turned to me and said, I hope we meet again. I told her, we will one day. Until that time comes though I will think about Gail often. I will pray for her and relive that moment over and over again in my head. I will tell friends about her and work parts of that moment into future conversations. As my memory fogs I will remember the experience differently. Things about Gail will change and how I speak of them will too, but what she taught me will remain. What I take away from this trip will forever be valuable.

            I might have made the choice to go though with my idea, to change my flight ahead, or to switch seats with that little girl, but it was the chance in this trip, in that moment, in this life that is most significant. 

Fortunately, We're All Unfortunate

Today, as I skimmed through Facebook I noticed a comment on a photo that struck me. The person was commenting on the size of a guy’s nipples saying that they were the smallest nipples in the world. A strange comment in itself but it made me think of a comment my aunt made to me the other day. My aunt was commenting on the excessive amount of hair I had growing from my head and face.

She said, “unfortunately, people will judge you and you don’t want them to think badly or little of you before they get to know you.”

To which my mother said, “I understand what you’re saying but I don’t think his hair necessarily detracts from the kind of person he is.”

To which my aunt responded, “yes, but that is because we already know the true James.”

To which I said, “I don’t want to associate with people who don’t want to know me because of the way I look. The way someone looks would never stop me from getting to know them and I want to be friends with people who are like me.”

The conversation volleyed a few more remarks before fading away, but when I read the comment on Facebook I couldn’t help but be reminded of it. Nipples. One cannot even have tiny nipples without eliciting a remark from someone. My aunt was right, unfortunately people will judge me before ever knowing me; however, it’s unfortunate for reasons other then some people choosing to think I’m homeless or a terrorist or even worse, A HOMELESS TERRORIST! It’s unfortunate because there are people who hate themselves based on what others think of them. Right this moment there are people attempting to starve themselves into acceptance and when that doesn’t work they are heaving themselves over the toilet to empty as much stomach content as possible. It’s unfortunate because right this moment there are people undergoing surgery so that when others look at them they’ll be more widely accepted. It’s unfortunate because there are hundreds of millions of people around the world abusing drugs and alcohol in an attempt to forget how unfortunate they are.

What’s even more unfortunate though, is how easy it is for us to propagate the notion of visual acceptance. I say us because I am far from being free of this. I care way too much about the way others look at me, which I take in and then regurgitate into a shallow web of opinion and thought processes. I have become so numbed to the effects of visual judgment that I will without thought mention to someone how small their ears are, how orange their skin is, how outgrown their hair is, how chapped their lips are, how abnormally tall they are, etc which are sadly all real instances. This is the most unfortunate of it all. That I accept it, is shameful and disgusting.

Yet, there is beauty to this all. We’re all unfortunate. We’ll never appease others and will always struggle to satisfy our opinions. I’ll never meet the romantic vision of self and life that I have in my head. I’ll never look a way that everyone else approves of. I can though, be everything the Lord wants me to be. I can exist from a place of love. I can see past opinion. I can think beyond my typical thought process. I can notice a trait unique to someone else and use it to encourage that person. I can propagate differences. I can choose to see souls rather than bodies. I can know love, I can love, and I can be love; and in love I can choose an acceptance beyond visual acceptance.

Although I don’t struggle with befriending people because they look or are a certain way I don’t do anything to live in resistance to the acceptance of being unfortunate. I don’t use the radical grace of Jesus to stir me into a blind love. I don’t consciously choose to live beyond the chains of visual acceptance or to partner with the Lord in an attempt to remove them entirely. This is unfortunate but so are we all, which is why we are fortunate to have a God who contends for his people. Who provides acceptance and changes hearts. 

Conformity

Yesterday in a Christmas skit thing at church one of the dancer’s shirt said conformity. I don’t really know what the dance was about, something to do with the world in our lives keeping God’s light within us from shining;  I think.... Anyways, I saw the word conformity and it had me thinking: why is there no warning about conforming to the church? There’s always someone within the church that will advise you against conforming to the world and the dangers that brings, but who is warning Christians about conforming to “Christianity.”

I’m sure many people could dispute what I’m about to say and make tons of valid points because what I’m going to say isn’t anything new but this is my blog, Mercedes said she wants me to write something for her to read, and I’m going to talk about what’s on my mind so that’s that and here I go. I think the church has a big problem with people conforming to it and to be honest, I think it messes a lot of people up. I’ve only been following Christ for two and a half years and can see how conformity to the church has taken a toll on me; my heart aches, like literally aches, and my stomach turns when I think about those who have been subject to Christian conformity their whole lives. There’s a lot danger in conforming to the church but to me, the greatest dangers is that you lose yourself. I’m not talking about losing yourself for the sake of Christ but losing yourself for the sake of being a new person. Somehow being made into a new person has translated into being like everyone else; like when God makes you new He uses the same designs He uses for everyone else. Somehow everyone is now to be offended by this and passionate about that and their lives should follow these steps and by the time Christ returns we will all be new and the same and He will be able to pick us out of the world with no confusion. And the problem with this, the real problem beyond conformity is that in doing so we lose honesty. We lose the ability to doubt and question and to resist because if you want to be a Christian than you’ve got to be bold and confident and defend. We convince ourselves of an image of an ideal Christian and then start to see ourselves as great religious figures when we read the bible rather than like Judas and the Hebrews in the desert and the Samaritan woman at the well. We lose ourselves and begin to perceive a false reality. Then we start to walk in that reality and start to believe that if we’re not this then we’re what we use to be and if we’re what we use to be then something is seriously wrong because that’s not what being a Christian is. We begin to fear the world and conform even more to the church burying deeper our honesty until we fit the new creation.

And this is sad. It’s sad because it’s not what you were created to be. You were not created to have a life that looks like every other Christian’s life. You were not created to act the same way and to think the same things. All of those great biblical figures we start to identify with were radical people that lived completely different from everyone else. They were people who acted, talked, and thought differently. I don’t want to be consumed by conformity because I don’t want to cover my honesty. I’m at a place where I’m slowly undigging the honesty and self that I began to burry two and a half years ago. The thought of conformity to the church scares me, but I’m trying to balance my fears of having a life that looks like almost every other Christian’s I know with my nature of running away. I’m trying to submit my frustrations to grace and not stand so much against conformity that I turn into a hypocrite preaching conformity into an anti-conformist. I’m trying real hard to find out who God truly has called me to be and to be that man and only that man. I sure am trying and although it is exhausting and at times I feel like I’m doing it wrong I know God has been blessing me in it and I can say that I’ve never seen Him work in the quiet like I have this last month. 

Two Birds One Stone

Life is something amazing. It's hectic, draining, refreshing, and every other set of contradictory adjectives you could think of. My two weeks of RA training that we do every semester are over and today started the first day of Fall 2011 classes. I can tell this semester is going to be a doozie with a work load equivalent to 22 hours; however, I am completely at ease with that.

Slowly these last three weeks I have been finding myself becoming more and more distant from the Lord as I became more and more busy with the world. I found myself bitter, judgemental, frustrated, and extremely inadequate. This morning though, I woke up early and spent about forty-five minutes in prayer trying to find my way back into His arms. I think I learned more about who I am vs who I perceive myself to be in the past fours days than I have in the last two years. I have been so far from the image of Christ, yet believed myself to be so close. Well, in all honesty, I have been conducting myself as if I was so close but knew I was not who I portrayed myself as.

As I dig deeper into that notion I realize that much of my life is a struggle between who I portray myself to be, who I am, and who I want to be. In the end these charades just end with me feeling completely inadequate. However, when I'm home in Orlando around my good friends and amazing coworkers (or as I call them, boozies&family) I feel free but when I'm intimate with the Lord I feel adequate.

My new boss has a tendency to say, "two birds one stone" and I think there's something very legitimate about that. When I walk in my identity in Christ I feel adaquate. I feel worthy and untouchable. It's who I am and in that I can walk in the person I want to be, because all else matters none. I realize that it doesn't matter who I am worldly when I exist from the heavenly, which allows me to be whoever I please in the earthly. Walking in my identity in Christ allows me to be the person I am with my boozies and the man I am with the Lord both at the same time. It truly is,

"two birds, one stone."