"Westboro Was Right" -- My First Spoken Word Poem!

I severely need to write and document what's been happening in the last few months.

But just so you kinda know what I'm up to, I performed the first spoken word poem I've ever written on Saturday at the talent show at my school, and I just uploaded it to youtube (my first ever [and potentially only ever] video on youtube!).  Results were really positive for the most part, and I got second place out of 16 acts! (although I did also perform Neil Hilborn's "OCD" which I actually memorized, and which is really good and you should definitely watch that one too.  The first place winner was expected... one of my friends made a skit that took scenes/lines from Princess Bride and made it all about phonology.  Too many people here who love phonology/linguistics and Princess Bride that I just couldn't compete!  If I hadn't voted for them and had voted for myself, the votes would have been 12 - 14.  Glad that people liked it!)

Here's the transcript:

In 1991,

I was born in Laramie, Wyoming.

Population: 27,000.

In 1998, a year after I left,

Matthew Shepard was studying in Laramie at the University of Wyoming.

That was the year Matthew was robbed, beaten, tortured, wrapped around a fence post and left to die because he was gay.

That was the year Westboro Baptist Church picketed his funeral with signs that said

"No Tears for Queers" and "God Hates Fags."

That was the year I turned seven.

That was the year he would have turned twenty-two.

Fifteen years later, it's 2013.

This is the year I turn twenty-two.

This is the year I graduate from college.

This is the year my life begins and I wonder what it would be like if this is the year my life ends.

But I don't have anyone to assault me as I beg for my life.  

My skull isn't fractured from the end of a gun smashing into my head.  

My face isn't completely covered in blood except for where I've washed the blood away with my tears.

But I am gay, like Matthew was.

And I can't help but wonder:  if there's no one to take my life,

then will I end up taking it myself like countless gay people before me?

Because Westboro was right:  there are no tears for queers.  

There are only tears from queers.

And there are tears for the nation when gay people no longer lose their jobs for what they find beautiful. There are tears for our media when queer people are represented on TV.  There are tears for ex-gay organization Exodus closing down, but there are no tears for people Exodus has hurt.  There are no tears for queers.

There is only the word no.  

There is only the vocation of no.  

The vocation of no-gay-marrying and no-gay-sex.

Queer means a calling to no family and no friends because everybody is too busy in their own straight relationships and families that there is no one left for queers but themselves.

Three years ago, I came out to my Christian fellowship, and for months there was only no.

No talk about homosexuality.  No asking about how I was doing with it.

Only silence.

Nothing.

When I remarked that in my church of over 900,

just statistically-speaking,

there had to be other gay people, there had to be someone like me, someone I could relate to,

I was silenced by others saying, "No, we are not a representative sample."

Last year, someone in my fellowship told me, "We would probably never talk about homosexuality if you weren't here."

Because there are no tears for queers.  

There are no tears for queers because there are no queers.  

Queer has no place, it's not real, it doesn't exist in the Church--we never talk about the queers except for when they are ruining our world.  

The Christians and the queers never mix except for when someone like me comes along and messes up everything. And if a gay person does somehow come into the Church,

and they aren't celibate,

then they might as well be dead--no, they better be dead.

They better be dead.

It is no longer 1998.

It's 2013.  I have turned twenty-two, and I am still alive.

But I find myself robbed, beaten by loneliness, tortured by the Church's disregard for people like me and wrapped so painfully around the posts whose only words for queers are how disgusting and disappointing we are.

And I am left to die because I am gay.

But this isn't just about me and what I feel.

I have always been the celibate gay Christian, the flavor of queer most accepted by the Church.  So I don't want you to tell just me that I belong in the church.

I want you to tell that gay guy down the street with the STD and stranger in his bed that he belongs.

Tell the girl with the wife and baby on the way that they belong.

Tell that genderqueer person, this lesbian trans woman, that pansexual man.

Tell them you want them with you, that you want them beside you to worship our Creator together.

Tell them Jesus doesn't say, "Get away from my church until you're no longer in sin, you fag." He receives them as they are.

Tell them Jesus forgives, and then says "Go and sin no more."

Never the other way around.

Tell them they're needed.

Tell them the Church isn't as strong without them.  The Body isn't complete without them.  We're not at our best without them.

Tell them God loves them simply because they are His.  They belong with Him.

We are all His.  We all belong with Him--even the gay people.

So thump your Bibles over that, shout that from the pulpit, scream that from the choir, have your words and actions rob us queers so fiercely of our doubt that we can't help but hope again.

Because if the Church isn't here... if you're not here, to show God's love to us... who will be?

I know Westboro was right about No Tears for Queers, but show us that they're wrong about God Hates Fags.

FYI

What is the percentage of people who identify as LGBT in the United States?

Think of a percentage before you move on--and write it in the comments too or let me know somehow what you thought!  I'm curious.


One person I talked to today--they did admit that they were ignorant about these sorts of things and knew they would be wrong--thought it was 30%.


Which would actually be crazy.  like nearly 1 in 3 people are gay?  But they weren't that far off from what most of America thinks.

Just for the sake of other gay people, for the consideration how same-sex marriage will impact straight couples, and for general knowledge, the actual percentage is more like 4%.  FOUR percent.  11% of people may experience some same-sex attraction, but the actual percentage of people who identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender is more like 4%.

I just consider it absolutely hilarious that a lot of people (like 35% of America) think that at least 1 in 4 people are gay (52% of America thinks it's at least 1 in 5... and I'm saying it's hilarious not in a derogatory way... just a... my goodness, I would NOT be so alone if that were truly the case), and yet they act like there are no gay people in the Church?  how does that even.

That would basically mean that we are so incredibly bad at ministering to a QUARTER of the population that none of them exist in the Church.  That would be so ridiculous.

The sad thing is that some people believe that there are that many gay people, and they apparently don't care that none of them are in the Church.

So I guess in some ways, it's good that the number is much smaller.  Good job media representation of gay people (actually queer representation in the media is pretty sucky, buuut, something must have gone right for people to think that over 25% of people are LGBT)!  But still, the number of gay people that people think exist in America is rather important for how people deal with LGBT issues and how much they think these issues will affect them and the U.S.

Just something to keep in mind and maybe try asking people what they think the percentage of people who identify as LGBT in America is.

My First Week in Dallas! (non-GIAL)

Kinda jumbly at parts because I just wanted to write things down since I have basically not written anything about my life in a public space for months.  oops.  Anyway...

A not-so-good introduction to Dallas, as it took a while for my luggage to come, and I was worried I wouldn't make the 2 hours of public transportation in time to arrive by 5 p.m. and talk with the office people about whether they had received my check payment and if they had any other info for me. So I took the Super Shuttle, which initially they estimated was gonna cost ~$30 which I thought wasn't terrible.  Then I found out that since we were going to a residential area, that was gonna cost ~$50 but i nope'd the heck out of there when we got to Downtown and spent just $20.  Then I took a 2-hour pass for $2.50 to get to GIAL.  It was still another mile away from the bus stop, and as I reached the last .6 miles or so, the road that led to GIAL did not have any sidewalks.  I started laughing at the utter patheticness of my situation as I was in around 95 or 100 degree heat, mild humidity (less humid than Houston for sure) but with the sun beating down on me as I dragged 40 and 60 lb luggage with a 15 lb backpack on the dirt and grass on the side of the road and the only sleep I had gotten last night was the few hours I was on the plane, and the only food I had eaten was at 6 a.m. CT and this McDouble sandwich at 3 p.m. CT that I had gotten after I missed the first train because both the electronic booths passing out tickets on my side of the tracks were broken.   And I was not going to make it by 5 p.m. because I had like 12 minutes to go and once I was at GIAL, I still needed to figure out where the Guest House is.  Fortunately, a guy pulled over and asked if I needed a ride, and I was like, YES PLEASE.  I made it on time, fortunately, so all was good.  I could see God looking out for me there!  phew.

I also tried to get groceries... too bad the nearest grocery store was 2.5 miles away.  But I lugged all that stuff back with my superglued Bolivian "Puma" backpack and got my workout for the week.  haha.

That was Wednesday, and on Friday, after extensive research, I spent 4 hours on public transportation and 5 miles walking to buy a car. (2 hours of transportation and 2 miles of walking were kinda unnecessary though, as I went to the auto place that had the cars I wanted, only to find out that the address they listed online was a different one.  The actual one was on the other side of town and another 2 hours of transportation/walking.  =\ ) When I got to the place, I tried out two '97 Honda Accords which were $1,600 and $1,800 each and probably sketchiest cars I will ever drive, and probably sketchier than any car you will ever drive.  The $1600 had a broken windshield wiper, the cruise control was broken, it made strange sounds while I was driving it, and even the little button on the gear changer (generally that silver-colored button that you press to change gears from P) was missing, so I dug my thumb in there to find how to change it.  And from the NMVTIDS report (2 dolla here!  but it gives way less info than Carfax/Autocheck... i just didn't want to pay that much for those vehicle reports.  And read this article if you don't know what those are.), which I later confirmed with the auto sale owner, there had been at least a 40,000 mile odometer roll back.
That all I could maybe deal with (bargaining points to drive the price down), even if I felt pretty unsafe already just from test-driving it... but as I was taking it into a shop for a pre-purchase inspection, I happened to notice that there were no keys in the ignition.  I was like.  wut.  I told the person I was taking it for an inspection, how could they forget to give me the keys??? How could I even drive this car back/have an inspection on this car?  Furthermore, how was I even driving this car right now??  Sketch.

So I drove it back and got the white Accord, which likely didn't have an odometer rollback and had good mileage.  It felt safer, but the brake still felt a bit heavy, and when the owner first started up the car, it made horrible screeching noises because the fan belt for the A/C was about gone.  I drove the car into the auto place I was gonna have it checked at (i just looked for the closest one that would give me a reasonable rate/time... $90 and a hour.  there was one place that apparently did a really through job they said, but they charged $250 and spent half-a-day!  I didn't need that kind of quality for my car...) and waited.

They came back to tell me that it was in really bad shape.  Like really bad.  Like so bad that even though there was a state inspection sticker on it, it wouldn't pass state inspection.  So bad that one guy said he was surprised I made it here in that.  The guy who had been handling my transaction began listing off all the problems, and there were so many that I began to zone out (not to mention I didn't understand like most of it).  He later gave me a photocopy of the inspection, and here're the ones I can read, which are half of the problems:  parking lights are out, battery hold down, belt oil soaked and slinging oil, valve over leak, transmission fluid overfilled, check engine light on, possible timing belt problem, cruise control broken, left tire cracked, radiator fan not working, transmission has multiple leaks.
It would probably cost as much to repair the car as it would to buy it.

Great.  That was really my last option, especially as we were nearing the closing times of both auto places, and this would mean that I would have to pay another $90 for another inspection on some other day and that car might not even work out, and UGH.  Maybe I can't get a decent car for such a low price?

Fortunately, after asking for my budget, if I just wanted a cheap car that ran well, he mentioned that they had a car that had none of those problems, and even better mileage than this car.  He showed it to me and it was a 1995 Acura Integra that had about 100,330 miles that they fixed up and were selling for $2500.

So after driving the Accord back, I walked the mile over, test-drove it, looked over the paperwork and bought another 2 dolla report for it, and bought it (my haggling failed, as it was hard to point out anything bad besides the slight dent that the guy had already pointed out to me, and since he had a list of all the repairs they had done on it [new 4 tires, new timing belt, so many new things done just a couple weeks ago], and apparently it wasn't listed yet and he was gonna sell it for $2700 [or so he says...], and that people would snatch that up immediately).
Unfortunately, apparently you need liability insurance already to drive a car, and I didn't have that.  So I couldn't drive it back, but I was at least able to make the last bus back to GIAL, so it was only 2 additional hours of public transportation and 1 additional mile instead of 1 hour of transportation and like 4 hours of walking.  Still, I had been sweaty to that nasty point when your sweat has like dried on your clothes and you have white lines on your shirt from the salt in your sweat--you know what I'm talking about?  Yeah, not pretty.  I had tried to clean myself up when I was at the auto shop waiting for the pre-purchase inspection.  There's my workout for the month, I guess, haha.  
Anyway, I got car insurance and will hopefully be picking up my Acura on Tuesday, today!  (just picked up my car--radio needs a code, but it seems alright... although I just checked kbb.com and it seems to be not a good price for what I paid for.  =\  I could've sworn when I was about to buy it and I was checking kbb.com, that it was actually around the right price.  Ah well.  Fortunately, a new friend and classmate offered to drive me over there, so I saved me a bunch of time.)


Went to a great church on Sunday--Mountain Creek Church, which is pretty much the closest church that I could go to which has its own facility.  I enjoyed it a lot, and was treated to lunch by one of the congregation members.  Although I found out at the end that it's a charismatic church (pretty orthodox in its beliefs though) so that'll be interesting to explore more.

Some highlights were that a couple girls got up to the pulpit and talked about the pro-life bill that had passed (she had been at Captiol praying and listening to the bill) and about the Trayvon Martin trial and just the fact that justice looks different.  Ok, I am absolutely butchering what they said... let me try again.

While I do think that a fetus is a human being and thus abortion is murder and a violation of fourteenth amendment rights for the silenced, I am wary of how pro-life people typically approach this issue.  There's that George Carlin quote that pretty much sums it up, "Boy, these conservatives are really something, aren't they? They're all in favor of the unborn. They will do anything for the unborn. But once you're born, you're on your own. Pro-life conservatives are obsessed with the fetus from conception to nine months. After that, they don't want to know about you. They don't want to hear from you. No nothing. No neonatal care, no day care, no head start, no school lunch, no food stamps, no welfare, no nothing. If you're preborn, you're fine; if you're preschool, you're fucked." And this great spoken word poem:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mOV7RyHjl5c.  I just watched that again--really really good.  The amazing kind of poem that inspires you to want to write poetry that's just that incredible and emotionally-charged.

Anyway, it boils down to, sure, abortion is bad and no one is pro-abortion and wants to kill all the fetuses, but when you don't set up an infrastructure for women with unplanned pregnancies, when the only legislation they have is poverty and no education and terrible jobs and no way out, how can you say that is life?  That is a societal injustice when people cannot take care of their children because of financial reasons.  They truly have no choice.

So the first girl reminded us to look at others with the eyes of God and see them as broken people like ourselves.  She mentioned how she was really promiscuous growing up and that one of the leading causes of that is fatherlessness and how we had to have compassion.  Her underlying message was one not of condemnation, but of love, and that she had been praying and felt that we needed to change how we were viewing and handling things.  Justice isn't how we've been doing things.  Justice looks different.  It looks different because He is different. I liked all of that.
From reading their website, I knew Mountain Creek was big on pro-life, but still not sure if they seriously partner with other organizations which support women with unplanned pregnancies.  Maybe they feel like it's better to focus on the anti-abortion side?  I think i'd disagree there.  It's like focusing on outlawing gay marriage and forgetting about the LGBTQ population.  What she said was a good step though.

Then, a second girl, who was black, asked to speak a bit, and she talked about how the African-American community was on the verge of rioting from the Zimmerman verdict, but how even though it was easy to get angry at what happened, that, like the first girl said, justice looks different.  That willingness to forgive and to not react violently... it brought me to tears and kinda solidified my desire to go to that church.  You could debate as to whether the imbalance that led to situations like the Martin case is "justice," but really at the end, God will judge everything, and He is the only perfect judge.  Looking back, that whole forgiveness deal was a great segue to what this guy who was invited to the church was gonna talk about, which I've written below.

The pastor then gave a pretty brief sermon, mostly for the sake of a guy who came to speak, Peter... something... but he had a really intense testimony.  Probably the most intense one I'll ever hear (the pastor of the church, who's probably around 70+ since he just celebrated his golden anniversary, said something to the effect that it was the most incredible testimony he's heard).

I'll give a short version.  He was born in a Nazi death camp in 1943 and was experimented on, but he doesn't remember that anymore.  Fortunately, he and his mother were liberated, but his mother passed him to this stranger before leaving, a Polish woman who was on the train with them as it was being liberated.  His mom promised she'd be back for him. After camp, life was even worse, as he was raped, tortured, and almost killed multiple times as a child by the KGB, and he eventually met up with his mom, and left his Polish mom (another shocker for him, since he didn't know that he had a German mom), even though his Polish mom was so good to him (she wanted him to go meet his mom though; she was Catholic and she'd made an oath to God to take care of him) and had endured so much persecution for taking care of a German boy (they had to live in the sewers; or maybe that was just their state of poverty), and she even offered herself to be raped by the KGB so he wouldn't get executed by a gun that they put in his mouth.

His mother in the meantime went to a US military base and she had married a black man in the US.  When he went to the US, he was still beat on by other kids (stepfather's race, and probably cause he didn't speak English either at the time).  His stepfather became an alcoholic and he ran away from home and was picked up by a Missouri (or Mississippi?) guy who would eventually become the state representative.  Life was good for a while and he lived for like 40 years in Florida, but then his half-sisters wanted him to spread their mother's ashes over the death camp.  He was like, No way, but eventually he went back.

While he was there, he felt that God was telling him to forgive them so that God could forgive his trespasses (Matthew 6:14), and he was like, What the hell did I do wrong?  But eventually after arguing over it with God, he said he forgave them, and then the Holy Spirit descended on him and he was able to pretty much became a Christian I guess.  Hmmm, I'm a little fuzzy on the details, but in any case, it was some pretty supernatural forgiveness going on, since he didn't sound bitter or angry at all during his testimony.  And he called us each to forgive and also to receive healing and prayer from the hurt that we had received, from whatever abandonment had happened to us.

Like I said earlier, after church, the head of missions pastor took me out to lunch with his wife and their daughter, grandson, and two close newlywed friends joined us.  That was nice to have a hearty meal after three meals of just eating bread (lol), and to have a ride back to GIAL.  As I was walking to Mountain Creek, in fact, someone else had stopped and given me a ride for the last leg up the hill, and offered to take me back to GIAL.  Also really nice.  =)


Finally, today as I was eating lunch with other students, I heard a, "NO WAY!" and looked up and saw Selena Y from Houston!  I had seen her name on the list of Guest House meal people, but I just thought it was some random Asian girl, and thought it was funny that I also knew a Selena Y.  She's apparently doing an internship with Wycliffe and is here until the beginning of August.  She sat with my classmates and we all just chatted for a bit.  Nice to see someone I know.  =)

A Moment of Sanity

You will always be unsatisfied.  You will always be searching after the next guy, tripping over your heels for the next boy. You will pull on him and his love, like the Moon circling the Earth, trying to pull it closer to itself.  But all it can do is make our planet's waters drag across the shore.

It's not meant to be.
You will feel like you are not meant to be.

But remember that the most beautiful eclipse is not the one where you are hidden behind, blocked from the sun. It is the one where you take the spotlight away.  And if people are daring enough to look you straight in the eyes as it happens, the brilliance behind you is the last thing that they will ever see.

You have the spirit of one who laughs rather than gets angry.  You are quick to see the good in people.  You cry at stories of enduring friendship.  Your passion is not in your comfort but in others'.
You are a work of art.  You are a child of God.

Reflect and remember.  This is a moment of clarity.

---

*Inspired by the 29 (surprise...) year-old guy on my tour in Thailand.

My first attempt at a prose poem, partly because I looked at my line breaks and realized that they were practically all at the ends of sentences or commas.  And Karen has told me that some poems that don't rhyme make her think that they could just be prose poems.  Which made me think about my poems and what they could (or should?) be.

The second-to last stanza is not enough show, and too much tell.  But this is also my moment to remind myself of what I need to hear, so I'm not going to mind too much.  I'm writing it for myself more than anything there.

Just kidding...

So I realized that I can just add my new Gmail account as an author to my old blog.  For continuity's sake, I'll just keep blogging on my old blog.  xD  I have much I should post about, so hopefully I'll get back into writing and reflecting on my life soon!

New Blog

I'm switching everything over to my email at drw***@gmail.com, which means I will be starting up a new blogspot.

I might post some unpublished drafts that I have on here (i have over 100... lol.  Most will probably not be published, though...), or I might not.  In any case, more regular posting will probably occur here from now on.

please don't let it be him.

"David?  What are you doing here?"

I fumble out an unconvincing answer, and he invites me inside.


"What does that smell remind you of?"

It reminds me of you.  Of freshman year.  Of anticipation and hope for a new friendship.  But I don't say that.  I can't bring myself to.


"Do you have painful memories of Rice?  ...What's the most painful?"

"Not being cared for in the way that I wanted to be cared for."  Unintentionally, my words are thinly veiled and I wonder if he connects the dots.

We move on to a different topic.  I feel somewhat relieved.

---

We hug and his tears wet my shoulder.  My fingers trace their outlines after he steps away into conversation with someone else.  He gets +points from me for this.

I don't cry back.  I wonder if that's because I'm drained from human interaction, or if I don't allow myself to feel, or if I just don't care enough because it doesn't matter that much, does it?

---

When did I become the jokester?  I didn't know my default is to want to lighten the mood.  I always thought my default was introspective Debbie Downer... ok, it probably still kind of is.

maybe I'm learning the balance between the two.  Or maybe it's because I don't want to go deep anymore.  This year... man, this year.  I don't think I've felt more closed off in any other year.

A reminder that I still have a voice to be heard and a story to share.

This time, it's not me working to fight ignorance, though.

For my Alternative Spring Break, we were building houses for a few days for new, low-income immigrant families. 

I am inside putting doors on in a house with a couple of other members of my ASB, blasting my iPhone and speakers as usual.  John is outside constructing the framework of the house next door with another member of our ASB and an immigrant worker.  The dialogue is paraphrased by me as best as I can remember from John relating this story.

John:  He really likes pop music.

Worker:  What is pop music?

John:  Kind of like girly music.

Worker:  Oh, so he must be gay then.

John:  I dunno, that's not my place to say...

Worker:  Well if he's gay, he should go to jail... gay people love it in jail.

John:  ...well, would you want to be forced to have sex with an old, ugly woman every day?

Worker:  No...

John:  So likewise, gay people don't love being raped either.

Props to John for fighting for the gay community.  =)

A little chilling that this was said about me... but I guess I am blessed that this is the most homophobic anyone has ever been to me.

Plastic Boy

WARNING:  To avoid danger of suffocation,
keep this bag boy away from babies and children me.
This bag boy is not a toy.

I've never kissed anyone.
But I've baked a salted caramel cupcake for you.
I've mumbled my wardrobe secrets to you.
I've made cafeteria dinner plans with you.

You're the only one I look for when I turn around in my seat,
and I will stare into everyone's eyes
just to make sure they aren't you.

I will watch your back
as you walk away,
and my friend will see me,
put her hand on my arm and say,
Oh, David.

At night, when you are
a hundred miles away,
I will lie on the dock by the lake,
waiting for you to lie with me and stargaze
into my eyes.

I will crawl into you and
you will swallow me up
until you're all I see
and all I feel.
Until the only air I breathe
is my own.

I've kissed your lips
a hundred times.  And each time,
you like it.

Three Thoughts

God has granted me at least a couple of mental health years.

He knows I need them.

Perhaps the worst part is the scrambling for what I want to do.

---

I really, really enjoyed my Alternative Spring Break.  Immigration is such a complex and fascinating issue, and will always have a place in my heart now.

---

The trip made me wonder again if I hold "diversity" up too high, or if I am actually justifiably tired of constantly hanging around other Asian-Americans.

Urbana '12

obviously too much to encapsulate in one measly post, but it was really, really good.  Greg Jao (the emcee again!) told us to think about what we're going to say when people ask us how Urbana was.  He asked us to not proceed to give them an information dump, but find something that hooks them in and makes them want to know more.  I think for me, I'd respond to "How was Urbana?" by saying, "It was really good.  I cried a lot and became a missionary."

haha, but seriously, I found myself crying a lot. 

In fact, during one of the seminars, I actually had to bite my finger so I wouldn't start sobbing.  I cried so much throughout the whole seminar that I was kind of like, "Is this normal?  Is anyone else crying?  Why am I so emotionally unstable??"  A few other people were crying so I think it wasn't just my instability.  The seminar was just one woman, Iris, talking about her and her family's work in the Middle East over the past 30 years.

I'm reading over my notes and trying to make sense of them and decide what I want to put into this post.  Unfortunately, I can tell that during some of my notes I was probably wiping away tears and couldn't type because she must have said way more than the handful of words that I wrote down.

These words will probably always stick with me:

Every time I read the news, I cry.  Because I didn't come back whole.  A part of me is still in those places. When I read about Sudan, Chad, Afghanistan... my heart is in all these little pieces scattered around the world. 

But I want my life to be that way; it's a bigger life this way.

I've thought about this quote quite a bit and how it really relates to my life.  I mean, I don't cry every time I read the news, but I lose a part of me with the people groups and places that I interact with.  The world is too large for me to just sit and bide my time away with the same Christians that I've known all my life.

Mormons will always strike a chord.  The last exhibit I visited--and I didn't even mean to visit it, I just stumbled upon it on my way out--was on sending mission trips to Utah to train people on how to evangelize to Mormons.  I was just kind of awestruck at the organization, and wished I had gone to something like it in high school.

The LGBT community and its issues will always make my heart ache.  Houston, its skylines and streets, and Rice will always have a section of my heart.  Bolivia and Cochabamba will always make my ears perk up.

My heart is in these pieces and with these people, and when I first heard Iris speak, I was like, man, crying all the time when you read the news or having your heart in all these little pieces sounds like it sucks.

But when she said that she wouldn't have it any other way, that she wants her life to be this way, that it's bigger this way... I understood.

I love my experiences and what God has brought me through.  Even if it hurts.

Something else that Iris said that I really enjoyed was her reference to The Hobbit.  I haven't seen it yet, since I'm supposed to watch it with Dana and others for her birthday celebration.  My roommates filled in for me the missing storyline bits that I didn't quite catch.

Maybe skip the next three paragraphs if you don't want possible spoilers (a la Miranda's blog, haha.  I skipped those paragraphs on her blog, actually, but hopefully I remember to go back and read them after I watch the movie)

Iris mentioned the scene where the dwarves are making fun of Bilbo for seeming homesick, and he gets angry and responds, "At least I have a home."  And then Bilbo realizes what he's said... that the dwarves have lost their home to the dragon and no longer have a home.  But later, when Bilbo has the ring, he tells them that he's going to get their home back for them (man, look at that allegory!).

That "At least I have a home" really struck with me.  It reminded me so much of the Luke 15 skit that was done earlier in the morning about the Story of the Prodigal Son.  At one point, the sister is talking to the Older Brother in the story trying to convince him to not be bitter about his Younger Brother and she says something like, "At least you have Dad."

Surprise surprise, I teared up about this too, and really reflected on how at least I have the Father and how everything He has is mine too, but there are so many others out there who don't get to have any of that.  I might feel like I'm slaving away for the Father and begin resenting Him, but He has so much and He's given so much to me.  I just can't.  And then there are so many who need Him, but don't have the chance to hear about Him or be with Him.


So I committed to long-term missions (which is 2+ years, and I also committed to mid-term, 1-2 years, but that's not too big of a deal compared to long-term).  I read this really enlightening article in the Atlantic about God's Surgeons in Africa.  The need in other countries is so great.  We might have a dearth of 90,000 physicians by 2020, but some countries' need is just ridiculous.  For Sierra Leone, a country with a population of 6 million (so think Houston and L.A.), they have just 9 surgeons.  NINE.  The WHO's recommendation is 1 for every 20,000 people, so they need about 291 more.  But it's crazy to think that a population the size of Houston and L.A. could somehow only have 9 surgeons.

Whether I end up in healthcare and/or language documentation/Bible translation (something I really looked into as well and talked to a bunch of people about at Urbana), we'll see.  But I can't live a "normal" life anymore.  I think my idea of a "normal" life (spouse and kids, posh lifestyle in suburbia) probably shattered freshman year, with me coming out and having to wrestle with celibacy at 18 years old.  That's not "normal." But I suppose I was never meant for that kind of life.



Some other memorable quotes from Urbana.  The following are just short little snippets--these seminars have many more interesting ideas, but I'll leave those for another time since they require slightly more explanation.

From the seminar, "Unengaged People Groups:  Who Will Be the First to Tell Them?"

Not sure about where God wants you?  "Put your "yes" on the table and let Me put it on the map."

You will be the reason you don't go.

If you're worried that you're not doing God's Will in something, the truth is that if you do nothing, you will be outside the will of God

If God really doesn't want you to go overseas, He will stop you.  After all, He stopped Paul from going to Asia twice and sends him to a man in Macedonia (probably just so that Paul doesn't try going a third time).

From "The Experimental Orientation:  Life in a Slum"

(Michelle Kao has spent most of the last 5 years living in a slum in Thailand and working with the house churches there)

Remember:  We're working with God.

A lot of the times when things begin to fail, we think, if I give of myself more, maybe it'll work.  But that just becomes about you

It's not about doing things for God, but about doing things with God.

Michelle referenced this article that found that if you feel like you are excluded, you are more creative in your responses.  (REALLY INTERESTING.  Is this why there are so many LGBT people in the arts? http://www.pfenetwork.org.uk/nfer/publications/NES01/NES01.pdf)  In relation to slums, what kind of creativity and innovation can come out there?

"Human nature will not flourish, any more than a potato, if it be planted and replanted, for too long a series of generations, in the same worn-out soil.  My children have had other birthplaces, and, so far as their fortunes may e within my control, shall strike their roots into unaccustomed earth."

--Nathaniel Hawthorne

God wants you to grow.  To strike out on new ground.  Not for your good abilities.