How do I begin to write, begin to make words that have the potential to flow together, begin to write sentences that have the capability to harmonize with another; when in reality every word written here will be one of heart ache. Every word I have sitting on my heart, every thought I have resting in my head right now - they are ones that originated because of strain, trouble, difficulty and hardship.

     I was thinking about reality TV today. Reality TV is staged television programs that are intended to be about real people and real situations, its a genre of television programming that presents purportedly unscripted dramatic or humorous situations, documenting actual events, and usually features ordinary people instead of professional actors. Or so that is what it claims to be. But we look at reality television and is that reality? Is that really what our lives look like? to a degree, maybe yes. But isn't it interesting how America is the place that praises reality tv, that obsesses over it, that has an overload of it coming out of their tv sets. I believe the reasoning for that, the sole reasoning that America has formulated and molded itself around reality tv is because its entertaining & we can handle our "reality", only in our lives would reality be entertaining. Because in every other country, every other nation, every other culture when they are seeking reality, Reality as what it truly is: The world or state of things as they actually exist, opposed to an idealistic or notional idea of them. If any other country watched as much reality tv as Americans do .... everyone would be weeping, everyone would be distraught, everyone would break into pieces at that very moment because reality is not a pretty picture. But unlike America, other countries do not need tv to tell them 'this is reality' because they see it with their own two eyes. 

      All over the world there is brokenness, there is disaster, there is injustice. 19,548: people who died from hunger today (while others greet obesity) 4,142,297: deaths from water related diseases this year (while we pay $3 for glorified tap water) 11,083,375: Deaths caused by communicable diseases this year 37,799,005: abortions this year 1,675,067: Deaths caused by HIV/AIDS this year 880,252: suicides this year $328,386,578,999: world spending on illegal drugs this year.

   For some reason America (or at least the greater part of America) has learned how to close their eyes to what reality truly is. To what this world of ours really is turning into. I mean we can count those stats and an American may say they don't apply to him/her, we are Americans we don't have to worry about diseases, poverty, genocide - whatever turmoil the rest of the world is facing, on American soil life is good. But how can we say that when obesity is starting to kill people and there is 1,155,841,361 overweight people in the world right now and $175,610, 789 dollars have been spent today alone in America on obesity related diseases? Or the fact that toxic chemicals have all the potential to kill someone and there has been 8,038,935 tons of toxic chemicals released by industries into our air, land and water this year. 

    There is disease, poverty, death here in America; but not like it is in the rest of the world. And the rest of the world is being overwhelmed by it. There is a hopelessness that you can visibly see in the children's eyes that are being prostituted on the streets, there is a hopelessness in the widow's eyes that cannot find the means to feed her children, there is a hopelessness in the teenage soldier's eyes that he fully knows that he will never live a day without war. Those in the chaos of the distress wake up every morning confidently thinking, "this is life; this is all there is."

     My heart is broken. It feels as if someone has grabbed my rib cage, tore it apart and pulled my heart out to only slowly squeeze it to were I know exactly the wrong that is taking place and yet I stand here gasping for breathe for the acceptance of the little I can actually do to make a difference. Is it fair that we were placed here? Wherever you are, however much money you have, or the lifestyle you partake in? Is it fair that you were placed there? Did you have any say in the location you were born or the parents you had? So, then what about the homeless on the street or the prostitute in the brothel. You think you have the right to judge the alcoholic, the addict, the diseased? Are you better than that? Sorry to break you the news: but no, you, we, I are not. 

   Albert Einstein talked about how the danger in the world is not because of those who do it, but because of those who stand by and watch it happen. When we forget the refugee we are actually displacing them, When we forget the poor we are actually robbing them. When we forsake others for the sake of ourselves, we actually are forsaking ourselves. 

   We hear people speak on poverty, we read books, blogs, papers, projects on injustice, we watch news, broadcasts, documentaries on issues. So is anything changing? Is anything getting better? Has any revolution actually began to take place, in the world? (or dare I say in our hearts?) 

   We will always have the poor, we will always have the diseased; so why try to heal it? Why try to stop it? Why try to change it? Especially if it is not our battle to be fighting. I for one do not fight the fight in hopes to end poverty, end injustice, end death. I fight it to give those in the midst of it hope. To show them that there is more, that this life - whatever their life is - is NOT all there is! On earth maybe, but to give them the hope that this life is one life, one short life filled with hardship and trouble; but that there is another life, another life that they can live gloriously, healthy and rich and fulfilled and happy. A life after this one. 

* all stats came from: http://www.worldometers.info/ (honestly it was hard keeping up with it, most stats were growing by the second)

But then again maybe sharks and waves shouldn't be my biggest worries...

    hahaha ... we'll see if I even get there first! 

swim

 I was driving home today, a drive I have fallen in love with merely due to the fact that it is fall - my favorite time of year. This road has become a beautiful isle laced in trees that have lived only to die, for they truly leave this earth more glorious than they came.In the days of their leaving they look more brilliant than they did on any of their green days in the spring's rain or summer's heat. My drive passes a lake, Kellogg lake that is. 

     So today in the midst of some discouragement I stopped to breathe, to ponder, to talk to God, to just sit. I sat upon the bank of the pond that had small ripples forming all across it's face caused from the birds that were leisurely laying around. But as I sat on the grass stoop, goose bumps growing on my legs and pale sincerity crossing my face, I knew I had nothing to fear. Although if you would have handed me a shovel I surely would have dug my hole.

   The reason for my discouragement: I went swimming today, to work out you know? As I swam laps having elderly woman to my right and toddler boys to my left, I felt like my chest was going to explode

 when I would go under for a length of time, I felt out of my element when I would hit the wall breathing in gasps because the front stroke is apparently the hardest workout of them all. Never in my life have I cared that my swimming was not up to par, only caring enough that I knew enough to keep me afloat. Unfortunately, you need to do more than keep yourself afloat when you are swimming in the bay. When you are in crashing waves off the 

coast of South Africa that are defined by their frigid waters and their great white sharks. Unfortunately you need to be able to do more than just survive if you plan on surviving where

 the best in the world go to surf.

    Am I good swimmer? not really. Can I surf? nope. Do I have any clue what I am getting myself into by leaving my comfort zone of the mid-west, which is 1,400 miles away from any ocean? not one bit. 

     But as I sat upon the shore of Kellogg Lake I had a familiarity that I always seem to take on when looking out over the surface of

 water. Whether the water is black and cold and filled with the essence of a being darker than sin's soul, or whether its crystal clear blue, a transparent window to the culture of the depths of the sea. It does not matter, because I long for the water, not necessarily to be in it but to be near it, it gives me inspiration, it gives me life, it scares me while at the same time comforts me. 

      I had to withhold myself from not leaping off Kellogg's shore into the chilly water to attempt to swim to the other side just to prove to myself that I could do it, that I could swim a length worthy of a fish, that I could swim murky waters that held unknown creatures                    

and obstacles. But I did not, I stayed and I waited for I know those days will come when I do not have the luxury to sit on the shore but I will be forced to dive into the waters and face my fears eye to eye. 

I just pray that when that day comes, when my fears are at my door greeting me, that I will say hello and welcome them in and Jesus will be my guest to see them through the night. I pray I have that courage, for if I do not I fear I will stand up, turn around and walk back to where the shore meets the horizon of the land. For in the deepest part of my soul, I honestly would rather die in the midst of my fears than betray my potential in an act of archaic anxiety. 

Missing nature in a tech society

There has been an intruding thought in my mind these past few days. It actually has been appearing on and off for years now but lately I can't seem to get it out and I am beginning to wonder, do I just kick it to the curb again? Or do I find a solution or explanation? 

   So here's my thought ... "The way we have grown as a society/culture the lifestyle we have accepted and adapted too, is that shortening us to living at our full potential? To fulfill our full potential of our emotions, of our actions for justice; Is our full potential to truly be deliberately living being numbed by the world?"

   I believe the thoughts first came to me just by observing the life style we live in today. Seeing how we connect to everything and everyone through technology. The way we travel by car and talk by phone (the way I am getting my anti-technology thoughts out through blogging, ha). The way we are so disconnected with the earth. We walk on cement, we sit inside walls, we communicate through wires. Everything in our lives has begun to be filtered through these new inventions of our lives. If my craving for nature wasn't so large, so demanding, I don't think I would  ever even have noticed it. But I'm wondering if by coating so much of our life by these things if it has indeed numbed some of our senses. 

    I started to be more convinced by my ponderings when I started not only to look at us today, but looking at humans decades before us. We can read the quotes, the writings of anyone who lived in another time from us; Lincoln, Thoreau, Eisenhower, Wolfgang Von Goethe, Lao Tzu, Bonaparte, the list goes on and on. We read their quotes, their writings, manuscripts and they are men of passion, of leadership, men who are in touch with their emotions and using them to change the world in a monumental way. Are we doing that? Yes, we have incredible leaders in our day today that are changing the world and are stepping up and are writing down quotes that will be remembered for decades. But are the leaders we have today as emotionally attached to our world and to its people as the leaders were a hundred years ago? And does that make a difference even if they aren't? 

   I believe it does, I think if your feet are on the dirt and if your breathing in the air and allowing your hands to touch the leaves and branches and touch the skin of another then you are more attached. I believe that by having so much technology has numbed some of our senses and has begun to separate us from relationships and true heart-felt passion. It has detached some of those wires that spring from our heart that we need in order to do some actual justice on our earth and to actually see a change that goes deep enough to strike the core of the issue. 

    But can I complain about technology? Is this con of technology taking away from our emotional senses good enough reasoning in light of all of the pros it has brought us and in light of all of the progress it has created for our world? I'm not sure. Personally I say naturally, heart-felt, emotional, passion is more important and is most important; but I am just one in the sea of 8 billion. So is this issue grave enough for our entire world to begin thinking about, to begin embracing, to begin balancing? 

“I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I have not lived.” - Henry David Thoreau