Resignation

There’s an old woman pulling weeds from her flawless flower bed. Damp dirt clumps around her pink, pansy gardening gloves. She’s wearing a faded sweatshirt with “World’s Best Grandmother” splayed across the front, as if telling all the other senior citizens that she trumps their grandparental affections. It doesn't matter that her grandkids haven't seen her for 10 years, or that she bought the sweatshirt herself down at the local pharmacy. I’m sure if you were to go into her closet you’d find twenty other sweatshirts almost identical to this one. They make her claim in the world. It is all she has left. 

There’s an old man out on the side of the busy interstate that runs past his beat up trailer park. He’s alone, sitting on his parked John Deer lawn mower, watching the traffic blaze by him hour after hour. His hair is greasy. His old white tee shirt is sweat-stained. His tattered blue jeans are the same ones he's worn and slept in for the past two weeks. And In his weak wrinkled hand he clutches a cold beer, blankly zoning out as the world passes him by.

What happened to these two individuals? These two humans? How did they change from a thinking, pulsing, feeling mortal soul into a senseless, inconsequential block of meat held back from spilling onto the ground by only a thin, paper-skin shell? Their mind, once sharp and inquisitive, is now dull and dead. They have replaced their humanity with flowers and beer. When did they resign from the world? At some point in their lives, they crossed the threshold from the world of struggle and identity, into a world that is soft and easy. A world without a care. A world of denial. A world of complete resignation from everything that makes a man a human being. How does this happen? And why?

We Are Many

By Pablo Neruda

Of the many men whom I am, whom we are, I cannot settle on a single one. They are lost to me under the cover of clothing They have departed for another city. When everything seems to be set to show me off as a man of intelligence, the fool I keep concealed on my person takes over my talk and occupies my mouth. On other occasions, I am dozing in the midst of people of some distinction, and when I summon my courageous self, a coward completely unknown to me swaddles my poor skeleton in a thousand tiny reservations. When a stately home bursts into flames, instead of the fireman I summon, an arsonist bursts on the scene, and he is I. There is nothing I can do. What must I do to distinguish myself? How can I put myself together? All the books I read lionize dazzling hero figures, brimming with self-assurance. I die with envy of them; and, in films where bullets fly on the wind, I am left in envy of the cowboys, left admiring even the horses. But when I call upon my DASHING BEING, out comes the same OLD LAZY SELF, and so I never know just WHO I AM, nor how many I am, nor WHO WE WILL BE BEING. I would like to be able to touch a bell and call up my real self, the truly me, because if I really need my proper self, I must not allow myself to disappear. While I am writing, I am far away; and when I come back, I have already left. I should like to see if the same thing happens to other people as it does to me, to see if as many people are as I am, and if they seem the same way to themselves. When this problem has been thoroughly explored, I am going to school myself so well in things that, when I try to explain my problems, I shall speak, not of self, but of geography.  I stumbled upon this poem, and liked it. So I thought I'd randomly post it. :)

Salvation with Fear and Trembling

       I think I was five when my dad called me up to his office. This was my third trip up there over four weeks. Every time it was the same. This time was a little different though. This time I decided to give in. I don't know why it took me four trips, but I decided it was time I got saved.  I clearly remember sitting in my booster seat on the way to Sunday school thinking how I didn't want to be saved. Because if I were to be saved, I truly believed that I would have to be crucified with Christ on a cross. I didn't know much about crucifixion at the age of five except the pictures branded in my head of a guy pegged up on some wood with his arms splayed out. I knew it wasn't a pleasant sort of thing and definitely not something I wanted to go through. 

       But I remember sitting in my parents old bedroom/office at the farm house. My brothers were down watching TV. My dad asked me if I knew that I sinned. I said yes. He asked me if I wanted to be saved from that sin and it's consequences. I said yes. He had me repeat after him a little prayer. I don't remember much about it. But I do remember hearing my mom come through the kitchen door with the groceries. I remember running down the stairs to tell her I had been saved, and then quickly joining my brothers back in front of the tv. 

       It's not much of a conversion. It pisses me off that this was how I came to be 'initiated' into my faith. It wasn't a self-searching journey for truth. It was a cheesy 5 cent prayer that meant nothing. And now I will always be questioning what really happened that day. Did I get saved? Was I chosen of God that fateful afternoon? I was pushed into something, robbed of any chance to be lead into it later. There was no time given for self realization. What does a five year old know about the world? 

       This past year more than ever I've struggled with the doctrine of election. It's a stupid argument. I was tired of discussing it even before I entered my 11th grade year. It seems that election is a controversial horse that never dies, no matter how redundant or boring the debates become. But yet I still find myself bringing it up again and again. I'm preparing you now for an approaching storm of mass confusion. These are random thoughts not entirely cohesive, but they're important. My thoughts go something like this: 

       If I am saved, then God doesn't 'reveal' Himself in the way I expect Him to. He doesn't reveal Himself to me in the way other Christian's experience Him. So maybe this is just how it is between Him and I. Blank. Like a brick wall. It's always been this way ever since... ever really. This is why I'm so angry at my conversion, and that that unique opportunity was taken from me at such an early age. I can't ever know if it was real or not.  I want to be able to struggle through my salvation with 'fear and trembling'. I want a conversion like Martin Luther. I want to know. I want to be able to look back and say definitively: "There has been a change". But that can't happen. I've never been anything different than 'saved'. But then again, if God's absent presence in my life is a tip off to being unsaved, then He's really not listening to me. I've pray over and over again to see His presence, to see Him work in all areas of my life, to take everything I am, and to be with me. But it's never changed. I've tried but it never changes anything. 

       Eventually a thought slipped into my head. Maybe complete election is the correct interpretation. Maybe God seriously sits up in heaven saying, 'Jill, you're going to join me up here some day. Sorry, Jen, you just don't make the cut'. It dawned on me that if this was true, then there was nothing I could do about it. I was stuck with no way out. Even though this was very depressing, it was very strangely freeing. I could do whatever I wanted because nothing would ever change. God had rejected me. 

       Part of a recent chat with a theology major:

Me: "but (in salvation) I think personal responsibility takes more prevalence than God' choice."

Theology Guy: "if that is true then it is really our fault and not God's."

Me: "I'm totally fine with us consciously condemning ourselves to hell. But if God chooses who's to be saved and whose not to be saved, then he could have 'rejected' me. And I have no hope of salvation no matter how hard i try, how many times I pray, how much I look for God."

Theology Guy: "yep, that is what you deserve. He was just really nice to have you be saved. He is a very nice guy because you should be going to hell." After laughing for a second before being overwhelmingly pissed I responded back: 

"What if he hasn't saved me?? That makes NO sense. Look at these Christian families with 16 kids all saved before the age of 6. The odds of God saving all of them is ridiculous. Because they're all 'saved' prooves that wrong. c'mon now that's like saying God has a preference for conservative christian linages."

       Not to mention, it's not very often that people walk around saying, "I believe in Christianity, and not only Christianity but ultra-calvinism. The only reason I don't practice is because God's already condemned me to hell. If you must know, he didn't like my attitude." There are no people who believe in election except the elect. Well... and me for a little while. 

       So... where am I at now? I'm not a universalist. I believe people must take responsibility for their actions. I also believe that ever single person's sin is already completely atoned for by Christ's death on the cross. EVERY SINGLE PERSON. The only difference between someone going to heaven or someone going to hell is simply whether the person is doing their best to search for God, living an honest life, and through faith being the best person they can be. I believe our salvation resembles more of Moses and Abraham's conversion than Billy Graham 'say a prayer and escape the flames' theology. I think it's more of a life style than a prayer. Too long I was waiting for that zap from heaven, the white light to come down and absorb me. I've resigned myself to the fact it will never happen, and I'm completely fine with that. I don't need it anymore. 

The Inauguration

I decided on the 19th at about 11 in the morning that I was definitely going to go down to D.C. for the inauguration. I had mentioned it a couple times to my parents but I don't think they took me seriously. So I called my friend Amy up and convinced her to go with me. One ironic thing about Amy: We don't hang out that much. Maybe once every three weeks... maybe. But we've gone to France together, we've gone to Illinois together, we've gone to Florida together, and now D.C. I guess she's the friend that's always up to doing anything, even if it's a completely insane idea. So I go up to work and tell my mom that I'm going. She says absolutely not. But after practicing my persuasive speech abilities she says it's okay as long as Dad is fine with it. So I then call my Dad. Who I had to convince for another 20 minutes. Then I had to call Jess to see if I could stay the night at her house. Finally at about 1 o'clock everything was worked out, and I was officially embarking on my first road trip by myself. 

I picked up Amy around 7:30 that night. The GPS told us that our arrival time would be 2:46 AM, but we were determined to get it down to 2. For the first two hours everything went fine until we hit a construction area. We didn't have to worry about traffic because it was in the middle of the night, but our GPS was telling us that we had driven off the highway into the unmapped blue area. Amy, thinking the situation's completely hilarious won't stop laughing. So without any direction, and hoping I'm still on the right highway I begin navigating down a steep area of road. And because of the road construction, I seriously had less than two feet on my left before reaching the cement divider, and less than two feet on my right before reaching the metal guardrail protecting us from the steep drop off. But not to be outdone, I continued at my 80 mph (the speed the car in front of me was traveling). We made it out of the construction perfectly safe, our GPS finally corrected itself, and our time was reduced from 2:46 AM to 2:21. :)

Hours later, completely exhausted we pulled into Jess's.  I visited with the nephew a bit before crashing at around 2:15. We were back up at 6 o'clock in an attempt to escape a little of the crowd. We would have left earlier but there was no way I would have been able to operate for another full day on anything less than 3 and a half hours.

So with the OC spray in hand, Amy and I got back in the car and headed down highway 50 to the New Carrolton exit. The Metro was supposed to be about a mile and a half down the ramp. We soon discovered that the traffic leading up to the exit stretched down the highway almost a quarter mile. After waiting twenty or so minutes we were finally off 50 and inching down the ramp. 

Cars were parked all along the shoulder, so Amy and I decided we would follow suit. I didn't think that it was the best idea in the world, but under our circumstances I was very afraid that there would be no parking further down at the metro. So we parked the car on the shoulder and began walking. 

That's when the crowd started. We walked along side a black family that had come down from PA. They were so excited to be there for the inauguration. Even though race means nothing to me, I couldn't help but be happy for them.

I couldn't even see inside the station from where Amy and I were in line. We bought one day passes even though they were a couple bucks more so we wouldn't have to get in line for tickets inside.

 About an hour later as we were crammed in a mass of people thirty feet from the entrance, we heard over the loud speaker, "Any persons parked on the exit ramp will be towed if not moved." I think, "Shit, now what? If I give up my spot I'll be waiting at least another two hours, if I don't I'm looking at an expensive towing fee." I didn't even know if we were capable of leaving. Amy, again, thinks my misfortune is hilarious, but at least convinced me the smart thing to do would be to go back and get the car. So after much pushing and shoving we escape the crowd and begin to jog back to the car. A little bit down the road we decide to walk (it was like 20 degrees out. Not comfortable weather to be running in) when a lady pulls up along side of us and asks if we're going to get our car on the ramp. We tell her yes, she says we had better start running because the trucks are there now. So I give the keys to Amy, my two-time-marathon-running friend. And thankfully she got to the car before they towed us away. I didn't see any trucks, but the cops were there, and gave me a bit of a time.

So we then drove down the ramp and parked in a private parking spot. I didn't really care at this point where we parked, as long as it wasn't on the side of the road. On our way back to the metro, a lady tells us that the wait is four hours long. Sooo with it being around nine, that would place us in D.C. an hour after the inauguration. I tell Amy, "Screw it, I'm driving into D.C. I don't care where we end up as long as we find a place to park." So I pull off the highway in what seemed to be the "8th and I" area, but unfortunately nothing looked familiar. We drove around for an hour and every parking space was taken. EVERY PARKING SPACE!!!! I was about ready to give up when I see an office building with a big parking sign on the corner of Florida and 20th. We pull in and the guy tells us that the first garage is full we would have to use the second. To get into the second garage we had to pull around the building, and drive up a narrow ramp to get inside. The place was empty. Not one car. The guy in there tells me the metro's a block and a half away and that it will be $20 to park. I begrudgingly give him my money. He then tells me I have to park in the basement, orange section, and if I don't I'll be towed. So, with my second threat of being towed, I cautiously make my way to the basement. And still the whole place is practically empty. I was almost certain a gang was going to be waiting down there with machine guns to kidnap us. But no one was there. 

We safely parked the car and began walking down Connecticut Ave toward the Dupont Metro.  We finally get on the Red Line. I text Jess and ask her what's happening out there in the world, since by watching the news she knows more about what's happening than I do. She tells me a person got hit by a train on the Red Line so they shut down two stops and it's expected to be delayed an hour and a half. She tells me if I'm anywhere near the Red Line to get off and go someplace else. So we decide to leave the metro and just walk. At this point I knew I need to go south to get to the mall, and that it couldn't possibly be more than six miles away. To be safe, I figured around 20 minutes a mile, that means two hours of walking if it was six miles away, which I highly doubted. Either way we would have made it on time. I later asked a national guard guy how far it was. He said quite a way. I asked for the exact distance. He said 1.5 miles. lol He had me worrying it was going to be like 8 or something. ANYWAY, We began walking along Connecticut, and people began pouring in from the side streets. Soon enough, Connecticut was blocked from traffic, and people poured into it. 

There's nothing like walking down an empty city street, with thousands and thousands of other strangers all heading in the same direction, the only traffic being us, and the only destination being the mall. It was weird, but it was very cool. So we followed the traffic out Pennsylvannia Ave. onto the mall. 

The first thing I saw was the "Jesus People". I snapped a few pictures before they began calling out, "How can Obama, having two daughters, be for abortion? Obama's a hypocrite!" The crowd wasn't happy. They began to boo, the finger started flying around, threats were being yelled. I told Amy we had better move on before we witness a murder. 

We got caught in the mob a couple times. There were people with every single piece of Obama merchandise possible displayed on their being. One lady had a trench coat laminated with Obama newspaper clippings. I saw quite a few people with jackets completely covered with Obama Buttons. I didn't think we were going to be able to escape, but we made it eventually.

Amy had never been to D.C. so I was determined for her to see the Capital building. We pushed forward till we saw the tip of it before we retreated from the insanity to safety. We ended up watching the inauguration on a huge TV screen next to the Washington Monument. That was all I was expecting anyway.

 I stayed for Rick Warren's 'prayer', if one can even call it that, and Obama's swearing in. We started walking back to the car shortly after he started his speech. I figured I could watch it later online. I wanted to get ahead of the two million other people there. We left D.C. at 2:30, drove up to BBC to visit Sam, left BBC at 7:15, and I pulled in my driveway at 11:30. Absolutely insane...

Shovelling

So today for about ten minutes I was parked outside the local hardware store. My mom had gone inside to buy some windshield wiper fluid. I was feeling pretty stupid because I didn't know how to refill it. Although, I'm positively sure if I was left to myself I could have figured it out. It wasn't really that complicated at all. The only part I would have screwed up is the punching-the-hood-of-the-car-to-open-it part. That wasn't entirely self-explainitory. 

Anyway, as I was sitting there with the snow falling serenely from the sky (we already have around two feet of heavy compacted snow and we're still getting more), I noticed this guy shoveling the sidewalk in front of me. Apparently he was used to the 20 degree weather, because he wasn't wearing a jacket or gloves. But he was  very diligent in his shoveling. He shoveled that whole sidewalk three times, made sure both edges were completely even, and even scooped up the small bits of snow that had fallen off of his shovel. I've lived in Buffalo for eight years now and have never seen a person pay so much attention to their shoveling as this man. After it was all clear, I was certain he was done. I mean, it looked pretty good to me. But then he began to chip away at the hard, icy snow that covered the pavement. Bit by bit he scraped it up and threw it into the snow bank, and little by little the new, soft snowflakes fell in behind him. To make my point, this was not an old man with all the time in the world on his hands. This was a twenty-something year old guy who probably had much better things to be doing. He doesn't work for the hardware, because the same three people have been running that store since the 80's. I have a suspicion he lives in the house next door. So, this guy just spent ten minutes or more (he was working when I pulled up) clearing a seven foot space of pavement with exact detail and preciseness, for no obvious reason, while the snow continued to fall. I was thoroughly impressed. 

My mom came back before he finished so I didn't get to see the final product. But it got me thinking. The whole situation was very much like life. Shit still falls, whether we shovel or not. But it's our shoveling that makes life work. He was methodical and purposeful, and now the sidewalk is a transportation masterpiece. I'd want to walk on that sidewalk over the sidewalks I shovel any day.