Notice the rapt curiosity of the audience as i try to flesh out the contrast between the Johannine and the Lucan theologies, as they pertain to the concept of the in-dwelling "pneuma," or Spirit. The talk went a little over the 90-minute mark i had set, but i sensed from their response that they're ready for next week's systematic examination of Logos and the triune nature of the Trinity.

i think that those of us who move into the city from intervarsity and college campuses think too much and feel too much for our own good. we are desperately self-centered and ill-equipped to handle even the most routine realities of life in the city. we compartmentalize our expereinces into intellectual, emotional and spiritual categories and then think and reflect on them over and over. We are needy-- needy for people who are like us to surround us, affirm us, provide us with a listening ear, entertainment, comparison, and people to share weaknesses and insecurities with. We have not suffered, not fought an uphill battle our entire lives, we are uptight and hyper-sensitive, hyper-analytical and rigid....whereas our neighbors are more spontaneous, able to cope with living and working and struggling in real life, aged and educated by accumulated wisdom, family bonds forged in survival, migration, poverty, upward mobility, cultural adaptation...
we take many things too seriously, yet we give ourselves to very few serious things. We talk about suffering and sacrifice and community, yet we run away from discomfort and continue to be individualistic until we hit a crisis point and then we ask someone to pray for us. Our character growth is so slow because our egos and insecurities are so big.

praise God for using us anyway. he loves us so much.

love in, love out

life for me this last month has been defined by a very strong (and i think in some ways healthy) tension that i have felt every day.

In college, my leaders always had to challenge me to get up, get out and be involved with the people i was ministering to. i was very stingy with my time. These days, it is the other way around. I have been feeling a deep nagging need to get back into solitude, to take some rest and to reflect on the things that have been going on. But what i've been doing is saying 'yes' to almost everything, leaving me with almost no time to myself....On the other hand, i am really happy with the relationships that have come from my time in the neighborhood, and excited about building them up even more during the next year.

recently, i have been recieving teaching about the importance of informal relationships, and shared needs among neighbors....i love these things, and have discovered God blessing me and those around me through them. This is why i wanted to do urban ministry, so that i could see community being built and be a part of that.

But there needs to be time to pray
there needs to be time to rest
to connect with loved ones and friends in other places
to celebrate

but this leads me to another thing ive been thinking about. Jason reminded us that real community in the kingdom of God is when people can rest, celebrate and fellowship across class and cultural lines and neighbors...And I have been feeling this. Times with Reza and kids from R2R have been fun and relaxing when we take them out for ice cream and Borders. Celebrating Juan's cousin's brithday at his house, and Juan's birthday last night at another neighbor's house were both joyful times for me, that did not sap my energy that much at all.
Coming from intervarsity and the college ministry context, this is new for me. And i love it. I love that 'ministry' for me is finally flowing out of my being, and not from a burdensome structure or expectation.....

yet i am still self-centered
i still am taking more than i am giving
i still have a lot to learn and a lot to see
a lot that i want to do and see

all this to say, I am really happy with where my life is going right now in terms of neighborhood and community, but without staying connected to God in prayer and personal devotion, i feel like my life is being poured out before my eyes without being refilled. It needs to be coming from an overflow of God's love for me as his son...

what its really about

last night i took the two boys i am mentoring to shop for shoes and then to Equator, an artsy hooka-bar/coffee shop in an alley off of Colorado Blvd in old Town. It was interesting seeing their reactions to the place. It seemed from their reactions that they were a bit wierded out by the strange artwork and the employees with huge plug-earrings-- not to mention the vast menu of odd and foreign (to them) items.

They got regular hot chocolate, and we sat down to talk on the couches next to a broken pac man machine, with mellow reggae music playing sofly in the background.
it was a good time...probably one of the most restful, laid back times i have had hanging out with them. it felt like they were more mature and certainly willing to try a new experience (be "cross-cultural") and this was encouraging.

a theme of this weekend's NWN retreat was interdependent community of shared needs and genuine relationships...I feel blessed to have been experiencing the beginnings of this where i am now.

3rd post in one day!!! check the rest!

Jason and his inquiry about land grants in California has re-kindled my interest in my family tree research. During my senior year, I managed to construct a pretty extensive family tree starting with myself and going back in time. There are only some small gaps in terms of connecting my paternal line back to the first Vigils that arrived in New Mexico from Zacatecas in 1695. This (left) is the family name coat of arms from Spain. Below is just a little info i have been able to find more recently. When i go back home, i hope to bring back my file with all the information i had compiled from spending hours in the library and the state archives.


Vigil
Castilianized form of Asturian-Leonese Vixil, a habitational name from a place named Vixil in the district of Consejo de Siero, Asturies.

The name Vigil first appears in the New Mexico history in the late 1600's. Francisco Montes Vigil and Maria Jimenez De Ancizo were colonists from Zacatecas. In Santa Fe in 1695, he said he was a native of El Real De Zacatecas and thirty years old. In 1710, he received a grant of land at Alameda, but sold it two years later.

emotion

emotions have been a theme lately around here
my relationships with Juan and Frankie are becoming more emotionally involved. I have had to apologize to each of them once for small failures. Frankie's mom, each time I see her, talks to me at length about how Frankie is at home and the issues she deals with in their family. This is incredible, and really valuable to me....but after we finish talking, i leave feeling a little like i need to shoulder the burden of Frankie's emotional life with his family
and then there is just the day-to day understanding of their lives and the things they see, talk about, deal with each day, and HOW they deal with things. How they relate to girls, to each other, how they relate to me and other adults in NWN.

where is the balance between shouldering too much emotional burden and none at all?

more and more, i realize that i do not know what i am doing when it comes to this. Hopefully, prayer this weekend will remind me of why these boys are important to God and what he wants for them. And where i fit itno all that.

meanwhile, my emotional outlet has been listening to music, and writitng poetry while listening to emo-rock and classical music. (see below)

random verse

sparkle
simmer
simple lying like nothing
breath in the space behind her teeth
eyelash curved black like
the middle of her eye
only this
only forever

mouth of red
speaks whispered mutterings
that
sound like your name
but really are just
sounds of air and lips and
tongue and teeth
against dream silkiness
laughing spurts out
smiled, giggled
looked the other way

this is the clay of life
of touch
of bodies’ imperfection
and perfect beauty
intimacy
awkwardness
the slight embarrassment of
physical contact
even when you invited it

olas en el mar
me siento triste
triste
nadando en olas
en mares
en mares de flores
mares de blanco, crema
dedos suaves
estoy contento pero chiquito
en el azul
azul cómo
un lago profundo
que nunca existió


to the outside you work
accommodate
perform
arrive on time
fulfill expectations
and behave yourself
but in your heart you are the Earth’s musician
you are the giant resting on a bed of millions of rain-wet pine trees
you are every bird
every fish
every fast thing on every unsearched continent
the singer of melodies never heard
the son on ancient stories
the untouchable boy hero of the woods
and the creek
and the plains
sleeping in grass under a billion stars
the day before never holds you down
and the next day never exists until you create it
with brazen fervor and arrogance


“Turn your eyes from me,
they overwhelm me…”
Song of Songs 6:5

where have I belonged
during my life?
I remember times in the house
times of afternoon light
lazily beaming through curtains
and catching tiny pieces of dust
in the middle of a sublime dance
in the air
each small speck illuminated as if
it were the moon catching the brilliant
light of the sun and flinging it lovingly
back to nighttime Earth
I would lay on the brown orange carpet and wonder
why can I only see the dust that is in the light
are there more that I don’t see, more hidden in the dimness
but no less beautiful?

awaiting...

the long awaited 5th album from Minneapolis-based indie-rapper Atmosphere (Slug on rhymes, Ant on beats) I have it coming in the mail some time this week. Atmosphere is the premier underground act right now--their style is raw, creative, gritty, articulate and honest

In other news...

I have been reading Howard Zinn's "A People's History of the U.S" again. This book altered the cousre of my life in 11th grade AP US history. As we are learning about Colonial American history in Sean's classes this month, i thought it would be nice to get some perspective. Particularly on Columbus, whose holiday is coming up, and the Puritans, who influenced faith and politics in this country so much, but whose deeds back in the day were less than shining.

i was fortunate in college to have taken a class on Medieval Spain and Morocco, in which we read Columbus' journals, but from the perspective of what was going on in Spain rather than in America. It is interesting to interpret the meaning of Columbus' actions in terms of the expulsion of the Muslims and Jews from Spain and the establishment of the first Christian nation-state in Spain.