...the drops of rain make a hole in the stone, not by violence, but by oft falling

bono's wisdom

I avoided religious people most of my life. Maybe it had something to do with having a father who was Protestant and a mother who was Catholic in a country where the line between the two was, quite literally, a battle line. Where the line between church and state was… well, a little blurry, and hard to see.

I remember how my mother would bring us to chapel on Sundays… and my father used to wait outside. One of the things that I picked up from my father and my mother was the sense that religion often gets in the way of God.

For me, at least, it got in the way. Seeing what religious people, in the name of God, did to my native land… and in this country, seeing God's second-hand car salesmen on the cable TV channels, offering indulgences for cash… in fact, all over the world, seeing the self-righteousness roll down like a mighty stream from certain corners of the religious establishment…

I must confess, I changed the channel. I wanted my MTV.

Even though I was a believer.

Perhaps because I was a believer.

I was cynical… not about God, but about God's politics.

Look, whatever thoughts you have about God, who He is or if He exists, most will agree that if there is a God, He has a special place for the poor. In fact, the poor are where God lives.

Check Judaism. Check Islam. Check pretty much anyone.

I mean, God may well be with us in our mansions on the hill… I hope so. He may well be with us as in all manner of controversial stuff… maybe, maybe not… But the one thing we can all agree, all faiths and ideologies, is that God is with the vulnerable and poor.

God is in the slums, in the cardboard boxes where the poor play house… God is in the silence of a mother who has infected her child with a virus that will end both their lives… God is in the cries heard under the rubble of war… God is in the debris of wasted opportunity and lives, and God is with us if we are with them. "If you remove the yolk from your midst, the pointing of the finger and speaking wickedness, and if you give yourself to the hungry and satisfy the desire of the afflicted, then your light will rise in darkness and your gloom with become like midday and the Lord will continually guide you and satisfy your desire in scorched places"

It's not a coincidence that in the Scriptures, poverty is mentioned more than 2,100 times. It's not an accident. That's a lot of air time, 2,100 mentions. [You know, the only time Christ is judgmental is on the subject of the poor.] 'As you have done it unto the least of these my brethren, you have done it unto me.' (Matthew 25:40). As I say, good news to the poor.....

...A number of years ago, I met a wise man who changed my life. In countless ways, large and small, I was always seeking the Lord's blessing. I was saying, you know, I have a new song, look after it… I have a family, please look after them… I have this crazy idea…

And this wise man said: stop.

He said, stop asking God to bless what you're doing.

Get involved in what God is doing—because it's already blessed.

Well, God, as I said, is with the poor. That, I believe, is what God is doing.

And that is what He's calling us to do...

"...following the light of the sun we left the old world."






-christopher columbus

i smelled fall today.

my goal for this week is to take in a complete sunrise and sunset - preferably over water.

this little one... ... is the newest jardine

trading sweatshirts and skin that itches.

camp reminds of me of a life i love more than a lot of things.



"hey do you want to switch sweatshirts"

"do you want to switch sweatshirs?"

"yes"

"ok"



i believe that you learn a lot from people. the scarey part comes when you start to rely on them. somestimes bad judgement calls are made but i think on a whole life is blessed by good friends.

rachael yamagata is my continual rainy day friend. amy i think of you every time she plays. why the heck haven't we played?

yes my secret crush on jason mraz hightens - i think i love him for his mind

I returned to my digs a raw and organic foods fanatic who can touch his toes for the first time as well as do things with my mind and body that I'd never dreamed"Tan" is a sanskrit word meaning "Stretch" or "hold." All summer i'd been signing emails with the line, "The meaning of life is the perfect tan" long before i knew it's ancient interpretation. Words like Tantra and Attention come from this root. My meaning of life now has more depth thanks to this discovery. Beauty as expected,continues to be only skin deep.

I came home to a beautiful house with my favorite bed only to sleep in a tent night after night to keep the awe hanging over me. In the islands the sky is so wide when you look up you realize you're really looking out, into space, reminding you that life isn't linear, instead you're actually stuck to the side of a massive rock floating out in the middle of nowhere. It's humbling to look at it that way and it brought me to the massive conclusion, there is nothing to know other than joy & happiness.

im hooked on my classroom - i have thought about my kids all weekend. i wish everyone could meet them because they have such a special way of making the world seem so simple and beautiful - well expect for the one who tried to punch me on friday...


im not going to go away for a while because i don't think i will ever settle in here if im always leaving. once rachel told me that im always saying goodbye because i was constantly leaving somewhere. is this now my time to just stick somewhere? one weekend i promise i will stay around to see a weekend in chicago...just not this one coming.

i want an adventure - i haven't had one in so long. - my skin itches for it and im not feeling completely whole without it. it's a different life when you can get away to sleep at a top of a lighthouse like was possible when the itch came before.