this is meeningless

Well, Seminary is over in a month, and all that's left between me and graduation is two papers and a 1-month Presbyterian government workshop. 

After three years away from LA, I don't think I can ever go back.  I don't mean geographically, but things are so different now.  I'm going back to California for the summer, I'm getting married in August, and then I'm headed back out to Princeton for another two years.  No one got to meet Adrian last time we were out there (which was just for like 3 days anyway), so there will definitely be time for that.  He is the best. :*

"Going back" is something that I'd hoped for at the beginning for a large part, but I don't think I would have left if I hadn't wanted some change.  I don't have a lot of answers by any means...well, actually, I've gotten some big answers, but that just leads to awesome new questions. ;)

I love what I'm going to do (preach!), and I love that this will keep me in conversation with old friends.  I have had great conversations about faith and whatever over these past three years with Becca, Nate, Heather, Will, and everyone else. 

I'm super excited to be in LA this summer, and I'm glad that Becca is out East now!

Anyways, here's my sappy and emotional "transition" lj entry.

Obama'd better get started on federal rights for gay couples.  Of course, Los Angeles can work a little harder, seeing as Prop 8 won 50.4% to 49.6%.

In an effort to get my life together and shove it all back in my head, i'm dusting off ye olde livejournal.  i miss la something fierce, but i'm having a great time out here with greek.  it seems to have just started getting challenging, which is good, because i was beginning to get bored.  viva la challenge. 

i preached for the first time this past july.  i wrote about 20 different sermons in the week prior to that, and when i finally got something i could live with, i went to church and preached a (slightly rushed) sermon.  that was odd to say the least.  not that i was expecting anything exciting to happen, but it was just so mundane.  i was terrified to leave the pages of my (beautifully worded) sermon, and instead clung to them like they were my oxygen hose in the middle of deep and empty space. 

and i wasn't expecting to be great either.  or maybe i did.  i think i always had this vague idea of bringing about the eschaton through my preaching, which really isn't good reformed theology.  but to be weighed down by such mundane problems (nervousness, talking too fast, i even misplaced my sermon when i was about to begin!).  it just all seemed so typical.  i'm tempted to write here that i've been humbled by the whole experience, but i'm not quite there yet.  i'm still kind of miffed.  i wanted to deliver a powerful message of truth and hope in transformation, i wanted to give comfort to the spiritually weary.  i wanted to reach down into the bowels of scripture, and grab the message by the intestines, and rip it out in such a way that people who had been searching for years could finallly have that "aha!" moment. 

now, don't get me wrong, i don't think i did a poor job, i just couldn't escape the feeling that i'm just a dentist (not that there's anything wrong wtih dentists. its just that i'm not one).  showing up and doing my job and getting paid.

i don't want to forget this feeling though.  i don't want to get acclimated to the mediocrity that i (seemingly) participated in.  i don't want to forget that this was not satisfying.  i can't settle. 

on the other hand, i can't run too far with the idea that this is up to me.  that is a dangerous game, and one that i think leads to worse things than mediocrity.  so i've learned a lot and i still have a lot to learn. 

crazy, crazy life choice.
:D

(btw, if you want to read my sermon, just let me know, and i'll send it to you.)
((also btw, ashley, i have not forgotten about you. i'll get you something soon.))

Remember me?

I'm coming home again. I got a free eticket from delta, cause they're dumb, so i'm taking advantage.  I'll be back for 5 ish weeks on the 13th. Word.  

Hi guys! See what my friends and I made!  

:D

So I'm writing this paper on the experiment that was my living arrangement for this year.  I moved into a house in the (very) urban capitol of New Jersey, about 12 miles away from Princeton, and about 4 blocks away from the state prison. 

I moved in for a bunch of reasons, and, for better or for worse, most of those reasons have been shown to be totally off the mark. 

I came to be close to the church I was interning at, and my relationship with that church was terminated (see an old post). 
That led to lots of other things, including a general disconnect with my neighborhood. 
Also, living in an intentional community was more difficult than the four of us had planned.  I've had bad living situations before, but when you're trying to make something work *intentionally*, failure is just a little more painful.  And I'm not blaming any of us who lived here.  It's been enough of a hassle already.  Shit just don't work sometimes. 

Now I'm having to look back at all the expectations I put on the house and on my friends living here.  Its kind of a downer.  It looks like I piled us with unnamed expectations, and set us all up for a huge let down.  And if that doesn't suck enough, at some point we agreed to do this house for credit, so now i must write a paper on the whole experience.

The worst thing of all is that I really like the house, and I'm going to have to leave it at the end of August.  The neighborhood is wonderful--though not without its problems.  I might try to still get people over the summer to move in, but for now it looks like i'm moving back to the dorm. 

Oh well, so it goes. 

On a lighter note, I'm coming back for three days in a few weeks!  My uncle is getting married on the 25th, and I am spending that Friday and Sunday in LA.  Lots of church meetings, but I hope I can see some peeps. 

Word.

VOTE

 Kenny Chesney's "Don't Blink" makes you tear up while you're reading about the Eucharistic Controversies of the 9th and 11th centuries.

Then again, maybe its just a really touching song.

you know what is so easy to forget at seminary? the HOLIDAY SEASON. 

but that will change when i get home on friday!!! this christmas will be spent in glorious los angeles.  for those of you who remember, this will be different from last year which was spent in arizona and north carolina.  that was fun and exhausting.  good times.  this will hopefully be fun and relaxing.  this will have far less dogs and far less people. 

one sad thing: my car will stay in new jersey! 
but i am really looking forward to no snow, old friends, and family avocados.

rachel crashes her car into something!

last time it was in full costume as a dead prom queen driving to ultimate during a halloween show.  it was raining and i smashed into a parked bmw.

this time it was a volkswagon golf owned by the father of a very nice girl named sara (no h), on my way home from a non-denominational/post-presbyterian worship service in red bank, nj at a place called the ORB (outreach redbank). 

i went to two church services today for a total of 6 hours.  one of them resulted in a car accident. 

i would say that's grounds for quitting seminary UNTIL i realize that neither of those services were PRESBYTERIAN.  serves me right i guess.

pics to follow!*




*probably not. since i'll forget.

Yesterday I helped a lovely stranded seminarian fill her gas tank with gas from a can.  It was awesome.  There were two other girls there, in their mittens and J.Crew boots and Anthropologie overcoats and knit hats.  They were totally clueless as to what to do, and I saved the day.  I also had no idea of what to do, but I did have stupid macho confidence when I asked them to step aside.  After a few minutes my hands smelled like gasoline, and the knees of my pants were covered in dirt and snow, and I had done something that they had given up on as impossible. 

They thanked me and clapped and looked amazed, and I said,

"No problem ladies... any time."

shoot! i just got whipped cream and pumpkin pie all over my computer keys.  oh well... its fantastic pie.  thanksgiving has been a long-needed break from the ridiculous adventure that i've committed myself to.  tons of family, and only seven dogs this time in arizona.  its been really refreshing.  i managed to squeeze out an extra two days for this break, because i'm ending my internship with my field education church.  no hard feelings, just irreconcilable differences. 

that's been a tough time, but a good time.  nothing makes you get your own position straight than working with someone who disagrees with you. 

coming home was really really great.  i wish that i had more time to stay and catch up with everyone--maybe catch a show (i'm always rooting for good audiences for roberto, ultimate, journey, timmilesheather show, kill riley, whatevs, etc.). 

I'm right around the half-way mark to graduation.  weird.

this entry is. weird.

also, i have gotten a new phone and have not taken the time to put all of your wonderful numbers into it.  So CALL ME if you really are terribly desperate to hang.

sweetness.

I'm coming back for a few days this week before heading out to Arizona for thanksgiving, so does anyone want to get together for some food?  I would suggest Chili's, but if there's some place that all you Silverlake/Echo Park people like to go to, I'm open to suggestions. 

I hope I get to see you!

Hooray!

So yes, it wasn't until that last post that I realized how low on emotional resources I was.  I have been guarded and fighting and defiant and tactful and political for so long, and that's fine (and maybe necessary) for what I'm doing.  But then wednesday I realized how stony I'd become. 

There was a shooting two doors down from my house yesterday around 2:45.  Ryan and I pulled up to the house from getting groceries, and police were looking for a third bullet under my car, which was parked near the shooting.  No one was hurt, but our neighbor's car had a stray bullet put straight through the back windshield, through the headrest of the passenger seat, and out the front of the car via the dashboard.  (We have yet to find that bullet.) 

Now, there have been gunshots on my block in LA before, but not like this.  Not where the kids on the block and I are playing "bullet hunt" with the police.  Anyway, I was totally a jerk to Ryan, giving him a "what? you scared?" attitude all afternoon.  And that's not cool.  I shouldn't have the brave-face on so much that I can't turn it off.  Especially since being brave means neglecting other duties, like loving people, which is also really hard.

And anyway, seminary is not a horrible place. I am not huddled in a corner with people throwing hard stones at me on a constant basis (contrary to the attitude of my previous post  ^_^).  In fact, seminary is the first place where I have had the freedom and the training through which I might properly express my beliefs. 

That being said, I'm still trying to work out where I'm trying to go.  I know that I'm in a different place than I was when I first got here.  Of course, that difference may be purely geographical. Who knows! Yikes! Important musings...etc. etc.

So I am attracted to women.  Whatevs, right?  I guess you could say that I also like guys, and right now I'm just looking to get through my Systematic Theology reading of Calvin's Institutes.  But that's not good enough.  Everyone's got an opinion.  Sometimes its well-meaning, but everyone's got an opinion here in Princeton. My life is an invitation for people to get on a soapbox for better or for worse; for right or for left; whatevs.  And that's fine.  Coming to a place like this, I expected to be totally rejected, and for the most part I was met with knee-jerk acceptance, denial, and thoughtful reflection.  I have appreciated all of these things.  I knew coming in that it would be a different place than the West Los Angeles that I had made my home. 

In writing this post from my room at my house in Trenton, I stopped to have a cigarette, and it makes for a good metaphor.  I could have gone downstairs and out back to smoke, or gone to the porch, but I didn't want to leave my room.  So not two minutes ago I was hanging outside my window, desperately trying to keep the smoke out of my room.  Watching the smoke through the glass of my window, trying to separate what I was doing from the community that I participate in.  This is fine.  Under the agreement (we call it a covenant) that I have agreed to live with, smoking should not be done in the house.  Its dirty and unpleasant and is tolerated by the other members within certain parameters.  I think that this is a good system. 

But should my sexual orientation also be treated with the same (in)tolerance?  At school, and in the greater church--even in my interactions with family and friends to a certain degree, I seem to be constantly encountering this toleration. 

I do not think that this is an adequate way of dealing with sexuality or other areas where individuals are trying to understand themselves more fully as children of God, citizens of the US, whatever.

In the dining hall last week, I had an encounter with a close friend (who does not agree with my lifestyle, but who is one of the few people on campus who will at least be open with me about it), and this encounter ended with a joke that pretty much was us making fun of me dressing like a guy (Which I don't.  I mean, come on. It was a joke.).  Later that week I learned that an unrelated third party had caught wind of the interaction and had scolded my friend, telling her to "not talk to me in such an open way, because [I'm] 'struggling' with sexuality, and therefore there should be a supportive environment" maintained for me.  This was disturbing on several counts.

Firstly, the fact that there is an extensive enough gossip network to give someone reason to come up to my friend (and not me) to confront her about the exchange is just weird.

Secondly,  the fact that a supportive environment means not engaging me in conversation about anything related to sexual orientation is totally outrageous.  (I mean, come on.)

Who I am should not be ignored or sanctioned to whispered conversations where I am not present.  I feel like I need to take my orientation out back like my cigarette smoking, where it doesn't bother anyone. 

I expected confrontation, or something like it, at the seminary, but the awkward glances, and the hushed conversations are more disturbing than any fundamentalist debate could be.  This is not the focus of my life.  These years of seminary schooling are set apart as times of serious reflection and discernment, where every aspect of my life is to be examined and wrestled with in the light of salvation and the greater Christian community, and yet I find here a great lack.  There is no engagement, yet there is also no acceptance.  I almost long for constant challenge or constant ignorance, but what I get is a steady discomfort.  A refusal to work through and a refusal to let be.  As a result I feel uncomfortable in my own skin.  I find myself wishing that I could just be a card-carrying, head-shaved lesbian, or a girl-in-a-phase, or something, anything other than an individual engaged in discernment.  I am scrambling to put myself in a box so that people can understand who I am. 

This is fundamentally against what I am coming to see as my personal theology, which is a striving to engage everyone as an individual, formed in the image of God, fallible, human, finite, unique, OTHER.  I see more and more everyday that permitting another person to be themselves is so difficult if that person falls outside of one's own comfort zone.  Now I know that this is nothing new, but I have seen it so clearly here than anywhere else, and it caused me to pause and write this post. 

I don't want to be ignored, I don't want to be tip-toed around, I just want to be.  The fact that I am the person the first-year girls would hook up with if they were drunk enough at a party is gross.  Its weird.  Its not who I am.  I would rather be constantly involved in thoughtful arguments to my face than be left to the judgment of brief whispers behind me. 

There are some significant exceptions on campus, and I am very grateful to those people, but for the most part I'm just kind of tired.  I hope that I have the energy to explain this to people on campus in person, but for now I just wanted to get it out in words. 

blah blah blah

Thanks for listening.  Its 2am, I hope this post doesn't suck.

man. i was working for an hour on this post about life.  then i made it disappear. ah well.

you can have this instead:

today i freestyled with 7 year old Keyshawn who is my neighbor (i've changed his name), who likes to dance and sing, so i asked him to sing and he rapped a little "you got yo' pants around your ankles, n*gga. i'm gonna f*ck your sh*t up." (does it rhyme? what does this even mean?) seriously though. cute kid.  he doesn't know any seals and crofts though. i asked him.  we did both know a church gospel song though (go figure). 

I was getting into it when keyshawn told me "its okay. you don't have to sing anymore," and I decided to head inside.

then i played final fantasy xii for the first real chunk of time.  after about an hour i managed to beat a tomato in a tough battle, and after winning, i immediately challenged an aleosaur and was quickly eaten. 

game over.

what made me assume that besting a fruit was a sufficient prerequisite for defeating a dinosaur is beyond me.

Back in New Jersey, and the internet's up at the house. So I'm posting from school, but whatevs. For those who know, and who don't, I'm living off campus in Trenton, NJ in a house with 3 other folks.  So far this is working out well. I like having a kitchen, and even though its a little scary living there (think LA without the beach, hollywood, or any money. but still lots of gangs and gay people), its starting to feel like home.  I do miss living on campus a bit though.

I think as part of our house project we will start a blog together, but don't worry!! I will still post just as often right here on livejournal!!  Hm, other than that? I'm glad to have a gym again, as well as an internet-connected computer, so that I don't have to download episodes of "Naruto" and "Honey and Clover" in the basement of Stewart.  Simple pleasures.

I have also started a puzzle. Things are back to normal(ish).

 i am relaxed and having a good time.