do not fear

Yesterday, here in Chicago, it was 65 degrees. 

First of all, this is madness. It is the middle of January, I should be feeling my lungs freeze and shatter into a million tiny pieces of death every time I decide to breathe. 

But no, yesterday it felt like home.

I never thought that I would miss the continual rain of the Pacific Northwest, but this has become my reality.

I was walking to class dressed in the highly fashionable clothing native to Washington, that is socks and sandals, ripped jeans, a baggy v neck t-shirt and a sloppy sweater, when I noticed a Chicagoan.

This woman was wearing high healed boots, multiple jackets, and jewelry that sparkled as the water hit it. 

She was sprinting as if being chased by the epitome of evil. She desperately grasped her hood and pulled it down so that not a single drop of water would get on her perfectly made up face.

I glanced, I smiled, and then I laughed. 

The rain should not be feared like some disease out for blood. 

The rain is clean. It's pure and beautiful. It makes things simple.

The rain brings life.

So, we should dance in it. We should puddle jump. We should look up to the heavens, pick out a single drop, and watch it as it plummets downward and meets its end upon our foreheads.

We should hear the pitter-patter of the rain falling against the pavement and marvel at it's power.

That one drop could have been poured into a class and served to the kinds of old. It could have been part of a downpour in Mozambique that forced families into their homes to sit and stare as their dirt road became a river. This little drop could have been a tear cried by a child a million miles away. 

To the lady in the heals, please don't run through the rain in fear. This rain is bringing life to Chicago,it does not threaten you. It is cleansing our streets and nourishing our gardens. In this form, it cannot hurt us. It can only wash the make up off of our faces.

It makes us beautiful.

words

The Phantom Tollbooth is a fantastic book about a boy traveling through a world torn with war between words and numbers. In the land of Dictionopolis, words are of utmost importance. A citizen of Dictionopolis would have a personal lexicon worthy of praise by any scholar of our world. 

I learned a new word today.

This word presents to me a great challenge.

This word is: Hupomone

There is not good translation of this word from the original Greek to English. At best, it is translated as endurance or perseverance. 

Though these translations give you a glimpse of what hupomone is; they do not even touch on its significance.

In the New Testament, hupomone is used to describe a characteristic. This characteristic is of a man who will not stray from his purpose and his loyalty to faith even though he is suffering the greatest of trials. 

Another way to translate hupomone is 'patience'. 

That makes me wonder, is the true meaning of endurance patience? When you are enduring hardship and struggle, is that not the same as being patient for peace and relief? 

Hupomone grows as we experience more trials. 

This sense of hupomone is used in Romans 5:3-4 when Paul is encouraging the church to persevere through their troubles because this type of perseverance can develop passionate patience.  

When we learn to have patience on a passionate level, we open our hearts to hear what God is revealing to us through our sufferings and we become eager to listen.

I want this kind of patience  Patience enough to see that my sufferings, when endured with a godly mindset, will mold me into warrior for Christ.

Words.

"A slavish concern for the composition of words is the sign of a bankrupt intellect. Be gone, odious wasp! You smell of decayed syllables."

-Norton Juster, The Phantom Tollbooth

why white?

"Afrocentric theory does not pose a threat to multiculturalism  it dos however, pose a threat to Eurocentrism--the imposition of a European view that denigrates the experiences of others. European domination of Western culture over many years has resulted in the dislocation of Africans both physically and psychologically. To lose one's terms is to become a victim of the other's attitudes, models, disciplines, and culture; and the ultimate effect of such a massive loss is the destruction of self-confidence, he distortion of history and psychological marginality. Sanity will come only from a conscious relocation of ourselves from the margins of someone else's experience to the centrality of our own experience. 'I love Harriet Tubman, because she first loved me', I tell my children." This was said by Molefi Kete Asante, a leading figure in the field of Africana Studies. Reflecting on my education, it is amazing how incredibly racist my studies were. Though I consider myself to be considerate of all cultures, it is impossible to not have any racism in my blood. All of my education has been through the perspective of white (usually protestant) males. I cannot think of a single African theologian, Latino Artist or Asian writer that I have studied in class. This semester I am taking a class called Africana Studies; this means a study of West African history, the slave period and the Civil Rights Movement. I am one of three white students in my class.The majority of my class is African American and proud of their heritage  They are taking the class to learn about their past and use that knowledge to change the future. I am excited and ready for the challenge of being the minority. I have a feeling that my perspectives will be changed dramatically over the course of the next few months and I welcome it! I want to learn to think in the true sense of "multiculturalism". Western culture has been dominated by Eurocentrism for so long that any other point of view is taboo. I want to challenge Eurocentrism and expose my peers to the truths of history. This semester will not only be informative academically but also culturally. I'm so ready for my life to undergo serious change in terms of perspective.

so this is love

Romans 8:38-39