birthdays and mary oliver.

as i approach my 25th birthday (quarter of a century, i am reminded :-), i can't help but think of all the beauty and the pain that i've seen in these 25 years, all the incredible people i've met and lost and love, all the things i've learned and realized that i don't know. i feel incredibly grateful for life, for my life, for those who hold and surround me, for those who teach me and challenge me, and for whatever is to come. thank you, to all of you. i give thanks for you.

mary oliver is always profound to me, but i thought i'd share a few of her poems that i particularly love (thanks to angie and joseph's house for introducing me to this amazing poet!):

logos

Why wonder about the loaves and the fishes?

If you say the right words, the wine expands.

If you say them with love

and the felt ferocity of that love

and the felt necessity of that love,

the fish explode into the many.

Imagine him, speaking,

and don't worry about what is reality,

or what is plain, or what is mysterious.

If you were there, it was all those things.

If you can imagine it, it was all those things.

Eat, drink, be happy.

Accept the miracle.

Accept, too, each spoken word

spoken with love.

the summer day.

Who made the world?

Who made the swan, and the black bear?

Who made the grasshopper?

This grasshopper, I mean-

the one who has flung herself out of the grass,

the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,

who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down-

who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.

Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.

Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.

I don't know exactly what a prayer is.

I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down

into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,

how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,

which is what I have been doing all day.

Tell me, what else should I have done?

Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon?

Tell me, what is it you plan to do

with your one wild and precious life?

God hates NO ONE.

this morning, one of my clients at the transitional rehabilitation program where i have my field placement, a substance abuse inpatient program for men who are homeless, had a court date. i figured that i had never been to a trial, and it seemed like attending this trial would be a good learning experience.

i forgot, however, that this was a historic (i hate saying "an historic" even though that's the technically correct way) morning for washington d.c. - gay marriage became officially legal today. and as i approached the d.c. superior court building, i saw a large crowd gathered outside the entrance. apart from the masses of cameras, news reporters, and human rights campaign demonstrators, there was a small group of five or six people maybe? i'm not sure; perhaps more. i've heard about this group before - they are a group that travels around protesting at funerals, schools, colleges. their protest cry? "God hates fags," their signs loudly pronounce. other signs talk about God's judgment and wrath on those who are gay and a nation that says it's ok, quoting bible passages, spreading hateful messages. in my diversity class last semester, we watched a video clip of this group protesting at a school, and i burst into tears. now, that was already an emotionally charged class. but to see the hatred of others so blatantly in the name of God, this breaks my heart and turns my stomach. and today, walking within three feet of this group of angry, hateful protestors, singing songs about the vengeance of God, i felt almost overpowered by the sense of hatred and my own sorrow and disgust. tears welled up in my eyes and i began to feel nauseous. i wanted to scream, God LOVES everyone! how dare these people hold these signs in the name of being "christian"?

at that moment, the hardest thing to remember was that God even loves them, those perpetrators of hate in the name of a God of love. God loves them still. Jesus loved the pharisees and the prostitutes; Jesus shared meals with the tax collectors and with the teachers of the law. and yes, Jesus spoke some harsh words, but those words were targeted at whom? not the prostitutes or tax collectors... no, Jesus said that these people would get into heaven ahead of the pharisees. Jesus' harsh words flowed towards the religious authorities, those who judged and ostracized others in the name of God. woe to you, he said to the pharisees. daughter, you are forgiven, son, you are healed, you are loved, he said to the prostitute, the tax collector.

my court house adventure didn't end there by the door... once i got inside, i was appalled by the racial divide, the power imbalance, the fact that all the defenders were african american and most of the lawyers were white, the fact that the lawyers didn't even seem to look their clients in the eyes, call them by name, make sure they were understanding these life-altering sentences, the fact that our criminal justice system is so broken, perpetuating a cycle of violence rather than breaking it and setting people free.

our world is full of brokenness, divisiveness, judgment, hatred. and yet the message of Jesus, to me, is that these things are not the strongest, they are not the ultimate truth about the world and about God. no. God is love. God hates NO ONE. we are the ones that project our own hatred and fear of others onto a God that mourns for us but loves us in spite of ourselves. may we know and live out the love of God that conquers fear, that breaks down barriers, that heals people, relationships, and systems, more and more fully.