compassion.

RADICAL COMPASSION-- saw this on reddit and had to share:

Jesus in his solidarity with the marginal ones is moved to compassion. 

Compassion constitutes a radical form of criticism, for it announces that the hurt is to be taken seriously, that the hurt is not to be accepted as normal and natural but is an abnormal and unacceptable condition for humanness. 

In the arrangement of "lawfulness" in Jesus' time, as in the ancient empire of Pharaoh, the one unpermitted quality of relation was compassion. Empires are never built or maintained on the basis of compassion. The norms of law (social control) are never accommodated to persons, but persons are accommodated to the norms. Otherwise the norms will collapse and with them the whole power arrangement. 

Thus the compassion of Jesus is to be understood not simply as a personal emotional reaction but as a public criticism in which he dares to act upon his concern against the entire numbness of his social context. Empires live by numbness. Empires, in their militarism, expect numbness about the human cost of war. Corporate economies expect blindness to the cost in terms of poverty and exploitation. Governments and societies of domination go to great lengths to keep the numbness intact. 

Jesus penetrates the numbness by his compassion and with his compassion takes the first step by making visible the odd abnormality that had become business as usual. Thus compassion that might be seen simply as generous goodwill is in fact criticism of the system, forces, and ideologies that produce the hurt.

 ~ Walter Brueggemann, The Prophetic Imagination pp 88-89

I love this... because it rings so true in our culture today as well. Allowing yourself to feel compassion is painful and even overwhelming, because when you open your eyes, there is SO much hurt in the world... in our country... even in Tampa. 

Compassion is not easily structured or contrived. Showing compassion will often interrupt your plans, and it does not fit into "business as usual," but it is such a right emotion to experience. 

Compassion leads us to ask the question "why." Why is there so much pain, so much evil in this world? It leads us to look around honestly at our culture and the systems within it... and, if we are being honest, it makes us examine our own hearts and selfish nature as well. And this, in turn, leads back to the cross-- to our loving God who is the king of compassion, to the extent that he gave his own son for us to be healed and fully restored. 

Compassion is a radical act... and essential in order to truly follow Jesus.

break.

Taking a break from my final paper to make a post... I don't know what I'm going to write about, so this could be either special and unique or rambling and nonsensical.

I've been sick for over a week... finally starting to feel better after getting some antibiotics a few days ago. Started with a really bad sore throat & cough, and while they both got less intense they didn't go away. Then I started getting really bad sinus headaches, and THEN something really interesting and gross happened-- it spread to my eye!! Wow! I was grossed out and intrigued... I've never seen my eye do anything like it! It got really red and swollen to the point where I could only open it about halfway, and kept oozing this thick yellow goo... and that's probably TMI already. But I was impressed, really. I think it somehow spread via my sinuses and tear ducts or something. With some antibiotic eyedrops, I'm now on the up and up... which is a lucky break for anyone who has to look at me. haha. :)

In other news... I took a hiatus from reading comments on news articles for a while, but I'm back to doing it again... it's like some sick pleasure. I can't stop myself. It's just a source of ignorance, bias, hatred, racism, and spouting off things that someone heard somebody else say... there is truly no value to them. And yet, I read an article online about whatever current event or pop culture happening is in the news, and without fail I scroll to the bottom... and I read, read, read. Can't stop reading... it's always been my blessing and my curse for as long as I can remember. A blessing because it makes academics come very easily to me, and I can quickly inform myself on just about any topic... but a curse because I can't stop, even when in the midst of complete tripe. I wish there was something like Ad-Block for comments... if anyone has an idea of how to help me with this stupid compulsion, I am open for suggestion.

Also!! My Snoops is moving in with us soon!! I am looking forward to this a lot... hoping to begin regaining more of a sense of community, and fighting my anti-social tendencies that just won't leave me. And besides that, she's one of my favorite people and I am HOPING that it will be mostly fun, with minimal conflict... and that any conflicts or discrepancies that arise can at least be dealt with in a healthy way. I am looking forward to having one of my best friends around just to chill and talk and catch up on everything. :)

The downside of this is that we need to clean... and not just clean, but DOWNSIZE to a fairly significant degree. Nothing that drastic I guess, but definitely moreso than Ryan and I have downsized since getting married. We seem to just expand to fill whatever space we occupy, and that's a pattern that needs to stop. We've been working on budgeting, and while that's a work in progress, I'd say we continue to grow increasingly mindful of our purchases, with only the occasional lapse into unnecessary purchases. But now the issue is weeding things out, and striving towards simplicity... I am a person who likes to save and prepare, and it is VERY hard for me to part with anything that might be remotely of use in the future. I know it needs to happen, though. I am overwhelmed by the amount of stuff we have sometimes, and I feel like it ties us down and restricts our freedom to some degree. I am hoping to start the process of breaking those chains as soon as this paper is done! I just want to hold on to EVERYthing... particularly my clothes. Realistically, I probably have at least double the amount of clothing that I need. But I feel like I need to hold onto it all "just in case" there is that one PERFECT opportunity to wear something! How crazy is that.

Sad, but true. Unfortunately.

I think it goes deeper than just having too much crap around the house. It goes further, down into my very identity, and the way that I feel that my clothing and my appearance in general is this critical aspect of who I am. I am a byproduct of my culture, for sure... and that's the hard part. It's not just stuff. It's what the stuff represents. On the surface level, I can say that my identity is in Jesus, but dig down and it gets a lot messier. So, I think this will be both painful and healthy... looking forward to the end result when we have less stuff, less clutter, less junk to weigh us down... and more freedom to live for Jesus, in the center of his love, identity, and purpose. le sigh... can I fast forward a little bit, please??

...and there you go. I think it ended up being on the rambling end. I'll try to wait until I really have something to say before I post again... XD