mix bag of thoughts

I never thought it would be like this...long nights awaiting him to come home. I like it...its nice and it gives me comfort to know that he shares that same bed and sheets and home. But when he is gone its really empty here. We have really busy holiday and well...you think there would be more time to just be together...why is there less? Not really sure yet...a vaction away somewhere quiet could be my only wish right now...not Quebec where we are going...but somewhere peaceful and quiet and really anywhere that gives us time, to be alone and share our thoughts and feelings enjoy each other touches and embraces. For Christmas this year there is nothing more that i want than just the two of us and laughter. I love buying gifts for people, i enjoy giving that way, but the business is really is the holiday screw up. Go here Go there...get this, get that...please them...please me...and on and on and on! i think the most important part of Christmas is family and embracing the family that you have whether you are related or not.

I had an interesting thing happen tonight...I had visitors...they were caroler's and they knocked on my door to give me cookies and a song...it was nice...probably the most exciting part of my night...they sang silent night...they sang and declared Christ birth for all to hear...More people come here to the inner core of Hamilton to give and share resources and i love that...i really like that about hamilton. I am glad to be here...

My mom was telling me today that her house is almost open but not quite ready to have people and i thought that it will be exciting when she can have people in her home. She said she got a call about a family who has been living in a motel room, a mom and three kids...my mom said that she is going to see if she can get the heat running properly so that she can have people there without them freezing...but i just think that it is a huge empty house with rooms and places to sleep and a kitchen overflowing with food...she needs to let them in...cause if she doesn't i will!

she is gone now

It was 12:00 a.m. not last night but the night before that Melissa left this world. My sister said that it wasn't really a peaceful death. When you have cancer sometimes your platlates are no longer exsistant. And Melissa had none. When you go through chemo-therapy, it does one of two things. It first kills all the good cells and in that process it can kill all the cancer. Or It kills all of your organs slowly because the toxicidity is so strong. With the kind of cancer that she had there was little to no chance that she would make it through this treatment. There is an irony in cancer, it kills when it wants to, and there is nothing we can do but await its finally hour. If she wasn't 18years old and she was yonger this same cancer would have been 95% curable. But because of her age and the dynamics of this cancer, it is that worst at age 18. As this swept through her body she no longer could think, see and feel to much. She died by bleeding out...not really farmilar scientifically with what happens but i know that inside she just fills with blood and then it begins to come out of all her nose, mouth and ears.

She was with her mom and a very loving nurse, i am sure that her mom is sad but is glad to know there is no more suffering. It pains me most to know her mother will be the one to remain in utter pain. She now must pack her bags soon and leave all that she knows after she has lost the only thing that she loves most, her daughter.

Knowing Melissa was an exciting time in my life...her smile and her love and her kindness never left me even a year later. I fear the idea of christianity and what happens to people when they die? I fear the idea that there is a hell even for the murders of this world. I am reading the book dead man walking and even in there i have begun to love the killer and feel he also has no right to hell...

I will rejoice though cause i serve a God who has redeemed all people...and i will celebrate when i see Melissa again...we can dance she can laugh and she will not have to see that fuckin hospital room again.

Will she die soon?

Melissa is her name and she is 18years old. Cancer has its Grip on her and she can't even open her eyes to focus. i met her when i worked in the hospital transporting the living and the dead. The hell of moving sick people around finally got to me...it was when i moved two dead people that i couldn't take it anymore. The morgue was cold and there were bodies lined up inside, it was full. There is only room for about five people in there. So my guy he needed to stay on his floor for almost 36 hours wrapped up in a bag. I finally took him down and the vomit and fear was just lerking for me at the back of my throat was awful. The biggest fear that i had in life was seeing a dead person? I have no idea why. Facing your fear is not always that best thing...it haunts you and it will scare the shit right out of you. For weeks i would have dreams of this man. He was light when we moved him because he had died of lucumia...Really all that was left of him was his skin and bones. I didn't know him and i had never met him before. He was 32 years old though had a wife and a new baby she was One. It was Christmas of last year...all of his things in the room were packed neatly into a plastic see through bag...i cleaned the room after he left and all that was left of him in there was his head print, left in the the bed.

I transported young Melissa nearing the beginning of my career at the Hospital, she was beautiful and very sweet. Her mother has red hair and is very large women who laughs and makes you smile when you see her. Melissa she looks like she is malato. She had no hair but she is really a stunning girl. I really enjoyed moving her, she was full of life and all she was doing was getting a x-ray. We chatted about my sister cause she is her nurse. They love her and they automatically loved me because i was related to her.

Now i have visited Melissa twice since, the first time she gave me some Christmas candy and a beautiful candle. This year only one year later, she is closing in on her dealth bed. i have wanted to go see her since the last time i saw her. But on my second visit she was quiet and she shared how she was totally violated by her doctor. I left the room knowing i wouldn't see her again and really wondering how you can be so de-humanized by doctors. He was checking her back...she rolled over and then all of the sudden her pants her down and she was shocked, he then checked her rectal cativity, then she turned over and her reached towards her face with the same gloves her had checked her bum with...she explains this to me and my sister on my last visit. You shake your head and you node and as she tells the story, but afterwords you just can do nothing else but cry. She told the doctor gently that she needed him to check her mouth another time.

My sister said that nursing is hard she lost one of her kids yesterday. As all the nurses mourn some jackass comes up to her and says "Can i look at the body" and steph says "just because you are fasinated with dealth does not mean you can turn this person into some experiment with your feelings". She mocked steph compeletely.

Now that day is nearing for melissa to go home. Her family is not much of one now, which is sad, when all of this is over her drunk dad is going to be left alone. The wife çan't take it anymore, she will leave him after Melissa dies. God please be with them allow her to rest, go peacefully and if i could see her again someday i will dance forever with you....for this is my prayer...i will dance with her someday?

Empty House ( for the living not the unborn)

she is empty and she is cold and she wants more people to be in her home
she has heat and she has warmth but she is empty and all alone
she wants laughter and joy, she wants to welcome anyone home
she

I live with her each day her name is mary. she has four rooms and many entry ways one at the front and the other at the back, even one hidden in the basement. I so desperately long for my house to be filled. I have two rooms that have warm comforters on the beds. I often think people come over here and think that i am preparing a home for babies to be born. Two rooms empty awaiting a visitor, but not for the unborn, for the living...someone. Anyone who is cold and needs warmth, hungry and needs food, and tired and needs to rest. I often watch out my window as people walk by and i ask "does he have a home? Does he need a place to rest?" Maybe i am not close enough to offer this to people but i desperately want this house to be filled. There is a park just up the street which could be someone's home but i never see him or her...they never show me their face. We have offered our home to many who have needed a place, they don't want it, they want their own. I Pray that God will show me who will fill our home. I will wait....I will wait...

IF these walls could talk what would they say?

One hundred and Fity-Two pounds

Today i was suprisingly frustrated by a movie. Its called Briget jones Diary. there are two of them, i am talking about the first. Funny plot...i guess...cute ending? I suppose....Disturbing message FOR SURE!

She writes in a journal most of her inner thoughts. Similar to this. But what disturbed me is that the movie protrayes her as overweight??? I was confused cause she looked dam good to me. then in one of her entries you see her jotting down her weight. 136pds. Wow to me that is what i weighed when i was almost sick and never really eating much. Then at another point she says "Christmas December 25th, i weigh a hundred and forty pounds." she said this in a despairing voice... I felt quiet fat...quiet ugly actually when this moive needed to protray her as fat when she merely weighed in at 140.

Through out the whole movie they do close ups on her butt and on her boobs and well they aren't the kind of close ups that are the sexy look at her butt shots...they are the ones that are saying "look at her bulge".

The media really does tell women what they are suppose to be even in a innocent love story such as this. I even heard a comment by a guy saying "she had to gain weight to do this role!" that was after i asked if she was cute...the only response i got was that she obviously was over-weight and unattractive....

well i guess i will continue to say...even in the midst of hope for people who are thinking a new way, i have to hope there will be someone out there who sees beauty different than size. I feel entirely confused by the media, if she is repulisive in this movie? then what the hell am I, or the girl who is much larger than me?

IF this could just simply be a letter to men i would say..watch what you say and be careful how media effects your understanding of women...cause at the end of the day...it is not the media who has it right.

Racism?

Journeying with Broken people seems easier than loving those that are broken but hurt so many people. I have a hard time understanding why people joke and laugh about other races...or for that matter gay people...I sat in a room with four young men who just seem to think that making fun of people and talking about people in derogatory way is humorous. DO they not see that it offends me...do they not understand they do this because they are afraid themselves that if they do not make fun of gay people that they themselves might be gay?

How do i see them as broken too? Crass, dirty, mean and they degrade races, women and sexual preference all day long. I want to scream..."would you just shut up..you have no idea the pain that others feel because of your ignorance." Once i said to one of them that he is the most insensitive person i have ever meet. And he replied "whatever"....i live up north and we become racist here because we never see black people". And then he continued to say that there was one black guy at the Huntsville High and he lets everyone call him Nigger...and it doesn't bother him...I respond, "does he have a choice?"

I wish that i could love and commit to loving these guys too. I mean are they are hurting as well. Or do you get to the point where you say....i can not align myself with people who marginalize people and dehumanize them for kicks.

Being that i am a women and i know what it is like to be misunderstood, mistreated and degraded. I feel very vulnerable in a group of young Christian men who don't understand Christ at all. Christ gave a message of love for all, love for the broken, love for the lost, and love for the samaritian.

I see that we have taught this generation to understand Jesus as a way out of hell and into heaven...nothing more. He doesn't transform you? He doesn't accept you? He doesn't change your heart from cold to warm. Bullshit he did and he does and he will continue to even do that with my heart for these men...but getting there might take me a life time.

in response to our arrogance

I am really responding to the idea that all people justifiably have some sort of agenda. We in our ministry and in our thoughts and in our needs to love people and journey with them still have some sort of agenda. Maybe i am wrong is saying this but, it feels very true when you really admit the demons...to say the least that are knocking at our door.

I am close to a ministry that is very beautiful...it is called the Drummond House. It's new if you have never heard of it and really it is a beautiful vision that has come to fruition. Her name is mom she is the one who had the vision and the dream to build a home for women and children to come to that is safe and warm and well "a home". Beauty has it pains though...i would call those birthing pains. When someone has a vision...someone gets lost. Me? No. Her? yes! Fundamentally we all have an agenda? Right? And hers was to build a home a create a place of safety....and we her children have become the ones through which relationship has suffered. We don't know her unless we call...we don't see her unless we drop by....days go by and i still rarely hear her voice. Oh how i miss her voice...soft caring, loving and gentle.

Here i am 23 years old and i am curious what ministry's does to people's lives that we love. They take there time, they move them away, and they take them from their families. I see my other friend well my sister, be taken into the church and embraced and loved and then taken advantage of. I say..."THEY JUST GOT MARRIED, LEAVE THEM BE... DUMB ASS CHURCH" but no they will take and they will abuse until one day. My sister and her husband ask the question "who are you"?". I fear that for her...for my mom...and honestly sometimes for all of us who are so deeply entrenched in church ministry.

I really love what mom has to offer...and i can't seem to get my head around the idea that i am hurt by it. How can i hate something that will give hope to people? How can i not be involved when they needs just a pair of hands to help. Selfish? Me ? No way? ....well that is not true. I am selfish and stubborn and i am one who carries my own agenda...to all, to the suffering, to people who are loving people. To the world? I really hate myself for that...that demon that lurks on my back. but tell me what to do...? Someone tell me what to do...

journeying with people

When she was suffering i suppose i wanted to rescue her
When she was confused i wanted to manage her confusion
When she freaked out i wanted to make her calm
But now that she is.... i dislike it cause it just doesn't seem like her

It is hard to journey with people without wanting to rescue. I don't know if this sounds silly or ignorant, but it feels true. I find myself still in a place where i see people's hurt or pain...or even hear of someones suffering and i want to do the patch work...isn't that what we have been taught by the church all these years?

She hurts fix her
she pregnant send her away
she is abused sent her back to her abusier

i saw it all the time when i was a kid and my mom was battered and abused by my dad. They sent her back in said "divorce" is not Biblical...."And abuse is?"

I have just recently realized that what i think i have figured out about suffering people and loving them is fuckin difficult. I can barely do it in my thoughts, let alone my actions. We moved to hamilton to find this a place where we could meet the broken and well just simply live with, and learn with them. Wow it takes time. But i realized today that i still have the mantality, to do what the oppressers did to my mother...they were unsympathetic, and well just cruel. I hope God you teach me, however that may be through people like dan, jord, my mom...and the list goes on.

new day.... new thoughts....

Everyone seems to tell you that they have community figured out. Is it easier to see the forest when you are out of it? I don't know? that is what someone said to my husband about why he moved out of Hamilton. He lived here for 15 years and allowed youth to stay in his house, live there cook there, sleep there. then one day he said i should distance myself. What? Does distance give you prespective? I thought that living admist it did. Maybe he knows what he is talking about but i generally had that sense that he bailed when it got a little to close to home.

humans have lost their humanity

this weekend i watched as a young girl sat in a circle of 30 people and shared that she is bi-polar...i watched as her hands shook and her eyes began to well up with fear of the group not hearing her. I know she was afraid cause her voice shook. She was with us in the summer, she looks back and can't remember much cause she was in a state of mania. She was afraid she said all weekend that someone would tell her to be quiet and get angry with her. But she was quiet and she even asked that i give her her pill.(and i couldn't even do it, i remember now that i almost did everything, to not have to do it, i didn't even want to hold the pills in my hand. I made my husband do it...pathetic? i know) I loved the way she was before...she laughed she interupted and she even really frustrated me. But she made me learn to love and she made me learn to cry and she made me want to open my home to her.

Now she is quiet and reserved. she says that she has to sleep lots because of the lithum that is in her meds. Is that right? Should she be changed into us? Should she be told unless she does take this medication she won't be able to contribute to society?

i care about her, and i really feel like she has so much to offer, more than any other 16 year old that i know. She was the only one who would admit that she may no longer believe in Jesus that whole weekend? She is the only one who would tell you who she really was! Now she is the only one who has to mask her excitment, and blur her thoughts, and become lithargic, so we can feel safe!

what kind of people are we that we allow the people who are different to be put away, put on meds and told they need to conform or else?

I don't know do you?

Humans have lost their humanity...

a new way of being

Today i began what you call the journal that took a life time to start. When i was hearing about and seeing what people did in these journals i was a little intrigued and then i found myself thinking, does everyone think that we want to read their inner most thoughts all the time?

Is this some new way of expressing who we are? And simply deciding it is better to hide behind a computer screen then actually know our friends, neighbours and family? Who am i kidding, the release i assume that is attached to blogging must be present cause everyone i know is doing this. It still makes me questions whether we are all hiding from ourselves and everyone else, but what the hell do i know? I am now in doing the very thing I thought i hated!

My thoughts as of present are always around the idea of knowledge and knowing things. I feel like I spend most my days and nights defining who i am by what i "know" or what knowledge i can gain. But i find myself realizing the more i seek knowledge the less i know who i am? sometimes, well actually all the time i feel i am in a room of people who want to know who they are and what role they play in life. They ask themselves "what makes me valuable?" and "what knowledge do i have, that can make me smart or seem like i understand something?" I want to tell all these people to come into the reality that we are all just seeking the thrill of being heard and the love of our own opinions being heard and repeated and valued!

ha...i make a mockery of myself here because i do this too. How the hell do you get out of this? How do you live and not worry about others? How do you love without conditions? and how do you write without the hopes that someone, anyone will hear your voice and agree?

a new way of being

even in the name i choose i hope someone will be impressed and intrigued by its true meaning? What the Hell?