the trouble with love is...

i think that's the title of a kelly clarkson song? not sure, but for some reason i have that hook in my head...and i'm not that creative at all, so i know it's not an original tune.

a friend shared some big news with me a while back, and despite her initial fears - that i would be a raging conservative and shun her - i couldn't have been more happy and supportive of her.

her situation reminds me though, that friends - no matter how close - can get mixed up in the drama that we ourselves help create, and that they too are capable of screwing up. this is grace that we should extend to everyone, especially those who are close to us, but it's precisely because they're close - thus, privileged - that we expect more, and are devastated when they can't just be "normal".

what is it with our need for things to return to normal? as if the world would be healed if everything went back to the way it was? are we so opposed to change and the great things that accompany it that we long for a time where we were comforted in less than stellar conditions and relationships? a time where we settled for 'good enough'?

God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change;
Courage to change the things I can;
And wisdom to know the difference.

heartbreaker

i recently read a los angeles times article alerting us to the fact that the baghdad morgue has released stats stating the iraqi casualties has now surpassed the 50,000 mark. and of course there are more that have died and just not been documented - few things are ever precise during war - meaning 50,000 is just another marker to be passed.

what could be worse? 25% of the 50,000+ were killed in "military clashes" - either they were shot by iraqi or american soldiers, or even more tragic, they were innocent bystanders - i got my calculator out for this one --> 25% = 12,500. 12,500 people, each of whom were unique creatures of the Holy One, had their lives taken away by misdirected bullets, bombs that missed their mark, and soldiers who were too hasty to act.

i'm not so arrogant as to think i'm the only one deeply grieved by this. by all of this - violence, misunderstanding, oppression, hegemony. living day-to-day in a city that harnesses so much of the nation's and further yet, the world's power, i grieve the lack of attention - the lack of remembrance - the lack of real change and positive action afforded to this egregious loss of human life.

my heart is so heavy, it's breaking...my mind is so full, that my thoughts overflow and i gush onto anyone around me willing to listen.

yes, God can mend this broken heart, even this broken world...but what's my part in all of this?

it's too easy to feel powerless and disconnected in these times - but we must resist! maggie kuhn believed that "power should not be concentrated in the hands of so few, and powerlessness in the hands of so many", and i agree. who says we don't have power? who says no one is listening? before delving into foucault's conceptions of power, we must believe that we are capable of affecting real change and then act on that belief.

sit with the pain and grief - cry, pray, sing out, even shout - and when you're done, or even in the midst of it all, "stand before the people you fear and speak your mind - even if your voice shakes. when you least expect it, someone may actually listen to what you have to say." - margaret kuhn