move

here’s an adaptation of a statement that wyclef jean made in a recent interview. “justice is not accomplished through charity. it’s accomplished through movement. the world doesn’t need our charity. it needs our movement. it needs us to physically do something.”

and here are a few excerpts from the spring 0’two issue of colors magazine.

“ninety percent of all domestic workers worldwide are aged between twelve and seventeen.”

“fifty-two percent of u.s. fifteen-year-olds say it is difficult or very difficult to talk with their fathers.”

“the average age of a homeless person in the u.s. is nine years old.”

“six thousand girls aged between four and twelve undergo genital mutilation every day.”

“one million kids carry handguns to school each year in the u.s.a.”

“more than three hundred thousand children are involved in armed conflict in forty-one countries worldwide.”

“thirty-three percent of primary school-aged children in jakarta, indonesia, believe life is not worth living.”

“eighty percent of hiv-positive children under the age of fifteen live in africa.”

“at least eight-hundred seventy-five million adults are illiterate, two-thirds of them women.”

the world needs our movement. so, don’t just sit there. there is a need. and now that you know, you must choose your course of action. someone else will not take your place. they will take their own place while your’s remains vacant. it’s time to respond. it’s time to move.

one word

during my weekly sunday visit to the coffee shop of my choice, i noticed a word etched into the paper towel dispenser in the men’s bathroom. the word was “forgive.” and i started to think about the power of that one word. it’s stuck with me ever since.

i wondered what it would be like to place a word on the door of my dwelling place. one word. a word that i would see as i enter. and a word that i would see as i exit. the same word. but what would that word be? i like “forgive” because i need the reminder to do that – not only with myself and my children, but with others that i encounter throughout my day. and yet there are so many other words that have power. love. freedom. acceptance. goodness.

what is that one word?

spiritual molting

i’m starting to realize that i’m not satisfied. i’m not satisfied with who i am. i’m not satisfied with who i’ve become. i’m not satisfied with life. and i’m not satisfied with my faith. there is all of this stuff within me that just gets in the way. and yet there is something within me that is wanting to get out. it’s wanting to be set free. it’s wanting to be birthed anew.

i think my soul needs a good molting. i need to shed the old for something brand new. i need to rid myself of those areas of my life that are dead (or should be dead). i need to discard the unhealthy so that i can become healthy again. and i need to lose the skin that is keeping me from the growth that god has for me.

but i’m not sure how this works. what does it look like? what does it feel like? and how can i become content with the process. for i’m sure that once i shed that which is holding me back, the process will most likely start all over again.

there is something
within me
that is new
and fresh
but can’t be revealed
until that
which is dead –
which holds me,
robs me
restricts me –
is cast off
and left behind.

sharing wishes

the following are excerpts from the winter 0’five/0’six issue of colors magazine.

“i wish i had a machine that could make money.”
qing yan, twenty
prostitute, panyu, china

“i wish to be found.”
irwin cruz, thirty
journalist, madrid, spain

“papa beats me when i do something wrong. i wish he were more kind.”
jubel tamang, five
student, kathmandu, nepal

“if i could have both my hands back, i would be satisfied with that. my hands were chopped off at the very start of the war. i was the very first casualty of the war. after my hands were chopped off, i was sent back to freetown to give the message to the government.”
tamba ngaujah, forty-four
ex-soldier, freetown, sierra leone

“i wish that during our adult life we all had to experience one year minimum as a member of the opposite sex.”
ania jones, thirty-seven
office administrator, warsaw, poland

“i wish that major pharmaceutical groups were non-profit organizations.”
anne toulmonde, twenty-four
communication assistant, paris, france

“i live in a land of contrasts, where more than fifty percent of the population lives on less than u.s. one dollar a day, in a country that has the biggest market for mercedes benz cars. i wish for equality and compassion. equality in which people are more important than tribes, races and religion. compassion through which all people, regardless of differences, care about others and work toward improving the life of all.”
david hiscox, forty-four
managing director, nairobi, kenya

“i want to have sex with at least two girls from every tribe in uganda. so far i have covered about fifty-eight percent of them. after that i will consider myself a hero.”
chapman mutego, twenty-nine
male sex worker, busoga jinja, uganda

“i wish to take on another man’s color.”
alexandre calaque, thirty-two
poet, ile d’oleron, france
died in a car accident, november ‘05

“my wish isn’t so altruistic. i wish for a cure for aids so i wouldn’t already have three strikes against me when i’m dating.”
davide, thirty-nine
college professor, rome, italy
hiv positive for fourteen years

at first glance, one might see many differences between the types of people represented by these wishes. and isn’t it interesting how we tend to identify with those who speak words we agree with and then distance ourselves from those who speak words that we don’t. but it’s not really about the wishes. it’s about what these individuals believe that the wishes will bring – value, attention, love, wholeness, understanding, selflessness, justice, accomplishment, experience, and acceptance. and in that case, i can relate to all of these folks. the methods of achievement may be different, but the desires are the same.

i’m learning that judgment lives on the surface, while compassion lives in the depths. and that makes me want to go deeper with others. i want to plunge into the lives of those i encounter. to see past their wishes and to recognize their desires. and i want to plunge into my own life as well – to stop being so hard on myself. and to discover the real desires that are hiding beneath the surface.

beat down

there is this game or activity or whatever you may want to call it that i play with my daughters on my bed. or perhaps i should call it our “ring.” they request it often. it’s called a beat down.

the game basically consists of the girls standing on the bed, making intimidating movements and maneuvers, and shouting things like “tai kwan do” with conviction. their eyes are squinted and focused and they are ready to do battle. now, they know the whole time that when they attack, i will basically body slam them back onto the bed. but on occasion, they are able to elude my polished skills and tackle me (both of them working together). they pull me onto the bed and do whatever they can to keep me there. i let them have their satisfaction, and will play along for a bit, but when i’m ready to escape, all i need to do is tickle them. actually, i tickle the very life out of them. their laughter is uncontrollable. it’s spontaneous. it’s glorious. and i always win (at least from my perspective). they know i will win. which is a bit odd to me, because they hate to lose at most everything they pursue. but with this game, they don’t mind.

i wish that i could approach life this way. you know, staring it down with focus, knowing the whole time that i will most likely fail. and yet enjoying the experience. enjoying the body slams. enjoying the laughter. enjoying it all.

subtraction

i’ve recently realized that all of the effort i’ve been putting in to grow and evolve and change has been a huge waste of my time. i’ve been trying to “become” the person that i think i’m supposed to be. but it’s clear to me now, that i’ve been heading in the wrong direction. and i now realize that i need to turn around to discover who i was created to “be” thirty-four years ago instead - without all of the things that i've added. you see, i’ve added things to my life – unnecessary things – and they are blocking my ability to see who i really am.

i’ve always thought that we go through life – with all of it’s joys and pains and trials and successes and experiences – so that we can be shaped into who god really wants us to become. but the more i think about it, the more i’m convinced that i’ve been wrong. dead wrong.

life’s experiences were never meant to shape us into the men and women that god wanted us to become. he already created us just as he wanted us to be. no, life’s experiences were meant to help us realize who we really are.

so, what is my purpose in life? to be the person that god created me to be. it’s not about using all of the things that i’ve acquired. talents i’ve learned. knowledge i’ve added. formulas i’ve developed. it’s not about me making myself better. why? because god has already given me the tools that i need to live a purposeful life. and he’ll reveal them in his own timing. all i need to do is to use what he has given me. and that encourages me. in fact, it makes life seem a bit easier. less pressure and lower expectations.

we are creatures with a natural bent towards our creator. we don’t need to blaze a trail. we don’t need to leave a legacy. we don’t really need to do anything. we can just “be.” and in that “being,” god will transform us. not into something different, but back into the person that he originally created.

as i write this, i’m reminded of one of jesus’ teachings, when he talked about entering the kingdom of heaven. he said that unless we become like the children that surrounded him, it would be really, really hard to enter the kingdom.

why?

because they were thinking and feeling and acting just as god had created them to be. they hadn’t had the opportunity to add all kinds of meaningless things to their lives – emotional, intellectual, spiritual, and physical habits – that had become distractions. they were willing to listen. they were willing to submit. they were willing to admit that they couldn’t do it on their own. they were raw. and they were pure. they were following the cues of their souls. and they were exactly as their creator had made them. exactly as their creator had intended.

i’m tired of having to push things out of the way to get to my soul. and i hope that i can begin the process of subtraction – of eliminating those things that tend to block my way.

falling

a close friend invited me to attend a play yesterday and i think it may have been the highlight of my entire year. it was amazing and i’m still working through its impact on my thoughts, actions, feelings – its impact on my life. the production was entitled “the night thoreau spent in jail” and it highlighted not only this particular night, but also his life and his relationship with his mentor, ralph waldo emerson. if webster’s were to define “out of the box,” they may do so by placing henry david thoreau’s photo next to the description. this man was incredible.

several statements from the production have become top of mind for me, but there is one that i’ve been working through over the past sixteen hours or so.

after a few interactions, henry and his brother john have both become intrigued and interested in a woman named ellen. and as henry discusses his brother’s love for ellen – with ellen – it is apparent that she has not been impressed. she was not impressed with john’s presentation, or more specifically, with his words (or lack thereof). in fact, at one point, she says that he hardly spoke. and that’s when henry responded. with both passion and compassion in his voice, he said, “you missed the eloquence of his silence.”

and at that very moment, my soul fell silent.

the play continued.

but i just sat there.

silent.

what am i missing?

and in my striving so hard not to miss things, am i missing everything?

(pause.)

has there been too much noise in my life?

in my soul?

(long pause.)

no more.

no more work. no more effort.

my soul knows.

my soul knows what it needs. it knows what it wants. it knows how to act.

why don’t i let it?

(pause.)

there is something so pure and sound and whole in the silence.

(pause.)

may my soul – today – fall silent again.

questions today

“to understand is hard.
once one understand,
action is easy.”
sun yet-sen, chinese politician

do i understand my faith?
and is my faith active?

webster’s dictionary defines “understand” this way:
a: to grasp the meaning of
b: to grasp the reasonableness of
c: to have thorough or technical acquaintance with or expertness in the practice of
d: to be thoroughly familiar with the character and propensities of

to understand takes time. and diligence. and effort. and i don’t know that i put enough energy into truly understanding all that faith is. all that faith encompasses. all that faith has to offer. and yet, i don’t think it’s so much about the energy that i put in (or the work). rather, it’s the willingness to sit still enough to let god reveal the understanding that i seek – effortless on my part and in his perfect timing – when he knows that i’m ready.

i often think that man lives a backwards life. (i live a backwards life.) we tend to do the opposite of what was intended. we get confused and distracted and don’t always recognize what we are doing or why we are doing it. and we live in bondage more often than we live in freedom. for example, we tend to be moving way too much. in fact, we move and move and move until we are so exhausted that we need to rest. we need to sit still in order to recover. but what if we actually sat still before we began to move? what if in our stillness, we were actually preparing to move with purpose? what if we shifted things around a bit?

i do agree with sun yet-sen. action will follow understanding. and it will be easier because you will know why you are doing what you do. your actions will have purpose. but i think there is a step or two before one can fully understand. and if i were to rewrite his words, i think i would write them something like this...

“to sit still is hard.
once one sit, one can listen.
once one listen, one will understand.
and once one understand,
one will act.
the action will have purpose.
and the action will be easy.”
sun yet-sen and kris e. lindquist

so again i ask,
do i understand my faith?
and is my faith active?
but perhaps those are the wrong questions.

perhaps i should be asking,
am i willing to sit still?
and am i willing to listen?

my bent

"in its essential soundness,
the soul knows
no effort toward god;
the love of god
is the quietly predominant
bent of our nature.”

© rainer maria rilke

untitled

you invited me
to join the circus
today.
i smiled.
and i imagined
my life
as a clown –
tripping over
my oversized shoes –
and enjoying
the fall.

© 2006 kris e. lindquist

a leader without a home

i passed by a homeless man yesterday and the sign he held in his hands caught my attention. it said, “homeless. running for president. he has the job i want.”

and immediately i began to think about the idea of such a person running our country. what a refreshing thought. a man who probably had a better idea of community than most of us. a man who would be more concerned about caring and providing for others rather than pleasing them. a man who could identify with the urgency of life’s needs – understanding the differences between necessity and desire. a man who had set aside his pride (days, weeks, months, or years ago) to stand on a busy street corner and ask for help. a man full of life experiences.

refreshing.

and what a great example for the rest of us. i viewed him as a leader that we could all admire and look up to.

then i thought about another leader i’ve heard of. one who walked and talked and healed and listened and cared for and nurtured and taught and loved all those he encountered. and i remembered that he was also without a home.

floating

there’s this thought that floats within my head
that life will get easier one day
at least that’s what i say and pray
but test and trial come instead.

whole

a few friends and i went to see the movie “transamerica” a little over a week ago, and i am still processing all that i took in. here is a synopsis of the movie.

“bree is a perfectly adjusted conservative transsexual woman. born stanley, a genetic male, she’s about to take the final step to becoming the woman stanley always wanted to be – until she finds out that she is the parent of a long-lost seventeen year-old son, toby. toby is a drug-addled hustler living on the streets of new york city, dreaming of meeting the father he never knew. afraid to tell the rebellious teenager the truth, bree embarks on a journey with him that will challenge and change both their lives and bring them closer to the truth of their connection.”

needless to say that the movie was deep – filled with a variety of scenarios and situations that i can’t even imagine having to deal with. and i found myself walking away with a variety of thoughts, questions, and emotions.

in just two hours, i had been exposed to the following.

a man living his life as a woman
a man preparing to become a woman (surgically)
a man struggling to find happiness
a man dealing with the surprise of being a parent
a man rejected by his family for choices he had made
a man trying to hide the truth
a man ashamed of himself
a man looking for acceptance
a man trying to do the right thing as a father

a boy living his life as a hustler (prostitute)
a boy trying to escape reality by using drugs
a boy using sex as a means of finding value
a boy looking for acceptance
a boy seeking a father
a boy struggling with right versus wrong
a boy searching for happiness
a boy desiring more

so, here were some of my initial thoughts. why would stanley want to change his genetic makeup? why would toby sell his body and allow himself to be used by others? what experiences had each of these guys gone through or been exposed to (over the course of their lives) that had led them to the present? why couldn’t stanley and toby find worth in who they already were and who they were created to be? their choices seemed so drastic. what were they doing? they seemed so different than me. or were they?

you see, stanley and toby were broken. and they were looking for ways to fill those broken areas of their lives. and guess what? i do the exact same thing. aren’t we all broken? and aren’t we all guilty of wanting to change who we really are, because we aren’t happy? we think that we are capable of fixing the problem, but we’re not. we get confused and seem to focus on changing the wrong things. the solution is not to change who we are. the solution is to recognize and change who we are not. we need to embrace who we are and then eliminate those things that have found their way into our lives and corrupted us into becoming men and women that we were never intended to be. we need to get back to living the lives that we were created for.

we struggle with this because we are all broken. we’ve all been broken. and we will all be broken in the future. why? because we live in a broken world. what we really want is to feel whole. that’s what stanley wanted. that’s what toby wanted. they wanted to feel whole. stanley thought that life as a woman would make him feel whole. toby thought that love would make him feel whole. but changing who we are will not make us feel whole. it will simply make us feel like someone else who is still broken.

so, what do we do? what do i do? well, i think it starts with acceptance – accepting who we are, right now. we are broken. we are hurting. we are confused. we are wanting. we are seeking. and then we need to be willing to admit that we can’t fix those things on our own. we aren’t capable. we get too distracted. we spend too much time looking at others (and what they have), instead of looking within and identifying what it is that we really need. the good news is that our creator knows what we need. and if we let him, he can “fix” us. he can “fill” us. he can make us feel whole. and he does this by showing us how to love ourselves for who we really are.

i want to feel whole. but it goes beyond me. i want the stanleys and tobys of this world to feel whole too.

perspective

my life is a lot like a splotch.
some days it looks like a stain
and others,
an amazing work of art.

the way

faith seems much more
like an unfinished piece of art
than a slick and pretty picture –
with many bits
and pieces of truth
being added (one by one)
along the way.

journey

my journey is not from left to right
from north to south
rather, it’s from inward to outward.

dying to live

another poem by walt whitman caught my attention last night. and the message was pretty clear. parts of me need to die in order to fully live. parts of me have died, but parts of me still need to pass on – without lament.

o living always – always dying

o living always—always dying!
o the burials of me, past and present!
o me, while i stride ahead,
material, visible, imperious as ever!
o me, what i was for years, now dead,
(i lament not – i am content;)
o to disengage myself
from those corpses of me,
which i turn and look at,
where i cast them!
to pass on, (o living! always living!)
and leave the corpses behind!

© walt whitman