Nobody's Perfect

Note:

Tuition at the UNAM for one semester is 20 centavos. Conversion to the dollar...2 cents.

2 cents a semester for college tuition. Believe it.

Interview

You can see an interview that I did sitting on Peter Dishman's couch here.

The View From Up Here

As of late (a.k.a. since I got back from NYC in early August), my Bible reading and prayer time have been given much more structure due to The Book of Common Prayer. If you don't know what that is, as was my position before some great people recommended it to me at Pre-Field Training, the book is published by the Anglican church and contains both some liturgical prayers and scriptures that follow the church calendar. For those of you, like myself, who grew up outside of a denomination that uses the church calendar for Bible reading, this can be a very helpful thing. At the end of the book is a Bible reading schedule to help you read the entire Bible in 2 years. Every day there are 2 or more Psalms, and Old Testament passage, a New Testament passage, and a passage from the Gospels. I'm loving it, and I highly recommend you head over to Amazon.com and purchase a copy if you feel like you need a little more structure in your Bible reading.

I say all of that to lead up to this little nugget of information. Every morning, as I head out to read my Bible, I am blown away as I walk out of Peter's door, take one flight of stairs up, climb a latter, and see this...

When was the last time you prayed for your city with a birds eye view of it? It's a pretty amazing feeling.

Doing It Big in MEXICO.

These are my breakfast weapons here south of the border, and, as I hope is evident in this picture, they are big. What can I say--I'm proud of my breakfast food.

Well, I've been in Mexico for 5 days now, and it's been a whirlwind, a meticulously self-aware, culture-shocked whirlwind. It's weird because I had forgotten almost completely about this part of my time in Puebla. Basically, I go through various emotional stages every day. However, everyday they get less intense. If you got my update/prayer email, you were made aware of this, and I greatly appreciate anyone who is praying for my adjustment to life here. I look forward to being comfortable here and falling in love with the city. It's quite different from Puebla, and I'm fighting the urge to get nostalgic about my time there.

I'm still staying with the missionary here, Peter Dishman, but it looks like an apartment may have finally fallen into place. I originally wanted to live with a family, but it looks like I will have an apartment and possibly share it with 2 guys from our RUF group (the only 2 guys in our RUF group in fact) which would be super sweet. I've met both of them and they are really great guys with a sincere desire for honest community and edifying relationships--wow, what a blessing.

Speaking of blessings and people who want honest community, today we had our RUF (which we call CUR) core group planning meeting. It was supposed to last from 3pm-6pm but instead went from 3pm to 9pm. Great times. These students are very excited about what God is doing on their campus, and they shared their ideas very freely. In addition to their fervor, I have been blown away by the spiritual maturity of these students. It turns out the CUR group is far smaller than I thought, actually just 15-20 people at this point. However, we have a solid group of believers to grow from. Praise God! Most of these students have just recently come to the Christian faith.

One girl, Monce, comes from a family in which the father is part of a pluralistic cult which teaches that no religion should be dwelt on. Instead, each religion should catapult you to another, so that you are constantly climbing a religious ladder of world cultures and beliefs. In addition, her "faculty" (major) here is one of great Communist thought and presence. So, she comes most recently from that worldview. It was wonderful to hear her reflections on Sundays sermon (at a student gathering we do every week here at Peter's house). She talked about how she longs for her family to come to know Jesus. She also talked about the great fear she has as she goes into a Communist faculty as a representative of Jesus. This year in the CUR we will continue to preach the gospel to her...only it can calm her fears and give her rest in the power of Jesus to change her Communist peers' hearts.

Hero or Villain? Liberator or Murderer?

In this article, Alvaro Vargas Llosa (who I have come to admire a great deal as a Latin American thinker and politician) examines the true history behind the world-wide icon, Che Guevara. One of my favorite parts in relation to Che's role as the head of a political prison called La Cabaña:

“Which brings us back to Carlos Santana and his chic Che gear. In an open letter published in El Nuevo Herald on March 31 of this year, the great jazz musician Paquito D’Rivera castigated Santana for his costume at the Oscars, and added: “One of those Cubans [at La Cabaña] was my cousin Bebo, who was imprisoned there precisely for being a Christian. He recounts to me with infinite bitterness how he could hear from his cell in the early hours of dawn the executions, without trial or process of law, of the many who died shouting, ‘Long live Christ the King!"

Ethnography of 25th Street Harlem from 9:30-10:30pm

Having finished what I thought were my ethnographic observations in front of the Apollo Theatre on 25th Street in Harlem, myself, along with Ben and Bonnie, headed back the way we had come. We hadn’t gone far when Bonnie noticed a small group of black men standing on the other side of the street. They looked like they were setting up for some kind of event, possibly a band preparing to play, so we headed across the street to see what the commotion was about.

We walked up on the men and quickly realized they were street preachers. They were dressed in what I can only describe as camouflage tunics. The material flowed like a dress from the men’s shoulders to their feet. Each had on a camouflage hat shaped like that of Malcolm X to match the tunic. Many of the men had well-groomed beards, making them look more Middle Eastern than they would have without facial hair. The man preaching would dictate various scripture references to his peers, and they would frantically flip to the passages and read them aloud. The preacher would then stop them after almost every phrase to interject either his own re-wording of the passage, or a word-for-word hyper-inflected mimic of what his friend had just said.

After just a few minutes, our efforts of hiding behind all the blacks and remaining unnoticed came to an abrupt halt. The preacher pulled out the infamous picture of Jesus (the headshot) which we have all seen a million times and thus recognize as a depiction of Christ. This version, however, had drawn-in horns and the number 666 written on his forehead. The man held up the picture passionately. Looking at me he spoke:
“Step forward my brother. Who were you taught that this is a picture of?”
“Jesus,” I replied assertively.
“Exactly,” the man continued, “this is what is being taught—that this man is Jesus.”

I was confused as to his point. After all, I didn’t believe Jesus really looked like the picture. Actually, I was offended by the picture as well! The man continued, making me into the bad guy with every thrust of his argument. He quickly shouted to his readers, “Revelation chapta 1, versus 12 through 15.”

A shorter man shouted from the King James Version, “And I turned to see the voice that spake with me. And being turned, I saw seven golden candlesticks; and in the midst of the seven candlesticks one like unto the Son of man.”

“A son like who? Who is this son of man?” The preacher asked me.

I replied, “Jesus.”



The reader continued, “Clothed with a garment down to the foot, and girt about the paps with a golden girdle. His head and his hairs were white like wool as white as snow.”

“Hair like what?” The preacher questioned the crowd.
“Wool!” They responded.
“Now, who has hair like wool?” He asked me. I hesitated.
“Is this hair like wool?” He asked as he indicated the hair in the picture of Jesus.
“No,” I replied as I smirked and laughed nervously.
“That hair is wooly!” The preacher remarked, pointing to a black man standing beside me. “Your brother has wooly hair!”


The reader yelled again, “And his eyes were as a flame of fire; and his feet like unto fine brass.”

“What color is brass?” He questioned, looking me in the eyes.
”It’s like gold,” I replied nervously.
The crowd burst into laughter. Smirking, one man told me that he works in a printing factory and that brass is 3 shades lighter than dark brown.
“So, brass is brown,” the preacher concluded.

At this point I realized that the men were making an argument for a black Jesus, but I did not realize the implications of that theological distinction. Their agenda would not remain hidden for long.

The men pulled out pictures of lynchings in the 1950’s. They pointed to the smiling white men in the background and made statements about how my people had oppressed their people. They were right. I told them that I agreed; it was sickening and wrong for whites to oppress blacks. The preacher went into a rage of passion.

“Don’t you think you should pay for that? Should whites not be oppressed for what they did to us?”

A man who had walked up behind me just minutes before voiced his opinion loud enough for it to be heard: “Hell yes they should.”

“When are they gonna pay?” The preacher asked.

“I’ll make ‘em pay right now,” The man behind me prodded. “String ‘em up right here.”

I realized then what was happening—racism in the name of religion. After the men had vented their hatred, they began to make demands: “If you’re sorry, kiss my boots,” one man told me.

I told the leader that I believed Christianity to be about love and not hatred. Looking him in the eyes, I told him that I loved him and asked him if he loved me. He stared into the whites of my eyes and said sternly, “No I don’t love you, I hate you.” He communicated clearly; his Christianity was not about loving me. In fact, he was only out to make me pay for what my people had done to his people (and other oppressed people groups) in the past.

The discussion continued in an organized manner, hinging mostly on random verses from the Bible all of which were about God’s love for Israel. The men insisted continuously that they were the true Israel. They brought out a chart of all the 12 lost tribes of Israel. On it were many oppressed people groups ranging from Africans to Dominicans.

They insisted I get out my Bible and the scripture wars were on. I brought up Acts 10 where Peter is praying on his rooftop and has a vision from the Lord that he should eat of animals that the Jews consider to be unclean. The preacher tried to focus on verses 11 and 12 which talk about the actual sheet being lowered. I urged the people to keep reading. I read from verse 34: “Then Peter began to speak: “I now realize how true it is that God does not show favoritism but accepts men from every nation who fear him and do what is right.”

I thought I had stifled them. The preacher quickly assigned a few new verses (never passages, just verses) to his readers. They wanted to return to verses about Israel the nation. At what was perhaps the pinnacle of the conversation we began to talk about hope and salvation. The preacher asked me what the power of God was. I responded that the power of God is Christ which I have inside of me through faith. He continued to look me straight in the eye (which he did throughout the debate) and I sensed a rage I had not sensed before: “You don’t have the spirit of God in you! You don’t have Jesus. Jesus called you a dog!” I couldn’t believe it. No one had ever made such heretical statements to me before. I was more sad for my brother than I was hurt. How could he say these things in the name of Christianity?

After that point, I decided that I needed to try and make an exit at the next opportunity I could. I now noticed many different people than the ones who had been around at the beginning of the debate. A middle-aged woman stood close and to my left. She got excited about what the preacher said, but did not show me any form of hate. In fact, I sensed a bit of compassion in her demeanor. An older man to my right fought desperately against my points and was one of the readers at times. He also looked directly in my eyes and spoke very politely to me. At one point, I put my hand on his arm, and he didn’t seem to mind. One of the few who remained from the beginning was an older gentleman sitting on a folding chair. He had been hidden from my view by the small crowd of people at times, but I noticed his composed manner once again. If anyone had a reason to hate whites, I knew it was him. I imagined the past degradation he must have received in the 50’s.

Our argument moved to a debate over Galatians. The preacher quoted a verse from chapter 2 and refused to admit that Christianity was for Gentiles. He told some elaborate history of how Galatians isn’t really about salvation for Gentiles, but rather Paul was actually a missionary to Israelites who weren’t worshiping in spirit and truth. Since this nation wasn’t a Christian nation, Paul had to disguise his writing as not to expose his underlying purpose. Thus Galatians is really about the news that salvation is for Israel only coming to a people who were not living in the truth of that reality.

I got very frustrated with trying to argue scripture with the men and told them I really needed to go (I had done this various times throughout the debate). An older man stepped up to the front and asked them to let him say something. He looked me in the eyes and spouted off a Hebrew sentence that sounded something like, “Ahem dofu alec tubaw shada.” At that point, I saw a window of opportunity and I backtracked out of the circle that had gathered around me. Ben, Bonnie, and I turned our backs on the men and women as they arose in victory claps and taunts.

Man's Fall in Adam, and the Remedy in Christ

By Ralph Erskine (1685-1752)

I found this jem-of-an-excerpt through some free online resources. I love its eloquent, profound communication of the heart of the gospel.


"O! unexampled love! so vast, so strong,
So great, so high, so deep, so broad, so long!
Can finite thought this ocean huge explore,
Unconscious of a bottom or a shore?
His love admits no parallel; for why,
At one great draught of love he drank hell dry.
No drop of wrathful gall he left behind,
No dreg to witness that he was unkind.
The sword of awful justice pierc'd his side,
That mercy thence might gush upon the bride.
The meritorious labours of his life,
And glorious conquests of his dying strife;
Her debt of doing, suff'ring, both cancell'd,
And broke the bars his lawful captive held.
Down to the ground the hellish hosts he threw,
Then mounting high, the trump of triumph blew,
Attended with a bright seraphic band,
Sat down enthron'd sublime on God's right hand;
Where glorious choirs their various harps employ
To sound his praises with confed'rate joy.
There he, the bride's strong Intercessor sits,
And thence the blessings of his blood transmits,
Sprinkling all o'er the flaming throne of God,
Pleads for her pardon his atoning blood;
Sends down his holy co-eternal Dove,
To shew the wonders of incarnate love,
To woo and win the bride's reluctant heart,
And pierce it with his kindly killing dart:
By gospel-light to manifest that now
She has no further with the law to do;
That her new Lord has loos'd the fed'ral tie,
That once hard bound her to do or die;
That precepts, threats, no single mite can crave.
Thus for her former spouse he digg'd a grave;
The law fast to his cross did nail and pin,
Then bury'd the defunct his tomb within,
That he the lonely widow to himself might win."

NYC

This is the 2-day mark of my adventures in the Big Apple. If you don't already know, I'll be here all month as part of MTW's Pre-Field Training in which we learn more about engaging a city with the love of God, contextualizing the Gospel, church planting, cultural assimilation, and language acquisition.

Almost every person I talked to before my plane ride up told me the same thing--"I love New York!" I wasn't exactly sure what to expect from the Big Apple. I am pleased to report that after roughly 4 hours in the city--that's 1 taxi ride through Queens to Harlem to Manhattan, 1 fresh sushi meal of california and eel roles, 1 "sippy-cup" sized cup of Starbucks coffee, and approximately 30 minutes spent walking the streets of upper Manhattan--I declared boldly, "I love this city!" I know folks, that was quick. Maybe I'm rushing the relationship. But hey, I've heard a lot of positive stories of people jumping right into things and it working out fine. Let's just say that I now believe in love at first site. Perhaps my first Pre-Field Journal (we're supposed to write an entry a day) will enlighten you on my seduction by this city:

A few days before leaving for New York, my mom shared a quote with me that she read in the latest edition of The Network (MTW’s magazine). The quote was from Tim Keller in which he said something to the effect that global cities have more in common with each other than within small towns within their own nations. I had never heard anyone express that idea before, and it struck me as ideologically true.

After two days in NYC, I have had countless confirmations of the truth of Keller’s quote. The ethnic diversity and internationally-charged atmosphere spark memories of large international cities I have traveled to such as Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Caracas, Venezuela, and Mexico City, Mexico. On every street corner I have found affirmation that globalization is not just an economic or political subject—it is alive and breathing here in the streets of New York City. A common thought when walking out of a building is, “Wow, this looks so much like Latin America. I can’t believe this is how New York City feels.” Perhaps in order to fit my mind around the NYC experience, I liken it to an infinitely more diverse Mexico City. Here are a few reasons why: Public transportation is the norm. Life does not restrict itself to the insides of buildings, but the streets abound with activity. Buildings (at least in Queens and upper Manhattan) are older and many are dilapidated. If you want groceries, you go to the local corner grocery, not Wal-Mart. Local businesses abound. Street vendors are not uncommon. Ethnicity is a point of great pride. Personal expression is seen as a key component of freedom. Strange smells linger in random spots on the street.

What I would describe as warmth which resonates from diversity excites me for ministry and learning how to love all of these different people groups. I am encouraged by MTW’s approach to learn how to contextualize the gospel without sacrificing our theology. Adversely, I am discouraged by Union Theological Seminary’s apparent approach of pluralistic faux-acceptance of all in an attempt to avoid conflict and simply “tolerate” everyone. I am thankful that the Lord has revealed to me that this is a very shallow means to acceptance in which we strive at the very most to avoid judging people. This leads to neutered love in which we have nothing but our own will-power to conjure up the goodness to accept people. But praise be to God that in the Gospel, Christ not only demands that we love our neighbors, but he enables us to do just that. Just as our sin was far worse than we ever thought, and just as Christ was far kinder to us than we ever imagined, we see that our neighbors are in need of this very same medicine. Oh that our sinful hearts would yield to goodness and have ever-present on our minds both our neighbors’ need for the Gospel and our own. Surely then we would live in shalom. Surely then we would live in the kingdom come.

Gems from a Reformission Rev.

I've been reading Mark Driscoll's book Confessions of a Reformission Rev. Driscoll is a Reformed pastor who started a successful church in Seattle. He's also "The Cussing Pastor" from Blue Like Jazz (gasp!). Admittedly, the first 70 pages or so only moderately kept my attention. But, the second half of the book sucked me in with some really intertaining stories and statements--what I hold to be some good insights on how to both do and not do ministry. I think the major thing that caught my attention, though, is the humor. Here are a few parts that either made me laugh out loud or made me think about the church in unconventional ways:

"Things were starting to get out of hand with the men, so I called a meeting and demanded that all of the men in our church attend. I preached for more than two hours about manhood and basically gave the dad talk to my men for looking at porno, sleeping witih young women, not serving Christ, not working hard at their jobs, and so on. I demanded that the men who were with me on our mission to change the city stay and that the rest leave the church and stop getting in the way....On their way out of that meeting, I handed each man two stones and told them that on this day God was giving them their balls back to get the courage to do kingdom work. Guys put them on their monitors at work or glued them to the dash of their truck and kept them like stones of remembrance from the Old Testament. The next week the offering doubled and the men caught fire. It was a surreal time, since I was basically fathering guys my own age and treating them more like a military unit than a church."

"We also began 'boot camps' for our young men, teaching them how to get a wife, have sex with that wife, get a job, budget money, buy a house, father a child, study the Bible, stop looking at porn, and brew decent beer."

"Next door to our church lived a very large, very loud, and very unpleasant woman. She went to another local church and often walked into our services to publicly cuss us all out. I nicknamed her 'the finger lady' because she often sat on her front porch giving our people the finger and calling them whores and bastards while they walked to the church, as she chain-smoked and perfected her self-induced Tourette's syndrome."

On having diarhhea and having to preach at four services in one day:
"Knowing that I had four services to preach and that each sermon lasted about an hour, I was feeling optimistic during the third service--until I crapped myself about fifteen minutes into the sermon and was left with a terrible dilemma. Do I finish the sermon and just not move much on the stage? Do I say something spiritual like the Holy Spirit just notified me that everyone is to break up into prayer groups, so I could sneak off and clean up the oil slick?
They don't cover this part of the job in seminary, and I was perplexed but chose to just keep going and finish the sermon, which took about another forty-five minutes, during which time I tried to breath out of my mouth to lessen the stench."

What I'm Reading

Lately, I find myself with an abundance of books. Actually, it's a bit overwhelming at times.

What I'm Reading:
-Liberty For Latin America: How to Undo Five Hundred Years of State Oppression-by Alvaro Vargas Llosa
-Less Than Two Dollars a Day: A Christian View of World Povery and the Free Market-by Kent A. Van Til
-La Capital: The Biography of Mexico City-Jonathan Kandell
-Confession of a Reformation Rev: Hard Lessons From an Emerging Missional Church-Mark Driscoll

What I Hope to Conquer Next:
-Bobos in Paradise-David Brooks (This one's been on my list forever!)
-Opening Mexico: The Making of a Democracy-Julia Preston and Samuel Dillon

We'll see how much progress I make before I head to Mexico. I suspect I will not get all of them read.

Eric Volz Poem

I wrote this poem a few months ago after a letter from Eric Volz was released as a Myspace bulletin. I took quotes of Eric's and responded to them.

The Eric Volz Tragedy: As Observed From 2,855.8 Miles Away

“I live in my head.”

No you don’t, Eric; you live in La Modelo.
You live in steel and grime, horror and danger.
You live in barred freedom, a shrieking silence—
revelatory darkness that blinds the eyes of sanity.
You live tucked away in a neat corner of foreign affairs.
And you are not alone.

Developmental projects.
Concern for future generations.
Sustainability.
Profitability.
Rape?
Murder?

“The best analogy I have come across for being locked up here is that it's like being buried alive.”

There are numerous ways to suffocate
when the oxygen of autonomy is smothered.
Your body copes with sleep.
And sleep is a science—
in this case, a merciful escape from tragedy.
The gracious oasis of God in a barren scene.


“My spirits rise and fall.”

Because injustice billows!
The guilty, free. The innocent, jailed.
Racism abounds, even convicts.
And you are left to be tossed by the sea
of public belief and skepticism—
and hatred. For we are creatures of hate.

“I send my deepest and purest love to every person that reads these lines.”

Perhaps, you do live apart from La Modelo.
To be treated with such contempt by the country
that you call home, by the mother of your
former lover. And yet to express such compassion.
You inhabit another place.

Your soul is a hospital for the wounded.

David Brainerd quote

"September 19, 1747. Near night, while I attempted to walk a little, my thoughts turned thus: How infinitely sweet it is to love God, and be all for him! Upon which it was suggested to me, 'You are not an angel, not lively and active.' To which my whole soul immediately replied, 'I as sincerely desire to love and glorify God as any angel in heaven.' Upon which it was suggested again, 'But you are filthy, not fit for heaven.' Hereupon instantly appeared the blessed robe of Christ's righteousness, which I could not but exult and triumph in." -David Brainerd

"True Saints, When Absent from the Body, Are Present with the Lord"

These quotes are from the sermon by Jonathan Edwards based on 2 Corinthians 5:8: "We are confident, I say, and willing rather to be absent from the body, and to be present with the Lord." -2 Corinthians 5:8.

"And when the souls of the saints leave their bodies, to go to be with Christ, they behold the marvelous glory of that great work of his, the work of redemption, and of the glorious way of salvation by him; desire to look into. They have a most clear view of teh unfathomable depths of the manifold wisdom and knowledge of God; and the most b right displays of the infinite purity and holiness of God, that do appear in that way and work; and see in a much clearer manner than the saints do here, what is the breadth and length, and depth and height of the grace and love of Christ, appearing in his redemption. And as they see the unspeakable riches and glory of the attribute of God's grace, so they most clearly behold and understand Christ's eternal and unmeasurable dying love to them in particular. And in short, they see ever thing in Christ that tends to kindle and inflame love, and every thing that tends to gratify love, and every thing that tends to satisfy them: and that in the most clear and glorious manner, wihtout any darkness or delusion, without any impediment or interruption. Now the saints, while in the body, see something of Christ's glory and love; as we, in the dawning of the morning, see something of the reflected light of the sun mingled with darkness; but when separated from the body, they see their glorious and loving Redeemer, as we see the sun when risen, and showing his whole disk above the horizon, by his direct beams, in a clear hemisphere, and with perfect day."

"...the souls of departed saints with Christ in heaven, shall ahve Christ as it were unbosomed unto them, manifesting those infinite riches of love towards them, that have been there from eternity; and they shall be enabled to express their love to him, in an infinitely better manner than ever they could while in the body. Thus they shall eat and drink abundantly, and swim in teh ocean of love, and be eternally swallowed up in teh infinitely bright, and infinitely mild and sweet beams of divine love; eternally receiving that light, eternally full of it, and eternally compassed round with it, and everlastingly reflecting it back again to the fountain of it."

The Subway is a Creepy Place for Sex.

By Jared Weatherholtz

(I was in the subway and I saw a couple making out.)
The subway is a creepy place for sex.

Stumbling fingers reach to strip bodies of
damp shirts. Heated grasps stretch for
weighty satisfaction—a means to an end. Pumping breasts
cannot find a common beat—don’t care to find
a common beat. One pulse chases another in a personal race
for communal pleasure. He will not stop until he has had
his fill. She will not stop until she has had her
unquenchable desires chipped away at. She will be back for more. He will
hunger again. I am always hungry.
The subway is a creepy place for sex. Tell that to the couple making out up front.


Guilt is not an honest way to make a wage. What sorry mother neglected to tell her daughter that? She left a 12-pack of basic Crayola Crayons in my lap. I stared down at the small, pleasant box from outside of my body. I felt connected. I could not be heartless and refuse to pay the old, misguided lady. After all, her mother forgot to teach her the basics: don’t put out until they pay. Or maybe she’d fooled us all: put out until they pay. The subway is the perfect place for life lessons.


A man prepares his blanket like a Japanese wife—submissive and honorable, kneeling to show respect. He lets each corner fall to its particular side from the center hold, straightening the fabric with the palms of his hands—carefully, so as not to disturb the shards. He lets out a warrior’s cry and begins the ritual beating, a self-inflicted pain for the pleasure of the world. (We are so fucked up.) The dance is rhythmic and smooth, contrasting with the heinous cuts he is inflicting. His torso swivels and strikes, swivels and strikes the green broken glass of the blanket. His back begins to bleed, small gashes like new coats of paint on the scars of old walls. He has no face, and no legs—only a bloody torso that cries poverty. The subway is the perfect place for tragedy.


This place is a dichotomy. I have never felt so alive in a landscape of death.
Steel structures and aged concrete make this jungle a vacuum.
Truth be told, I would go crazy being in here for too long.
And sometimes, at 2am, on my route home, I feel the palms of insanity massaging my column, creeping toward my cerebrum.
But on the landscape of death are lived the lives of thousands, no, millions of art’s master characters. Beauty is never more accentuated than when juxtaposed with its counterpart. Tonight I know that steel and concrete are great hosts of life. The subway is the perfect place for romance.

I am hungry.

To Frida (on repentance)

By Jared Weatherholtz
This is a response to "To Diego (on sorrow)" which is posted in my blog history.

To Frida (on repentance)

Mi vida,
El monstruo soy yo,
¡de verdad!,
con un apetito que nunca cesa.

I have always seen myself in my murals, and shuttered.
I am pregnant with guilt, writhing under your love,
bearing flowers of peace to my smiling wife.
I am weighed down by my own lusts.
Driven down!
I cannot get up, Frida!
I cannot get up.


You were a welcome babe in an ancient world,
the innocence and vigor of my life.
You are a bloody, beating heart among sharpening stones,
a martyr at my own hands.
You cover my infidelities in a pool of red,
and I rest—
while you writhe.
El monstruo soy yo.


We are the entire history of Mexico!
The revolution flowed from our love,
the people’s passion from our very bosoms.
In La Chingada, I painted you with a look of unbelief.
The tension of my body falling powerfully on yours
as I had my way is all too real for me now.
They say we cannot escape heritage,
and I have sealed ours in disloyalty.


I find myself kneeling reverently before a bed of carnations.
My people and your love are the only gods I have ever known.
But these flowers are my shrine.
Their beauty binds, enslaves.
Their shape is my best friend,
who has torn trust and thrown it to the diseased dogs on the street.
You are the innocent victim of an imperialist regime.

The monstrosity I am!
Yo soy el monstruo.

But, mi vida, don’t forget us.

I am you,
Friday. You
are me.

L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E Poetry

Poetry for the truly postmodern.

"On Gifts for Grace"
By Bernadette Mayer

I saw a great teapot.
I wanted to get you this stupendous
100% cotton royal blue and black checked shirt,
There was a red and black striped one too
Then I saw these boots at a place called Chuckles
They laced up to about two inches above your ankles
All leather and in red, black or purple
It was hard to have no money today
I won't even speak about the possible flowers and kinds of lingerie
All linen and silk with not-yet-perfumed laces
Brilliant enough for any of the Graces
Full of luxury, grace notes, prosperousness and charm
But I can only praise you with this poem--
It's being is the same as the meaning of your name

The Jesus Videos

Yes, I realize that I am VERY late in discovering these, but they are too funny not to post.

Poetry happens...

...like an accident, a mugging, a love affair, a crime; it happens every day, when, alone, a man's heart begins to think about life.

-Jaime Sabines

Free Grace.--Rom.iii.24; 1 Cor. xv.10; 1 Tim. i.14

Radford (?)

Self-righteous souls on works rely,
And boast their moral dignity;
But if I lisp a song of praise,
Each note shall echo, Grace, free grace!

'Twas grace that quickened me when dead;
'Twas grace my soul to Jesus led;
Grace brings a sense of pardoned sin,
And grace subdues my lusts within.

Grace reconciles to every loss,
And sweetens every painful cross;
Defends my soul when danger's near;
By grace alone I persevere.

When from this world my soul removes
To mansions of delight and love,
I'll cast my crown before his throne,
And shout, Free grace, free grace alone!