Peace and Hair Grease

You know when people are all amazingly "hip and cool" and can say things such as "Peace and Hair Grease" or "Amen Sister Friend" and get away with it? (or, not really get away with it, but continue doing it because, well, hey, why would they care?) Yeah... I was just thinking of that.
Anyway.
Today has been a CRAZY day. Got up this morning and we spend the first almost 5 hours of the work-day moving boxes, fans, kitchen supplies etc. from the south side of Chicago to the North side of Chicago. I definitely will not need to find time to work-out tonight (ha, I say as though I actually work out regularly.) Oh, the random joys that come with doing my job. Then, we finally get to the office and there's just so much to do, but only like 2 hours to do it... so I scarf down some lunch- partially from hunger and partially because it was mac and cheese and sweet potatoes from boston market- aka heaven in your mouth, and off I go to meet with my dear boss Heidi... Where I just so happenned to knock over my Izze all over the ground at starbucks. Oops, klutzy Katie strikes again. I get back in time to return a few phone calls and then its quitting time... AKA time to use the internet at work (because that's where I have fee internet) to write a handful of emails, research some options of places to live next year (I so miss living communally with other human beings. Love my apartment, love my own space, miss people...), and now, write this post.
I'll leave here in a few minutes and head to small group, one of my favorite times of the week, good people, good food, lots to learn... I'll most likely be there until close to 10 tonight, then finally get home around 11 and fall into my bed. Oh bed. how I love it.
Life. that's how I'm living these days folks. Just thought you should know. :)

It's gonna get easier

I feel like I am at such a strange point in life... and maybe because of the ways I choose to live life this strange point will someday be realized as just the norm for me- but I kind of hope that isn't true. It feels to me that I've been transient for far too long. I feel like I've spent the last several years never physically out on the streets, homeless, but without a real permanent address... barely even with a semi-permanent one! A week or two ago I started thinking realistically about what I'm going to be doing this summer... and what that means for my life as a whole. I really do love the summer with YouthWorks- I love all of the people, the organized chaos, youth, serving, teaching others about the God I feel so blessed to serve... but it means I have to leave the life I feel like I am just finally beginning to build behind.
I have really enjoyed getting involved at River City- the church I found in my neighborhood. I show up on Sundays and actually see familiar faces. Its such a beautiful thing! I am involved in a small group and help with the kids program and a couple other ministries. Its hard for me to realize I have to put those all on the back burner for the summer... that I will leave, and life will go on and I'll come back and have to jump back in. I have a real hope that next fall will be much easier to jump back in, but there is still this feeling that Chicago is still not my home. I wish that it was... and I hope that in the next few years it will be, but right now, I'm just waiting.
There's this song by Joe Purdy that makes me think of the way I feel about life these days-
is it gonna get easier
is it gonna get tough
are the waters gonna open wider
or are they gonna get rough
are we gonna have to sink right now
are we gonna get to paint this town
deep blue and green, the colors of her eyes lookin at me
early in the morning

Will it ever get easier? Or is living this life only going to get harder the longer I do it?

I can see a lot of life in you...

The word hope has been all over the place lately. I recently picked up a Rolling Stone magazine that chronicled all of the articles they’ve done on Obama as well as including several interviews and speech manuscripts. I was struck by a headline that had been on a previous Rolling Stone cover with Obama, hailing him “A new hope.” At first, I smiled, thankful for the idea of change, hope and optimism coming back to our government, but after that rolled around in my head for a moment I felt overwhelmed by the true sadness of the statement.
For so many in this country- and apparently all over the world- Barak Obama is their hope. They are looking to him to fix all the problems of the world today, to restore America to some idealistic memory of a perfection that we never were… they are looking to him to be their savior. To realize that broke my heart. It’s funny to think that in a place toted and attacked for being a Christian nation that we have lost site of our true hope. I won’t lie, I got caught up in the Obama hype- I would love to see the change that he campaigned so strongly about happen. I would be amazed and so proud to see our nation lose its segregations and prejudices and unite as one. I’d be even more amazed and proud to see this happen in the world… but I do realize how idealistic these thoughts are. I also realize that Obama has a long road ahead of him, all uphill.
What I’ve come to conclude by all the thoughts of Obama and Hope is that its time to turn to our true hope. Its time to focus on the truth that comes in following Christ and knowing that He will work things out for His glory- a hard truth for me to lean on, I rarely feel any sort of certainty that I even begin to know what that means… but a truth none-the-less. God is our hope. Christ was and is the only true savior, our only true hope. Let us rest in that and pray that He would be the one to guide our new president.