I might be blind.

Today was an intense day. It started off so unassuming. It was pouring all morning, I didn't sleep well last night and was stumbling around this morning getting ready for work, catching the bus, settling in at the office. Three of the four interviews I scheduled for today were no-shows, so there goes all of thursday and fridays work from last week. Awesome right? Mondays are the best.

By about 3 we were all ready to call it quits for the day; and then I had a little breakthrough with interviews. I set off in the never ending june showers to try and track down those no shows to reschedule and ended up at this unique little shop that specialized in all things fair trade. Of course, I've been eyeing the place since we got here because of all the info about co-ops and fair trade products, despite continuing to hear less than impressive things about the management of the place. I walk up, introduce myself, start my schpeel, and then get cut off and asked to never set foot in his establishment again. Interestingly enough, as I start to apologize the owner launches into what would be an hour long tirade about everything from minimum wage laws to unions to his experiences with fair trade farmers to the inadequacy of job training to my apparent close mindedness to his equating my affiliation with a labor movement to his potential interest in a white supremacy group - and why would I want to speak to him if he was so close minded? - to his clear business philosophy towards serving others and his disgust of money and profits. This guy was just all over the place. He wanted to talk, and so I listened.

And finally at the end of an hour, I walked away having somehow irritated him just enough to secure his possible participation in a further conversation (read: rant) about his experiences.

It wore me out, that one. I can't recall the last time someone, anyone, let alone a stranger, judged me so quickly and found me fit to attack based purely on assumptions and suppositions. It was startling and intense and overwhelming and then it was over. As I walked back to the office so drained and with a head swimming full of questions and frustrations a man named Tyrick walked up to me and asked me for help with his bus fare. He was staggering around a little bit as he explained to me his need to get to Boston to get his new state ID card and then connect with family there that he can live with. His eyes were bright as he passionately told me all about his siblings and cousins and nieces and nephews and glory days as a boxer and trying to make it on the streets so far from home. All I had to offer was a buck, but I asked him if I could pray for him and he immediately reached for my hand and said "shoot sister, do it!" So I got to petition the Lord for his safety and quick arrival in boston, for unity with his family and their ability to help him with his needs. We chatted for a few more minutes and then I was off again, head still swimming, still no answers nor any real way to express all the crazy conversation that had taken place over the past hour and a half. It's a weird feeling to experience something so confrontational and feel inept to express or process it...and then immediately experience something so fundamental and simple that it needs no words or processing.

These are relationships.

I still continue to struggle with the ethical implications of the work that workers centers are doing around policy issues - about how much the government can and should be doing to regulate worker's affairs. I still feel so strongly that communities need to own their issues and work through them on a personal level without any outside value judgements or assertions or programs or policies. Yet we live in a world that reeks of injustice and submits to the rulers of our states for some sort of solution.

And these are relationships.

Relationships I have with a homeless man on the street outside the store of a man who is convinced he's following a moral call to serve men such as these (but not this these) living in a community of workers who must rely on the goodwill of their employer to cover the gaps in legal practices while the manager is just trying to stay afloat in an economy affected by not just their competitors but national events which are guided and interpreted and sometimes exacerbated by media involvement which is, at it's core, simply communication of the events of life from one person in one experience to millions worldwide. A sort of community?

I'm not even sure. But what it boils down to is this: my only (seriously) confidence rests in hope of salvation, a hope and joy that can allow plenty of grace for a man who judges me to be the most despicable kind of wretch - because I am, and I am much worse that even that. I'm refreshed to remember that my life is not my own and yet God is leading me so faithfully exactly where he intends that I might speak truth and live love in relationships. I may never understand or wrap my head around these experiences or formulate some theologically sound response to such a barrage, and honestly, that scares me. Lots.

But it's bringing me to a place where I can need God, again, today. I forget so quickly that I need him in every breath, every thought and movement. I so easily build a life that is secure and settled to a point that I don't need such moment to moment dependancy upon my Jesus.

So the truth is, I'm needy. I'm highly incompetent and sinful and lost and confused and messy. You probably know this, but I'm just starting to understand. At the same time, I'm also loved more than I can begin to fathom or express or revel in. Love resides in me, purely and simply.

As God told Israel so many years ago, and continues to speak in whispers and shouts and songs and hurricanes upon my heart this week:

"I will lead the blind in the way that they do not know, in paths that they have not known I will guide them. I will turn the darkness before them into light, the rough places into level ground. " isaiah 42:16

I am the blind, and it's not cruelty but grace that is guiding me in an unknown path.

I don't have the answers for these large life questions, but I truly believe beyond the shadow of any of my doubts that the hope of the gospel offers life for all and will transform our world. May we be fully present in the kingdom of God now!

Be loved with such love that cannot be contained. Bask in it. Be drenched with it. May it radiate through you and into your relationships, and rejoice for the Kingdom of God is here!