I Dreamed a Dream

Since moving to Dallas, I have lost my face to face processing. I have been writing. A lot. I wrote this shortly after seeing Les Miserables a few months ago. I thought I would share it today.

I recently saw Les Miserables for the first time. I sat in the theater weeping during Anne Hathaway's I dreamed a dream scene. Her character, a single mother, is fired unjustly from her job. Being a single mother with no means she does what she has to in order to provide for her daughter.

I could not help but see the mothers we walk with in her, onscreen I watched as Ann sold her hair, her teeth, her possessions; witnessing the raping of her innocence and body through prostitution. In my mind I saw the pleading eyes, the cries of the vulnerable, the scars on her arms, the bruises on the others thighs, seeing through their explanations, so desperately wanting to hide in the embarrassment and shame of the hell they are living.

The women I meet through work live in a perpetual state of crisis of a life on a downward spiral, living under a shroud of shame and embarrassment. One day they were young in spirit and vibrant, they dreamed a dream. Their lives twisted into a downward spiral of circumstances and regretful choices that leads to isolation and the devaluation of their lives.

These beautiful hearts of broken women share their deepest darkest secrets, they share their greatest failures, and they expect judgment and condemnation. Rarely am I able to meet these expectations, I willingly offer my hand to hold, walking with them into the embrace of a community that will love them just as they are offering the hope to dream again.

There was a time when men were kind
When their voices were soft
And their words inviting
There was a time when love was blind
And the world was a song
And the song was exciting
There was a time
Then it all went wrong

I dreamed a dream in time gone by
When hope was high
And life worth living
I dreamed that love would never die
I dreamed that God would be forgiving
Then I was young and unafraid
And dreams were made and used and wasted
There was no ransom to be paid
No song unsung, no wine untasted

But the tigers come at night
With their voices soft as thunder
As they tear your hope apart
As they turn your dream to shame

He slept a summer by my side
He filled my days with endless wonder
He took my childhood in his stride
But he was gone when autumn came

And still I dream he'll come to me
That we will live the years together
But there are dreams that cannot be
And there are storms we cannot weather

I had a dream my life would be
So different from this hell I'm living
So different now from what it seemed
Now life has killed the dream I dreamed.

random thoughts

i have been getting so many crisis calls lately that my head is spinning. every call i take makes me think about life. my life and the life of the caller and my volunteers. each of us has our own story, each story is epic, sometimes our stories intercept one an others.

i have learned that there is no rhythm or reason to crisis. it seems to come in waves. what causes this? is it weather patterns? the moon? a change in oxygen levels? the stories are sometimes so similar they are difficult to keep straight. i find my self saying no that was the girl that is pregnant, i am talking about the one that...

i can see how each job i have had and each way that i have served has prepared me for what i am doing right here, right now. each step god has directed me to take is a step to what is next. so i wonder what is next?

when i lived in uganda i felt isolation for what may have been the first time in my life. i felt alone.desperate and needy. yes needy in one of the most economically depraved countries in the world. experiencing isolation helped me understand why people make the decisions they do in life. isolation can drive you to make decisions in a way that under normal circumstances you would respond different.

comfortable and in community i know that i am not alone. i have people who i can count on in my life. they make me laugh and smile and love me where i am at.

the common thread with all the families who call me is isolation. they have no one to call, no one to turn to. when judgement starts to seep into my mind when i think of them. i think about how it felt to be alone. i think of the suffocating feeling of isolation. i think of how if one thing had wobbled in my world i could have made some really poor decisions simply out of a need for connection. i think of the sadness and desperation that comes with being alone.

i try to reach out a hand and i try to not let go.

daily grind

Most days I just go through the motions at work. Coffee. Check. Email. Check. Phone calls. Check the infinite and always growing to do list. Check. Check. Check. Sometimes I forget that I work in the third sector. I forget that what I am doing is for the greater good. I forget that I am not selling cosmetics and alcoholic beverages in a marketing firm. I forget that my work has little fiscal value and that I actually do not contribute to the GDP. I forget that I am in the business of people and this business impacts the lives of everyone involved.

On occasion I hear back from one of our volunteers or a family that is caring for children in crisis. One of my coworkers passed this along. A tiny celebration amongst the hectic holiday season.

If there is ever a time of year which points us to God’s love revealed in unexpected sources, it’s during the Christmas Season. The story of two children of poverty, homeless travelers, dependant on the fickle hospitality of strangers, they make their place in a dwelling appointed to them by God for His purposes. We still peer into that scene of sacred space in Bethlehem to see the Savior revealed in human form.

“There is a castle on a cloud, I like to go there in my sleep. Aren’t any floors for me to sweep, Not in my castle on a cloud”

A Grandmother in San Clemente, California is drawn to a bedroom in the home of her Safe Family daughter. Her daughter and husband and 3 children have opened their home to two homeless sisters, temporarily orphaned. The Grandmother is drawn by the singing of her three grandchildren. They are singing along with the CD of the opera musical Le Miserables.

“There is a room that’s full of toys, there are a hundred boys and girls, nobody shouts or talks too loud, not in my castle on a cloud.”

The two grandsons leading the singing know the musical because their sister Cosette, was named for the young girl main character in Le Miz. If not for this connection of the story to their own sisters, they would have little inclination to pay any attention to the story that Le Miserables tells. These are aggressive, rambunctious boys of 7 and 9 years singing with the young, forgotten orphaned girl on the CD also named Cosette.

“I know a place where no one’s lost, I know a place where no one cries,”

The Grandmother gently opens the door and peeks her head around the door and sees the 5 children in the a circle, arms wrapped around each other’s shoulders singing as best they can with the song,

“crying at all is not allowed, not in my castle in the sky.”

Her grandchildren are singing the wordless fears and dreams of these new companions who they want to love. The Grandmother closes the door, unable to look too long on this holy scene. The purity touches too deep inside and she can not even bear to linger long outside the now closed door. Altered by the beauty, she can only mutter the prayer for God to hear, “now I know why they came, now I know why they are here”

There is a castle on a cloud….. which sometimes comes to rest and express in the most unexpected places in the most unexpected ways. This is the Safe Family story.

Life's Lessons

It has been to long since I have written my ramblings here. I have been busy learning all the lessons that life has brought my way. Mainly learning not to judge. I have been working for a year and a half with families in crisis. It is both a struggle and full filling. There are time of complete sadness and utter joy. I have learned that I am capable of accepting people for who they are and where they are in their life. I celebrate each time a family is reunited. I have discovered that "we" try to force others into the lives that we think they should live. We try to get them to conform to our prescription for perfection without really examining the negative effects that has had on our own lives. Daily I ask God for wisdom and to continue to let me see the world and its people through his eyes and not my own. I am almost appalled at what I am able to accept but embrace each family as they come hurting and broken just as we are, just as I am.

See the world through new eyes

I recently had a friend visit for a few days. Seeing the world through her eyes made me fall in love with my home all over again.

wanderlust

I have been back in the US for almost six months and am just starting to feel the lure of the road. No; that’s not true; I always feel the lure of the road. It’s more than that. I am going to fumble trying to put it into words.

It is a lifestyle that is virtually impossible to attain in the developed world where I am constantly told that I need more and I need to want more and if I don’t want a certain prescribed lifestyle of consumption, marriage, children then I are somehow deviant; not a woman; not human. No to say that the idea of having someone to grow old with doesn’t sound delicious it’s just rare to find someone whom you could possible see that happening with and even more rare that they too have an attachment to the great unknown, to a lifestyle of movement. A modern day gypsy if you will. I try to change. I try to think about living a life of domestic bliss. It really does sound wonderful, but the pull to this other way of living is to strong. It grabbed hold of my soul as a child and won’t let go. No matter how hard I try to cut it loose and find contentment in routine. I am unable to find it however hard I search.

I am starting to think that there is not a way to quench to desire of exploration, if there is would someone please tell me how? I am quite sure I could start popping pills and numb myself with prozac or some other happy pill that makes you forget, that sedates or something that just makes life look a little more colorless. Just as all people can be classified as people who ask why or how; they can further be classified by those who explore the world and those who don't.

I cannot explain what it is or why it hits but when it does I only want to flee to explore to live life in this different way. To have the freedom to move about the planet with out restraint of perceived needs. I have this desire to dig in and attempt to understand new cultures and the delight that comes with finding something new.

I tend to be a runner. I know this about myself. I get scared and I run, usually away from attachments, relationships or emotions that I don’t want to have. I have considered that I am running. I have considered that I am one of those people who just live better and thrive in a perpetual state of chaos. But my current work is chaotic and I have not truly run in years. I think now when I run I am running to things not away from them. Maybe I am running towards home or to an idea that does not exist.

I am fairly content in my current situation. My work is challenging and exciting and I have been enjoying getting to know my niece while spending quality time with my friends. In fact the older I get the deeper my roots become and the harder it is to leave and yet the ache is still there. I know that our time in this world is short. Why not enjoy it while we are here? But then I get this longing in the pit of my stomach. It is similar to home sickness only for places I have never been.

The pains of being technicolor

I am Technicolor working in a black and white office and the last few weeks have made me want to smash my head against a wall to ease the pain of frustration.

Then I realized I tend to be someone who looks at problems from a million angels while deducing the best plan of attack. I don’t know how but my simple mind tends to run quickly down a virtual path to see where each idea will lead. It might be my tendency to learn towards mania but I repeatedly find myself naturally leaning towards innovation and the use of technology long before most people.

I think my mind is always creating so if I am not taking photos I am creating new ways to do stuff in my program. Only people here don’t seem to like that. The prevailing attitude is that we have never done things that way, why should we do something new?

What I don’t get is how they could adapt the innovating program I am working to implement and yet refuse to try new ways of getting people involved.

I need coffee and Advil to stop this pounding in my head.