Grace.

I was reading of an SBC pastor who said he "erred on the side of grace" and kept quiet about babies being molested by a church deacon. It makes me so frustrated, a beautiful spiritual language being used in defense of simply not caring about one of the greatest gifts we have: children. That response, that right there, that's what makes religion anathema to abuse survivors.

Doesn't this guy have any idea what grace is? Isn't he a pastor? Hasn't he studied the great minds AND the great hearts that the human race has put out?

It's the line and metaphor between the crucified God and the resurrected God. They are both God, you can no more separate both aspects than you can separate a knotted rope and still call it a knot. To get us to grace, biblically, God died. There's no getting past that. Grace is not cheap, and the pastor was not the one paying, so it was not his grace to give.

I don't think you can borrow this type of grace from a child, or ask for it. It can only be stolen, and when it is stolen, it is no longer grace.

That pastor, he is a thief.

Books and Babies

I've been collecting Spanish books and activity books for the kids in Xela so when I go back I'll bring full suitcases. Alot of them are great but some of these books I find just won't cut it. Case in point: Heritage Studies for Christian Schools--with activities including coloring Queen Anne's crown and making a paper Liberty Bell. It's great with homeschooled or private schooled American kids, but with sexually abused K'iche babies...sorry, I think I'll pass. Regardless, I'm interested in going through it and getting ideas. These activities are so clever. I WISH they'd work.

Another good book found: no death, no fear by Thich Nhat Hanh. I know what I'll be doing tonight!

The last apple cider pressing day of the season and Robert has 13 gallons in the truck. Yum! It's as good as my mama's applesauce.

Obama's Kids

It irks me that people complain about Obama's little girls getting the H1N1 flu vaccine. Can you imagine the widespread panic of Sasha and Malia came down with the swine flu?

If they can't be protected, who can? The fear would multiply like crazy.

I'm pretty sure I came down with it a few weeks ago. My next-door neighbor had it, and I brought him some stuff from the store. Then I got the symptoms and was out of it for two weeks. If what I had really was H1N1, it's just a pumped up version of the flu, after all. Babies and old people are at risk, it is pretty nasty, but I'm not exactly perfectly healthy and I survived it just fine, without any doctor visits or antibiotics.

Everyone is so scared, and it seems a bit out of proportion.

Heathcliff

H-----the Story of Heathcliff's Journey Back to Wuthering Heights by Lin Haire-Sargeant.

Worth diddly, but for a Bronte fan like me, I'm in fan-fiction heaven. Some writers question why anyone would want to write the continuation of their books, but honestly, when you fall into a world so utterly, how can you bear the silences? It's a great mystery that must be answered, even if by my own imagination.

I'm sure Haire-Sargeant is no Bronte family heir, but I'll tell you how it goes. I always dreamt of Heathcliff's time before Cathy, and after leaving Cathy to seek his wealth. He makes the book nearly horror with his brass cruelty. How did he become that way? His heart is so full of Cathy, and devoid of anything else. It's one of those loves, like Antony and Cleopatra, that drives the giver and receiver absolutely crazy. The old stories with such plotline as premise has been one of my favorite script.

One of the best things about London--the library. It was the first place I visited when I lived there. I spent my day off gawking in a darkened room at original writings by the Bronte's. I love them, I want what they're having!

When I was with an ex-boyfriend in Southern California I bought and sold books--and I did very well. Then I ran for it, and ended up in Scotland. I left everything. My (nice) car, my dresses, my computers. I just got out of there. Most of it I never got back, and under the circumstances it really wasn't worth it to try and get it back. I just tucked, rolled, and started again.

But there were a few things I was able to get from that time period--the main thing was an investment that I have thought for a couple years was a complete mistake. There were four books that I spent about $3000.000 on and had sent to my sister in Angwin instead of to me in Southern Cal. I was hoping to turn around in a year and sell them for a different amount. My plan was to go to counseling on the earnings, or maybe a down payment on a house.

It just figures that now that I don't need the money, they're worth what I guesstimated they would be worth in a year.

Robert and I had a deal that if I saved that much we'd head abroad for a year to learn languages together.

......YIPEE!!!!!!!!! To Guatemala and Egypt/Morocco and Poland and India we go!

More on this when I actually sell the book. I don't want to sell the books for less than they're worth due to excitement. It won't be for another year, but I'm sooooo excited, still.

Today I feel such a fraud. Everything in the news is about death and hunger and children dying.

Yet I...I slept till noon, and my hair is a rat's nest. I dined on rich coffee and milk and fresh squeezed orange juice. I lounged, and then slowly began my business routine of packing orders, for which I make too much money for the work I put in.

I've never gotten it, why some people work their hands to bone and never earn enough, and then people like me, right now, lounge, sell a few books, and are staunchly middle class with little to no effort--or those who are rich, even.

Why did my lawsuit win money when I can name at least one more seriously deserving woman, whose statutes have run? She was abused so terribly, her pain is so great, and her need is just as much or greater than mine. Why did I get money for my woes, and she gets nothing? It's just not fair.

And then, just within the group of people who were hurt by Scott, the youth who wreaked havoc in my church; I feel a fraud in this, as well. So many families were irrevocably devastated by his actions and the church's action (deny it if you will, you self-righteous hypocrites). Why am I the one who is finding healing? How did I get so lucky? Why was I born girl and only semi-disabled, so abused less horribly than those severely disabled boys? It makes me so confused. There is no symmetry.

I've always had an obsession with Robin Hood, ever since I played the computer game as a child. I want to take from the rich, and give to the poor, give the world some sense.

I've never taken a vow of poverty, but I have come to a tacit agreement with whatever love and fairness is out there that I'll do my little best, and with small steps and millions of networks, maybe together some of us can right some wrongs?

I don't know. I don't know at all.

I'm back from Guatemala.

I had such a good time. I want to go back and live, I've got it all arranged, a wonderful Spanish teacher set up for Robert and I, a house reserved, everything. I just need to convince Robert.

While there I volunteered at a daycare and domestic violence shelter. I met two little brothers who--hey, assholes who are reading this to surveil me or pedophiles who are hunting for pictures--you don't get to know anything about my beautiful babies. They are too precious to waste on the likes of you motherfuckers, who are likely to hurt and ruin them. They've enough problems without adding you to the list.

But I love them. I want to adopt them, and will if in five years, after I get my masters, they're still available for adoption. I adore them, they are so beautiful, and wonderful. I miss them terribly. My language teacher is sending me updates on them. I love them as if they were my own, and the only thing keeping me from starting the adoption process now, is the knowledge that with my problems I'd probably hurt them more than I'd help for now. I need some counseling in my belt before I adopt.

At night I dream of all of us in Guatemala, them safe in their little room I found for them, dining and playing and learning on my fuck money. I keep wandering to the kid section of stores and dumping baby clothes in my basket, before regretfully returning them to the rack.

Now this...this is living.

Old Books

I bought 50,000 books and am going through them.

I love them. I love touching them, the aged wrinkles, stains of coffee, sun-yellowed, sun-bleached, mouse-bitten, musty, beautiful old pages.

This one that I'm holding, Miss Nan (detours)--absolutely worthless online, but it has attitude. Scuffed jacket and on the first page in sloppy old-person Victorian cursive, "With Love, Nannie Eidon." Below that in graceful writing that looks like my mother's cursive, "Gratefully, Charles W. Horner."

The Serf by Guy Thorne. Musty as an attic, its contents as haphazard and old. In the front, a note to the skeptic reader, picking this old tome up for the first time.

this book is surprisingly GOOD! especially if you are interested in 11th century France, termanology, way of life, etc. Well written reminding me of Chelsea Quinn Yarbo's St. Germain books, especially "Better in the Dark" DRB 1995

Move over internet reviews! Nothing can contest a hand written note, secreted away into musty pages. I'm putting aside Flowers for Algernon for now, and snuggling with this crispy old book for the night.

Yum!