day 32, what is now normality

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los angeles, oh, you’re not so pretty. there’s nothing particularly charming about your grimy sidewalks, your wealthy or your poor, your odor or your crowd. Your weather is lovely, but now reminiscent of even my own city. Yet there is still something here, and it is you and I, it is those who make up the overcrowded streets, who create the stentch, who grime the sidewalks. We are here and we are beautiful, like the night sky dancing with search lights, the papaya tree in the backyard and the mockingbird who sings us to sleep. Like the children who wake us with their laughter and the siesta’s in the stuffy supermarkets, we are here, we are broken and we are beautiful, and tonight: we are los angeles.

Aside from not having S.A.Y. Yes!, today was still a fairly typical. I went to Venice beach and lazily draped myself amongst the sand until i had read the entirety of Night, a story of a jewish boy who survived auswitchz. the overcrowded bus ride back taking almost an hour and a half to get home because of all of the people, 3 fights breaking out in just that time. lunch-dinner back at the house, and andy and daniel are there sort of sleepily gazing at things. andy goes to the porch to eat his mango, and daniel interjects the silence every few minutes to call me over and ask me questions that i’m unsure of the significance behind.  “sara, what’s the name of the show that had a roadrunner and a coyote?” “sara, does the house ever shake?” i retreat to my room to clean up a little since nehemiah prospecters are going to be touring the house tomorrow, and am greeted by my roomate kat and her chello. Still hungry i walk a few blocks over to lucy’s, where joe attacks and walks my pupusa and me home, not saying much but listening to my awkward rambling about maybe he would die from eating his waterbottle, and maybe he shouldnt do that, because, it sounds silly, but really i just read about someone dying, and hey, actually, if you had a choice of how you would die, how would it be? i would want to die in my sleep, or maybe be trampled by elephants or something. painlessly. underwater. you know, so that it’s an interesting death. not really i guess, you’re still chewing on your water bottle, hey how was class today, anyway? 
daniel and andy are still at the house, now joined by patti, carissa, and jessica, who generously brought us all venti mocha’s. patti talks to luke on the phone and decides that they will love eachother forever, and afterwards luke texts me things like ‘you owe me $1000 dollars!’ i suppose in exchange for the unfortunately long stranger conversation i forced upon him. most of us then go to youth group, where the davids teach me the gang signs and everyone freaks out by my new found joy in demonstrating them in the streets (“SARA DO YOU WANT TO GET SHOT?!?!?), then the general program – i am still trying to master our streets rivals, the 18th street gang sign, when daniel asks me if i want to lead one of the discussion groups, and i can’t untangle my fingers before everyone’s had a chance to notice that i, as one of the leaders, am practicing gang signs rather than paying attention ahah. karissa and i end up co-leading one of the groups, and they are crazy and interesting and i am fascinated that i too was once of this age and this mindset. particularly by the 19 year olds, who’s ranks i have only just come from, yet none the less am no longer in! fears, convictions, revalations and reservations are all discussed an i can’t help but feel that these are the questions and conversations which make up who we are. after all the boys beat eachother up, it’s 10 and we wander in to the pre-storm (finally! signs of rain!) night, where adrian is doing the splits and hiding behind me as jessica attempts to retrieve the water-ball from his clutches, and i mistake a homeless man for just a blanket which i almost wrap around myself before noticing it’s quite occupied. the group makes its way towards a taco stand about 12 blocks away, everyone driving except adrian, joe, melanie, malana, daniel and myself. joe skateboards along, dedicating himself to protecting me from black widows while pseudo-nobly holding his umbrella over our rainless heads. the attempt is illy-appreciated, as i jack the umbrella and adrian and i run screaming, umbrella held high, through the sprinklers in a nearby yard. i order uno carne avadas taco from the stand which is run out of someones van, and sit down on the crates and boxes disguised as chairs, at the table which is just an overturned trashcan. anywhere else and i would have giggled in appreciation of its super ghetto-ness, but this is just life here, and it’s ghettocity offers few surprises. after capturing carissa’s keys, we turn the parking lot in to a dance party, until finally we head back to the house. everyone but john, carissa, daniel, jessica, and patti go home, the latter three going inside for a heart to heart on patti’s sporodic love life, while carissa, john and i stay on the porch talking about anything from marriage and convictions to secret chambers and descending from lizards until about 3am, a bi-nightly event.

right before coming inside, patty, although not the first to ask, poses the question, “do you want to stay here?”

Following your heart... even when it means (CREEPY) stranger's couches

While I was in England I got the irrevocable impression that I was supposed to go to L.A.
which made going home to saint louis feel pretty pointless
going to new york pretty pointless
going to toronto pretty pointless (but awesome)
and would have made returning to saint louis feel equally pointless, had it not been for the passing of almost three months since the initial revelation, allowing for the sense of urgency to slowly subside. Regardless, I still felt that for whatever reason I needed to go there, if for nothing else then to get it out of the way so that I didn’t have it eating at the back of my mind as I tried to resume what was once a normal (ish… sara-normal, anyway) lifestyle. 
And so it was that I found myself on a one way flight to a new city, with little idea of what I was going to be doing, let alone where I was going to be sleeping that night. 
In general, probably not the best of circumstances to put oneself in, but I felt like this was actually something God wanted me to do, and knew that as long as it was His plan and not mine, I’d be aiight. 

Tomorrow will be my 20th day in L.A., and I am soo-oo thankful I came! Maybe it’s the fact that I didn’t/don’t know exactly why I’m here that makes it seem so much, it gives everything meaning! Everything is an option! I just really truly feel like, whether for the benefit of myself or others or both, God is at work and I really am supposed to be here right now. It’s really encouraged me to really live by conviction, to not let a moment pass where I ignore a tugging of the heart , a “maybe i should go talk to them,” or “maybe i should see if i can help them somehow.” just little things, but it’s so rewarding not to have that heaviness of not ‘following your heart.’ The trouble is that my heart takes me pretty far out of my comfort zone, usually into danger areas where not only could i technically get physically hurt, but my heart itself is so much more vulnerable. But with every conquest, every conversation with a stranger completed or homeless person fed, my heart keeps taking it to the next level and coming up with some really crazy ideas! I don’t know if it’s beautiful or scary, bravery or stupidity, but slowly I feel like simply acting on what I feel I should do is molding me closer and closer to not only who God wants me to be but who I really was created to be, and that in and of itself is such a wonderful feeling. ITS SUCH A SIMPLE CONCEPT, living by conviction, why has it taken my so long to convert my thoughts to actions?

Love Revelation A.

Luke 6:33 "And if you do good to those who do good to you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners love those who love them. And if you lend to those from whom you expect to receive, what credit is that to you? Even sinners lend to sinners, in order to receive back the same." 

I "love" the idea of loving people, loving everyone.
But I definitely don't ACTUALLY love everyone. Usually I don't even want to sit next to or even talk to everyone, sometimes anyone. That seems to rule out loving them.

I noticed this especially at S.A.Y. Yes!
In general, once I get to know kids/they get to know me - we're friends. I love them, or at least like them.
But going into a room of new kids, getting tentative smiles from a few, but mostly distance and awkward staring - I am not instantly going to be all 'ohh, i loovvvvve youuuu!' (That's probably a good thing) I'm going to approach the ones who seem amicable, and avoid the glarish-quiet ones in fear of getting rejected by a 10 year old.
I want to develop a friendship with them & I want to be able to love them, to show them that 'yes! you are important! yes, someone does love you!' ... but I want it to be mutual, I want them to love me, too. It's been very-very rare that I've even encountered that exclusive, non-mutual love - I'm barely even capable of it. ..Loving someone you know doesn't love you seems so unrewarding, so empty, so unlikely, even - why would you love someone who not only doesn't love you, but seems to even have contempt for your mere existence? 

YET SO SELFISH NOT TO. Love is portrayed as this amazing thing you get to experience, this phenomenal emotion, and how everyone should love, la-la-la... only that has nothing to do with actual love. That has to do with YOU, that has to do with leading a life that makes you feel good, that has to do with making YOURSELF feel fulfilled, making sure YOU feel love. Love, in it's purest form, is selfless - it is a gift to lavish upon others. Biblical love is this:

"Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres."

What does patience have to do with selfishness? What does kindness? Envying, boastfulness, pride, rudeness, anger, being self-seeking, holding grudges - ah, there's the selfish aspect - wait, no, it says love is none of those things! The obvious conclusion is that the only part of love that pertains to self, is that we have the opportunity to give it to other people. And when you get rid of that self-focus, you aren't going to prefer giving that love to one person over another. It's not going to matter if they love you or not, if they're a cute little kid who comes bounding over to you everytime you enter the room, or if it's the smelly guy on the bus who wants to use your phone and then leaves ear-slime on the screen (*sigh* that would be yesterday...) - according to the criteria above, love is not reserved for one person any more than it is for the next, it is for everyone, whether they love you, too, or barely tolerate you. It is not an emotion, it is the way that every single person deserves to be treated, and it is a choice we make daily - to love someone, or not to.

..In a slightly different direction, this is also a reason i have a mild disdain for the "love" 2009 has to offer us. The selfishness is too easily recognized. Some people get really excited when person a. tells them that they love them. I do not. Unless it's coming from a kid, or just someone who is really genuine and shows me in word and action, the phrase itself does very little for me. I'm not so excited and happy ecause I am someone special, I am loved - no, someone loves the way i make THEM feel. That's not real love, and even I don't want to love someone (or be loved by someone) like that. This too, would seem to stem from selfishness - feeling that i - well, all of us - deserve a selfless love rather than a selfish one... but I think it's just from the fact that that is the love we were created to give and recieve from God, so it's the love we naturally desire. I think God is the only one who can love perfectly like that, everything else is goofy.
I wonder how much those hippies on Venice Beach really love me, like their flags & vans & shirts say. Enough to talk to me? Yeah.. Enough to share a meal with me? Probably. Enough to let me sleep over when I'm homeless? In their bed? For two months? Even if I snore and have bad living habits and I don't even treat them with respect? How conditional is there love? To them , what constitutes as loving a person? What's the limit? Are hippie strangers capable of selfless love? Am I? Is anyone capable of it without God?

It's January the 8th, there are seagulls flying over me, waves crashing before me, & the sun - oh, the glorious, glorious sun - has completely encompassed me. From what I've witnessed, gloomy england has a substantially larger amount of sunlight to be offered then Amsterdam. And here, alone on a rocky winter beach by the sea, it seems as if the sun's performance is meant only for me. Not hiding behind tall buildings, not distracted by tree tops & telephone poles, it's sole purpose is to be a glistening diamond, dancing upon the wet rocks and waves, warming the wind, and gently closing my eyelids. Ahh!! how beautiful is creation, that even rocks reflect this glory! Today looks promising already. Free breakfast and I made a darling korean friend of the boy who was sleeping above me.
 And now -this beautiful, beautiful scene ...it must still be marginally cold out, but Im not using my coat and I'm only a teensy chilled, & in comparison to London's -10 the past few days, I feel like I'm on a true holiday. Equally exciting, in an hour and a half I'm meeting Tim at the pier and he's bringing tea! It's soo encouraging to know that not only do I actually know someone in this town,  but I'm going to see him as well! Yesterday the only two people I even spoke to who I had known previously were the reception guy at London Eye and Joe from the night before, and with Joe I don't think I even said anything to him, just responded to his "Good morning, sunshine!" with a sleepy grunt and nod in his direction.  So today, for the first time in an entire week of small talk with acquaintences or distant connections - or worse yet entire days filled with silence, I am going to spend some time with someone I KNOW! ahhh!! What a lovely lifting of a this bog of anonyminity which I once found so freeing! And then tonight I'm taking the train to Shoreham-by-Sea, a small town in the countryside, to stay with some woman from the internet. ah-ha. All I know about her is that she's 34, plays the ukelele, and lives in a houseboat with frozen pipes, but hello! it's been my amsterdam-long dream to stay on a houseboat! this is wonderful-perfect, hurray! So hopefully that's also exciting. Technically I had a down payment on another night at St. Christopher's Inn, but after staying there last night I'm glad for the exchange. The bottom floor is a popular bar and music venue, the testimony of which is both heard and felt from even the 6th floor, and I was on the 2nd, so well, I guess that's kind of like being "rocked" to sleep which I guess has a charm of its own... but still, houseboat with a stranger tonight! It's so strange to me that back home people are going to school or waiting a table or in the middle of their shift or watching tv or meeting a friend for dinner, or that shelterlife is still going on - someone's chcecking a voucher, someone's making a toastie, Jan is putting his hand on someones should and saying, "dear brother..." and I am alone on the shore of the sea in a different country than almost all of them, on a different continent from most of them. ITS JUST SO WEIRD! Life exists in so many different capacities, in so many different places! I mean, I am in a country that 93% of the people who know me, don't even know I'm in. How weird, how disconnected. But while I'm seperate from that reality, I'm part of an entirely different one. I've only heard/met three americans in my week here. I hate sounding different from the people here, how one sentence alerts whoever meets me that I'm not from around here, I don't naturally belong. "Oh, where are you from? What are you doing all the way over here?" I don't speak with many people, but the ones I do all ask that question. Grrr, I hate that my voice reveals a lifetime in a different culture, and that that information is handed to them with a simple "one tall chai tea, please," when really I am trying to say anonymous as possible, & don't want strangers knowing anything about me that I haven't chosen to share with them. I wonder why I'm like that, why am I so protective of my own thoughts & habits & past & future, & well, anything about myself? Like I am something to be discovered, and can only be revealed to persistent pursuer, and even then only if I deem their motives sincere. That's placing a lot of unnecessary importance on myself. I think it's fueled when people define me fondly with this trait. Like Jeroen in his little goodbye note to me, haha, he was like, 'we've had some good and quite deep talks, which we've both enjoyed. but yet you remain a mystery to me, even with a hint of a dark side ;)' (a dark side to a shelterite means very little, like 'you seem like maybe you drink occasionally'). And how some people are seemingly mesmorized by by their inability to tell what i'm thinking during any given situation (this obviously is not universal to everyone i know, some people can read me pretty well). "Every once in awhile I feel like I'm starting to get you, but then you're so contradictory - you brought me dinner but then barely said anything, and wouldn't even answer my questions. you came out with me but then you left while I wasn't looking. (<--haha) You seem to enjoy being with me but when I hug you, I can feel you kind of pulling away. Even this - I'm telling you all this and I have no idea what you're feeling, what you're thinking. I can't understand you, and I think that's part of why I like you." I think that's probably the problem.. Maybe part of me is afraid that if people who haven't been around me long enough ("earned their way through time") who don't fully know what they're getting in to or what friendship with me entails. I guess I'm afraid that if they did understand me, they would get bored and leave, or something, so it's much more enticing to leave it at vague mystery and be puzzling rather than abandoned. (PS. Im in a cafe now, I have been for awhile) bleh, I hate getting left. It's strange how my openness fluctuates. It creates these bonds with people that I'm not even sure exist. Aww, the sun is going away... But anyway, it's almost time to meet Tim (wow, I've been writing for a long time) so I spose this is over now. PS... Im seeing someone I knowwwwwwww!!! Hurraaaayyy!