Capstone Conundrums

     So, because I'm planning on graduating a semester early, this coming semester, which I just registered for (YAY!) is technically the start of my senior year (weird).  What this means is that I need to seriously start figuring out what I want to do for my capstone.  It also means that I need to seriously get cracking on LSAT studying (eek!), but that's beside the point.

     I really want my capstone to be something important, something that I care deeply about, something that acts as a comprehensive accumulation of my time here at AU, and (perhaps most importantly) something that I won't get bored with. :P  I have so many different thoughts in my head, so many things that I care about.  I really am at a loss as to how to narrow them all down to something feasible.

     I'm a Justice and Political Science Major with a concentration in criminal justice and extensive course work in women's and gender studies.  (As a totally unrelated side note: I'm taking a religion class called "Feminist Theology" next semester.  Get excited!)  My life goal is to become a sex crimes prosecutor.  As such, I'm hoping to get into a prestigious law school.  What would be the appropriate cumulative project for this preparatory life called college?

     Or I could just explore one of the many policy areas which get my blood rolling: underage prostitutes and the fact that their "johns" aren't charged with, at the very least, statutory rape; the idea of life without parole being a de facto death penalty; issues of human rights (or lack thereof) within the prison system; the lack of rehabilitative policy within the American criminal justice system; the direct correlation between the crappy education system here in the United States and poverty/crime rates; and the patriarchal status quo in this nation serving as the basis for most, if not all, sex crimes.

     I also have to write a 20-30 page paper for my Justice Stories class.  Maybe I can treat that as a sort of mini-capstone to get some of my more minor ideas out of the way so that I can focus on one major idea in my capstone.  Or maybe I could actually challenge myself and force myself to do something creative for the project...  I doubt that'll happen, but I'll at least force myself to consider it.

Since when did school start involving important life decisions?  Didn't freshman year just start?  Can I just go back to taking classes for fun and not thinking about the implications of those actions?

There is hope in the world.

So I had a 9-5 training session with DC rape crisis center today, and it was "isms" day (as in sexism, racism, etc.). This has by far been my favourite session so far, and I just wanted to tell a quick story told by the executive director of DCRCC which I thought was really cool:

First, background: Denise, the executive director, is a Caucasian woman who's partner, Donna, is an African-American woman. Donna has a daughter from a previous relationship whom they both raised. Now the story: When this daughter was about 5 years old, she was sitting on both Denise and Donna's laps, kind of in between them. Denise and Donna were holding hands across the lap of the daughter. Donna asked her daughter, "Which hand is Mommy's and which hand is Denise's?" The daughter accurately identified their respective hands. Then Donna asked, "How did you know?" Pointing to her mom's hand, the daughter said, "Because this ring is yours and this ring," pointing to Denise's hand, "is Denise's."

This five year old girl was so blessed to be able to live a life entirely oblivious to the idea that someone might be identified by the colour of his/her skin. To her, it was just as mundane as a person's shoe size, eye colour, or birthday. They are all just things which you are born with, but which do not, in any way, make you who you are.

Denise's hope, and mine as well, is that soon we will come to a day where most seven year olds don't yet see skin colour as a defining characteristic. And then eleven. And then 16. And maybe somewhere down the line, our great, great, etc. grandchildren will be able to live in a world where not a single person (or at least not the vast majority of people) will look at a person and see first their skin colour and then the rest of them.

Maybe one day the same will happen with the rest of the "isms" which we talked about: Sexism, Classism, Ageism, Heterosexism, Cisgenderism, Ableism, Faithism, Nationalism, and Lookism.

Maybe that's too much to hope, but I'm not giving up.

Double X's

These two little x's

So tiny

Even microscopic

Yet they seem to make all the difference

These tiny little x's

Seem to decide so much about me

What clothes I'm allowed to wear

What positions I can hold

In the church

In the workplace

In the home

On the street

On the bus

Late at night

All alone

But I can't ever go alone

I am lesser

I am her

I am not him

They say there is no difference anymore

That we live in a post-gender world

But they don't see

They can't know

The looks that I get

When I speak of my ambitions

When I say I don't want kids

They tell me I'll change my mind

That I don't know what I'm talking about

Or even that I'm wrong

Would you say those same things to him?

No, of course not.

Because I am not him

I am her.

What is it about these double x's?

To insult a man,

They call him a woman.

To degrade a woman,

They tell her she is not a man.

Because I was born with these double x's,

I must not act like a man

For fear of being degraded.

Questioning my womanhood,

They call me a dyke

Or tell me to return

To the comfy and unconfusing little world

Of these two little x's.

I want to be judged,

Not by my chromosomes,

But by the ideas inside my mind,

The passion in my heart,

And the character of my life.

If that's too hard,

If you can't see past these gender roles and sexual lines,

Then don't bother judging me at all.

Old Revelations and New Commitments

So I think three major things happened on retreat:

1. I broke down and realized that I can't follow my life's calling on my own; I need to rely upon the strength and love of God.
2. I'll never be able to hear God's voice if I'm not regularly listening.
3. I need to stop focusing so much on myself and where I'm at with God, and instead focus on how I'm serving, ministering to, and loving others.

Now, in light of that last point, the whole idea of blogging about my thoughts seems kind of counter-productive, but I think it's important for me to solidify what I believe God is teaching me by allowing this semi-public forum to hold me accountable.

Well, I think the biggest (as in most overwhelming) thing which happened on retreat is that I finally got to a point where I knew that I couldn't volunteer at DCRCC on my own. The last time I tried to tangibly tackle these type of issues, I was consumed by the fight. I became depressed, started cutting and became suicidal. And I know for a fact that, if I try to counsel and advocate in my own power, I will return to that place. And that thought terrifies me. But silence isn't an option; apathy isn't a choice. After laying this issue on my heart again, God asked me, "Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?" My heart and mind, voice and whole body cried out: "Here I am. Send me!" This fight has already captured my heart, my soul, and my future, and I can never turn away. These two realizations (my inability to fight on my own and my inability to turn away from the fight) was overwhelming and heart-breaking. But I think that it was a necessary place for me to get to. Because once I got to that place, I was able to realize that, although I cannot fight this battle on my own, as my verse of this year says, I have the Spirit's very power, love, and mind within side me. If I rest in Him, if I let God's love and not my own flow through me and into these broken people, instead of consuming me, this fight will make me soar.

For this reason, I'm contemplating getting "Love" tattooed on my forearm (in cursive, white lettering), right underneath my scars. This is not my love, but the love of my Saviour which will stop me from picking up that knife again, no matter how inadequate I am to love these people.

The second thing which God has really been teaching me over the past several weeks, months, and even years, is that He can never talk to me if I'm not listening. It's when I read and know His Word that I have any chance of growing in knowledge of God and following the call of His Spirit. Yes, my life is insanely busy right now. I am mentally, emotionally, and physically exhausted; the very thought of waking up one hour earlier or staying up one hour later to truly connect with God seems to drain me. Even though I know how much more refreshed I feel when I do, especially in the morning. I have to learn to be disciplined.

Finally, I need to stop complaining about not hearing God's voice, stop spending all my time trying to muddle through the convolution of my brain instead of focusing on serving and evangelizing those around me. I am rarely one who talks about or even, in all honesty, thinks about evangelism. But, certain people (cough, cough, Kera, cough) have truly gotten to me by bringing one simple fact to my mind: if I truly believe that some of the people around me are going to hell, then, how much must I hate them to be perpetually silent about my faith? Now, I have no clue what this looks like. I will never be one of those fire-and-brimstone, "let's go burn a Koran for fun," wack-o Christians. It will just never happen. But I do know that it looks like more than what I'm doing. I need to truly figure out where my convictions lie, and then stick with them. I also need to not shrink back from the awkward conversations, the difficult discussions. I don't know how to have those discussions organically. I'm very new at this whole being bluntly open about my faith thing. But I really am going to try. And I ask anyone who interacts with me regularly, whether you share my convictions or not, whether you think I'm crazy or not, to hold me accountable to what I'm saying. I will be no where near perfect. I'm sure I will fail much more than I succeed. But I am publicly committing to changing, empowered by the overwhelming power, love and disciplined mind of Jehovah Jireh.

My Justice major is showing...

For 150 years, the Louisiana plantation known as Angola has been worked, toiled over, and broken by the sweat of forced labour. The bloodiest and most dangerous war in American history was fought to stop the use of humans as cattle, people as slaves. Until recently, Angola plantation was known as the bloodiest and most dangerous prison system in America. So yes, circumstances have changed, but I would bet that if you took a picture of the fields of Angola in the mid-1800s, it wouldn't look too different from the fields today.

77% of Louisiana's maximum security state penitentiary is African American. I wonder if some of these boys can trace their lineage back to these very fields? Angola is their prison, their plantation, their ancestry, their heritage, their nation.

This brutal land is covered in the blood, sweat, and tears of African-American slaves. Burl Cain may claim the title of warden and may be bankrolled by the state, but just as in days gone by, he is a plantation owner looking down on his forced labour like cattle, like chattel, like children. Maybe one day the land can be put to rest, can stop bleeding, sweating and crying out the suffering of its slaves.

The preceding paragraphs came out of my Justice Stories class. We've been looking at the writings of American prisoners as well as watching films and learning about prison conditions. We've also looked a little bit at the solitary confinement policy of prisons.

Throwing inmates in "the hole" is not widely considered to be a violation of any rights. But if it truly isn't torture, why was solitary confinement the primary method of breaking the souls of inmates at Abu Ghraib, Gitmo, and other torture strongholds? Humans are meant to be social creatures. It is psychological torture to entirely cut them off from all communication with other humans.

Another policy which we have been examining in a couple of my classes is the death penalty and life without parole. Every time we look at these policies, the question always pops into my head, "Why do we deny the possibility of redemption?" When it comes to theories of punishment, the idea of rehabilitation has largely been discarded in favour of retribution and deterrence. Over the past couple decades, the United States has largely eliminated the education programs within her prisons, despite the fact that education in America is the one proven way of getting people out of poverty and a life of crime.

Furthermore, the people who have the largest stake in punitive policy are cut off from voicing their opinions on punitive policy! Why do we deny ex-convicts the right to vote? We cut these people off from society for years on end, and then deny them an ability to ever life a normal life again. They can't vote. They have little to no education. Very few legitimate employers will hire them. The only landlords which will house them are in very shady places. And then we act surprised at the high recidivism rate. There are so many people which claim that America is a "Christian nation," and yet they deny the very possibility of one of the most basic tenets of the Christian faith: redemption.

Why is it again that I'm pursuing a career in prosecution?

Procrastination, Purposeful Insomnia, and so much Fear

It is nearly 3am and I should be doing one of two things: reading homework or sleeping. Because I have no desire to read and thus am not giving myself permission to sleep, I figured maybe I'd try to clear my head by writing.

My life just can't seem to slow down right now. I have class and work and small group and DCRCC and homework and church and (hopefully) friends and...the list goes on. It's six weeks into the semester and I'm already procrastinating on my homework and papers till the very last minute. I can't seem to force myself to focus, and I'm not sure why.

On an entirely unrelated note: we talked in small group today about God's radical call on our lives, the power that that gives us, and our duty to live that out. For the past several months, God has been pounding 2 Timothy 1:9 into my head: "For God did not give us a spirit of fear, but of power, love, and a sound mind." I know that God is telling me to stop being fearful/timid/intimidated about/by what others might think of me, and instead to truly live a radical, changed life for Him. But stepping out like that brings so many questions. I don't want to be one of those people. You know who I'm talking about. One of those people who constantly talks about "God," and "faith," and a "relationship with Jesus" and so many other things with such courage and yet such utter irrelevance that even I, a devout Christian, shrink away from. So for fear of seeming like a crazy, irrelevant Bible thumper, I hide my faith from my friends outside of Chi Alpha and only really mention it in contrast with those "crazy" Christians in an effort to try and prove that we're not all like "them."

But I'm afraid that, in my efforts to stay "relevant," I have simply become silent. I am a huge proponent of evangelism through example, of living the type of life that inevitably calls for inquiries and naturally leads to genuine conversations about faith. But I often doubt that I'm living that kind of life. My life, to the outside observer, seems fairly average. I don't talk about my convictions which may make me seem "different" for fear of seeming "strange." And now that this has gone on for so long, I'm afraid that, if I did start talking about my faith regularly, my testimony would be weakened by the months of non-sharing.

I'm sarcastic and I swear and I'm not always nice and I get tired and cranky and sullen and depressed and I slip on my convictions and I have secrets and I don't have it all together. And I'm human. And somewhere in the back of my mind I still have this notion that, in order to have an effective testimony, I have to be one of two things: a) perfect from the moment I was born or b) have a horribly wretched background, an amazing conversion tale, and am now perfect. Needless to say, I am neither.

I don't know what it looks like to live a transparently imperfect life as a testimony to others. I don't know how to be vulnerable and to freely admit that I'm not perfect but I'm trying to live a life that's different from the rest of this world.

I don't fit the mold of what it looks like to be a devout Christian in today's world. For starters, I'm a crazy liberal feminist. For the most part, I can't stand the Republican Party, and I believe that they, in their claims to God and faith, give Christianity a horrible name. I struggle with and often find ways to rationalize away or outright dismiss the traditional gender roles which the Bible seems to purport. I'm obsessed with and addicted to tattoos and I don't always watch my tongue as closely as maybe I should.

At the same time, I have an incredible calling on my life to fight for the least in this world, to bring justice to broken situations, and to see God's image in every human being. I am not shy about my love for people, especially broken and hurting people. I don't just see the least in those whom it is easy to love: the babies half way around the world dying of AIDS, the rape victims, the sick and needy who have done nothing to deserve their hardship. No, I also see the least in the outcast and the downtrodden, in the homosexuals, in the imprisoned, in the homeless, in the gang members, in the welfare dependent, in the mentally ill, in the convicted robbers and murderers, in the pedophiles, in those that society forgot about years ago. These people too, are the least in this world. They, too, deserve justice and equality. They, too, are recipients of God's love. I feel God's heart inside of me for these and so many others.

I know that this is the type of radical life that Christ called me to, but does simply following this calling on my life to help the least in the world make me a good evangelist? Or do I need to do more than that? Street corner evangelism never has been, and I'm positive never will be my thing. But what does it look like to boldly live out and talk about my faith? Do I need to be worried about compromising my testimony or turning people away or perpetuating the pain of an already so hurtful church? Why am I still struggling with so much fear and so much timidity? I try to continually claim God's power, I know that I have His love, and I don't think that my soundness of mind is in question. So why do I still have this spirit of fear that Paul warns Timothy about? When will this verse get through my thick head, into my heart, and back out through my life? Maybe once I figure out how it'd look cool tattooed on me...

Worries, Conundrums, and New Adventures.

So I'm two weeks in to my training to be a volunteer counselor/advocate at the DC Rape Crisis Centre. We did our first hotline call role-play tonight and it was both one of the most terrifying and exhilarating experiences of my life.

I've been waiting to do this for a long time now: find a way to tangibly help those affected by sexual assault and rape. I am devoting my life to this cause, and for the first time in my life, I feel like I'm actually making a difference.

I'm worried though. The reason why I chose to go down the route of prosecutor and not counselor is because I'm the type of person who needs to get into the fight. I'm also a firm believer in the criminal justice system and in bringing the perpetrators to justice. Yet my role as a hotline counselor and hospital advocate is not to push the survivor in any given direction but instead just to be there, to listen, and to provide resources and information. It's not my job to give advice or to tell the survivor what I think that they should do. I found that trusting my instincts is really helpful on hotline calls, but how do I make sure that I suppress my instinct to push the survivor in the direction that I think they should go?

I have this incredible call on my life and passion in my heart to help the least in this world. I can't shut it off. It doesn't go away after the time and tears and years and fears. And yet despite this passion inside, the actual physical actions which I take on behalf of my fellow man so far have been minuscule. I've been on a couple missions trips. I support a couple kids. I rally for a few causes. But the majority of my life right now is lived in the waiting, in the preparation, in the academic. It's the nature of being a student: preparing for the life you truly want to live (or at least for the career you think you want). As many of my professors have said, this is the one time in my life where I will have the freedom to ask the questions, the time to philosophize and wonder, the encouragement just to think and to learn. And it is undeniably and unquestionably one of the favourite parts of life.

So my life right now is a continuous conundrum: frustration at living in a state of perpetual suspended animation, waiting to be able to pursue my true passion, all the while absolutely adoring living within the hollowed halls of academia and not having to actually step out into the real world of hard work and true responsibility.

I'm also wondering if there can be such a thing as true altruism. Can a person truly do something for another person(s) out of entirely selfless motivations? Or am I only volunteering at DCRCC to gain a new set of skills, to enhance my resume, and to get a good feeling inside? I'm contemplating going on a missions trip to Greece this coming summer, but I don't want to go if my only motivations are selfish. Obviously, when it comes to any trip to an amazing place like Greece, there's going to be some selfish desire to see the country, but I honestly do care about the cause, and I want to make a difference. Is it selfish to want to get first hand experience dealing with an issue which I am passionate about? Can one person on one missions trip through one church really make any difference? Or can the only purpose behind short term missions be egocentric? Do we do it to feel better about ourselves, to feel less guilty about our wealth and our comfortable, easy lives?

I wrote this poem several years ago about the idea of giving away money to a worthy cause (fighting AIDS in Zambia) just to assuage our own guilt, and it keeps popping into my head:

I’m not writing this to ride you down with guilt
Until you crawl home and drop a bill
Into a little orange box
With pictures of smiling faces you’ll never know.
Just so that you can once again forget
That there is life beyond
Your megamalls, iTunes, and facebook blogs.

You’re continually spoon fed messages
That if you just
DO SOMETHING
You’re better than everyone else
In this wretched, immoral world
But does it really make you better?
When you know what’s really going on
Yet feel that your job is done
Once those coins hit that box?

Yes, it’s true that every penny helps,
But when we spend 5 dollars every day
On coffee alone,
I have to ask, are pennies really enough?

The average person in this blissfully ignorant country
Spends more money on coffee every day
Than millions of people live on in a week
And it just doesn’t seem right.

Yet every day I hear another one boast:
“We’re the best country in the world!”
And I have to ask,
How can you be so ignorant?

Even though God demands our first 10%,
As a supposedly Christian nation,
You can’t even muster 1%
To save the lives of their dying children!

But, wait, I forgot:
You’re spending that money
Finding new ways to kill your children.

You spend your millions
On the perfect body, car, and clothes
While another one dies
Because you can’t spare enough to save her.

Or maybe you do save one,
And you think it’s enough
So you return to the comfort
Of your American Dream
And you press on in the hopes that one day –

But what if you tried something different?
What if you thought about that woman?
Who loves her kid so much
That she would knowingly subject herself
To death by AIDS
Just so her little girl can eat for one more day

She makes the same amount of money
Selling her body on the streets
That you carelessly throw into that box
At the end of every day.

What if, for once, you loved this woman?
Who has more love in her
Than you could ever hope to have
Even though she has nothing in this world.

We always claim that, by giving a dollar
We’re being Jesus to these people,
But, truly, who’s more like Christ?
The one who drops their pocket change into a little box
Just to feel better about themselves
Or the one who lays down her life for her daughter?

Truly, whatever you do for this woman,
You do for Christ.

So I’m not going to tell you what you need to do
You already know
And it doesn’t involve going home
And emptying your pockets
Into a little orange box

Stop talking, and start acting.
And never stop.

Because even though life goes on for you,
If you don’t make a difference,
Who will make sure her life does to?

So never stop.

I don't want to become the very person that I'm frustrated with in this poem. I don't want to be a person who just gives a few dollars and maybe a few hours just so that I can move on with my life without feeling guilty.

I want to be the type of person that truly can act altruistically. But does volunteering at DCRCC qualify? My guess would be probably, but what about this missions trip to fight human trafficking in Greece? It reminds me a little of the missions trip that my high school youth group went on to the Bahamas several years ago. I didn't go with and one of the reasons was because...well...the Bahamas? For a missions trip? Really?? And I think part of my has that same reaction to the idea of Greece as a destination for a supposedly altruistic venture. But the fact of the matter is that Europe is becoming a stronghold for human trafficking and the A21 Campaign is doing phenomenal work there. So I guess I just need to check my motives. And find out more info about what NCC will actually be doing there.

But maybe I'm over-thinking all of this. Jesus said, "Whatever you do for the least of these, you do for me." I believe that every individual on the face of this earth is made in the image of God and thus deserves equality and deserves justice. So if I can bring some little bit of justice and/or equality to the lives of those who have been sold and trafficked as sex slaves half way across the world, then count me in. Jesus doesn't say "Whatever you do for the least of these as long as your motives are entirely altruistic, you do for me." I think I just need to keep getting out there. And keep doing something. And never stop.