Baby Gurl'z Nails of Glory

The city of Independence (pop. 116,830) was established in 1827 and is famous for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, the Lewis and Clark Expedition, and for being the starting point of famous westward trails (Oregon Trail, Sante Fe Trail, and the California Trail, as is evidenced by the annual Santa-Cali-Gon Festival). Harry Truman lived here, as did Albert Pujols, Ginger Roger and Paul Henning, who created such sublime American classics as Green Acres, Pettycoat Junction and The Beverly Hillbillies. It is also recognized as being part of the videogame "Oregon Trail", thereby known to millions of Facebookers as well as history buffs.

Independence is not, however, particularly famous for its high level of culture and class. My 30 minute commute to work at the publishing house in Kansas City guides me through miles and miles of pot-holed roads lined with "Tobacco Paradise", "Bud and Nan's Beer Hole", "Sal's Sexy Western Wear" and "Baby Gurl'z Nails of Glory". I want to meet this Baby Gurl and shake her gloried, manicured hand.

There are remnants of past glory and of lost hope all over the place. I drive past a strip mall with a church in a converted storefront...but the church is shuttered closed with metal doors and bars are over the windows. A green, rusted out, mid-80's Buick roared through a red light last night, and the passenger threw two beer bottles out the window, smashing them on the battered tarmac below.

I compulsively check the locks on my door. It feels like a twitch - left hand flying to the lock lever on the door, right hand flung out to check the passenger door. I realized today, while driving past a padlocked park (the ghost of a tennis court peering from behind a skeleton fence), that I'm afraid of it all. I'm afraid of the gang of boys standing on the street corner, yelling at cars whizzing by. I grip the steering wheel a little harder than usual whenever people walk close to my car.

They are so close, after all. Close enough for me to see that the man walking across the four-lane highway is barefoot, with faded tattoos creeping up his neck. The jeering boys on the street corner can't be more than 16 or 17, but their faces are lined and baggy clothes can't hide that they are malnourished, starving, skinny ankles sprouting from too-big shoes like flamingo legs.

There's a song (by Brandon Heath) that goes something like this:
Give me your eyes for just one second,
Give me your eyes so I can see
Everything that I keep missing
Give me your love for humanity
Give me your arms for the broken-hearted
Ones that are far beyond my reach
Give me your heart for the one forgotten
Give me your eyes so I can see.


It came on the car radio right as I drove by the abandoned park, the one closed off with a rusted gate and empty tennis courts. And the same song came on again as I drove by the street corner with the boys. And again, as the drunk man crossed the street, barefoot, half-dressed, swaying with beer bottle in hand. Why did it take so much for me to remember that these people were not "poor", "homeless", "delinquent", but  heartbroken, dreamless, hopeless? Once you see the look of absolute hopelessness in someone's face, you can never forget the emptiness in their eyes, and that's the expression I see every time I drive to and from work.

If I were God, my heart would be utterly crushed to see what humans have done to each other. I'd be nauseous with heartsickness and longing for my loved ones to come back. The loneliness and homesickness that I feel now is incomparable to someone who has completely lost any sense of home and any hope that such an environment still exists for them. I'm not writing to tell you my Five Evangelistic Points that I will share with such lost ones, only that I wanted it out on paper (per se) that I'm beginning to see what people must really look like to God.

I usually pray for strength, clarity of thought, wisdom....but really, they are merely my own heightened senses that I've masqueraded as God working in me. Truthfully, those are all things I could achieve on my own.

But without love, all those virtue are ash and mud. Without love, strength is brutal, clarity of thought is a critical spirit, and wisdom is superior enlightenment. All those I have exhibited, all those I have achieved on my own. But I can't do love on my own. I can't do mercy, I can't do graciousness, I can't forgive on my own, and I certainly cannot see people with God's eyes on my own, either.

Allowing God to show your the world through his eyes is terrifying. The vision burns like fire, searing the conscience and scalding a toughened heart, burning off the layers of judgment and presumption like so much dross. The result is a heart raw with God's pain and throbbing with his love, pulsing harder at every injustice, beating with pride for those who are faithful.

This week has already left my heart raw, so I suppose we're off to a good start if seeing people through God's eyes includes a tender spirit. Pray with me - and please, for me - as this summer at the publishing house is officially underway as of last Thursday and as I learn how to do this whole life-ministry thing.

Oh, and if you ever find Baby Gurl'z, go ahead in and get your nails did.

Go West, Young Man...Um, Woman.

Five days until I leave for Kansas City.

Only five days to pack up my room, to plan a driving route, to budget money for gas, food, hotels, to say goodbye to newly-made friends, to spend time with my family, to snatch just one more hour with Trevor, just a little more time at the only house that's ever felt like home.

Forgive me for my nostalgia, but the preparations of leaving for my internship at the publishing house are cementing the existence of my new reality, the one where I'm responsible for things like, you know, real life.

For so many years, I've planned for and saved for college, thought about and talked about nothing but college, so much so that I never visualized life without a syllabus outlining the exact requirements.
And now I'm done, and it's a good thing, but it feels a little like falling out of love, like you moved on and didn't realize until later that your beloved never came with you. You walk away, but leave more than a little of yourself behind, trusting in the One who's promised to give you a new direction and a new love.

So, in five days, trekking out into the unknown, with naught but a tank of gas and a heart full of God's promise to never leave me, I begin anew.

Only this time, the syllabus is mine to write.