alexis in the city

i have not forgotten

this is a little late for a 9/11 post, i realize, but i got fired up by something i saw recently. in regards to a 9/11 related admonition by a friend on facebook to “never forget” a comment was made that too many people had forgotten, including those who wanted to close gitmo.

i do not wish this post to be a delineation of why i support closing gitmo or how i feel about torture. i’ve already explained all that here and elsewhere. i do wish to point out how absurd and offensive this conclusion is in general, and to me specifically. in general, it shouldn’t take much common sense to determine that remembering and mourning 9/11 is not mutually exclusive with wanting to shut down a detainment camp.

perhaps it shouldn’t, but it upsets me GREATLY that someone would infer that a political and/or humanitarian stance would remove any and all sympathy, empathy, pain and suffering in regards to that tragic day.

perhaps i shouldn’t, but i take it personally. 9/11 hit close to home for me, in a sense. i don’t mean to put myself on the same par at all with 9/11 survivors or people who lost friends and family - i’m not at all trying to equate my experience with theirs. but it was none the less traumatic for me in a way it probably wasn’t for many people: my dad was deployed when we engaged in operation iraqi freedom. he was sent to saudi arabia to help command the satellite/space aspects and operations of the war, so he wasn’t on the front lines and in terms of war it was probably the safest place he could be. but i was 18, away from family at college, and i was scared. we didn’t know when he was coming home and there was that frightening nagging thought that none of us wanted to articulate: “what if he’s NOT coming home.” i remember that thought. i remember scrounging through magazines and newspapers looking for references to my dad’s base and his operations. i remember getting emails from him - and hoping i would continue to get them.

i remember all that - even now my hands are shaky, my heart is beating fast - i will NEVER forget. to say that i ever could, simply because of a political position i’ve decided to hold, makes me angry. it reduces the fright and the memories to nothing, based simply on partisanship. it infuriates me that my dad’s - and my family’s - sacrifice and uncertainty during those times could be so easily written off.

to say that i have forgotten just because i support closing a prison is completely unfair - and completely inaccurate.

why church is like the gym

church is like the gym for me. some people have probably heard my analogy, but here it is:

i get up every morning and go to the gym, 7 am, like clockwork. it’s not a choice for me, it’s not something i evaluate, it’s just something i do. it’s something i’ve always done basically my entire life, and i don’t really think about it. i don’t know how to do anything else from 7 to 8am. i don’t particularly enjoy it - i don’t wake up in the morning thinking, “oh boy, i’m so excited to get up and work out.” like i said - i don’t think about it at all. i show up at the gym and i work the hell out of myself. i don’t have a blast while i’m there, but i don’t hate it. then, after i leave, i’m glad i went - i feel like i did something good for myself and that i made a good decision. and if i don’t go (yes, there have been a handful of times over the course of my life where i’ve **gasp** skipped the gym!) i feel like crap. overall i see the benefits it has in my life and therefore it’s not a habit i’m going to part with.

this is pretty much the perfect description for how i view church. i don’t go every day or anything, but it’s a weekly habit that’s been ingrained in me since the dawn of time as i know it. i don’t really enjoy it, but i’m not miserable - and after i go, i’m glad i went … though - like the gym - that’s mostly because if i don’t go, i feel guilty.

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missional vs. evangelical

my alumni magazine had this great article on the emerging missional movement and the difference between it and the evangelical movement that swept the church in the ’90s - and whose effects we continue to experience. i think the article did a really good job of presenting both sides and explaining the need for a little bit of both. i acknowledge this need (to evangelize as well as minister relevantly in our communities), but there is a large part of me that has a bitter taste in my mouth related to evangelicalism as defined by many of the churches i’ve come in contact with. i’ve explained the theological, biblical and political reasons why i’ve departed from a predominately evangelical worldview in previous posts, so i’m not seeking to make this an exhaustive argument for missional over evangelical.

i’ve always been turned off by the outward-facing, recruit-more-people megachurches that seemed to arise as a result of evangelicalism. of course this may have something to do with the fact that growing up, each time we moved, my parents seemed to systematically seek out churches that met in schools, community centers, strip malls and the like. considering i’ve moved close to two dozen times in my life, i can just about count the number of “normal” brick-and-mortar churches i went to on one hand. (when i seriously examine my upbringing, i wonder if i had any choice but to turn out the way i did, on so many levels!)

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happy SF-iversary to me

i’ve lived in san francisco three years today. that’s almost the longest i’ve lived anywhere, ever, but it’s definitely the longest i’ve lived anywhere i remember. my record for longest ever was los angeles, from when i was born till i was about four, but that doesn’t really count since i don’t remember it. my longest in recollection was fairfax, virginia where we lived from first through third grade.

three years may not seem like a long time to a lot of people, but in military brat terms, it’s EONS. what really surprises me is not that it’s been three years, but HOW FAST it’s flown by. no wonder people get stuck in the same city their whole lives. for this reason, i always have the fear not too far from the front of my mind that i’m going to wake up one day and have been here for ten years, foregoing a lot of the other things i wanted to do and places i wanted to live. this fear, though, is a common theme in my life, coupled - i’ve decided - with my upbringing and my hard-charging, never-settle personality. i believe i should do and have whatever i want, and i’m determined to make that happen!

this theme brings me a great feeling of restlessness about once a year. usually i’d switch jobs, but now that i have my own businesses and am self-employed, i constantly do that. last year i abated it with a three-month trek through asia. this year, i distracted myself by thinking about a move to thailand. the truth is, right now i have no idea what the future holds, how long we’ll stay here, and where we’ll go next. we love our life here, but the plan has always been that this would be a stepping stone to other things. what are those other things? i have some abstract ideas, but no real concrete plans. the alexis of three years ago would’ve been obsessive and freaked out about that. the alexis of today is still a little obsessive about it - but slightly less so. san francisco is helping to teach me to be present in the path that i’m on, every day, and not always looking forward. for someone like me, this is not an inconsequential lesson to learn.

if i make it to my fourth SF-iversary, i’m throwing a huge party, and ya’ll are invited.

proud to be un-american

as i’m in the process of re-constructing my “jesus for president” blog post after my computer met its tragic end, i wanted to jot down a few thoughts that don’t involve as much dissection and effort as the content of my extended post is turning out to. it’s promising to be quite the epic post - if i ever finish it.

as i’m reading”jesus for president“,  i’m still working out how i feel about certain issues that are covered in the book. ryan stopped reading it part-way through because he thought it was too self-serving and i had another friend who warned me that it would make me a pacifist. in absence of the ability to construct super-deep thoughts on the subject right now, i decided to quote a portion of the book where one of the authors (shane claiborne) responds to an experience he had while working in baghdad. he’d been interviewed on CNN and been asked if - by being there and working on humanitarian aid missions while opposing the war - he and his group were traitors. he composed this response:

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