Unvarnished and Unapologetic

So here it is: If I am guilty of anything I hope it is the following:

1) loving people too much- all people! So I love gay and lesbian, black, white, Mexican, drug addicts, drunks, trailer trash, suburban middle class, Latino, poor, and I guess rich if I have too- this pretty much makes a lot of people angry. I love the angry too. If I wasn't convicted to do this, I would take the road most traveled and just try not to rock the boat but I can't. It is not that I won't. It is that I can't. It has become a calling, beyond a socio-ethic to a spiritual act of faithfulness. What I struggle with is loving the victim and the victimizer, the outcast and those who has ostracized, the minority and the majority, the angry and the sad, the hurtful and the harmless - all the same.

2) Being faithful. Not the nice neat- they told me so therefore this is how I act sort of thing but the faithfulness that transcends comfort. I want to be so faithful that it drives people crazy. When people see radical faithfulness (by the way there is no difference in true faithfulness and radical faithfulness except its rarity in today's world), they get angry but this is only the first phase. The second phase is hopefully reflection. The questions begin. Things can no longer be so cut and dry. Then searching ensues and hopefully a new reality is established that is more faithful. Myself- I am of the utmost sinners- the list is long, sorted and pathetically repetitive but I am a work in progress.

3) Be able to take criticism- whether jaded or gentle- and grow from it without wrecking my life, my self, and my calling. I am no where close to this one but hopefully someday I will be mature enough to handle this. I want to meet someone who can model this for me- so far everyone I meet struggles with this too. There are a lot of people who do well to dish it out and no one who can just take it- someone who can mine out the Truth and discard the trash and grow from the experience.

4) Listen. The kind that whenever people walk away they know that they have been heard. This comes from the first three actively in place.

5) Being real. The unvarnished, unapologetic real God-made man that I was created to be- even if there are times that my true identity and true self make people uncomfortable or even angry.

6) Beat the stats. Live longer, stronger, wiser, and more generous than what was modeled to me- by the way both of my parents are gonna be hard to beat at this.

So first and foremost I am guilty of a lot of unfaithfulness of two main varieties: 1) my own actual sins- both those I which I know and still do and those of which are off my radar but in my ignorance I inflict on others and 2) fear- that which prevents me from being and realizing the best inside me.

Lastly, in my smoke and mirrors, I try to cover up my ignorance with fancy words and novel idealism's yet I am still me. I hope that I can be me- more me every day- not the me that I want but the me that God wants- and hopefully along the way sort out the two and discard the first. So I guess its time to take out the trash, make some room for some new work, and keep on keepin on.

If I see you on the "via de la rosa" we can bleed together. Peace.