resurrection

i wanted to start fresh and new. view my new blog at jenadams.wordpress.com

africa and her women

i am reading a book about female genital circumcision. not to get into the horrible details but this is a ridiculous practice. the more i read this book, the more i want to adopt a girl from africa or move to africa more likely.

basically, this practice includes cutting out the intimate, private parts of women at an early age and sewing them shut to a tiny opening. this is done because women are seen as oversexed or sexually sensitive. maybe in sex and the city but women in africa? how are they oversexed? they aren't even allowed to choose their own husbands much less ask for sex. it saddens me that women are subjected to this torture not only the uneducated but the professionals, even doctors. all for the sake of culture.

my question what is our FGM? what do we do in the great, ole USA that is disgusted by the onlookers of our world? what is questioned in our culture? perhaps our society is too individualized to choose one atrocity, one cultural flaw. Should I dare say, it is apathy? Can this be characteristic of our entire country?

Well, I answer with 30,000 children dying of hunger a day, genocide in 100 days in Rwanda, the AIDS crisis, the lack of quality health care for the poor in our own country. How can we ignore all this while we fight with a country, use more than 80% of the world's resources, pursue our own successes while driving Tahoes? WE are apathetic people.

Get educated and remind me to do the same. Find one issue this year and fight with passion for change with those who suffer like the women in Africa.

arranged marriages and waiting

i have recently come to the conclusion that i don't like to be busy. i always thought i liked to have my life filled to the brim with activity and people but in the past few weeks i now would like to become a different person. i realized this after having to cancel hanging out with actual living, breathing people to go to a meeting. how ridiculous!

honestly, i think i do this in order to avoid thinking about the world, specifically the world i have created for myself. coming home exhausted every night does not give much time for reflection. i like this. i don't like to think about myself, my future, my life. it is frightening to think that i am letting a 27 kid decide my future. can i just be a supporter of arranged lives?

A few weeks ago some friends of mine, may i call them my b and n buddies, discussed arranged marriages. while i like the idea of not having to choose a mate for myself b/c i suck at discernment, i am not sure i like the idea of having others choose what they think is best for me. is this because i am afraid i will have to be with some man who has no money but lots of passion for social justice or am i really afraid of commitment? i think i have to answer both. i am realizing more and more I am afraid of commiting to one particular idea, person, job, educational choice, group of friends not because i like change, which BTW I do not, but because i don't want to find myself stuck with misery or loneliness. not only is this in my life of dating or spousal exploration but also in my life in general.

so any takers on arranging my life? i will be waiting.

the excitement of life

today, as with each new day, i am learning to be excited. last night one of my dreams came true. i finally after 15 years i participated in a randy travis concert. when i say participate, i mean i sang most songs word for word. it was amazing. don't judge. i am southern and am guilty of being a little bit country.

so what does this have to do with the excitement of life? well, i am learning to take a step of each day and do exactly that. i am walking step by step and seeing the world as a slow, often pain-staking journey. the place i am now, i am content with the stepping. i was excited to walk around and taste margaritas with a friend and know that contentment is found in conversation and the mere watching of strangers.

this content is found in my new found love for social work and fighting for justice and peace for all. i am excited about working with college students yearning for the same desire i have: to find true excitement with God. i am content with being back in graduate school and learning how policy in our society is at best inadequate and needs to change. i am content with my friendships and watching them fall in out of love not only with people but also with life in general.

i pray this excitement is not shallow but consistent. i pray for this theme to take a hold of my life and the lives of those i love.

am i over the top

recently, i was in a dialogue (can you really be in a dialogue if you only listen?) where i felt uncomfortable. we were just discussing general topics nothing profound or even interesting. then some comments were made that generalized a certain ethnicity. i left thinking what have i done by remaining silent when i was pissed that educated, Christian people can simply categorize a people group. you may wonder why i am ranting about a subject that i am sure i have over-steped or been somewhat inappropriate but i just can't let go of the feeling i had during this conversation.

having thought about the experience, i wonder if i am over the top about issues, about being politically correct, culturally sensitive. i wonder if i deserve the rolling of eyes from my well-meaning friends. i don't know. am i too much of an eggshell walker or should i expect sensitivity as i try and usually unsuccessfully attempt. is it too much to ask for people to be seen as who they are not how our society classifies them, ie fat, black, white, asian, hispanic, skinny, preppy, ghetto?

this afternoon i went home and watched a movie about rwanda. i realized all my issues are trival compared to being ignored by countries who had the means to stop the slater of people based on racial profiling. so, after the movie i think we should be mindful of our words. they sharpen swords.

cheerleaders and apple sauce

lately, i have made my office become a coffee shop and I mean literally. i am being serious. i have taken refuge this month at a local shop to remind myself what life is like as a college student. i miss the conversations about tests and postmodernism, about impossible math problems and lit reviews about Christ as a social advocate. come by and see me and often i am engulfed in listening to the conversations around me or on the internet learning about promoting positive self image in teen males. random, but have i ever claimed another title.

soon i will be moving back to the school to watch the cheerleaders make signs for the incoming students and talk about the possibility of being 1 and 6 or actually having a winning season. I will enter the world of a high school mixed with the stereotypes of preppy whites, gangsta blacks, and Spanish-speaking Mexicans. am i looking forward to this? i miss being around the drama brought to me by my 9th grade cheerleaders and the reality of poverty by students working to support their families.

in june, i got to meet some of the cheerleaders at my school. they broke the stereotype from my whitie high school i attended over 10 years ago. they are not the cute, little fake innocent blondes who look like they eat celery for 5 meals a day. these are girls who struggle with poverty, suffer with friends who are pregnant at 14, want to be successful but have no model for success, who have the pressure of being the first family member to finish high school much less have a chance at college. the walls of my prejudice are shot down with the beauty i see in whites, blacks and hispanics cheering for a team that went nill last year. pray for a miracle for my boys. they need to win.

june also not only broke my stereotype about cheerleaders but also about people living in waco. i thought those people were ones i could never become friends with. blame my lack of an ability to see my potential or my extreme conviction of wanting to be more of an activist. in these new relationships (ceci and laura, especially) I have found two great, strong, beautiful friends who not only share my convictions but also are completely normal, unpedistal people. people who i could live with and share organic applesauce. i think that through the realization of their normality i am embracing my own. i am learning that community is about loving people inspite and despite themselves, community is about sharing fears and insecurities as well as hopes and dreams.

here is a new story of broken stereotypes and living in community with those of similar convinction.

a year after

well not only has it been 6 months since i last updated the blog, it has been a year since i was in india. here is the update of how my life is turning out:

i am learning more and more that my heart is for the world. what does this mean? i think that i have become in tune with what is going on in the world not out of obligation but out of compassion. i have an overwelming desire to experience the cultures of the vast world to the point that i have sleepless nights wondering what it is like to see the africa of kunta kinte and land of the geisha and the baba world of India. each book i encounter more and more of the world in which i can only grab in my imagination and not is my grasp.

india seems to be such a dream now that it has been a year since i have been overseas. i have come to see my world in waco as my home. it is so wierd to know that waco is not the place of my education but my home. in this, i have come to the point in my life where i must decide if waco is home for one more year or for several more. is it that i am stuck with the pull of waco or am i too afraid to explore the world in which i dream and yearn daily.

a little vulnerability a la jen. i am scared. i have become acclaimated into the culture of waco that my life is being lead as a blind person in a pillowed circular room. there are no my sharp corners or unexpected turns. i am afraid of the unknown world outside of the 100000+ people of waco to the point that an awesome job is laid out for me to at least apply and i am too much of a chicken to even email my resume to the committee.

what happened to the brave girl of last year, you make ask? she has become part of the wind in waco. i have become comfortable in my relationships, in my ministry, in my career. she is no longer brave but comfortable. what must i do? maybe the answer is to journey outside the comfort of community or maybe it is to live more radically here in my home, waco.

whatever it is. it needs to happen soon before i become a wacoite forever.