UPDATE:

I was worried that I wouldn't be able to handle this day when it finally came. Today, I will be taking my LSAT at 8am and then flying to Paris at 5pm. By tomorrow night, I will be settling into my new home for the next eight months. All of that to say that I am unsure when I will be able to blog again. Hopefully, I will have some new insight when I do get back. If it takes time, don't lose hope! Good things come to those who wait...

Light Years Away

It's almost like you had it planned.
It's like you smiled and shook my hand and said,
"hey, I'm about to screw you over big time"
What was I supposed to do?
I was stuck inbetween you and a hard place
We won't talk about the hard place

I don't blame you anymore
that's too much pain to store
it left me half dead inside my head
and, boy, looking back I see that i'm not the girl I used to be
when I lost my mind
It saved my life

It's how you wanted it to be
It's like you played a joke on me
I lost a friend in the end
I think I cried for days
Now that seems light years away
I'm never going back to who I was

I don't blame you anymore
that's too much pain to store
It left me half-dead inside my head
Boy, looking back I see: I'm not the girl I used to be
When I lost my mind
You saved my life

I think I cried for days
Now that seems light years away
I'm never going back to who I was

That life seems light years away...


Mozella

Look Mommy, It's an Evangelical!!!


I read this recently and found it to be quite an accurate description of the evangelical faith these days. For those who know me well, you know that my unfavorable opinion of the church is not a new insight. Over the past few years, I have come to question the glamorization of the christian faith. The large projection screens, small orchestras, and stadium seating begins to feel like a show that all have gathered to watch each sunday. We are fed our daily bread, repackaged in a more appealing way because the plain stuff just doesn't cut it anymore, and then we go out into the week filled with the good feelings that boosted our soul as the singers and orchestra reached their crescendo. As lost souls come forward to recommit week after week, I begin to wonder how genuine all this pomp and pageantry truly is. Even in my holiest FCA Presidential days, I would get the feeling there was something missing in the equation. We were livin' for the lord and saving souls for the cross...yet... the words, the actions, and the endless tracks being passed out on city streets never seemed to change a thing. We were filling an empty world with bright caricatures of Jesus and three step guides to salvation.

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"We are distinctively unspiritual people, by and large. Individualistic to a fault in many ways, yet looking for our churches and pastors to provide spiritual experience as a commodity. We criticize Catholic rosaries and visual spiritual aids, yet have a multi-million dollar chain store stuffed with Christian trinkets and merchandise in every mall. We buy and sell spiritual experience shamelessly.

If our Catholic friends were charging $50 to come to a mass at the local stadium, we’d all be shocked, but the major CCM groups make millions from tours and record sales. Even Osteen sells seats to hear his vapid talks. Tetzel was the bad guy in the reformation, but it’s among evangelicals that Paula White, Joel Osteen, Creflo Dollar and Joyce Meyer proliferate and profit from the devotion of the Christian public; all because they promise genuine spiritual experience. I haven’t seen any Catholic teachers openly promising a dollar return on your financial giving lately. Evangelicals have enough such con-artists posing as ministries to fill several television channels. I loathe indulgences, but I’ll take them over the promise to get rich by way of Jesus.

It is among evangelicals that one can write literally endless books promising more, more, more and more spiritual experience. We are Experiencing God, but we still want Our Best Life Now and our Purpose Driven Life courtesy of the Prayer of Jabez. We all know the next 7 easy steps to Being a Better You is in the mail. Christian consumerism is just one witness to the state of our spirituality. There are many others. Ministerial burnout. Pornography addiction. Divorce. Prayerlessness. Church hopping. Sexual promiscuity. Rampant materialism. Pastoral turnover. Addiction to fashion, sports, pets, opinions. Hours spent in front of video game screens, staring at web sites, reading MySpace, talking to our friends on the cell, saying nothing.

And then we’ll go to church on Sunday and hear the minister say the LOST are living empty lives and don’t have the joy of the Lord. It’s a good thing the few lost folks in our churches are too polite not to laugh out loud.

"http://www.internetmonk.com/archive/post-evangelicals-and-the-path-of-catholic-spirituality

Thoughts on Dial-Up

I've been visiting my folks in the mountains of tennessee for the past week. They have internet but it is dial-up, thus quite slow. I forgot my iPod and Audacity to Hope seems a bit too much to read at times, so I am left alone to my thoughts a lot. I try not to let this happen too much, because if I do, I know I will begin to stress about either France or my LSAT. I also might think too much of my friends. This is where the hurt is now. For some reason, the pain of leaving seems far greater than it did two years ago when I boarded a plane for England. My number and depth of relationships has grown enormously and I can't help but be saddened at the thought of leaving all of these wonderful people behind.

There's the love that could have been
The friend who always listened
The one who always laughed
The pondering soul that drove me
together, they make up my past

There are days I wonder if I really will have the courage to make all of my dreams come true. I begin to think of the day when I will look around me and know that I have made it to the place I always dreamt I would be. I wonder what that day will look like.

I have effectively chosen Washington College and am waiting for them to choose me. This will mean that I will leave Texas behind. The thought sobers me greatly, because inside I know that I am only as content as the amount of love that surrounds me. In a way I am thankful that this is a choice I have made by myself; my eyes are the only ones I will have to hold accountable. Yet the truth is that I only walk away from the things I love. Somewhere in my young mind it started to make sense that if I walked away first then I could never be left. It's a pattern that follows me to this day.

People praise my traveling spirit but I tell them there is no other way I can be. I am bound by this restless soul that spurs me forward at the very whisper of ritual or normalcy. I see people content in their bubble and I envy beyond belief. I can only find joy in the small things when I know those things have a time limit, a forseeable end.

It's getting too late and too personal, but i'm breaking and it hurts. If there is one thing that drives my creativity it is the darkness that our souls fall into at times.

"I've got a million words but a single sentence short of a storyboard"
--A Piece I Threw Away

www.myspace.com/dillionchevalier

In the Quiet Places

Matthew 6:1-8

1 “Beware of practicing your righteousness before men to be noticed by them; otherwise you have no reward with your father who is in heaven.
2 “So when you give to the poor, do not sound a trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, so that they may be honored by en. Truly I say to you, they have their reward in full. 3 “But when you give to the poor do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, 4 so that your giving will be in secret; and your Father who sees what is done in secret will reward you. 5 “When you pray, you are not to be like the hypocrites; for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and on the street corners so that they may be seen by men. Truly I say to you, they have their reward in full. 6 “But you, when you pray, go into your inner room, close your door and pray to your Father who is in secret, and your Father who sees what is done in secret will reward you. 7 “And when you are praying, do not use meaningless repetition as the Gentiles do, for they suppose that they will be heard for their many words. 8 “So do not be like them; for your Father knows what you need before you ask him.

Kathy Griffin is being censored for comments she made that were found offensive. She is quoted as saying “A lot of people come up here and thank Jesus for this award. I want you to know that no one had less to do with this award than Jesus."
She went on to make some other comments but I found this one particularly interesting. Our culture is saturated with Christianity. There are those who would go so far as to say that America is a “God’s country”. I don’t follow this line of reasoning. Generally because I believe that God is far bigger than national boundaries. Also, considering the fact that I frequently leave and many times don’t wish to be a part of this country, I find it hard to believe that an omniscient God would not rather choose the coast of Italy as a suitable place to call home.

I mean, seriously.

As I read her words, I was reminded of the scripture mentioned above. “When you pray, go into your inner room, close your door and pray to your Father.” Last weekend I attended church with my aunt. I had promised her that I would attend a service with her at her church before I left. Last weekend was my last in Livingston, so it fell upon that Sunday to the great delight of my Aunt. As I sat in her small evangelical Christian church, I began to wonder why it was that I had waited so long to come here. The people weren’t too bad and the preacher was actually quite nice. Then, 10 minutes into the opening prayer, it hit me (no, not the floor because I feel asleep after ten minutes of praying): I like God in the quiet places. There’s something about these loud hot-air preachers that are going to storm the gates of hell if you will repeat Jesus’ name ten times with them that really get under my skin. When I imagine prayer, I am in a room alone, with the door closed, quiet before the almighty. What is the purpose of prayer? Do we believe that the “prayer of a righteous man availeth much (James 5:16)”? If we do not pray for something, will it not happen? Or is prayer a mode of communication between our soul and its creator? If this is true, should we pray in public? Would you put your phone on speaker when you are talking to the one you love?

So, back to the beginning. I would like to think that if I won an Oscar, or some other note-worthy award, I wouldn’t say a thing. I would stand up there tell everyone that really it was the director that made me look so good and then whisper a quiet thank you to the lord above.

Chapter 8

The Night before the Night

October, 2004

The hot water streams over my face mixing with the sweat and tears that had bathed it earlier. The water is splashing over onto my matted hair but I can’t muster the strength to begin to wash it. I could stand here for hours, letting the scalding rain shower my closed eyes and open mouth. It hurts but I’m not sure what ‘it’ is. The drive to my shower had been one that did not require thought, I had simply known that this is what I needed most of all. I place my head against the cold tile, letting the water fall onto my neck and shoulders.
“Damn it” I scream this word over and over in my head but only a single utterance slips out.
I roll my forehead back and forth against the tile considering what my steps will be when I walk out of this shower. There is a moment when you are the only one privy to a secret. At that moment you realize that if you simply stand still and do nothing, it might remain your secret and yours alone for forever.
I could still feel the ghosts of his touch on my skin- brief flashes of memory that remind me exactly what happened last night. I want to be washed away in the shower’s strong current and forget this day and all that led to it.

You see, the story just doesn’t fit. There’s no quality to the truth that makes it worth telling. I am staring at my computer monitor trying to summon the strength to explain the night before the night and I…can’t. There’s that ugly truth that throws itself out in front of the crowd because its grotesque nature cannot be kept silent…and then there’s real life. This is real life. I would like to think there was a breaking point. A moment of total despair at which point I jumped back into the arms of the one that I loved the most but it wasn’t like that. I wanted life to be like something I could see on a movie screen but all that surrounded me were hollow scripts and vapid characters. In the very pit of my selfishness, I at least knew enough to understand this one truth: that there is no fairytale and if you try to create one then you have to live with it. You have to live with life after the fairy tale. I should have broken down. I should have cried on my knees and begged him to say. Better yet, I should have never said a word at all. I could have lived that perfect lie -life- for years. I would have been happy. I know I would have. Yet the story just doesn’t fit. I still can’t wrap my mind around it. I try and try to find the words to say it all. I try to find the perfect package, to present my life in neat rows typed on a clean white paper, and I come up with nothing. Like my prayers, my words are empty.

I glance at the clock and realize I’m going to be late for the taxi again. Sarah is always late and taxi drivers are notorious for leaving if you aren’t at the pickup point so I grab my bag and run out of my dorm room. My bag is light with the shorts and tank tops I had packed in anticipation for the Spanish weather. England is known for its terrible weather but nothing can prepare you for the all encompassing sadness of the low slung clouds and damp air. I stop suddenly to see Sarah hailing down the taxi on the corner in front of the chapel. It’s strange how best friends surprise you right at the moment you need it most. I run over to the other side of the taxi and jump in the back.
“Passport?”
“Yep. Plane tickets?”
“Yes ma’am”
Our exchange had become a ritual over the passing months as we jetted to different countries in search of new adventure.
“Any men this time?”
“Yeah…well, let’s just kiss…no bringing anyone home. I don’t trust the Spaniards.”
“Werd”
Again, our exchange continues under the curious eye of the taxi driver. We always set out our parameters for men before we leave. This way if either one of us gets too drunk the other knows the guidelines that have already been set up. Sarah has saved me from way too many mistakes and I like to think I’ve saved her from a few.
I am settled into my seat on the train headed to Liverpool Lime Street before I realize I left my computer on, my heart in plain view, and my door wide open.

Black River, Dear Savior, Sweet Whiskey

You're gonna take my bottle, my bible, my mess?
You're gonna take all of my empty and my loneliness?
Gonna take all the sadness inside of me?
Gonna take it all and set me free?

--Amos Lee

That Crazy Clare, She's Planning Again....


A lot has been going on lately. My father was in for a visit. He was supposed to be here for ten days but he had to leave early this morning beause my step-mom fell from the second story of their house in Tennessee. She shattered her ankle and hip and broke her shoulder. For those who do pray, I appreciate your concern.

I was thankful to be with my dad for the few days he was here. My brother came down this weekend so we could all hang out as a big happy family. We sat around on the lazy saturday afternoon and talked about politics and religion. Yeah, my family is like that. We're all philosophers in our own right and very much enjoy hearing the thought processes of one another.

It was also a healing weekend. My father and I have had our ups and downs over the years. Mostly starting with when I was born and he went through a mid-life crisis. He has been stepping up to the plate lately and I've been relying on him more and more. He even said he would take me to visit my dream school in D.C. when I'm visiting him later this month.

My dream school- I had heard of this school before but hadn't researched it fully until lately. Washington College of Law has a program where you spend the first two years in D.C. at the law school there and then spend two years at the University of Paris X-Nanterre. Upon graduation and passage of the bar, you will be certified to practice law in D.C. and the European Union (and possibly in Africa, Asia, and South America). Obviously, to me, the perfect program. But it is another commitment. I'm already looking at leaving and this will mean leaving again but for a much longer time. I've heard it all before- do it while you are young and unmarried. I am heading their advice obviously but I'm hoping that one day I will slow down because in the deepest part of me I do want a family and a sense of home. I've decided to apply Earl Decision (for anyone who doesn't know that means I have a better chance of getting in but, if I do, the decision is binding). I started working on my application's personal statement last night- pretty good if I don't say so myself.

Also, I got my visa and plane ticket, which means all my paperwork is done!

So that's the update. Other than that, I'm doing great. For those who know me- you know I'm happiest when I have my five-year plan ironed out.

Him

The cold truck cab did little to prevent the sharp bite of winter. She had chosen to turn off the heat to conserve gas and, more importantly, to prevent others from noticing her. The initial flood that had filled the tiny chapel was overwhelming. Apple-cheeked youngsters rushed in to greet one another as their parents waved to the neighbors that had been missed since last Sunday. Their happiness was evident on their smiling faces but to her it seemed unbearable. She wanted so very badly to be a part of their charade of normalcy but she knew that if she were to walk through the heavy oak doors, she would surely be spotted as a fake. So she watched. She watched with great intent as the crowd thinned and the last child ran in through the doors, making sure to catch the beginning of Sunday school just in time. She had scanned the parking lot for his car but it was absent. Had he fallen out of favor too? She knew it wasn’t as simple as that and yet… she wished it were. There just wasn’t a way to untangle the two. The night on the beach and her vision of heaven were far too close together. She pressed the key back into the ignition. One day she would walk through those doors but today was not that day.


*I don't know where this story is going...I might edit to incorporate into the original story. I am a believer that real art is not created, but found. I found this story tonight. It's a part of me that needed to be told...not tomorrow but right now.