“I only need to get through the day.”  I say this every day, and so today became a long season. And the “right now” that I can’t stand, also can’t fit into a day.  Hours and minutes can’t explain this today.

Today I cried. I cried a lot.  I cried, and the more I tried to stop, I couldn’t.  And I tried to pray while crying, and wasn’t able to articulate a word.  I was angry and frustrated, and then exhausted of being angry and frustrated. And then I started crying again.  I wasn’t even weeping; I was bawling. It almost felt as it was a tantrum, on why, oh, why can’t things be a little better, just a little?

Today I fell down the stairs, and when I was writing about it, the words that came out changed ‘fell’ into ‘failed.’  Rolling down the stairs wasn’t as painful as the idea of not being able to stop at the bottom of the staircase. And I cried again.  The more I cried, the more I realized that the pain from falling and failing has become too familiar lately. And the scratches and bruises are hard to see from the inside… so I didn’t realized I was as hurt as I was.

I got lost today.  I got carried away while fighting with my thoughts and next thing I knew, I was in the middle of nowhere, not knowing where to go. This is a recurrent feeling in my life lately. I just don’t know how or where or when to take the next step.

Today I tried to read a little, but tears were wetting the pages.  Then I tried with a different book, but even just flipping the pages was painful and exacerbating.  I wanted to find some clarity, but the letters were as blurry and dark as my heart is right now.

So I tried to read a softer bible verse – just one. Maybe one that was easy to digest.  One that wouldn’t require me to hold onto something that is too far away.  I just needed something for the “right now.” Something for today.  And there it was, the one that has come over and over in the past months, from the voice of good friends, in an old bookmark and a couple of other random places. “Be still and know that I am God.”  The words said, “don’t move” as they saw me in pain.

And the irony is that “stillness” is not the word that caught my attention this time but “know.” And as I defragment this season of ‘today’s’, I can only smile and know the one thing I should know.  And maybe hope and dream a little for tomorrow, or the day after. Meanwhile today, I just sit with these thoughts.

Liz Herrera loves to learn, read, have a good cup of coffee and find creative ways to combine her passions: communications, urban ministries, social action and mixed media.  Liz is a journalist and has served alongside the team of CTM Guatemala since 2006 and worked for over 12 years among marginalized populations with churches and non-profit organizations.

This isn’t pretty. I’m not sure there is a happy ending.

Perhaps the picture will speak for itself.

When Andrea and I had visited Banteay Srei, a temple ruin outside of Angkor Wat, three years ago that’s all it was, a ruin out in the country side. We were there alone. Now a massive entry complex and parking lot had been developed and on the day we were there, thousands of others were with us, streaming in with their cameras to capture one more historical ruin.

And there on the ground at the entrance that everyone had to walk through…

What is that? I heard someone ask.

I didn’t have an answer.

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Editor’s note: We follow last week’s word on the power of the poem by a powerful poem from Street Psalms Community member Sam Trujillo. To  read more thoughts on Advent by Sam go here.

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They are bleeding.
They are bleeding and you watch them bleed.
They are bleeding from the wounds of life
Caught between the crossfire of gang warfare
Shot down as a maddened animal in need of relief from itself
And yet you watch them bleed.
Tell me Holy One
Where do the wounded travel for a moment of blessing?
A moment behind the storage shed of life in the midst of the concrete universe they call home?

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They are bruised.
They are bruised and you watch them bruise.
They are bruised from the beatings life hails on their fragile bodies
Caught between the violence of the streets
Crushed bones by the weapons of breath
And yet you watch them bruise.
Tell me oh Holy One
Where do the beaten search for a moment of blessing?
A moment behind the soreness of flesh to find exquisiteness in their face within the walls of a prison they call home?

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They are shamed.
They are shamed and you watch them shamed.
They are shamed from the countless naked moments life rapes their souls
Caught between the language of love entangled with the thrust of lust
Forcibly taken against their will and tormented by a story of lies
And yet you watch them shamed.
Tell me Holy One
Where do the shamed journey for a moment of blessing?
A moment behind the veil of inhumanity where the purity of their soul can be saved while still they remain in this basin of poverty they call home?

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 The following excerpt is taken from The Least of These: Lessons Learned from Kids on the Street by Ron Ruthruff, a Center for Transforming Mission trainer and Street Psalms Community member. The Least of These will be published on October 4 and can be ordered here or here.

When I first started working with kids on the street, I walked through Blood Alley every day. Apparently lots of craziness happened there, and the kids gave it a name to serve as a warning. Blood Alley was located directly behind our drop-in center. Each day, whether I wanted to or not, I visited the alley to empty the garbage and clean the back stairs. On the wall adjacent to the back steps was graffiti in big red letters—Don’t you know your all ready DEAD! (I guess spelling was not the point.)

I always thought this was a tragic declaration. The graffiti served as a prophetic voice that reminded kids of the inevitable outcome of street life. It communicated to all who read it that it was simply too late. It was too late for the kids who shot dope, too late for those who prostituted, too late for all of the kids on the street. The big, bold words hopelessly stated that they were all too far-gone.

That alley and the graffiti remind me of the story of the demon-possessed man in Mark’s Gospel. When I read the story of the demoniac, I think of a young man pushed to the margins of his community. I hear the echo of the red letters — Don’t you know your all ready DEAD!

Mark’s Gospel emphasizes the community’s inability to bind the demon-possessed man. The crowd was not able to subdue the man or control him. The tormented man cut himself in an attempt to control his circumstances, and to release himself from the demonic force within his body. This man had been pushed to the edge of his community, to the margins of a cemetery to be cared for by the dead. Did the crowd believe the man was too far-gone, or “already dead”? If the man was condemned to a cemetery he was out of sight. He was no longer a visual reminder of the community’s inability to fix a hopelessly uncontrollable member of their town. As long as he remained among them, he stood as a physical reminder of the brokenness in their world—brokenness they were powerless to fix.
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Among the bleakest words in scripture are these: “Then everyone deserted him and fled” (Mark 14:50).

Along with the physical wounds suffered by Jesus in his darkest hours, there were inflicted wounds that reached deeper than thorns, nails or spear. His cry “I thirst” surely was not limited to cravings a damp sponge could alleviate. This is not to minimize the impact of physical trauma on the whole human psyche. But added to his afflictions is this trauma: to be deserted, alone in extremis, in the most vulnerable moments of his life!

Dietrich Bonhoeffer begins his book Life Together, a treatise on community, with the startling reminder that Jesus suffered and died bereft of the community he held dear. The crowds turned on him in the end; ok, everyone knows fame is fickle. And from the day of his first public sermon, he had enemies. But his closest friends had shared the intimacy of a long meal just the evening before. The “one whom Jesus loved” had leaned against his breast. Others pledged their undying loyalty. In less than a day they were gone—every single one of them.
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