Collission zone..

Life is so complex that past and present collide making the future blurry, filled with uncertainty. He was bullied as a kid, even as a grown up, for reasons unknown, maybe he is too gentle for his own good. He does not retaliate, he would have been happy hiding behind me, willing for me to fight his battles. He would have been happy with that, content not following a dream, his dreams would be anchored on mine. I left and it shattered everything, it took him a while to recover, to find his bearings, and realized that he has a life to live. I wondered was he too sheltered, we all were, but behind those closeted existence are darkness of infidelity causing pain a deep wrenching of the heart building distrust and agony. I questioned the reason for that, how can rules be laid down and be disregarded, irreverently neglected to follow a darker life. There is always a cause and effect, I used to say, “read, you will find your answers only through discovery.” Now, I say, “have you talked to Lordy about it?”

On the one hand, he didn’t get as much discipline as the others, he was the baby, the last born. Life was a little better, as a child he would give in tantrums, to fit of anger. I sensed a tendency to hardhandedness. Unlike his gentle brother, he is more head on, less patient. His uncaring ways led to misguided existence — married or were they? because of a child, a relationship borne out of necessity, presumably to correct a wrong. Such an overlap didn’t change anything but rather put them in a quicksand of misery. Frustrated attempts to change put them in deeper pain, something that I don’t have a solution for, but to tell Lordy about it. I reckon maybe you need to pray more, it was never meant to be your battle alone. Lordy is with you just listen to what He is saying.

Whoa, life is indeed so complex. Sometimes I’m not sure why they tell me all this, validation? approval? or they want me to tell Lordy for them, like am the right agent or not . She left her husbad and children to go to a foreign land for a better future for her children. So that they won’t have the kind of life that she had. With nothing but her bravura, she embarked and halfway succeeded. But she fell in love with someone that she shouldn’t and had to marry another, keeping her lover on the side. She thinks she is handling it all pretty cool, what is happiness anyway, she countered. I dared say to her that at this point it is exciting but once the novelty is gone, she should be ready to deal with the guilt, the repercussions of emotional entanglement, the questioning look of her innocent children.

Faith interrupted..

I have been so busy with work these past weeks or has it been months, project after project, I am never really able to dwell on things, questions unanswered burning in my head.  What I managed to do was separate my questions from affecting my faith that would have caused it to erode into an unbelievable pit of darkness.

Being a recipient of unexpected meanness, unexpected in the sense that the person dispensing it should be dispensing something more soulful than that.  Words uttered that is embarassing to be repeated even to vent about. I accepted and with head vowed tried to recall that humility is a value that we learned and try to practice as a good human being, as children of God.  But I will be pretentious if I say that I wasn’t affected, that I wasn’t hurt, so I stayed away glad that I am so preoccupied to be eaten by anger causing me to hate.

It is a gift of grace that I have embraced. A friend was not so lucky, for she was a witness to a failed test. A test of ruined relationships, battered emotions, her faith in God is intact but it will take her a long time to go back and find a church, a community where she can be in fellowship with, a fellowship with open heart. She understood that it is a fact of being human, falling and failing, that it is not for her to judge, it is between the person and God. The difficulty arises when we put someone in a pedestal and decide that being elevated to that level will make them saints and will do no wrong. It is a flawed thought, for why else do we go to such lenghts of proving that a person is saint after death. When they can err no more.

Another new cafe..

There is a new cafe at the ground floor of the building where I work, it is part of chain in San Francisco and other cities, providing lunch to workers and tourists. I can’t say I am thrilled with it, except that it is convenient for people working through lunch. Rather silly but Oakland is cool in the sense that it does not have a mall, save for the coffee shops, drugstores and grocers is free from chains, there are a lot of independent stores, restaurants and bookstores. Oakland, one of the biggest cities in the US is not safe from the assult of Corporate America. I wonder what this will do the Grand Avenue Grill (GAG) and the other restaurants in the neighborhood.

So the aroma of freshly baked bread replaced the stench of human existence. Yeah, that is part of Oakland, a coexistence of hard life, the pain of existence, the result of this trying econmic times and a luxurious wealthy life, a backdrop of the mansions up in the hills. A tableu of reality, a mixture of culture-of backgrounds, and everything else.

Okay, I said enough already. The food is good, cooked fresh all the time, and they deliver for just 2 bucks.