What say you, and all your friends, meet all of my friends in the alley tonight?

A week ago today a team of hit men and enforcers from a drug cartel here in Mexico attacked a police armory in Cananea, a city in Sonora about 50 miles from Agua Prieta. After overwhelming (and killing) some of the officers on duty, the group left the armory with an unspecified amount of stolen weaponry and fled the city. On the way out of town they encountered and murdered four more police officers. They were chased, and eventually cornered, at a ranch in Sonora by members of the Mexican police and the Mexican military. All told, 22 people died.

There are many things that I could say about this event. It is clearly a tragic loss of human life. It is quite shocking that it took place in the state of Sonora. Violence like this is, unfortunately, not unheard of and in some cases quite common. States like Sinaloa and cities like Tijuana might as well be in Iraq. But Sonora has never really seen all out war between the drug cartels and the police. It is just one more sign that the long history of drug violence in Mexico is spiraling out of control.

On Friday a rumor was circulating the borderlands that another team of cartel members was headed to the town of Naco, Sonora. Naco is the next town over from Agua Prieta, a little pueblo that doesn't even have a gas station but does have an incredible amount of drug smuggling. The response to that rumor in Agua Prieta was, understandably, widespread panic. Schools were closed, the border was shut down temporarily, and people stayed off the streets well into the night.

All of this has left me feeling deeply unsettled.

In the midst of this violence my thoughts have been primarily selfish. I have thought little of the families that lost loved ones, or of the places in Mexico (and around the world) where violence like this is so common. Instead I have spent a great deal of time dwelling on a feeling that I have been unable to shake, a voice in the back of my head that refuses to go away. Even in Tucson, away from the border and doing more "normal things," I could not take my mind off the killings. And all of this navel gazing has left me chasing tangents through my mind, searching for the thought that might pull all of these strands together. I remembered my pothead high school friends and our ignorance about the true cost of getting stoned. I thought about the war on drugs and the morality of allowing legal drug use. I thought about the violence that profitable smuggling has unleashed. I thought about friends who are addicts, and all of my time spent in Skid Row. And I thought about the cost of securing our borders from drugs, in money and in human life.

I spent almost a week wandering in the cloudiness of my thoughts before dawn finally broke. The thing that has made me so deeply unsettled by these killings is not the loss of human life, although that is clearly tragic. What was so unsettling, and what continues to trouble me, was how quickly and easily my relationship to violence changed when I was confronted with the possibility that I might not be safe. Let me explain.

Since I have been in Agua Prieta, many people have been killed. The police chief, a reporter, a migrant, and an untold number of lesser "thugs," have all fallen victim to the violence that is laced into the fabric of the borderlands. In spite of these murders, I have never felt truly afraid. A man was beaten to death in a remote place that I visit every single week, but I do not hesitate to continue my trips there. I have almost no fear that I might meet the same fate.

This sense of security is a luxury afforded to me by my secret love of violence. I know in my heart of hearts that it will keep me safe. In the past I have justified my sense of security by saying that I am safe because I stay away from trouble. And it's true, I do stay away from trouble. I don't smuggle drugs, or spend time with people who do. But there is another, greater truth that I have protectecd myself from. I am convinced that I will be safe because I believe that violence has the power to protect me. I believe that, as a U.S. citizen, I can cross the border and be protected. I can depend upon the literally thousands of U.S. government employees running around in the desert to keep the "bad people" from me. I can trust their guns.

When I am in the desert, or in Agua Prieta for that matter, I can trust my whiteness to keep violence at bay. I know that killing me is bad for business. Kill a Mexican? Happens all the time. Kill a white kid doing humanitarian work? Doesn't look good for you. Whether it is the Mexicans or the Americans, I know that the threat of violence from the government keeps me safe.

So I complain about all of the Border Patrol agents here, not because I want just anyone to be able to walk into the U.S. anytime they want to, but because I hate the migrant deaths. I complain about all the guns on the border, not because I love the drug smuggling, but because sometimes those guns are used to kill innocent people. But when it comes down to it, I love my own safety, and the violence that protects it, more than I love the lives of other people.

And I trust violence more than I trust God. When it came down to my own safety, I gave up my belief that God is powerful, and I worshipped violence instead. "Thank God," I thought, "for all of those men with guns."

Violence is my golden calf. Is it yours?

Double-Double (Animal Style), Fries, and A Chocolate Shake

I'm in Tucson right now to drop off one of our volunteers at the airport. I'm staying for the weekend because:

A) Saves the Day is playing a show here tomorrow, my first show since last summer's The Format/Anathallo tour. Saves is one of my top ten favorite bands ever. Here's a classic from Through Being Cool, "Shoulder to the Wheel."



and

B) In-N-Out Burger opened a restaurant in Tucson. Apparently the line is over an hour long. I'm going right now, and bringing a book.

Mmmm. It's been far too long.

PG-13 Blogging: Some Mild Sexual Content

"Chasing Cars" by Snow Patrol plays on MTV Mexico in the background of the restaurant.

Friend: Ugh. Why do people like this song?

Me: Sabe. (Spanish for "who knows?")

Friend: It's on all of the time.

Me: Yeah, I just don't get it. It's not even catchy. Just...long and boring.

Friend: I have a theory about this actually, but it's very Freudian.

Me: Freudian?

Friend: Yeah, I developed it after Death Cab's "Transatlanticism" became really popular.

Me: I like that album. And I really like that song.

Friend: Me too, but it's very Freudian.

Me: Ok, explain.

Friend: People like things that are very repetitive and then climax.

Me: Hahahahahahaha

"It sounds prettier in Spanish"

Spanish is really the only language that I've ever tried to learn. I suppose that I learned a little bit of German over the years, and a passable amount of Lugandan considering how many people around me could speak English, but Spanish is the language that has been with me for more than a decade. And I'm finally becoming pretty decent at it.

I am still far from fluent, but I have gotten to the point that I can understand, more or less, more than 90% of what is said to me. More importantly, I can joke around with people and figure out what's supposed to be funny when people are joking around with me.

And I can finally appreciate what a fun and beautiful language that it is. I find myself so intrigued and entertained by the way different words translate, the phrases that I have learned, and the rhythm of speaking in a tongue that flows much more smoothly than the one I grew up with.

Here's a little Spanish lesson for you.

Try this one: "taco de ojo," (ta-ko deh o-ho)which, translated literally, means "eye taco." In the U.S. we would use the expression "eye candy." An "eye taco." I love it.

ex: Who him? Nah, no brains, he's just an eye taco.

Or how about my new favorite verb, "enchilarse?" Enchilarse means, literally, "to chile one's self."

ex: Waiter, please bring me some hot sauce, I'd like to chili myself.

It's a very intimate language as well. For example, if you want to say "my son" in Spanish the exact translation is "mi hijo," (me e-ho) but the version that everyone uses in Agua Prieta is the shortened "mijo" (me-ho). My favorite part is that it can be used for people who are not your children. Lots of people call me mijo, and I call lots of little kids mijo/mija.

ex: Did you hurt yourself mijo?

My favorite linguistic moments in Spanish usually have to do with God, though. Take the word pastor for example. In Spanish, "pastor" (paz-stor) is exactly the same as it is in English(albeit with a different pronunciation), but unlike in English its literal meaning is "shepard." So Pastor Glenn is literally Shepard Glenn. I think that's so cool.

Another really great one is the verb "amor." In English, love gets used for everything (my car, my sister, my vacation), but in Spanish "amor" is only possible between people or with God.

And then there is the concept of Grace. In Spanish, asking God to forgive you means saying "perdoname," literally, pardon me. Think about what we use pardon for in English. And the word for mercy, "misericordia," literally has the root of the word misery in it. Perfect.

High Fructose Corn Syrup Will Never Taste As Sweet to Me Again

So this is a little hat tip to something that I've been obsessing over lately and even discussing with some of my friends (hello Evangelical Environmental Network!). While working down here on the border I have become (even more) fascinated by the interconnectedness of our world. I have spent so much time this year thinking about the ways in which migration, economics, agriculture, the environment, etc. are all linked to one another. And this great article, written by Michael Pollan, talks about just that.

To try and cut down on the length of this post (and therefore increase your likelihood of reading it) I'm going to do this in two parts. I'm pasting the article below for your reading pleasure (it can also be found right here in a more legal setting). A few days from now (give or take) I'm going to be writing a little follow-up piece with some further thoughts and a few more links to make this conversation more interesting.

By MICHAEL POLLAN
Published: April 22, 2007
The New York Times Magazine

A few years ago, an obesity researcher at the University of Washington named Adam Drewnowski ventured into the supermarket to solve a mystery. He wanted to figure out why it is that the most reliable predictor of obesity in America today is a person's wealth. For most of history, after all, the poor have typically suffered from a shortage of calories, not a surfeit. So how is it that today the people with the least amount of money to spend on food are the ones most likely to be overweight?

Drewnowski gave himself a hypothetical dollar to spend, using it to purchase as many calories as he possibly could. He discovered that he could buy the most calories per dollar in the middle aisles of the supermarket, among the towering canyons of processed food and soft drink. (In the typical American supermarket, the fresh foods — dairy, meat, fish and produce — line the perimeter walls, while the imperishable packaged goods dominate the center.) Drewnowski found that a dollar could buy 1,200 calories of cookies or potato chips but only 250 calories of carrots. Looking for something to wash down those chips, he discovered that his dollar bought 875 calories of soda but only 170 calories of orange juice.

As a rule, processed foods are more "energy dense" than fresh foods: they contain less water and fiber but more added fat and sugar, which makes them both less filling and more fattening. These particular calories also happen to be the least healthful ones in the marketplace, which is why we call the foods that contain them "junk." Drewnowski concluded that the rules of the food game in America are organized in such a way that if you are eating on a budget, the most rational economic strategy is to eat badly — and get fat.

This perverse state of affairs is not, as you might think, the inevitable result of the free market. Compared with a bunch of carrots, a package of Twinkies, to take one iconic processed foodlike substance as an example, is a highly complicated, high-tech piece of manufacture, involving no fewer than 39 ingredients, many themselves elaborately manufactured, as well as the packaging and a hefty marketing budget. So how can the supermarket possibly sell a pair of these synthetic cream-filled pseudocakes for less than a bunch of roots?

For the answer, you need look no farther than the farm bill. This resolutely unglamorous and head-hurtingly complicated piece of legislation, which comes around roughly every five years and is about to do so again, sets the rules for the American food system — indeed, to a considerable extent, for the world's food system. Among other things, it determines which crops will be subsidized and which will not, and in the case of the carrot and the Twinkie, the farm bill as currently written offers a lot more support to the cake than to the root. Like most processed foods, the Twinkie is basically a clever arrangement of carbohydrates and fats teased out of corn, soybeans and wheat — three of the five commodity crops that the farm bill supports, to the tune of some $25 billion a year. (Rice and cotton are the others.) For the last several decades — indeed, for about as long as the American waistline has been ballooning — U.S. agricultural policy has been designed in such a way as to promote the overproduction of these five commodities, especially corn and soy.

That's because the current farm bill helps commodity farmers by cutting them a check based on how many bushels they can grow, rather than, say, by supporting prices and limiting production, as farm bills once did. The result? A food system awash in added sugars (derived from corn) and added fats (derived mainly from soy), as well as dirt-cheap meat and milk (derived from both). By comparison, the farm bill does almost nothing to support farmers growing fresh produce. A result of these policy choices is on stark display in your supermarket, where the real price of fruits and vegetables between 1985 and 2000 increased by nearly 40 percent while the real price of soft drinks (a k a liquid corn) declined by 23 percent. The reason the least healthful calories in the supermarket are the cheapest is that those are the ones the farm bill encourages farmers to grow.

A public-health researcher from Mars might legitimately wonder why a nation faced with what its surgeon general has called "an epidemic" of obesity would at the same time be in the business of subsidizing the production of high-fructose corn syrup. But such is the perversity of the farm bill: the nation's agricultural policies operate at cross-purposes with its public-health objectives. And the subsidies are only part of the problem. The farm bill helps determine what sort of food your children will have for lunch in school tomorrow. The school-lunch program began at a time when the public-health problem of America's children was undernourishment, so feeding surplus agricultural commodities to kids seemed like a win-win strategy. Today the problem is overnutrition, but a school lunch lady trying to prepare healthful fresh food is apt to get dinged by U.S.D.A. inspectors for failing to serve enough calories; if she dishes up a lunch that includes chicken nuggets and Tater Tots, however, the inspector smiles and the reimbursements flow. The farm bill essentially treats our children as a human Disposall for all the unhealthful calories that the farm bill has encouraged American farmers to overproduce.

To speak of the farm bill's influence on the American food system does not begin to describe its full impact — on the environment, on global poverty, even on immigration. By making it possible for American farmers to sell their crops abroad for considerably less than it costs to grow them, the farm bill helps determine the price of corn in Mexico and the price of cotton in Nigeria and therefore whether farmers in those places will survive or be forced off the land, to migrate to the cities — or to the United States. The flow of immigrants north from Mexico since Nafta is inextricably linked to the flow of American corn in the opposite direction, a flood of subsidized grain that the Mexican government estimates has thrown two million Mexican farmers and other agricultural workers off the land since the mid-90s. (More recently, the ethanol boom has led to a spike in corn prices that has left that country reeling from soaring tortilla prices; linking its corn economy to ours has been an unalloyed disaster for Mexico's eaters as well as its farmers.) You can't fully comprehend the pressures driving immigration without comprehending what U.S. agricultural policy is doing to rural agriculture in Mexico.

And though we don't ordinarily think of the farm bill in these terms, few pieces of legislation have as profound an impact on the American landscape and environment. Americans may tell themselves they don't have a national land-use policy, that the market by and large decides what happens on private property in America, but that's not exactly true. The smorgasbord of incentives and disincentives built into the farm bill helps decide what happens on nearly half of the private land in America: whether it will be farmed or left wild, whether it will be managed to maximize productivity (and therefore doused with chemicals) or to promote environmental stewardship. The health of the American soil, the purity of its water, the biodiversity and the very look of its landscape owe in no small part to impenetrable titles, programs and formulae buried deep in the farm bill.

Given all this, you would think the farm-bill debate would engage the nation's political passions every five years, but that hasn't been the case. If the quintennial antidrama of the "farm bill debate" holds true to form this year, a handful of farm-state legislators will thrash out the mind-numbing details behind closed doors, with virtually nobody else, either in Congress or in the media, paying much attention. Why? Because most of us assume that, true to its name, the farm bill is about "farming," an increasingly quaint activity that involves no one we know and in which few of us think we have a stake. This leaves our own representatives free to ignore the farm bill, to treat it as a parochial piece of legislation affecting a handful of their Midwestern colleagues. Since we aren't paying attention, they pay no political price for trading, or even selling, their farm-bill votes. The fact that the bill is deeply encrusted with incomprehensible jargon and prehensile programs dating back to the 1930s makes it almost impossible for the average legislator to understand the bill should he or she try to, much less the average citizen. It's doubtful this is an accident.

But there are signs this year will be different. The public-health community has come to recognize it can't hope to address obesity and diabetes without addressing the farm bill. The environmental community recognizes that as long as we have a farm bill that promotes chemical and feedlot agriculture, clean water will remain a pipe dream. The development community has woken up to the fact that global poverty can't be fought without confronting the ways the farm bill depresses world crop prices. They got a boost from a 2004 ruling by the World Trade Organization that U.S. cotton subsidies are illegal; most observers think that challenges to similar subsidies for corn, soy, wheat or rice would also prevail.

And then there are the eaters, people like you and me, increasingly concerned, if not restive, about the quality of the food on offer in America. A grass-roots social movement is gathering around food issues today, and while it is still somewhat inchoate, the manifestations are everywhere: in local efforts to get vending machines out of the schools and to improve school lunch; in local campaigns to fight feedlots and to force food companies to better the lives of animals in agriculture; in the spectacular growth of the market for organic food and the revival of local food systems. In great and growing numbers, people are voting with their forks for a different sort of food system. But as powerful as the food consumer is — it was that consumer, after all, who built a $15 billion organic-food industry and more than doubled the number of farmer's markets in the last few years — voting with our forks can advance reform only so far. It can't, for example, change the fact that the system is rigged to make the most unhealthful calories in the marketplace the only ones the poor can afford. To change that, people will have to vote with their votes as well — which is to say, they will have to wade into the muddy political waters of agricultural policy.

Doing so starts with the recognition that the "farm bill" is a misnomer; in truth, it is a food bill and so needs to be rewritten with the interests of eaters placed first. Yes, there are eaters who think it in their interest that food just be as cheap as possible, no matter how poor the quality. But there are many more who recognize the real cost of artificially cheap food — to their health, to the land, to the animals, to the public purse. At a minimum, these eaters want a bill that aligns agricultural policy with our public-health and environmental values, one with incentives to produce food cleanly, sustainably and humanely. Eaters want a bill that makes the most healthful calories in the supermarket competitive with the least healthful ones. Eaters want a bill that feeds schoolchildren fresh food from local farms rather than processed surplus commodities from far away. Enlightened eaters also recognize their dependence on farmers, which is why they would support a bill that guarantees the people who raise our food not subsidies but fair prices. Why? Because they prefer to live in a country that can still produce its own food and doesn't hurt the world's farmers by dumping its surplus crops on their markets.

The devil is in the details, no doubt. Simply eliminating support for farmers won't solve these problems; overproduction has afflicted agriculture since long before modern subsidies. It will take some imaginative policy making to figure out how to encourage farmers to focus on taking care of the land rather than all-out production, on growing real food for eaters rather than industrial raw materials for food processors and on rebuilding local food economies, which the current farm bill hobbles. But the guiding principle behind an eater's farm bill could not be more straightforward: it's one that changes the rules of the game so as to promote the quality of our food (and farming) over and above its quantity.

Such changes are radical only by the standards of past farm bills, which have faithfully reflected the priorities of the agribusiness interests that wrote them. One of these years, the eaters of America are going to demand a place at the table, and we will have the political debate over food policy we need and deserve. This could prove to be that year: the year when the farm bill became a food bill, and the eaters at last had their say.


Michael Pollan, a contributing writer, is the Knight professor of journalism at the University of California, Berkeley. His most recent book is "The Omnivore's Dilemma."

(In the photo: Michael Pollan in all his glory)

Despierta Mama, Despierta

It's Mother's Day here in Mexico. Quite a celebration, let me tell you. Last night the jovenes group from the church (jovenes being high school to twentysomethings) set out to do a little late night serenading in the streets of Agua Prieta. Armed with two busted up guitars, some hand written lyrics sheets, a list of Mexican Mamas, and a few flashlights, three cars set out to wake up all the women of the church with off key singing and the promise of group hugs. 3:30 in the morning later I finally made it to bed, surprised by how quickly I have adjusted to a post college life (well before 2:00 a.m., my former bedtime, I was way past still wanting to be awake). I managed to confuse some of my Mexican (and American) friends yet again last night by being both very detached socially and also willing to sing quite loudly. A sure sign that it's time for a nap.

I have been really fortunate this year to take part in a whole mess of Mexican customs that I didn't understand or know anything about prior to arriving at the border. A lot of people have been very gracious by opening up their homes to me and letting me share a small part of their lives with them. This was one of those times.

I thought about calling my own mother to wake her up for some singing, but in the end decided that muffled and incomprehensible noises at two in the morning might not be the most compelling way to tell her how much I appreciate her. But there's always next year.

From my gmail inbox...

A link to this video:



And a suggestion:

"Now think in terms of Jesus"

One of my favorite short films set to music (yes, I made that genre up myself) from one of my favorite orchestra/post-rock/post-genres/unbelievable bands.

Glosoli by Sigur Ros. Thanks Jo.

New York City for the win.

From the Times:

Recalling a movement that challenged United States policy in Central America in the 1980s, several religious congregations in New York and other cities will announce a campaign Wednesday to provide sanctuary to illegal immigrants who face deportation.

As of Tuesday, the organizers of what is being called the New Sanctuary Movement said that five churches in New York City had already offered assistance to two families — one from China and one from Haiti — and would provide them with shelter if the federal government moved to enforce the deportation orders filed against them.

“We’re launching now because we’re fed up with detentions, deportations and raids,” said the Rev. Dr. Donna Schaper, the senior minister of Judson Memorial Church in Greenwich Village. “We felt it was not morally possible to remain silent.”

Death season.

Yesterday I was digging around my comptuer for pictures of the Migrant Resource Center when I found this map. It's a map of migrant deaths from the year 2003. Sorry that the graphic is so small. If you click on the map you should be able to see a full size image.

Sometimes I worry that my posts here are too negative (edit: especially recently), or that there are too many negative posts and not enough of the positive. There's so much hope down here, but it's a lot harder to share over the internet.

That being said, we're now entering the "death season" (hence the title of the post). Heat, more than anything else down here, kills. It was a colder than normal winter, I'm praying that the summer stays cool as well.

Police Brutality Is Like Soooo 1990's.

Video from the May 1st migrant march in Los Angeles. When will the LAPD ever learn that there are always cameras in the City of Angels?



I guess it's a good thing that Rage Against the Machine are back.

This post is for Rachel.

The Gospel, as brought to you by the New York Times.

(You might need to sign up for a free membership to view the link)

The Quarter Life: Romantic Relationships Rd. 2

My great friend Mike wrote a really amazing piece for the last Quarter Life. Check it out here.

After writing my last installment of The Quarter Life I got a comment from my friend Lexie asking me to answer some questions she had about that post. Here are a few of my thoughts. Anything for a friend, Lex.

Very conservative philosophy Aaron!! This reminds me of a guy i dated in high school who broke up with me by saying "I can live without you." it made me so mad. Anyhoo, what do you think of dating just to learn more about yourself/others? Like the Townsend/McCloud philosophy? Or the idea of focusing on dating itself/trying to date a lot as a particular season, much like seasons of intentionally not dating?

I think that experience, the experience of ourselves in a relationship, and the experience of an intimate encounter with another person, is probably the strongest argument out there for why dating is a fantastic idea. I have learned a great deal about myself from dating. I have also learned a tremendous amount about women/men/God/life/love/etc. from dating, much more than I could ever possibly relate to you here. And learning for learning's sake, as any liberal arts grad will tell you, is a very good thing. Unfortunately, most of what I learned from some of those relationships was learned the hard way. And just because I learned something does not mean that those relationships were a good idea to begin with, or functional by any stretch of the imagination. Calling some of them relationships, in all honesty, might be too kind. Was some of that hardship and hurt necessary? Possibly. Immaturity, "life issues," ideas about what dating should be, etc., all played their part in making some of my past relationships memorable for all the wrong reasons. But poor choices about when and who I should date did not make things any better.

So "learning about yourself" is great, but it can be a messy and dangerous affair. Even more so if that is your primary, or only purpose, in dating that specific person. Going into a relationship (or even a date) thinking "I like them-ish," while not a sure recipe for disaster, does raise some ethical questions. Starting to date someone without a clear sense of why you are doing it or what you want out of it opens yourself up to a host of complications, but it also leaves you very much in danger of hurting the other person. Do they share your vision of dating? If not, your "learning about yourself" could be their "getting rejected by someone I really, really liked." Like I said in my last post, I don't believe that we date because we desire it, but because we must. Ideally the two coincide.

Dating in the right context is clearly very good. To put this in a somewhat (ok, very) crude manner, marriage is not a product that we should buy without shopping around a little bit first. So in that sense, I'm all for dating. I'm just not all for dating every person (or even most people) that come your way. In high school there were a few girls that I should have asked out on a date but didn't because I was afraid of rejection. Clearly that was not a healthy way to date (or, more specifically, not to date). I also dated a girl in high school that I barely knew because she came on to me very strongly (i.e. I knew that rejection wasn't likely) and that turned out, not surprisingly, very poorly. In the first example I needed more initiative, in the second, more wisdom and self-control.

I personally don't believe that a "season of dating" is a very good idea for many reasons, but for a few especially compelling ones in particular. Relationships, ideally, are special. We value our family (in many cases) more highly than our friends, and our friends more highly than our acquaintances. This formula (there's that word again) becomes more complicated when we insert Christ into our lives, but I won't go into that here. The point is that most people feel that different types of relationships are, well, different, and that some of them are more special than others. Dating should be a special act reserved for people we really care about.

The most serious problem with a season of dating, in my opinion, is the potential for that season to turn into a long-term (or even lifetime) commitment. How many people do you know who started seeing someone casually ("just to see"/hooking up at parties/season of dating/we're just friends) and just never stopped? This scenario doesn't always end badly, I can think of many happy couples who started off this way. But is it something to which we should aspire? What other major life choices do we take "just try it out" or "we'll see what happens" attitudes with? Is that how you chose a college? Plan to buy a house? This might make me conservative, but I think that dating is something to be respected and, in some sense, feared. In my experience it is much easier to never date someone at all than to stop dating them once the process has been started. And once you start dating, going back to being friends is always a difficult process. In many cases it simply doesn't work. Since most people that you will ever meet are going to be friends instead of dates, why not preserve those friendships rather than explore dating just because it's fun?

I also think that a "season of dating" sort of misses the point of a "season of not dating." At various times I have resisted the urge to enter into potentially great dating situations because of time constraints/outside pressures/personal issues/need to grow with God/whatever. But that should be the exception, not the rule. The default for any single Christian should be "available for dating," unless there is other work in your life that needs to be done. For many of us, there is. So a season of not dating is a way to recognize a unique situation and make an intentional choice about it. A season of dating, to me, seems like a license to do things that you wouldn't do otherwise. "I don't really like him that much, but I'm trying to date a lot right now." See my point? What prompts a season of dating? Why doesn't that prompt being open to dating in general, as long as the person is right?

When I think back on just my time here in Agua Prieta, let alone college, there are a number of women that I probably could have started dating at one time or another. I do not believe that any of those relationships would have been a very good choice. So my dating here has been more than conservative, it has been non-existent. But I believe it has also been the most healthy and faithful choice that I could have made. I haven't done it perfectly, but it could have been a lot worse.

I have some more thoughts that I could but I think I'll leave it at that. I'd love to hear what you (or any of you) have to say about this.

Everything's bigger in Texas

What a charmed life I live.






The view from my balcony, room 529 at The Crescent Hotel in Dallas.






My feet getting ready for my "mani and pedi." Yeah, seriously.







What shines more brightly, the Rolls' logo or my freshly manicured nail? The car was parked right outside the hotel- across from an Enzo and next to a pair of Bentleys.







Jimmy, Nate (the groom), and Garrett channeling their inner CEOs. Alternate caption: Go on brush your shoulders off. First runner-up: I'm not a businessman, I'm a business, man.












Milli (the bride) gets henna applied on her hand at the Mehndi party.







Junia and I share a moment at the airport.

And it came to me that every plan is a little prayer to father time.

The world in which we live.

The State Department issued a travel warning for northern Mexico. Drug related violence has been shockingly high this year in many cities. AP, thanks be to God, still seems relatively safe.

The Border Patrol agent who shot and killed Francisco Dominguez Rivera, 22, has finally been charged with murder. Nicholas Corbett, 39, will stand trial on four counts related to the shooting. It's tragic that both of these families are losing their sons.

Bodies were found this week near Douglas/Agua Prieta on both sides of the international border. A body was found about thirty feet away from one of our water tanks on the Mexican side, and another was found at an undisclosed location in the U.S.

Update: The body of a journalist from Agua Prieta who has been missing for several weeks was found near Janos in the state of Chihuahua. Early reports are saying that he was tortured.

I'm not sure about using this as a theology, but right now I'm thinking that the greatest gift Jesus has ever given us is the gift of Hope.

What is it that you do? Version 2.0

This just in from the Migrant Resource Center: January-March 2007

Total number of people served: 2,315

Men served: 1857 (80.2%)

Women served: 370 (16.0%)

Children served: 88 (3.8%)

Bottles of water distributed: 1,792

Food distributed: 1,739

Persons who received orientation: 1,242

Persons who received first aid: 114

Socks distributed: 371

Shoes distributed: 80

Clothing distributed: 371

This might be the only post in the blogworld today that isn't about Don Imus.

Sorry for the prolonged absence, I have been a busy little bee this week spending all of my time hosting a great group of students from Seattle, WA.

Here's a little update on my life:

On Tuesday Meghan and I got to spend the day with a group of friends from Tucson and Phoenix (the Presbyterian Pope, some people from No More Deaths, the Catholic Worker House, John Fife) camping, eating delicious food, and running some class three rapids on inflatable kayaks. An amazing time, to say the least.

I love to be out in nature, and I love it even more when it gives me a chance to connect with such amazing people. I thought of the New Zealand crew and Galatians. "For freedom Christ has set us free."

Tomorrow we're having a bi-national border fiesta over in Naco, Sonora/Naco, Arizona. We're going to set up a stage that sits on both sides of the fence, have a potluck, and play volleyball using the international boundary as a net. Promises to be a great time.

In the afternoon I'll be heading up to Tucson to catch my flight out to Dallas. I am REALLY looking forward to next week and to Nate and Milli's wedding (and it's not just because her parents are putting us up in this hotel). Although now that I mention it, apparently the hotel has a really sweet pool on the roof. Meghan has a tendency to make obscene hand gestures when I gloat about it. Haha.

I'll also be meeting my great friend Jo's baby Junia for the first time (exciting!), and getting my first chance to reflect on my time down in Mexico in an environment outside of the borderlands (or Chiapas).

To be honest, I'm a little nervous about how I'll do with the culture shock. It's always a tough transition from one place to the next, one language to the next, and one economic reality to the next. I'm praying that I can adjust "well" and enjoy myself.

Here are a few things that caught my interest on the old www:

Brianne's post for the most recent Quarter Life.

Zach links to a great site called Kiva, an interactive online bank that lets you lend money to start small businesses in the Two-Thirds World and then stay in touch with the person who borrowed the money. I need to look for a loan that I can afford! Anyone want to split one?

Ariah writes a post about biking (something I have come to love) and links to this incredible invention: a bicycle powered washing machine. Brilliant. I want one.

I don't know how much blogging I'll be doing next week, but I expect to put up at least a few posts for you folks that I'm working on right now.

And by the way, He is risen indeed.

The Quarter Life: Romantic Relationships

It's the moment that you've all been waiting for, round two of The Quarter Life. My first Quarter Life, a post on friendship and community, can be found right here. Bryce's first Quarter Life post can be found here, and his new post, like all of his other fine writing, can be found over at Six Hours On Sunday.

If you're new to this blog since we started The Quarter Life I suggest checking out the old posts first to see what it is that we're doing up in here. I'm also well aware that some other folks are probably going to be jumping in on this, so if you are over the age of twenty (and under the age of thirty), and feel like writing a post for this, let me know and I will link it up here.

One final note. I have written this post from my own perspective, i.e., the perspective of a man who engages in romantic relationships exclusively with women. This is not to exclude other types of relationships, but rather to avoid speaking about things which I have not experienced for myself. Just so you know.



When I think about "romantic" relationships and the period of life that I am in right now, my thoughts immediately separate into two distinct categories. In the first category are memories of past relationships, my current thoughts about women, love, and associated nonsense, and finally, my desires and prayers for my relationships in the future.

The second category, which I must confess is substantially more active than the first at this present moment, is filled with my thoughts about, memories of, and great hopes for my friends' relationships, their better halves, and in some cases, their future spouses.

As I am prone to do, I find that I have processed the entirety of romantic love down into two neat packages: my own, and everybody else's.

I could write a monster of a blog post if I chose to talk about both of these things, so instead I think I'll just stick with myself. It's not that I don't love my friends, it's just that I'm such a great topic choice. I jest. I'm also not going to say very much about God in this post as it would stretch an already long post to the point of breaking. Instead I will say that my thoughts here are informed so deeply by my faith that to dwell on them would be like pointing out the sun when looking at the sky. And I'll leave it at that.

Ok, it's confession time. If I'm going to talk about relationships, I have to get this one out of the way: I used to have this sort of formula thing for dating. That sounds pretty sick, I know. I used it in order to figure out who I should date, and when I should date them. It's an odd thing to have to admit to. To be honest, if someone were trying to get me interested in dating their friend, finding out that said friend had a "dating formula" would just about guarantee that the two of us would never see the inside of a movie theater alone. Ah hypocrisy.

But I basically used that formula to guide my romantic life for years, and to some extent I still do. I have acquired the good sense to stop thinking about it as a formula, but much of the philosophy from those days does in fact remain. In my defense, I will say that both the formula and the philosophy were either stolen directly from my sister, or developed in the context of her own reflections about her dating experiences. And now she's happily married with a really cool dog, so it can't be all bad, right?

So what was the formula? Well before I get into that let me talk a little bit about the philosophy behind the formula. My general sense when I first started using the formula was that dating, as most of us practiced it, was a bad thing. Bad in the sense that that most of my friends and I just sort of stumbled into dating with the vague notion that it felt good and everyone else was doing it.

I did have the good sense, even at that tender age, to realize that not dating was sort of a bad idea as well. Josh Harris never convinced me that "kissing dating goodbye" was something to which I should aspire. The transition from being single to a lifetime of marriage, no matter how much some Christians (*cough Boundless webzine cough*) like to talk about "courtship," seems like it should have at least a few intermediary steps. And some of those steps should include dinner and a movie with someone you aren't committed to sharing a bed with for the rest of your earthly days.

So my formula for dating was born from a sense that dating is a great thing when practiced with extreme restraint. And the formula helped me to figure out when I should enter into the wonderful mystery that is a relationship, and when it'd be best if I just stayed clear of it and, sigh, her, altogether.

Here's the formula: If I began to like a woman, that is to say, favored her above any of the other women in my acquaintance, the first step I would take was to hurry up and wait. Doing nothing was a key strategy in my dating formula. Why nothing? Well, nothing gives you a lot of time for the deer-in-the-headlights attraction to go away and a little bit of clear thinking to return to the situation. That incredibly smart/attractive/fun girl in my Women's Studies class? Also a devout atheist. Hmmm, guess it's a good thing I didn't ask her to dinner. To be quite honest, doing nothing is what I have done for most of my life. I have spent years doing nothing with one girl or another. I'm great at doing nothing.

And that's basically the way that the formula works. It's nothing if not simple. If you notice yourself liking a girl, the most important thing that you can possibly do is to say nothing to her and never do anything about it. Nothing is the backbone of the whole system.

Ok, you got me. The one problem with my formula is that if you always do nothing then there's a pretty good chance that you will never date anyone. Ever. That's not a formula, that's a religious order. It's a fair criticism. This is where the exception clause comes in. You always do nothing until someone comes along who is so compelling that you absolutely must must make an exception for them. So you break the cardinal commandment of doing nothing and you actually say something to her. You might even ask her name. Kidding.

At this stage in life there are always good reasons why, at any given time, I probably shouldn't be dating. And there are always pretty compelling reasons why I shouldn't be dating most of the women that I might be interested in. But sometimes you meet someone so great that none of that matters. So dating, in my opinion, should be reserved for the times when that woman is so incredible that not getting into a relationship with her would be a folly of the highest order.

And this is where I can start to get myself into trouble. The thing is, I know A LOT of incredible women. A multitude. A plethora. A surplus even. I know more awesome women than I can be friends with, let alone date. But clearly I am not trying very hard given that I am currently seeing none of them. Which is an observation that actually takes us into a different philosophy I have on relationships. The "table" philosophy, as I like to call it.

The four legs of any successful relationship (hence the table) are spiritual, intellectual, relational, and physical. I think that's pretty self-explanatory. For a relationship to work, two people need to be compatible in those four ways. And as most of us know, that isn't exactly easy to achieve. So the question is not "Is this girl amazing?" but rather "Is this girl amazing for me?" Because of this the question "Are you dating anyone right now?" always struck me as mostly harmless, but the ensuing "Would you like to be?" always rubbed me the wrong way. Dating, I have always believed, is something that you embark upon not because you would like to at any given time, but because you encounter someone so incredible that you have no other choice but to share at least some part of your life with them.

And so that's where I'm at. I've stopped using the formula, but I'm still using the philosophy. I still look at dating with quite a bit of hesitancy, and at marriage with a sense that "I really want this- at some point in the future." And I still weigh my interest in women (one woman at a time, naturally) against whether or not dating one of them is the only sensible thing I could possibly do. Not very romantic, I know. But I hope that it's fair to me and fair to potential partners, and I pray that it's faithful. And one day in the future I believe that it will lead me to someone to hike with, watch BOTH versions of "Pride and Prejudice" with, to argue with, and to play with. Most importantly, I pray that it will bring me into the steady presence of someone who will travel with me on a path that will bring both of us closer to the people that God would have us be.

That is just about as close to living happily ever after as I would care to have it.

I've got my hands up high, my feet down low...

Time lapse of the Migrant Resource Center, a story captured in moments.

Last Night- While trying to pour himself a cup of coffee a young man accidentally spilled the not-quite-hot-yet liquid all over his hand, where it dripped off to form a pool on the plastic table. I was heating up some burritos for his 25 companions just steps away. Seeing the coffee streaming off the table and onto the floor I began to laugh.

Turning to me the man said, in perfect English, "Do you think that's funny?"
"Yes," I replied, my laughter having sprung forth not from his misfortune, but from a deep well of appreciation for a coffee machine that defies logic in its dispensation of the aforementioned liquid.
"Well I don't think that's funny," he cut back, the tension rising in his voice.
"Lo siento, I'm sorry," I said, in the best accent I could muster. "Friends?"

My plea for peace went unanswered. Rebuffed. Setting down the cup, he turned his back and walked out the door into the April night.

Last Week- I arrived at the Center totally spent, bankrupt in every conceivable way. It soon became apparent that I wasn't going to be much good for conversation, less so in Spanish. Leaving my friends sitting at the desk I headed to the front door, setting up a post to await the "customers" that would undoubtedly pass by. My fatigue defeated my attempts at reading, and I soon found myself "waiting" under a blanket, flat on my back. From there I migrated over to a cot, a little metal bed that's tucked away in the space that used to house Viagra and Cialis back when the Center was a pharmacy for snowbirds in search of a deal. Three hours later I woke up. A more honest telling of the story would be that I was awoken. I had slept through the coffee, the burritos, the jokes, and all of the night's migrants.

Two weeks ago- My friend James and I sat behind the desk, fighting off the sleep that wooed us back towards pillows and sheets. Public policy, migration, education, and old times weighed heavily on our minds and spilled freely from our lips. Migrants passed by the open doors to the Center. I let them go, knowing only too well how few resources we had to give them. Sometimes it's better to save the burritos for the person hungry enough to come searching for them.

Three weeks ago- I was sitting at my desk, chatting up (I was hoping) the leader of a group of high school kids. Five migrants had come in about thirty minutes before, a group of cousins traveling together, all under the age of 17. All of a sudden I realized that both the visiting students and the migrants were standing in a big circle in the space by the door. Unexpectedly, the entire group burst into song. One by one the students stepped forward into the circle, each one in their turn taking up the mantle to cut the proverbial rug. An impromptu dance party. At first it was clear that the migrants had no idea what was going on, and even less idea of what they should do. But the mood was infectious. They started dancing. I started dancing. Everyone was singing. Before you knew it there were two lines and we had broken into a soul train. And just then it dawned on me: this is why I have come to the border. This is what the kingdom of God looks like. No border. No fence. No desert. Just some teenage kids and a dance party. And who doesn't love that?

"I'm from Rhodesia mate"

The economy of Mugabe's Zimbabwe has entered what one long term observer is calling its "death throes."

What does that mean exactly?

Two figures that stand out:

80% unemployment
1,700% inflation

Sadly, Zimbabwe is one of the most well educated countries in Africa.

Those two figures alone are shocking, but this is the clincher:

In a continent of scandalously low life expectancies, Zimbabwe now has the lowest.

37 years old for men.
34 years old for women. (women are more likely to be infected with HIV)

That's the bad news. What are we doing to change it?

In the photo (Reuters): A woman holds up a U.S. ten dollar bill, and the current equivalent in Zimbabwe dollars.

I like both this and TV On the Radio...

does that mean that I'm a David Bowie fan now?