AgentCyan's Xanga

Wednesday, September 09, 2009

Wed, 09 Sep 2009 02:52:24 GMT

themarginal.wordpress.com

Redirecting You...

Thu, 23 Aug 2007 19:05:09 GMT

Two quotes that have stuck in my head recently:

The first was mentioned in Pastor Jon's sermon this past wknd at OriginsNYC:
"Imaginary evil is romantic and varied; real evil is gloomy, monotonous, barren, boring. Imaginary good is boring; real good is always new, marvellous, intoxicating."
~Simone Weil

The second I saw on rdx913's xanga. Go here. I'd say that I'm caught in the tension between the quote and LegumeLiz's response.

As for summer writings, I've started it at a new place, just so it all stays together. http://agentcyan.blogspot.com/ (Updated - 8/24). And as always, thanks for praying.

Training Week

Wed, 06 Jun 2007 01:22:08 GMT

So I know I promised to send out a prayer letter for my summer. A few notes on that...

1. I'm working on doing a blog for my trip, but everything I write needs to be checked because of security concerns. So things that I post may be delayed up to a week. Apologies.
2. Though some of you know what country I'm going to this summer, please remember that it is highly confidential. As far as any of you know, I'll be in South Asia.
3. A few quick logistical prayer requests (yes, i'm violating policy! heehee):
   ~Training week: people here are incredible...their testimonies blow my mind. Request - that I get enough rest, and that my mind/heart is able to separate the extremely relevant information from the merely interesting.
   ~Travel: long flights coming up; loaded up luggage; several stops. Request - that I make it safe and not completely exhausted.
   ~Housing: it's a "we'll figure it out when you get here" scenario. Request - that we'll figure it out when I get there.

Thanks! I promise, more to come...

A brief break.

Fri, 23 Mar 2007 02:35:20 GMT

Update: Wow. Just wow. Check his blog again.

Too much angsty-ness on my mind so let me just introduce you more fully to one of my favorite celebrities, Mr. Gilbert Arenas.

It doesn't take a sports fan to recognize the humor in Agent Zero's blog.

But to truly understand him, you've got to breakdown his pathology.

More importantly, let's take a look behind the bluster to see the brightness.

Yet - and this is why I like him - he's so real. like me. he's insecure. he psyches himself out (see recent games against Kobe, Suns, Blazers). he's uber-competitive. he doesn't sleep on his bed. he gets happy. he gets sad. I've been explaining this to my friends over the last few weeks, but today, Chuck Klosterman decides to concur in a NY Times piece.

P.S. I also wanted to highlight some really well-written sports journalism. Those articles above are all reminiscent of an amazing David Foster Wallace piece last year on Roger Federer. Comforting to know that good writing exists in all different spheres.

Gilbert's also been featured recently in Time Magazine and the Wall Street Journal.

VisualDNA

Thu, 15 Mar 2007 06:24:15 GMT

thanks to MyssBond.

Read my VisualDNA™ Get your own VisualDNA™

Relief Amidst Suffering

Sat, 10 Feb 2007 20:45:46 GMT

Thursday night - in two parts

The final night of Veritas Forum and the speakers were Gary Haugen (president of International Justice Mission) and John Gershman (director of the Office of Int'l Programs at NYU Wagner School of Public Service). More practitioners than academians, we wanted them to answer the following questions.
1. In a world of immense suffering, what can we do?
2. How do we sustain ourselves when the work gets frustrating?

Even after all the prayers and fasts and lowering of expectations and letting-gos, I was still anxious. Dynamic speakers though they were, who knew what could happen when you put a Christian and an atheist together? And on a cold, winter night in New York, would people actually come out to a Catholic Center to listen to speakers? After a day of running around, I was pretty unsettled, even after they began talking.
Was it good?
Well, people came in and in and the pews ended up pretty full. (Where did all those Asians come from?!) I searched and found two other xanga posts about the night, both by people I don't know - here (although she confuses Haugen for Gershman and vice versa) and here. And I thought it was good for both speakers to look beyond their differences, continually stressing our personal and corporate duty to care for someone outside of ourselves. (The moderator, a co-chair of the Law Students for Human Rights, and I had several conversations in the past week. We both desire for faith communities and liberal activists to realize that we need each other.)

Four quick summary points for the talk:
~Courage - if you've read Gary Haugen's book, this is the central issue, the primary virtue needed to do this work.
"Anything in life that is worth doing will be hard to do."
~Committment - not to a goal of beating the bad guys and not to a theoretical ideology. Committment to and for transforming the lives of those who suffer. Also known as love.
"See the image of God in the person suffering."
~Humility - goes hand-in-hand with sacrifice. Recognize that other people may have a better way of doing things, and that working against suffering shouldn't be about me at all.
"Do not give yourself credit for a good intention to eliminate the suffering, unless you know how to evaluate your actions."
~Humor - the requirement of staying relaxed; the recognition that an all-powerful God would use the all-incompetent me to do His all-good work.
"The first thing that departs with spiritual health is laughter."

----------

While at the "after-party", I got a call from one of the field office directors for IJM. He works in a place we'll call The Matrix, and he wanted to talk to me about my summer internship there.
By talk, I mean that he wanted to shock the realism of this work into me. To make sure that I'm not just another greenhorn kid who will run away crying after being dropped in the middle of a warzone. Unfortunately, that's who I am.
He told me about the crowds and the stench. The trash heaps and the withering heat. The naked children on the street corners. The absence of a rule of law or courts based on rationality. The oppressing poverty. The spirit of darkness that weighs, literally weighs, on the city. And as we talked, he made sure that I couldn't rationalize/spiritualize my way out of this reality, made sure that I was left speechless and sighing.
He's been there nine months. I asked him how he's endured it. He told me two things. One was to be humble, to have an adventurous spirit but to learn from the wisdom of those around me. The second was to laugh at the little things, like a truck that says "Emergency Milk Delivery" on the side.

There it was. Courage, committment, humility, and humor. I told him about the night's forum, and he was impressed. Yep, those are the keys.

LegumeLiz and intervarsity_nyc have made comments to me about how I "choose to confront the uncomfortable." Perhaps, though I've never considered myself to have taken any substantial risks. This night, though, I was scared. Confronted by a situation where my will might not be strong enough, where my desire to do good might be outweighed by my desire for creature comforts. Where I might be too weak.

Rather rattled, I flipped open Isaiah 58 and skimmed it, then decided to go to bed. The next morning, I woke up and went to do my devotion. Strangely enough, Isaiah 58 popped up again. Reading it out loud helped to settle me...a little.
I want to be prepared, I want to be ready, yet I know that arriving in The Matrix is going to kill me. Either that or make me stronger.

Thanks again for praying!

Veritas Soundbites

Wed, 07 Feb 2007 03:03:23 GMT

Thank you to those who were praying today. In gratitude, let me just jot down a bit of the experience.
Tonight's theme: Reconciliation Amidst Violence and Racism
Tonight's speakers:
Emmanuel Katongole - Co-Director of the Center for Reconciliation at Duke Divinity School.
Erwin McManus - author and pastor of Mosaic, a church in Los Angeles.
Yvonne Latty - journalism professor and author of this USA Today op-ed that led to a rush of racist and hateful e-mails.

On to the soundbites...

~Don't just forgive, release. We must move pass the conversation of pain.
~Christianity should speak to brokenness.
~Moving to humanity as a project is much easier than moving to humanity as a community.
~We need to create a dream that cannot be accomplished alone.
~You cannot carry out fundamental change without a cerain amount of madness.
~What is the enemy of racism? Love. Being heroic.
~Q: What can we seek to unify us now that the grief of 9/11 is a distant memory? A: Let 'US' be known as the advocate of the downtrodden.
~The danger to 'US' is from within: we lack communal, civil conversations about real issues. Instead, we try to entertain ourselves to death.
~We don't open our eyes to see what's going on...we don't recognize the connections, the ripple effect of the loss(t).
~History judges outcomes, not actions. We should intervene in certain places, but let's try to prevent the wars.
~The human story is a macrocosm of our own human condition. I can't heal myself, much less the world. That's where Jesus Christ comes in.
~We need to come to terms with our own brokenness. Salvation? Peace? This isn't just our burden. It's bigger than us.
~You can touch a life by showing them a different way.
~Two calls: the ethical one - do not harm. the aesthetic one - dream. vision. strain to live in that vision. live restless lives. but in order to dream, you need to rest, to Sabbath.

And Erwin McManus's closing statement:
~Let's shoot for creating new humanities, for living heroic lives. You will determine what your conversations are about; you will establish the future values of this world. The world moves disproportionately. New York is in a different place in time than Tulsa. Los Angeles is different than Bangkok. New York City needs to lead the cities of the world into a conversation that has moved beyond racism. You have a disproportionate and unfair responsibility. This conversation at another college in another city would be completely different. But God has placed you here.

Now to write my three papers for the night. =(

Veritas Forum 2007

Mon, 05 Feb 2007 04:59:00 GMT

What is the Veritas Forum?

It's a dialogue of hope for our messed-up world.
On Tuesday (2/6) night, it's a conversation of hope between an NYU professor of journalism, a Ugandan pastor, and a California writer...of hope that reconciliation is possible amidst violence and racism.
On Wednesday (2/7) night, it's a conversation of hope between an NYU professor in transitional justice and an advisor to the National Endowment of the Arts...of hope that art can and should play a role in healing people after tragedies.
And on Thursday (2/8) night, it's a conversation of hope between an NYU professor of public service and the head of a Christian human rights organization....of hope that relief will be brought to those who suffer around our world.

But what is the Veritas Forum?

I Kings 18. It's this chance for God to show that hope for our world is useless aside from Him. It's an event that tries to engage NYU students...students who care about our world and who really really want to make a difference and who just don't know how. And they're trying this and they're trying that, and nothing seems to work. And then Veritas comes.
And so we're standing here at this altar. "We" being Christian fellowships across NYU, finally united in one heart and vision. "This altar" being something that we've poured water over countless times: making mistakes, not having rooms, budget issues, weak publicity, etc. Yet God says it doesn't matter.
And so we pray the prayer of Elijah: Let it be known this day that You are God, and that I am your servant, and that I have done all these things at your word. Answer me, O Lord, answer me, that this people may know that you, O Lord, are God, and that you have turned their hearts back.

You know what happens? The fire of the Lord falls and burns up all the offering, all the wood, all the water, everything. And the people see it, and they fall on their faces, and they say...
The Lord. He is God. The Lord, He IS GOD!

-------

That's what Veritas Forum is. and it's been amazing to see miracle after miracle happen in the last few weeks. And it's been amazing to cling to the promises of I Chronicles 7:14-15.
So what can you do?

Prayer: You're all busy. I know this. But so many Christians are praying across NYU for this, and I want you to be part of this prayer. Praise God that we have gotten rooms for the event, even at the last minute. Praise God that our budget needs have been met, even through law school funding! Pray that God would fill the rooms and redeem all of our efforts. That the dialogue between the speakers would be frank and earnest, without alienating non-Christians. That the forums would be welcoming and open for honest reflection on global issues. That He be glorified.

Thanks.

Wednesday, January 31, 2007

Wed, 31 Jan 2007 20:08:23 GMT

Blonde Moment

I just saw Will Smith. no, wait. Will Smith just waved at me. And he flashed his mega-watt smile. (flutter, flutter).

I'm walking down the street with Tasha and Cynthia. We see all these filming trailers, and I'm trying to get Tasha to ask them what movie is being filmed. And then Mr. Smith walks out of his trailer.
Tasha screams, Will turns and smiles and waves and keeps running. And the three of us stop at the corner to gather our wits and call our friends.

After a year and a half, my first celebrity.

Saturday, January 06, 2007

Sat, 06 Jan 2007 00:42:43 GMT

Snapshots of Urbana-St. Louis

"I tried not to write...in a world where anyone who can write does... [Yet] in the end, I wrote because the act of writing causes me to stare more intently at Jesus." ~Don Everts, God in the Flesh.

The Picture: Thousands and thousands of tables and chairs. A darkened football stadium with a bare stage stretching almost the length of the field. Rows of empty exhibit booths and bookshelves. And boxes and boxes of Urbana goody bags, waiting to be handed out.
Behind the picture: There's anticipation in the air. All the staff are walking around expectantly and prayerfully, as if they know something's gonna happen. It's not so much prophesying as it is recognizing the potential. Recognizing that a place normally used for football games and boat shows is going to be holy ground.

The Picture: Time-lapse. 22,000 delegates in various forms of bodily praise - some standing with hands outstretched, some kneeling facedown. Lights flashing from the stage. If you look closely, you can maybe make out the mouths moving in different languages. Oh, and the most important part...their eyes are closed.
Behind the picture: Double-vision for me is hard. Either I see the forest or the trees, not both at the same time. It's so hard for me to comprehend how God can bask in the worship of masses and yet hear the adoring words individually. More impressive is how He speaks to us singly and separately, in just the ways that we need. If you search Xanga for "Urbana 06", there are at least 170 bloggers describing their own experience.

The Picture: Oh, that one? That's the lobby of the America's Center. It's about 30 people standing in a circle. I know it's hard, but if you can look really really closely, that's me in the center of them. I've got my knees locked, trying to keep my balance since everyone else has their hands on me. I'm also trying to stay standing since having 30 people pray for you and your law school fellowship is rather powerful.
Behind the picture: A few hours earlier, I was standing on the floor of the main session debating whether to go with WashU or NYU during the community time. And then God said "Duh!", and then I said "Duh!" A few minutes earlier, the 30 of us had split up into groups of two or three to do a guided prayer for our campus. And now we were gathering together to pray for the different fellowships. All this because a day earlier, we had gotten together for a pizza lunch. And what might have been a normal get-to-know-you thing became a here's-what-God's-telling-me-thing. Things like "to change the campus, we need to be one body" and "hey, we need to be praying together" and "what does God want for this campus, for this student body, in 15 years." More and more, I see God giving me a heart for NYU, and not just the law school too. And God said "duh!"

The Picture: People from ACF, Harambee, One Voice sitting together at Urbana. And somewhere else in the arena as part of the body, Justin and Josh representing Overflow.
Behind the picture: Jason, John, GraceyGoose, Jamal, Howie, Chioma, Dishon, Olivia, thesurface, the class of '07 (like all of 'em), and the list does go on and on. a room on the first floor of Park where, year after year, people gathered for 24/7 prayer. Praise nights, interministry nights, interministry socials, open mikes, Deliverance, Visions, CityLights, etc. It's been a long time comin', but God is faithful to His vision.

The Picture: Me, in a generic place, talking to someone, but their face has been blurred out.
Behind the picture: Most of my conversations were a result of walking around, and out of 22,000 people, God would say, Here, bump into this person, and talk with them. So whether it was over a meal, in the bookstore, in the hallway...thank you for talking with me. And trust me, at no time this week was I trying to be Socratic. I was amazed at how I saw a little more of God in each person I met.

The Picture: I'm sitting in a seminar, or in a session, and my head is nodding because I'm so tired. Except all of a sudden, my eyes go wide. (This is the moment before what the speaker says has sunk in, before the applause rings out around the room, before my head jerks up.)
Behind the picture: Someone told me to dream again. In fact, they all did, in their various ways. Some more explicit, some more subtle. In fact, I was told that it was my job to dream big. I don't have the privilege to think small. I'm not allowed to settle. Dream on. Ephesians 5:14 ~ "Awake, sleeper, and arise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you."

The Picture: Me at home now. I'm snuggled up in bed under my covers reading one of the books I got from the bookstore. Volunteer discount, 70% off baby. I look comfortable.
Behind the picture: I'm anything but comfortable. Some of these words tear at my emotions, my feelings. Some of these words make me soo scared. I've stayed away from saying anything too personal, partly because that's who I am, and partly because it's a little too vague, too fearful to verbalize. The pictures are good memories, but to tell you the truth, Urbana 06 has just begun for me. And once again, I just want to be ready.