I think that life really is beautiful and wonderful and miraculous. I also think that life really is ugly and unfair and painful. The paradox is one that tears at my soul. I am infuriated that humanity is forced to exist somewhere in between blissful perfection and disgusting depravity. The last few months of my life have been full of great darkness. The beauty that should exist alongside my pain seems to have disappeared. I find myself increasingly pessimistic, and increasingly hostile to the idealism that I once held in high esteem.

I witness so much hatred and ignorance and injustice. I watch the masses walk blindly by their begging brothers. I watch the cycle of the city- and the world - as children grow up fatherless and women grow up unprotected and men become their absent fathers. I see it in the faces of the children who so eagerly seek love that so violently evades them. I hear it in the silence. In the bullhorn. I see it in hoarding hands and selfish service. There is no one righteous, and that truth has never been truer than in this moment.

As I sit on my comfortable couch, in my heated room, at a private college, in an affluent city, I see the hypocrisy of my pen ( or keyboard). Close by, I have friends who are sitting on cold, hard, lonely benches. Perry, Terry, Gwen, James, C... These people are the people of the benches. They are the people of the park. And I say they are my friends...but I would not let my real friends live on a bench. in a park. all alone. I would not visit them once a month to throw food and Jesus into their faces. I would sit on those benches with my friends. To mourn. To laugh. To pray. To cry. To heal. And we would move together toward our hope.

I am crushed under the weight of the despair and darkness of the world and my own selfish existence.

And then. I am on the brink of insanity, and light shines through the murky waters. And I am given miracles. I am given the joy of my Savior. I am surrounded by giggling girls whose tiny, precious fingers form braids in my frizzy halo of hair. I am embraced by a homeless man who transcends social and racial and cultural boundaries to spread love and erase inequality. I am given hope by the girls of AG and their voices and encouragement and thoughts.

So, I am convinced that I will continue to live within this infuriating contradiction of pain and pleasure. And I have no answers. But I'm beginning to become accustomed to that feeling. That is all I suppose...I love life. That is really the lesson I have learned. Life is great. But life is also difficult. And that is ok.