I'm Groovin...


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Wednesday, August 26, 2009

I need a lift

I'm trying to help a client find a job who hasn't worked in 20 years. In any circumstance finding a job for him would be hard. But now.... I honestly believe he could find great work. He is very intelligent. I would hire him. But it's the out there that worries me.

A client came in today in such despair. "It's so hard out there." I let him know that we are behind him and he replied with "that's why I come here. I need a lift."

Do you ever look at things and wish they weren't this way. But the deep longing in our hearts must be a sign that a better world is possible? We all deserve something better. Than this.

Looking at the world from a bottom of a well by Mike Doughty
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NSNuqX3EY70

Thursday, August 13, 2009

give em' hope

So after a very emo day yesterday, I settled into my couch at home, snapped the lid off of a B&J Strawberry Cheesecake pint and prepared to watch some movies.

I watched MILK. It turned out to be just the movie. In the last scenes of the movie, Harvey Milk discusses the idea of hope. It brought me back to the work I do. It is so easy to become despaired and to become burdened by the weight of all the brokenness and pain in the world and distress. But you can create hope, you can break down barriers, you can do something. You can be a listening ear. It doesn't have to end with a question of "what do we do?" Because there is nothing to small.

There is an abandoned hotel in North Philadelphia right on Broad and Fairmount. Someone recently went to the roof and wrote 'free da hood.' Free da hood...


I ask this... If there should be an assassination, I would hope that five, ten, one hundred, a thousand would rise. I would like to see every gay lawyer, every gay architect come out - - If a bullet should enter my brain, let that bullet destroy every closet door... And that's all. I ask for the movement to continue. Because it's not about personal gain, not about ego, not about power... it's about the "us's" out there. Not only gays, but the Blacks, the Asians, the disabled, the seniors, the us's. Without hope, the us's give up - I know you cannot live on hope alone, but without it, life is not worth living. So you, and you, and you... You gotta give em' hope... you gotta give em' hope. Harvey Milk (Sean Penn)

Wednesday, August 12, 2009

when you love...

My heart feels so heavy.

I came here to love the city. I think thats how I described it in my first blog entry. To love the city.
But love is much more complicated and painful and wonderful than I could have ever imagined. And sometimes when you really really love, love can break your heart.
We recently had an article about us posted in the newspaper. We have been yearning for some great outreach and it was definietely a success. And now our phone rings off the hook with people trying to connect to our services. People who need a place to stay for them and their children. People who have a place to move into but cannot afford the move in costs. People who can't find jobs and I wonder if we can find them jobs. The need is much greater and more devestating than I could have ever imagined. And I wonder if we are the ones that can help them. And I wonder why things are this way. And I wonder how far love can go.
Maybe I'm too sensitive, I worry too much.
But love, love makes everything more complicated. It makes you do crazy things so outside of your character that you fear you may have lost yourself.
I love this city and I love the people here. So now what, what do I do for the people that can't be so easily helped.
What happens when love isn't enough.

To love means to open ourselves to the negative as well as the positive - to grief, sorrow, and disappointment as well as to joy, fulfillment, and an intensity of consciousness we did not know was possible before. Rollo May

He Ain't Heavy, He's My Brother.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C1KtScrqtbc