κοινωνία

Christmas break was a different kind of animal this year. I alternated between being so busy that I forgot to eat (if you know me, you know how weird that is) and reading Harry Potter for hours on end in odd corners of my house (because, obviously, books are just more enjoyable when read upside-down on the staircase landing).

I also learned a lot. I learned about the Church and the Mayans and Hogwarts, thanks to God’s creativity in making different kinds of people and people’s creativity in writing different kinds of books. But mostly, I learned about myself. At the end of break, I wrote down 7 “life facts” I had either forgotten or never realized before. Here’s #3:

“The closer I get to someone, the messier the relationship becomes. But it also gets better.”

I think this homely but heartfelt sentence can be expanded on a grand scale. Getting close to anything means giving it permission to hurt you. I feel the ache of loss every time I volunteer at the refugee shelter downtown. For a few hours, I talk with, eat with, play with, and sometimes nearly cry with a bundle of precious souls. Then, they climb into a van which takes them to a bus which, eventually, takes them a thousand miles away. Here is what I wrote one afternoon after coming back from the shelter:

“I can still see Erica and Andrés’ faces pressed against the thickly-screened window. They are smiling and waving. Tomorrow, they will be in another state, and they will forget the girl who made beds, swept, watched ‘Finding Nemo’, and danced in front of the security cameras with them. Now I have their names with their faces and personalities still fresh and attached. But the more tender, living memories, the emotions and mannerisms, will slowly be taken from me. Only names will stay behind, like fossils imprinted on rock: concepts defined by empty space, feeding on absence. It does not feel beautiful to me right now, the way we touch each other’s lives. So much of me is lost with each person I encounter.”

If I could go back to time and talk to the Aubrey who wrote that paragraph, I would tell her that it’s good she felt something when Erica and Andrés left because it meant she cared about them. I would also tell her that the presence of pain does not mean the absence of beauty. Closeness means opening your heart, which means hurt, but also means fulfillment.

Maybe I should put it this way…

One item tops my virtual lists of character flaws, discouragements, joy-killers, lifelong struggles, etc. This slithering sin has tyrannized me and poisoned life’s sweetest moments. Its name is selfishness.

I have long agreed with G. K. Chesterton – “how much larger your life would be if your self could become smaller in it” – but I am also very bad at making myself small. Thus, I can spoil a lovely day by snapping at a family member who interrupts my study time. I can suck all the healing out of words spoken to a struggling friend by contemplating how gentle and sympathetic I must look. I can and do repent of these failures, but I also repeat them. Again and again and again.

Today, it dawned on me. I finally realized the full impact of a truth my parents have taught me since I was little: put off and put on. It’s not enough to put off selfishness; more selfishness will rush in to fill the void. I need to also put on love.

And what is love? Most would agree that love has to be more than a feeling if it is to last for any length of time. But love must also be more than an action – I know because I have “served” my brothers on many occasions (such as by picking up their LEGO bricks which, only moments before, impaled my bare foot) without expending so much as one-sixteenth of a milliliter of goodwill.

I do not dare to pretend that I fully grasp what love is. I’m sure there are as many sides to it as there are thoughts in Dumbledore’s pensieve. But as I mull over passages like 1^st Corinthians 13 and 1^st John 1-5, I become more and more convinced that at least in part, love is identifying with someone else to the extent that their good becomes my good. That’s why love is patient: if controlling my tongue is the difference between blessing and wounding my friend, then I am happy to do it. Love isn’t jealous: if spending time with someone else helps her to grow, I’ll gladly relinquish my claim on her schedule.

I believe that communion – κοινωνία, sharing, fellowship – is central to love. Jesus didn’t just write us a certification for cancellation of sins; He took on our decaying flesh, shared in our sufferings, experienced our temptations, and became sin for us (2 Cor. 5:21). Jesus’ method of redemption was a sharing of identity - His righteousness for ours, ours for His. And His prayer for the believers He left behind was a plea for unity: “that they may all be one; even as You, Father, are in Me, and I in You, that they also may be in Us” (John 17:21). This communion is something Jesus’ first followers preserved: the church devoted itself to fellowship (Acts 2:42), and Paul shared his own soul with his beloved Thessalonians (1 Thess. 2:8).

Now I press a few buttons in my mental elevator and descend from the abstract to the personal level.

It’s comfortable to hold people at arm’s length, because they can’t hurt me if I don’t need them. It’s nicer to share articles about refugees on Facebook than to spend three hours cleaning up a play room that fifty-something children have passed through. I feel safer when I spill my thoughts in a private journal than when I let my acquaintances see that I am weak and flawed. So I do not commune, I do not share my soul.

And then what?

“The modern man does not immerse himself in anything he does,” wrote Octavio Paz. “Always, a part of him remains intact and alert…The solitude that this engenders…is a total condemnation, a mirror of a world without escape.”

What we might call being reserved or independent is often a hyper-individualism that shuts us up inside of ourselves. When I protect myself instead of giving myself away, I am locked into a room of mirrors. I cannot see what is true, beautiful, good, and eternal; I only see my own reflection staring angrily from every nook and cranny of this world without escape, reminding me of all that I fail to be. I am condemned to confinement within my own mind.

Life is meant to be shared. Specifically, it is meant to be shared through Christ. When we come to people through the One who became like us to save us, we don’t have to fight for self-preservation or pleasure. Christ has already given Himself unreservedly to us. And in His presence we find fullness of joy (Psalm 16:11).

This is why beauty and pain coexist when souls collide. This is why relationships can get better and messier at the same time. Communion requires a surrender of self to others, a death of desire. And death, of course, causes pain. But dying to self is a way of imitating what Jesus did for us, of sharing in His sufferings.

Communion with others flings ten thousand doors open, letting us explore the new and unimagined wonders God has placed inside of each person. It splits our little worlds apart so that we are aware not just of ourselves, but also of the star-like souls that fill this madly spinning planet and of the One who spoke them all into being.

My ambition for 2016 is to love well, to make the good of other people my own good, to live not in fear of loss but in anticipation of grace. And thus item #5 on my life-fact list:

“I am part of God’s story and my life isn’t just made for me; it’s made to fit in other peoples’ lives. Sometimes I glimpse the big picture, sort of like when Harry and Hermione time-travel in Book 3 and finally understand why everything happened the way it did. That makes me happy.”

Oh, and lest you think I spent my entire break drawing analogies between spiritual truths and Harry Potter, let me give you #1 on the list:

“I love bugs.”

Do with it as you will ;)

Love as always,

Aubrey

Sweet Adelaide is...

...a beautiful soul...

...who knows how to delight in the world.

of plants and possibilities

Poetic language, idiosyncratic art, vivid history, sinking cathedrals, ruined temples...Mexico City has a lot to offer. But if you really want to glimpse the city's heart, I would recommend to you the window plants.

 

 
Plants have their own urban culture in Mexico City. Like people in the city, they are diverse, colorful, and crowded together.
 
"Cities are diverse, dense places where different types of people interact with one another. Cities are populated with people of various cultures, different worldviews, and different vocations. Cities force individuals to refine their cultural assumptions, religious beliefs, and sense of calling as they rub up against the sharp edges of the assumptions, beliefs, and expertise of other city dwellers."

-"Why Cities Matter", Stephen T. Ulm and Justin Buzzard

 
Vines spill over the ledges of apartment buildings and ivy clings to cement walls. Flowers cluster in clay pots, looking up at succulents hung from the overhead balcony. Branches from two different trees twine together as though they were holding hands. In Mexico City, the proximity of the plants forces them to interact. The city requires the same of its people. On one typical Tuesday morning, I watched Naomi converse with leaders from ReachGlobal, a restaurant owner, a shoe shiner, parents of her kids' classmates, and their favorite vendor of tacos de canasta.
 

 
Mexico City is powered by the energy created when its people collide with each other, giving off ideas, emotions, and collective action like so many sparks. The mechanism of this process is the change wrought in people as they "rub up against the sharp edges" of people different from themselves. When humans, the components of the city, are brought into relationship with each other, they change, and the city changes along with them. Mexico City's plants are a parable of this closeness, this collision, this conversion.

~~

Another curious thing about city plants is the way they sprout unexpectedly, in an accidental hole in the sidewalk or on the dirty ledge of a city-center apartment.
 

 
 

 
 
 
 
















In her book "Mexican Lives", Judith Adler Hellman interviewed 15 different people from a range of social classes, caught between political corruption and policy changes in which they had no say. She writes,

“What emerges in these personal stories is the remarkable flexibility, clear-headed thinking, ingenuity, and courage of people who take great risks to meet challenges they might wish had never come their way.”

The average Mexican faces a formidable line of giants: racism, sexism, classism, corruption, economic inefficiency, broken religious systems, a legacy of colonialism and exploitation. But they find a way for themselves. Ingenious, entrepreneurially-minded people set up shop outsides of schools, selling fruit and candy. (Not to mention outside of basketball games, pawning off tickets to those who left their own behind – that, my friends, is called capitalizing on human nature.) They repair taxis on the side of the road, appeal to amateur tourists, and form networks of influential connections. In harsh and rocky places, the people of Mexico City find ways to grow.

It is saddening to see the waste of human resources in Mexico. There is a plethora of street vendors, street sweepers, and door watchers, masses of people seeking refuge in the informal economy, who work for hours with hardly an income to show for it. But seen in a different light, the “waste” is latent opportunity. The ingenuity of these people, if combined, could be a mighty force.

And there is a personal lesson to be learned from Mexico’s perseverant plants and people: growth is always possible, if I am willing to till the soil I am given - even when that soil is asphalt and concrete.

 

"Trust in the Lord and do good;

Dwell in the land and cultivate faithfulness."



-Psalm 37:3

The Hand and the Heart

I just took a Spiritual gifts test. It was useless from the standpoint that I am no clearer on what God wants me to do than before. My heart, however, was rubbed raw and exposed.

For the test, I had to rank myself on a scale of 1-5 for each statement:

[paraphrased]

"I have a strong desire to help others in time of struggle." YEAH!! 5!! I can't think of anything more beautiful than being the tool God uses to comfort and heal.

"I carve time out of my schedule to be involved with people." Umm...maybe 3. (No, Aubrey, be honest.) 2.

--

"I love the Church and long to see her growing and fulfilling the Great Commission." 5 again-gotta love the bride of Christ, right? My brothers and sisters!

"When I see a need in the Church, I step in and fill it." [Scrolling through a mental list of needs...financially challenged family with lots of kids and no nights out, prayer request sheets, conversations with the "awkward" people, conversations with the "perfect" people...]. Another 2.

--

"I believe that I don't have to worry because God is in control of every situation." 5 of course; I couldn't agree more. Isn't that part of Him being God?

"I proclaim the Gospel every time I feel God is calling me to witness." *cough cough* 2.

--

My head is almost perfectly Spiritual. I love the broken, know the power of the Church, believe in God's sovereignty. So why, in reality, do I chose my agenda over touching souls? My desires over serving the Church? My image over communicating the saving Gospel of Jesus Christ?

There is a disconnect between my head and my hand, a disparity between what I say I believe and what I live like I believe. The dividing chasm is my heart.

My hand is what I do. My mind is my intellect, how I reason and what I think. My heart is my desires, the place where my intellect and actions are joined. Proverbs 4:23 says the heart is the wellspring of life. The choices that constitute life flow from this furnace of longing, passion, hope, love. Longing, passion, hope, and love fixated either on God or on an idol. My heart is the core of my being.

And the strangest thing is, I have no power over it.

I can't control my desires, just like I can't force myself into liking the way salmon tastes. I can force my mouth to chew and my digestive system to operate, use brute and brawn to align my head and hand (it's healthy, it's brain food, lift that fork, release those digestive juices!). But as soon as I loosen the chain, head and hand are propelled as far apart from each other as possible, born away on the relentless current of my heart's desires. Desires stronger than I am. Desires that are fixated on self: self image, self satisfaction, self worth. Self tyrannizing self.

The only way for my heart to be changed is for a Higher Power to reshape it. That's why when Paul writes in 2 Corinthians 5:17 that we are new creations in Christ, he goes on to clarify that "all this is from God, who reconciled us to Himself". We are new not because we processed ourselves in the Spiritual recycle plant or even threw ourselves into the Spiritual recycle bin. We are new because He gave His Son and Spirit to make us new.

I'm praying that God will fill my heart with His desires so that head-knowledge and hand-action flow naturally together. So that even in the subconscious moments where my will has been worn away by exhaustion or emotion, my words and deeds are still steeped in His truth.

To Be

Lately I've been meditating on Isaiah 42:6-7:

"I am the Lord, I have called you in righteousness;

I will take you by the hand and keep you;

I will give you as a covenant for the people,

A light for the nations,

To open the eyes that are blind,

To bring out the prisoners from the dungeon,

From the prison those who sit in darkness,

I am the Lord, that is my name;

My glory I give to no other,

nor my praise to carved idols."

     I love this passage for a lot of reasons. For one thing, the poetry: "I will take you by the hand"..."a light for the nations"...."prisoners from the dungeon"...Reading passages like this humbles me, because my God is a writer, a writer who hears the flow of words, who threads them beautifully. A better writer than I will ever be. But really, language is just a shell for the vitalizing truth of these verses. Here God lays out our purpose: we are called to shine, bright white against our soiled world. Radiant. Pure. We are called to descend in the dungeon, to take the hand of those who are mired in the dark stench of sin and lead them into His light. But this purpose is bundled between two blindingly powerful proclamations-"I am the Lord!" "I am the Lord, that is my name!"

We shine, rescue, proclaim, and love because God is Master of the Universe. It would be shameful to subjugate our lives and wills to anything less. But since our God is the very source of existence, existence naturally flows back to Him. The world exists for His glory. Each person exists for His glory. The love God shows us pre-existed within Him; He only chose to manifest it through Christ because of the depths of His grace (Ephesians 2:7). I have a grand purpose, and every trace of it is bound up in His Lordship.

Full

      I've been to a lot of places since I last wrote, places like stress and exhaustion, and stillness and warmth. And in a more literal sense, I went to Oral Roberts University for the NCFCA national championship. I arrived at nationals feeling wind-swept and desolate. A sense of finality hung around the car door slamming and the hotel doors opening and the elevator trip up to our room. I arrived empty, but I left full.

Mollie<3

Hannah's hotel ballet

    What I love about my speech and debate friends is the warmth, the acceptance. If I say something that comes out wrong, there's no uncomfortable stares or awkward silence-it's painted over with a laugh and becomes an inside joke. Everybody hugs everybody. There's no pressure to conform-poets and baseball players and classical musicians and rappers and computer geeks genuinely appreciate each other's different interests and abilities. 

     Conversations are interesting, about personality types or the truth about Abraham Lincoln or the effects of music on behavior. It's really refreshing after being daily deluged with dozens of canned exchanges about weather, sports, celebrities. And conversations are deep, probing the flaws in humanism and the truth of creationism and personal struggles. Questions like "What has God been teaching you?" and "Why do you not watch TV?" are refreshing after the halfhearted "How are you?", asked by someone who doesn't really seem to care how you're doing. NCFCA people care.

     Of course, there's plenty of hilarity, too. Like Larry the Cucumber becoming a vigilante in Switzerland, and Ben's unforgettable Christian pickup lines. Oh, and this:

         Nationals brought competition up a level, but it also brought the relationships up. Maybe it was the "common enemy" factor-Region IV was finally competing against other regions instead of itself. But more than that, we got to spend time together outside of our suits. Monday night after checking into the hotel, we went out to dinner at this burger restaurant called Mooyah's (according to Ethan, that's the sound the cows make when they die, 'cause that's not demented at all). A group of us decided to walk back to the hotel, but ended up playing in a ditch instead. It was a ditch running in front of a private school called Victory, so there was a regal stone bridge with shimmering golden letters crying "VICTORY" arched over this pathetic trickle of mud. We laughed for a long time about that one. Anyways, after the clumsier half of us got our pants soaked, we decided it would be better to swim in a real pool. We ran to Wal-Mart to buy swimsuits, reflecting our excellent, well-cultured sense of homeschool fashion. Really, it was just because Wal-Mart was on the other side of the ditch.

   The next day, intense outdoor games of ultimate Frisbee and capture the flag turned us white kids into giant tomatoes. Swimming and theological discussions were our respite. During the tournament, there was much coffee consumed and much cafeteria pizza eaten, because almost everything else in the cafeteria was quite cardboard-esque. The tension of competition offered lots of opportunities to trust God, and lots of chances to encourage and be encouraged. At the end, some sported radiant trophies and other a flimsy certificate or two. I learned from both kinds. At the after-party, trophies and the lack thereof were drowned out by the stomping and the clapping of the Virginia reel. A handful of us stayed until past four in the morning, discussing suicide, Biblical counseling, and the balance of grace and truth. And making goat noises. And building introvert caves under tables. And watching Doctor Who, or rather, watching Greg and Grace watch and recite each word of a Doctor Who season premier.

    Some of my best memories have been forged at Oral Roberts University, but they are carried in the hearts of dozens of dear people I wish I could see more often. It's times like these that I am indelibly thankful for texting and for social networking. I know I won't be able to keep up every friendship, but I hope that someday we'll bump into each other on a university campus or city sidewalk, and then it will all be the same. I'll never forget you.

My Region IV family<3


"I thank my God in all my remembrance of you, always offering prayer with joy in my every prayer for you all, in view or you participation in the Gospel from the first day until now. For I am confident of this very thing, that He who began a good work in you will perfect it until the day of Christ Jesus. FOr it is only right for me to feel this way about you all, because I have you in my heart...since you are all partakers of grace with me. For God is my witness, how I long for you all with the affection of Christ Jesus. And this I pray, that your love may abound still more and more in real knowledge and discernment, so that you may approve the things that are excellent in order to be sincere and blameless until the day of Christ; having been filled with the fruit of righteousness which comes through Jesus Christ, to the glory and praise of God."~Philippians 1:3-11~

When Worlds Collide

      There's not just one world-not really. There are billions upon billions, a world for each person who has breathed, thought, believed, doubted, loved. If you imagine the thousands of years earth has spun, that's a lot of people. Just right now, there are over seven billion souls. Seven billion worlds.

     Yes, worlds. We all may look at the same stars each night, but even those we see differently. We use lenses that are tinted by our own personal disposition, experiences, and beliefs. Those qualities are so strikingly different from soul to soul that it's like living in different universes. I mean, I dance in grocery stores all the time. It embarasses my little brother (backwards, I know), but I can't help it. I wonder how many people I dance by who see my vibrant world in blacks and greys. I wonder how many souls I've brushed up against who aren't here anymore because they lost hope.

            I snapped this photo at the San Antonio Stock Show and Rodeo because of the man in the booth. At least sixty, working a balloon dart booth with a traveling rodeo...not exactly the American dream. How different his story must be from mine, my story of friendships and relative wealth and opportunities! Maybe he had that, once, and lost it through bad choices. Maybe he regrets that now. Or maybe he has always struggled financially. Maybe he grew up without a father. I don't know; pretending I did would be judgmental and pretentious. But chances are he sees the world very differently than I do.

    Christians tend to see things in a similar light because we all "have the mind of Christ" (1st Cor. 2:16). But even then, we have different stories and burdens that we carry to the Cross. And even after Christ loosens the chains of sin, its residue will cling to us until the day this fallen life ends. I go through dark places sometimes with my own sin. Imagine how much darker those pits are for those who have no escape! In a non-negative way, our personalities shape our worlds individually, even with the united mind of Christ. Different things make us laugh and cry, and although we are called to love all men, there is no denying we love some more than others.

    Even though there's this plethora of parallel worlds, we can only BE in one, our own. There's no way to jump the borders into someone else's. Yes, we can empathize. Yes, we can get to know a person quite well. But we will never know the deepest parts of their hearts; only God is a soul-searcher. And we can never become them. I have my parent's DNA and I've been raised with my parent's constant influence, but I am not my parents. "By the grace of God, I am what I am" (1st Cor. 5:10). What we can do, though, is catch glimpses. And based on those glimpses, we can reach out and touch someone else's world.

    My younger cousin made me this sweet picture. Read the poem! It awoke me to a reality: I mean something to her. In her world, I am important. I never grasped that before. It's frightening that I've touched her world without knowing it, without even thinking about the influence I want to have. Glimpsing myself from her perspective has made me wonder: who else am I impacting without knowing it? There are people in my life that I would do anything for; am I that to someone? Most importantly, when they look at me, do they see the love of God?

    So I challenge you: try to catch a glimpse of someone else's world. Try to reach outside of your own soul and touch theirs. It may be painful, seeing from their view. But I know I'm the happiest when I'm not thinking of myself, and that only happens when I'm thinking of how I can point others to Christ. I can think of very few things more beautiful than choosing to see, and choosing to love.

Lover of Light

     I finally finished Les Miserables. When I started it a few months ago, I thought I would never finish. Ryan and I counted: EIGHTY-SIX Kindle pages for ONE PERCENT of the book! And when I finished, I wished it would never end. Les Mis is one of the most beautiful, powerful books I have ever read. Victor Hugo examines the world through the lens of man's soul. The lens isn't rose-colored; Hugo lays bare the depravity of our disfigured human hearts, and the lies and atrocities proceeding from them. But at the same time, Les Mis does not abide in the shadows.

     Probably the most heart-wrenching storyline is Fantine's. Fantine sold her hair, her teeth, and her love to provide for her estranged daughter Cossette. The people of Montreuil-sur-Mer saw the gaps in Fantine's mouth and pronounced her grotesque. They saw her on the prostitute's corner and, in all their moral virtuosity, declared her disgraceful. Everyone who could have lifted her up instead passed by with averted eyes. I wept, because I saw the whole picture of Fantine's life. I saw that Fantine was used and abandoned by Cossette's father. I saw that she had placed her daughter with a foster family to keep her from the shame of illgitimacy. I saw that she was decieved into believing that her Cossette was desperately ill and in need of expensive medicine. I saw Cossette in perfect health, being used for slave labor while Fantine's money lined the pockets of a criminal innkeeper. I saw the sacrificial love for her daughter that Fantine lived by. But the townspeople only saw the shame Fantine had been forced into, and the hatred their shunning spawned in her. Hugo writes, "Those who do not see, do not weep."

     There are so many things we do not see. I don't know the stories of the people who sit on off Judson Road with misspelled signs, or the homeless man whose eyes I saw peering out from a pile of cardboard and towels under a downtown bridge, or the rude old man in the grocery store, or the barely dressed girl in Wal-Mart. Certainly they are sinners. We all are. There was a great deal of darkness in Fantine. But somewhere in Fantine, in those broken people around me, is a light, a trace of the image of God. I want to see their pain, their stories, their hidden light. I want to be a part of bringing out that light, seeing it redeemed, like Monsieur Madeline rescued Fantine and brought out her light.

     2nd Corinthians 5:16 says, "From now on" [now that the love of Christ controls us] "we regard no one according to the flesh". We don't see people the same way. Verse 18: "All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to Himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation." Through Christ, God has brought me back to Himself and given me new life. Now it is my blessing and duty, granted by Him, to bring people to His "wonderful light" (1st Peter 2:9).I cannot see everything, but I know the Light, and because of my great God I can see Him everywhere, even in the blackest corners of the blackest souls.

I will strive to be a Lover of the Light.

Wheels and Winds and Wandering Souls

There’s a sign tied to the ride’s green gate. It’s fluttering and hard to read, but I finally make out “Ferris Wheel Closed Due to High Winds”. I try to ask the man running the Ferris Wheel if it will open again soon, but he is inside the shut gate, eating a sandwich that he appears very absorbed in. Sierra starts walking away, but I stay rooted and she’s holding my hand, so she has to stay, too. I stare at the sign and wish for the high winds to settle down to a nice, gentle breeze.

     I feel Sierra backing in to me. An old man is trying to grab her hand. I pull her close, but don’t bother running away. I could knock the man over, that shows how frail he is. And he’s old-seventy or so. His dark, wrinkly skin hangs on his arms more like a loose-fitting jacket than skin. He stretches his gnarled, trembling hand out to mine. The fingers are twisted in directions fingers were never meant to go. Some of his nails are an inch long; others are broken off in rough, jagged lines. I gently push the withered hand away. He grins at me, a toothless grin, and then totters off. I feel heavy inside.

        Once he had been as innocent as people get, only crying and sleeping and eating and wanting to be held and loved. I wonder what brought him from that to this, stumbling around drunk at a carnival in rags and bare feet. Did he choose a hard life for himself, or had he never known anything else? And if he had never known anything else-maybe his father had beaten him, or maybe he didn’t know his father at all-then why am I walking around in new shoes with a wad of bills in my pocket? Why him and not me? I try to follow the weather-beaten man with my eyes, but he is lost in the back-and-forth swarm of people.

      Suddenly the carnival’s neon colors seem garish and gaudy. There’s no enchantment to the music-box tunes or painted ponies or shouts of the balloon man, and the popcorn smell feels overdone. All I see is the grey concrete underneath me and the faces going by. So many faces. So many souls. And so, so much wandering.