i will readily admit.

it was very strange to be in san francisco as a tourist. i think the weirdest part was being so visually familiar with the city. it was junior high, for crying out loud. the last time i was there for any length of time was the summer before my eighth grade year - i just counted it three times, was that really the summer of 2005? (is this growing up? i don't know if i like it.)

in front of city hall in downtown san francisco there's a big park, i don't know what it's called. kate and i navigated the bus systems to city hall and i pointed to all of the homeless people sleeping on the grass. it's because it's illegal for them to sleep there at night, so most just wait til daylight. some do sleep there at night in hopes they'll land in jail for the night, where it's warm and sometimes they get a meal. most of the time if they're caught there they just get a big ticket, something like $600.

kate and i spent a lot of time in the haight ashbury district. it's very shopping-oriented, but in the second-hand sense. definitely not cheap. but not like the downtown/union square area. it's full of everyone, from tourists to locals to dogs to homeless, the one afternoon i spent by myself i found an empyrean-esque coffee place to finish the prisoner of azkaban in. they had real yerba, something baristas in san fran apparently don't understand.

but haight is where we did a lot of lunch handouts, i spent some time looking for the soup kitchen. couldn't find it, of course. and here i was, hopping from shop to shop trying not to look the sidewalk-residents in the eye.

it sort of hurt.

i remember being in san fran, feeling so helpless because there was no way we could fix it all. all the poverty, all the disease, all the filth, everything we had shoved in our faces... there was NO WAY we could fix it. and THAT hurt. i remember it. my journal has tear stains.

but this was maybe worse. this time i wasn't even there TO fix anything. i wasn't there to try. i don't feel so much guilt (which would be bad/unhealthy) as just plain... sorrow? grief? what in the world is the word for this? i know i didn't go to help anyone. i went to be with the janzens and kate and i did and it was wonderful and i'm so glad...

...but my youth group also left for westport yesterday.

sometimes it's hard to feel like god's hands or feet when there's too much to grab onto.

my moral compass would say that this is the right kind of hurt. and it is. i know this. it's the kind that can go one of two ways, either you wallow in self pity for yourself and despair for the world, or you learn how to do something about it. i believe in god. i believe in christ. i believe they both move and work here. now. and he/they WANT help. for my sake. for our sakes. but sometimes things hurt, and even if it's how it should, it still hurts. like running. the good kind of pain. however good it is for you, it doesn't make it hurt less. however much you are winning, the pain it takes to win is still pain.

and that's called sacrifice.

and that's what makes jesus so different to me.

(because he's sacrifice manifest)

micah leaves for that junior high trip tomorrow. and i am so stoked for him. SO STOKED. he's about to get his world rocked. this trip tore out the carpet underneath me. i hope it does the same for him. i'm excited. i'm to see him off at 7am.