To be completely honest, after a post like my last one, nothing I have to say about my life seems important even to me. When there is such a need in this world and so many hurting to find love; I am more than blessed beyond my wildest dreams.
"We are only asked to love, to offer hope to the many hopeless. We don't get to choose all the endings, but we are asked to play the rescuers. We won't solve all mysteries and our hearts will certainly break in such a vulnerable life, but it is the best way. We were made to be lovers bold in broken places, pouring ourselves out again and again until we're called home."
Life does not and will not ever get "easy" for anyone. It is a continual battle where the only true offensive is to open your heart and love. It is so easy to forget on a daily basis the immensity of this world and those that inhabit it. Nobody's life is less interesting, less complex, less worth living or loving than your own. Like so many others, I too am guilty of complacency and forgetting the true meaning of love and sacrifice. Sure, the little things in life matter but there are too many hopeless and lost souls to limit ourselves to living day by day avoiding doing anything big. What Jamie and others have done with TWLOHA is awe inspiring to say the very least. They have taken the small kindness they showed Renee and ignited the hearts and minds of thousands. This movement of love has the ability to bring life and hope to so many. My request to you? No matter your circumstances in life, please take the time to listen to others. Share your pain, your bliss, your gains and your losses. Share sincerity and love in your daily life and I promise you, hope will follow.
Top 5 Songs You Should Listen To...this week at least
Friday, August 31, 2007
Thursday, August 30, 2007
TWLOHA
Please Read. Love. Help. Hope. Pray.
Thank you,
JS
www.twloha.com
TO WRITE LOVE ON HER ARMS by Jamie Tworkowski
Pedro the Lion is loud in the speakers, and the city waits just outside our open windows. She sits and sings, legs crossed in the passenger seat, her pretty voice hiding in the volume. Music is a safe place and Pedro is her favorite. It hits me that she won't see this skyline for several weeks, and we will be without her. I lean forward, knowing this will be written, and I ask what she'd say if her story had an audience. She smiles. "Tell them to look up. Tell them to remember the stars."
I would rather write her a song, because songs don't wait to resolve, and because songs mean so much to her. Stories wait for endings, but songs are brave things bold enough to sing when all they know is darkness. These words, like most words, will be written next to midnight, between hurricane and harbor, as both claim to save her.
Renee is 19. When I meet her, cocaine is fresh in her system. She hasn't slept in 36 hours and she won't for another 24. It is a familiar blur of coke, pot, pills and alcohol. She has agreed to meet us, to listen and to let us pray. We ask Renee to come with us, to leave this broken night. She says she'll go to rehab tomorrow, but she isn't ready now. It is too great a change. We pray and say goodbye and it is hard to leave without her.
She has known such great pain; haunted dreams as a child, the near-constant presence of evil ever since. She has felt the touch of awful naked men, battled depression and addiction, and attempted suicide. Her arms remember razor blades, fifty scars that speak of self-inflicted wounds. Six hours after I meet her, she is feeling trapped, two groups of "friends" offering opposite ideas. Everyone is asleep. The sun is rising. She drinks long from a bottle of liquor, takes a razor blade from the table and locks herself in the bathroom. She cuts herself, using the blade to write "FUCK UP" large across her left forearm.
The nurse at the treatment center finds the wound several hours later. The center has no detox, names her too great a risk, and does not accept her. For the next five days, she is ours to love. We become her hospital and the possibility of healing fills our living room with life. It is unspoken and there are only a few of us, but we will be her church, the body of Christ coming alive to meet her needs, to write love on her arms.
She is full of contrast, more alive and closer to death than anyone I've known, like a Johnny Cash song or some theatre star. She owns attitude and humor beyond her 19 years, and when she tells me her story, she is humble and quiet and kind, shaped by the pain of a hundred lifetimes. I sit privileged but breaking as she shares. Her life has been so dark yet there is some soft hope in her words, and on consecutive evenings, I watch the prettiest girls in the room tell her that she's beautiful. I think it's God reminding her.
I've never walked this road, but I decide that if we're going to run a five-day rehab, it is going to be the coolest in the country. It is going to be rock and roll. We start with the basics; lots of fun, too much Starbucks and way too many cigarettes.
Thursday night she is in the balcony for Band Marino, Orlando's finest. They are indie-folk-fabulous, a movement disguised as a circus. She loves them and she smiles when I point out the A&R man from Atlantic Europe, in town from London just to catch this show.
She is in good seats when the Magic beat the Sonics the next night, screaming like a lifelong fan with every Dwight Howard dunk. On the way home, we stop for more coffee and books, Blue Like Jazz and (Anne Lamott's) Travelling Mercies.
On Saturday, the Taste of Chaos tour is in town and I'm not even sure we can get in, but doors do open and minutes after parking, we are on stage for Thrice, one of her favorite bands. She stands ten feet from the drummer, smiling constantly. It is a bright moment there in the music, as light and rain collide above the stage. It feels like healing. It is certainly hope.
Sunday night is church and many gather after the service to pray for Renee, this her last night before entering rehab. Some are strangers but all are friends tonight. The prayers move from broken to bold, all encouraging. We're talking to God but I think as much, we're talking to her, telling her she's loved, saying she does not go alone. One among us knows her best. Ryan sits in the corner strumming an acoustic guitar, singing songs she's inspired.
After church our house fills with friends, there for a few more moments before goodbye. Everyone has some gift for her, some note or hug or piece of encouragement. She pulls me aside and tells me she would like to give me something. I smile surprised, wondering what it could be. We walk through the crowded living room, to the garage and her stuff.
She hands me her last razor blade, tells me it is the one she used to cut her arm and her last lines of cocaine five nights before. She's had it with her ever since, shares that tonight will be the hardest night and she shouldn't have it. I hold it carefully, thank her and know instantly that this moment, this gift, will stay with me. It hits me to wonder if this great feeling is what Christ knows when we surrender our broken hearts, when we trade death for life.
As we arrive at the treatment center, she finishes: "The stars are always there but we miss them in the dirt and clouds. We miss them in the storms. Tell them to remember hope. We have hope."
I have watched life come back to her, and it has been a privilege. When our time with her began, someone suggested shifts but that is the language of business. Love is something better. I have been challenged and changed, reminded that love is that simple answer to so many of our hardest questions. Don Miller says we're called to hold our hands against the wounds of a broken world, to stop the bleeding. I agree so greatly.
We often ask God to show up. We pray prayers of rescue. Perhaps God would ask us to be that rescue, to be His body, to move for things that matter. He is not invisible when we come alive. I might be simple but more and more, I believe God works in love, speaks in love, is revealed in our love. I have seen that this week and honestly, it has been simple: Take a broken girl, treat her like a famous princess, give her the best seats in the house. Buy her coffee and cigarettes for the coming down, books and bathroom things for the days ahead. Tell her something true when all she's known are lies. Tell her God loves her. Tell her about forgiveness, the possibility of freedom, tell her she was made to dance in white dresses. All these things are true.
We are only asked to love, to offer hope to the many hopeless. We don't get to choose all the endings, but we are asked to play the rescuers. We won't solve all mysteries and our hearts will certainly break in such a vulnerable life, but it is the best way. We were made to be lovers bold in broken places, pouring ourselves out again and again until we're called home.
I have learned so much in one week with one brave girl. She is alive now, in the patience and safety of rehab, covered in marks of madness but choosing to believe that God makes things new, that He meant hope and healing in the stars. She would ask you to remember.
Thank you,
JS
www.twloha.com
TO WRITE LOVE ON HER ARMS by Jamie Tworkowski
Pedro the Lion is loud in the speakers, and the city waits just outside our open windows. She sits and sings, legs crossed in the passenger seat, her pretty voice hiding in the volume. Music is a safe place and Pedro is her favorite. It hits me that she won't see this skyline for several weeks, and we will be without her. I lean forward, knowing this will be written, and I ask what she'd say if her story had an audience. She smiles. "Tell them to look up. Tell them to remember the stars."
I would rather write her a song, because songs don't wait to resolve, and because songs mean so much to her. Stories wait for endings, but songs are brave things bold enough to sing when all they know is darkness. These words, like most words, will be written next to midnight, between hurricane and harbor, as both claim to save her.
Renee is 19. When I meet her, cocaine is fresh in her system. She hasn't slept in 36 hours and she won't for another 24. It is a familiar blur of coke, pot, pills and alcohol. She has agreed to meet us, to listen and to let us pray. We ask Renee to come with us, to leave this broken night. She says she'll go to rehab tomorrow, but she isn't ready now. It is too great a change. We pray and say goodbye and it is hard to leave without her.
She has known such great pain; haunted dreams as a child, the near-constant presence of evil ever since. She has felt the touch of awful naked men, battled depression and addiction, and attempted suicide. Her arms remember razor blades, fifty scars that speak of self-inflicted wounds. Six hours after I meet her, she is feeling trapped, two groups of "friends" offering opposite ideas. Everyone is asleep. The sun is rising. She drinks long from a bottle of liquor, takes a razor blade from the table and locks herself in the bathroom. She cuts herself, using the blade to write "FUCK UP" large across her left forearm.
The nurse at the treatment center finds the wound several hours later. The center has no detox, names her too great a risk, and does not accept her. For the next five days, she is ours to love. We become her hospital and the possibility of healing fills our living room with life. It is unspoken and there are only a few of us, but we will be her church, the body of Christ coming alive to meet her needs, to write love on her arms.
She is full of contrast, more alive and closer to death than anyone I've known, like a Johnny Cash song or some theatre star. She owns attitude and humor beyond her 19 years, and when she tells me her story, she is humble and quiet and kind, shaped by the pain of a hundred lifetimes. I sit privileged but breaking as she shares. Her life has been so dark yet there is some soft hope in her words, and on consecutive evenings, I watch the prettiest girls in the room tell her that she's beautiful. I think it's God reminding her.
I've never walked this road, but I decide that if we're going to run a five-day rehab, it is going to be the coolest in the country. It is going to be rock and roll. We start with the basics; lots of fun, too much Starbucks and way too many cigarettes.
Thursday night she is in the balcony for Band Marino, Orlando's finest. They are indie-folk-fabulous, a movement disguised as a circus. She loves them and she smiles when I point out the A&R man from Atlantic Europe, in town from London just to catch this show.
She is in good seats when the Magic beat the Sonics the next night, screaming like a lifelong fan with every Dwight Howard dunk. On the way home, we stop for more coffee and books, Blue Like Jazz and (Anne Lamott's) Travelling Mercies.
On Saturday, the Taste of Chaos tour is in town and I'm not even sure we can get in, but doors do open and minutes after parking, we are on stage for Thrice, one of her favorite bands. She stands ten feet from the drummer, smiling constantly. It is a bright moment there in the music, as light and rain collide above the stage. It feels like healing. It is certainly hope.
Sunday night is church and many gather after the service to pray for Renee, this her last night before entering rehab. Some are strangers but all are friends tonight. The prayers move from broken to bold, all encouraging. We're talking to God but I think as much, we're talking to her, telling her she's loved, saying she does not go alone. One among us knows her best. Ryan sits in the corner strumming an acoustic guitar, singing songs she's inspired.
After church our house fills with friends, there for a few more moments before goodbye. Everyone has some gift for her, some note or hug or piece of encouragement. She pulls me aside and tells me she would like to give me something. I smile surprised, wondering what it could be. We walk through the crowded living room, to the garage and her stuff.
She hands me her last razor blade, tells me it is the one she used to cut her arm and her last lines of cocaine five nights before. She's had it with her ever since, shares that tonight will be the hardest night and she shouldn't have it. I hold it carefully, thank her and know instantly that this moment, this gift, will stay with me. It hits me to wonder if this great feeling is what Christ knows when we surrender our broken hearts, when we trade death for life.
As we arrive at the treatment center, she finishes: "The stars are always there but we miss them in the dirt and clouds. We miss them in the storms. Tell them to remember hope. We have hope."
I have watched life come back to her, and it has been a privilege. When our time with her began, someone suggested shifts but that is the language of business. Love is something better. I have been challenged and changed, reminded that love is that simple answer to so many of our hardest questions. Don Miller says we're called to hold our hands against the wounds of a broken world, to stop the bleeding. I agree so greatly.
We often ask God to show up. We pray prayers of rescue. Perhaps God would ask us to be that rescue, to be His body, to move for things that matter. He is not invisible when we come alive. I might be simple but more and more, I believe God works in love, speaks in love, is revealed in our love. I have seen that this week and honestly, it has been simple: Take a broken girl, treat her like a famous princess, give her the best seats in the house. Buy her coffee and cigarettes for the coming down, books and bathroom things for the days ahead. Tell her something true when all she's known are lies. Tell her God loves her. Tell her about forgiveness, the possibility of freedom, tell her she was made to dance in white dresses. All these things are true.
We are only asked to love, to offer hope to the many hopeless. We don't get to choose all the endings, but we are asked to play the rescuers. We won't solve all mysteries and our hearts will certainly break in such a vulnerable life, but it is the best way. We were made to be lovers bold in broken places, pouring ourselves out again and again until we're called home.
I have learned so much in one week with one brave girl. She is alive now, in the patience and safety of rehab, covered in marks of madness but choosing to believe that God makes things new, that He meant hope and healing in the stars. She would ask you to remember.
Wednesday, August 29, 2007
Anything You Say Now
You know what would be incredible? If I was given the opportunity to sit down and talk with every person that's shaped my life that's no longer in it for whatever reason. Ex-girlfriends, ex-friends, ex-family, ex-lady friends, ex-teammates, ex-rivals or ex-lovers. One of my single greatest joys in life is talking to people and discovering him or her on a level not afforded the casual passerby. The first three questions I'd ask?
1.) Why?
2.) Where? (did you go, have you been, are you going)
3.) What? (do we do)
********************************************************************************
But besides all that, I'm expecting a visit from Michael tonight down in the QC. Hopefully The Noon is going to come with him as well. These gentlemen are easily two of my favorite people currently in my life. And despite the high chances of failure, I really want to do my best to keep them in some part of my life. We're planning on going to Pat's hockey game down here. Speaking of which, Mr. McCullough is quite a stud himself and hopefully he knocks some fools around tonight.
And in closing? If anyone reads this that has any sort of conceptual art talent, please comment or let me know somehow. I have some projects that I need someone to undertake and I would most certainly pay for services rendered.
1.) Why?
2.) Where? (did you go, have you been, are you going)
3.) What? (do we do)
********************************************************************************
But besides all that, I'm expecting a visit from Michael tonight down in the QC. Hopefully The Noon is going to come with him as well. These gentlemen are easily two of my favorite people currently in my life. And despite the high chances of failure, I really want to do my best to keep them in some part of my life. We're planning on going to Pat's hockey game down here. Speaking of which, Mr. McCullough is quite a stud himself and hopefully he knocks some fools around tonight.
And in closing? If anyone reads this that has any sort of conceptual art talent, please comment or let me know somehow. I have some projects that I need someone to undertake and I would most certainly pay for services rendered.
Monday, August 27, 2007
You Are My Moon
Steven Richard Tschiggfrie = my
If you've heard about it already or see this blog in time...look to the sky around 5:37 AM CST on Tuesday morning. God knows that's early but I might just get up early for work.
If you've heard about it already or see this blog in time...look to the sky around 5:37 AM CST on Tuesday morning. God knows that's early but I might just get up early for work.
I'm So Lost...IN LOST ISLAND!!! ARGH!!!
I'm having so much fun!!!
Look at me going zoom zoom on the Kiwi Koaster!!!
But seriously, Lost Island in Waterloo is a pretty alright water park. Perfect distance and size for a day trip with the family, a loved one, or a group of friends. I went with my family on Sunday. Now I just have to find someone who loves me or hell, even some friends.
I definitely did too much of this however.
And now I look something like this.
I thought I could rely on my Asiatic genes to prevent sun burn like they always have in the past. But it's a wonder what a couple of years sitting in an office during the summer can do for your skin's tolerance level.
Well, between Sunday's water park adventure and Saturday's wedding antics; I had a splendid weekend. One more next weekend and then wedding season for the year sadly comes to an end. Luckily, next weekend is LABOR DAY!!! And ironically enough, to celebrate, I don't have to work Monday. So that means long weekend boys and girls. It's probably going to entail Friday night in the QC, Saturday for Nate and Jackie's wedding in Dubuque and then Sunday night back in the QC rocking hard until the early morning hours of our recognized day of labor.
Well, thus ends my weekend update. Enjoy.
If I Didn't Love You So Much...
My brother with his 4th grade class at Immanuel Mission School. Located right around....here
Get it?
The point is, I'm incredibly proud of my brother and the direction he's chosen to take his life. We've been through a lot of crap together and to see him standing with these beautiful children that look to him each day to further their education and make them more valuable as individuals; I'm filled with joy and admiration. The sacrifice and love that he, his beautiful wife Sarah and their incredible daughter Eden are displaying are encouraging and inspiring to say the least. I love you Solomon.
Thursday, August 23, 2007
Whoopsies...
Well, that was quick...
A personal belief I hold is that no matter the length, frequency or relative importance, every encounter with another person in this life has an impact on you and your character. Time acts as an exponential factor in determining what sort of influence he or she might have as perceived by you but the influence occurs regardless.
My life is no different. I recently became very close to someone I've distantly known for almost a year and a half. Up until almost 2 months ago, we spoke infrequently and saw each other even less. But as life is so fond of doing, our lives randomly chose to intersect and intertwine for a period of time. How did it happen? Like I said, life has a way of taking a whole bunch of little actions, reactions, coincidences and twists of fate to turn dozens of little ingredients into a masterpiece of a meal.
I digress.
This person absolutely took me by storm. There really is no other way to put it. I was at a pivotal split in the road of my life and I was flabbergasted to find someone so amazing standing at the Y intersection, like me, contemplating which way to go. I surely didn't expect this and while part of me cursed the timing of it all, I still embraced the beauty in the unknown.
Well, after all is said and done, we chose separate paths down that road.
To you:
I want only the best for you. As previously mentioned, my only regret would be if I were to exit this situation having learned nothing. I am sorry for not foreseeing the ending of this but who would I be to judge without precedent? To be completely frank, your actions in dealing with me did not make much sense. Logic seemed to play no part in your thinking and while I cannot fault you for your personal choices, I am saddened by it and wish there would've been something I could've done to truly discover you.
You told me of past suffering at the hands of others and at the time, I felt compassion and wanted to share with you my love and happiness. But just as I personally hold myself accountable for learning from the past, you are no different. If you do not grow, you will fail and not receive one ounce of sympathy from me.
Finally, you reminded me of the many dangers inherent to trust. This is one area where I knowingly reject my philosophy of learning from the past. Therefore I desire no sympathy from you or anyone else. But without trust, there cannot be love and without love, there cannot be life. As for me, my life is my love and I do not plan to stop sharing that with others.
Thank you.
A personal belief I hold is that no matter the length, frequency or relative importance, every encounter with another person in this life has an impact on you and your character. Time acts as an exponential factor in determining what sort of influence he or she might have as perceived by you but the influence occurs regardless.
My life is no different. I recently became very close to someone I've distantly known for almost a year and a half. Up until almost 2 months ago, we spoke infrequently and saw each other even less. But as life is so fond of doing, our lives randomly chose to intersect and intertwine for a period of time. How did it happen? Like I said, life has a way of taking a whole bunch of little actions, reactions, coincidences and twists of fate to turn dozens of little ingredients into a masterpiece of a meal.
I digress.
This person absolutely took me by storm. There really is no other way to put it. I was at a pivotal split in the road of my life and I was flabbergasted to find someone so amazing standing at the Y intersection, like me, contemplating which way to go. I surely didn't expect this and while part of me cursed the timing of it all, I still embraced the beauty in the unknown.
Well, after all is said and done, we chose separate paths down that road.
To you:
I want only the best for you. As previously mentioned, my only regret would be if I were to exit this situation having learned nothing. I am sorry for not foreseeing the ending of this but who would I be to judge without precedent? To be completely frank, your actions in dealing with me did not make much sense. Logic seemed to play no part in your thinking and while I cannot fault you for your personal choices, I am saddened by it and wish there would've been something I could've done to truly discover you.
You told me of past suffering at the hands of others and at the time, I felt compassion and wanted to share with you my love and happiness. But just as I personally hold myself accountable for learning from the past, you are no different. If you do not grow, you will fail and not receive one ounce of sympathy from me.
Finally, you reminded me of the many dangers inherent to trust. This is one area where I knowingly reject my philosophy of learning from the past. Therefore I desire no sympathy from you or anyone else. But without trust, there cannot be love and without love, there cannot be life. As for me, my life is my love and I do not plan to stop sharing that with others.
Thank you.
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