My mother is cinnamon-skinned, and my father is a kind of dirty French vanilla. My sister is a café espresso, while I am something called a jabao'. No, don get it wrong; for us, these aren't derogatory ways that people think we use about race—not that I would know. In fact, they are mostly terms of endearment—at least for me. I may have a light skin, but it's still slightly burned. I may speak fluent English like the next guy, but my Spanish is still peppered with that delightful mixture of Andalusian and Canarian delights people dismiss as vulgar and confusing. Nevertheless, I never admit I'm white: there's still something about the nappy hair and the big nose that throws the illusion away. People may say I'm black or that I speak like a Dominican, but I don't care: God made me like this, and to Him I am indebted.
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Part I
Part 2 Some see worth as having gathered the greatest amount of resources in an average seventy-year span. Others see worth as achieving all your goals in an average seventy-year run. Even others see worth as having the best bankable body. Still others see worth as letting their conscience drive their actions- and not subjected under the control of the state. If one has already figured it out, worth will never be defined the same way by two different people. It changes depending on who you ask, or who you are. Part 1
This man had literary nothing. His social status –if he had one- was tarnished due to sickness, thus rendering him useless for society. He was lost in pain, pity and despair. In thirty-eight years, his physical impotence never attained any kind of social worth: the world saw him as worthless. Not that he was the only one in such a pickle- everybody in that pool must’ve felt that way. It is never easy for a person to continue living after his body has succumbed into sickness. One can adjust, but life will never be the same. Even then, this man succumbed to an even worse fate: self-depreciation. Instead of a railway for glory, his torment (or so he thought) became a trap to his psyche. He felt like the Israelites on the road to Canaan: so distressed were they upon learning the notions of freedom, their comfort was berothed in become in becoming slaves again. Likewise, he was so uncomfortable of observing the responsibilities of a healed man, that he used his affliction as some sort of distorted refuge. Once there was a paralytic near an ancient Bethesda pool. He wasn’t the only crippled man, though: the lame, sick, blind, and everyone with some sort of physical illness were present. As some came from nearby, others hailed from afar, but everybody came there for one thing and only one thing. They waited…and waited…and waited…for the waters to move: to move for healing.
(Para María Luz Pimentel Ríos, y para Natasha Soto Cintrón…) Alas, my friends, we find ourselves badgering to and fro on an even worse situation: we think that our actions aren’t “good enough”. “Enough”, by Merriam and Webster, means “sufficient”. “Sufficient”, on the other hand, is defined as “adequate to accomplish a purpose or meet a need”. Look at these words: “adequate”, “accomplish”, “purpose”, “need”. These words intimate weight: they give a glimpse of what we are looking at in today’s society. (Para mi abuela, Luz María Pimentel Ríos…) How do you measure life? Success, wealth, fame, or just how many people are attracted to them? How many stupid stunts, number-one hits, or entrepreneurial projects had to be in check in order to win the admiration of everyone? Or that copious amount of time spent on celebrities gawking at them with either adulation, or envy? Yes, my friends: we’re used into looking at life the wrong way. The crowd was going wild for her. Al these years of blood, toil, and tears were going to pay off. All those years separated from her family with empty promises of untold riches and spoils were coming to an end. The underdog, the crowd favorite, the one on that cereal box, “Full-o’-Fiber”. Was she made to do this? Was she made to clinch a gold medal? Or was she destined by a cruel and sick fate to lose it all for one mediocre landing? Three words were impelled in her mind: Stick. The. Landing. As the crowd boisterously rejoiced at her mere presence, she knew she had to improves. A little kiss, a little grin, a smile, mano izquierda, mano derecha, glide in, glide out, another kiss and off we go. The crowd was going wild, albeit confused about her true identity; some were yelling at her, “Monica!”, while others were shouting, “Veronica!” she didn’t care; she had to do it. I know that you can do all things; no purpose of yours can be thwarted. -Job 42:2, NIV 2010 Can I go full-Gospel at you? For He worries when I can’t cope, dream, or hope. I hope that returning won’t etch a bigger storm on my pocket. I wish that returning breaks me off of many bad habits, but it doesn’t erase my likes to blandness. What if returning kick-starts all my biases and my fears, all my overlays, over again? If the most abhorrent indecision overtakes me, where will I run up to?
So We’re going back. And I don’t’ know how many years will it take for me to go back. Call me an exagerao –or at least an idiot-, but there are many things that I wish to know. Maybe God is not willing for me to know about them. However, if I know how even the date of His return, then what is the point of expectation? If I know at these moments when will we return, life is going to stop for me. My focus wouldn’t be on God, but on the dates (like I’m doing right now). Well, there are some things that can’t be revealed to man.
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