Sunday School

September 5, 2018 by TheSecretLifeOfPandas ♥ 6 Comments

In its former life, my church was an auto body shop.

It’s a huge warehouse of a building right in the heart of Humboldt Park. We’re right in front of the eastern metal Puerto Rican flag that spans across Division street.

There’s a large freight elevator inside the building that used to take cars from the first floor to the second but for the past 40 or so years has carried the congregants that we’re either too old or too young to go up and down the stairs easily.

Every service someone is stationed at the elevator to ferry to people up into the sanctuary.

For a large part of my teenage years and early 20s an older man named, Juan, manned the elevator. He was a kind man who always had a smile and a candy for you.

Usually they were Werther’s hard candies, or sometimes the ones with a chewy center.

At some point he started to forget. Where he was. Where he lived. Who people were.

He stopped coming to church. It was just him and his wife, and it was too hard for her to care for him.

My sister handed me a werther’s on Sunday and I immediately thought of him. And I remembered his small act of kindness that he offered everyone he came across; words of encouragement, a smile, and a small candy.

And I hope he at least remembered he was loved.

This is Not the Future I Imagined

August 30, 2018August 30, 2018 by TheSecretLifeOfPandas ♥ 2 Comments

My office had an active shooter seminar last week. We sat in our training room listening to a man from the department of homeland security tell about ways to react and protect yourself during an active threat situation.

Be it a shooter, a car attack, natural disaster, etc.

Run, hide, fight.

Not in that order but however the need may arise.

This is the reality of our lives.

We are somehow in danger no matter if we are alone or in a big group.

If we are at work, at school, at church, at the movies, shopping enjoying a concert, dancing, we could be attacked. Why?

Because someone had a grievance.

With you?

Maybe, maybe not.

With someone like you. With someone you know with the idea of someone, with everyone and no one. They are upset and therefore you are in danger.

This morning I drove to work and traffic was heavier than it is at the hour I usually drive. I texted my boss telling her I’d be there soon, I was going to teach a class about the department we manage.

When I arrived the area surrounding my office building was swarming with police cars. There was no parking, a garage had been shut down and we were all being directed to the big seven-story garage.

There’d been a stabbing earlier in the morning. An argument between two men led to one of them being so aggravated he stabbed the other multiple times leaving him in critical condition.

I have grown up in chicago, a city infamous for violence and death, I’ve grown up watching shooting after mass shooting happen across the country and the shock I should’ve felt was brief and replaced with a feeling of inconvenience and that scared me.

What is happening around us?

What is happening to me?

Later I thought about this man, as I recounted the tale and the gravity of it hit me.

We are not safe.

I don’t mean that. Well, I don’t know anymore. I try to believe that I am usually safe, but I don’t think anyone who’s been murdered woke up thinking that they were going to die. They woke up believing like most of us do that they’d go through their day like normal, safe and sound.

All I can think, as I put on my shoes to go walk my dog tonight is that I will trust in the Lord to keep me safe and I will continue to be mindful of my surroundings because I really don’t know what else I can do.

Long Day

August 29, 2018 by TheSecretLifeOfPandas ♥ 1 Comment

I am tired.

Work was eternal. I really get to leave on time.

Tomorrow I teach my department class so I should be asleep in preparation. I need to be good.

I don’t care.

My co-dance leader called me to tell me she went over my head to check if the song I’d chosen and started to choreograph was ok. Deemed it was not and then chose a different one for the special event we’re having on September 16th.

I have decided to retire before friday because I’m over it.

Do what you want, I don’t care.

One of the moms is upset because her daughter isn’t included in this dance, she will be missing several practices, she texted us a long dramatic text and I get it. I understand she’s upset. But I can’t deal with this at nine o’clock the night before an early morning class.

We both crafted long diplomatic text messages and called it a night.

I need a break from everyone.