Stations of the Cross part II

I always start to feel funny around my birthday or Christmas because of the idea of gift receiving. I suppose I feel a little awkward when someone gives me a gift because they feel obligated to and because the day has been designated to do so.

In the past I would receive some criticism from people because of the sort of gifts I would give. I always thought a gift should serve a purpose and be useful to that person. My parents thought it was weird when I gave my sister a case of Big Mouth Mickey’s for Christmas. She liked that beer and with a case I figured that she could share it amongst friends. It wasn’t a traditional gift, but more of a practical one. I knew it wouldn’t be shoved into a box or a closet, in fact it was something that brought people together. The fact of the matter, sharing times with the people you love is really the most important gift of all.

In my growing relationship with Ana, we have had countless discussions regarding materialism. We would discuss what she would do with money versus what I would do with it. For now, I’m content with what I own. When I look at my budget and what I spend my money on in any given month, the bulk of it after bills usually goes towards what I call “experience expenses.” What that entails is that I like to take Ana and sometimes her family out for dinner, we also go concerts and movies, or I save up so we can take a trip together. What the above have in common is that these experiences enrich my life and those around me. Buying a new car doesn’t substitute for a taxi ride in Mexico City with a driver who doesn’t know how to read a map.

I also like to give my money and time to friends and organizations and even when times are tight, I still find a way to make it work. I’m not seeking or wanting praise for my deeds, I only want people to be happy. When I say my prayers at night, after giving thanks, I ask God to take care of the people in my life, I pray for their happiness, peace, and health and about the only thing I personally ask for is forgiveness, patience and strength to get me through the next day.

Ninth Station - Jesus falls the third time

"There were a lot of us that didn’t make it." Then Jill started to name names and some I knew about and others I didn't. I could add my list to her's and wed have quite a long one running. I could call other friends and I’m sure they have their add-ons. It is like a causality list from a war, a war with our inner demons. So and so put a bullet in his head, she is a crack whore on Colfax, he drank himself to death, he lives on the streets, he sleeps in a bar, his father said I could find him in a soup line at the Jesus Saves Mission on Broadway, he overdosed on heroin, he tweaked out on meth, he's in prison, she lost her shit and lives in an institution. Yeah, we were at war, some of the best ones are no longer with us.

Denver isn't my home anymore and hasn’t been since the early 90's. I look at old photographs and fliers and I start to feel a loss, a loss of my youth, a loss of good times, it was a time of hope, energy, and rage. None of knew what we were doing or where we were going. We were fuck-ups, rejects, and outsiders, people who were given a different set of instructions on how to live life. We danced to a different beat, a more primal and ferocious one. We weren't like you, we couldn’t relate to you and your society. You pushed us out of your cliques into a sad a lonely void until we found each other and created our own. We established our own rules, our own values, and give society the middle finger. Our parents, our teachers, authority figures could stop us or figure us out. They labeled us "Punks" and we embraced it. We were born from a different womb and the standards set by the establishment didn't apply to us.

Some of us did brave the storm and went on to lead so-called normal lives. And I can't help but to think that it was the unconditional love and support that we got from our families and friends. I'm confident in stating this because of my background in education. Where would I be without those who put up with my for a lack of a better word "youth." For better or for worse, they were there for us in the end. Part of my survival could be attributed to the foundation that my parents established for me, which I could always fall back on. They instilled the survival skills into my psyche to weather the trying times.

Tenth Station - Jesus is stripped

When I was an elementary school teacher in a suburb of Atlanta, Georgia, I was explaining an art project to class of kindergarten students who were sitting on my carpet. During mid-sentence one little girl in the back row firmly stated “Mr. Bob, Carlos went potty in his pants” and she motioned to the non-English Carlos to stand up so I could see. Everyone turned around and she then stood up and gently extended her hand to his to help him up. I looked at the wet spot on his jeans and the one on the carpet. To my surprise, his classmates offered their sympathy. Nobody laughed. If I were to put this situation into adult language, the sentiment would have been, “man that sucks, what could I do to help you?” “I feel really bad for you.” “I know what that’s like, that happened to me and doesn’t feel good.” There was such an overwhelming support for him, it was truly an enlightening moment.

In contrast, last year I had a transfer student enroll in my class mid-semester. She could be described as outgoing and opinionated. It was difficult for her to come into a situation where peer hierarchies had already been established. She attempted to forge friendships with the various cliques in the room and the queen-bees of the class felt threatened by her presence. They formed an alliance to ensure that she was to remain un-welcomed. Tensions escalated over the weeks. One morning the new student arrived late to class while I was explaining a project and one of the queen-bees noticed that she was wearing tight shorts and proudly stood up from her seat and called out “she has a camel-toe.” Everyone started laughing and cheering and a couple of her classmates stood up and pointed at her. Tears just poured from her eyes as she ran out of the room completely humiliated. I had never witness such hatred towards another person. The offending student shamelessly defended her comment nonchalantly stating, “She deserved it!” A part of me died that day, the ugliness was so raw and sincere. I was truly in the presence of the devil.

Eleventh Station - Jesus is nailed to the cross

They say that “time heals all wounds” and “forgive and forget.” But my experience with the two quotes can be consolidated into one idea: “over time you eventually forget” or maybe not.

A quality that bothers me about my father is that he never forgets. He holds on to the pain of people who have crossed him like a fresh wound and won’t compromise to resolve the issue because he feels he is justified. To his defense, he is often right and I support and empathize with himt. The part that I dislike is how counter productive holding on to pain is and what he might be missing as a result of his decisions.

His balance, my mother will forgive someone after ten minutes. It isn’t in her nature to remain stagnant, she tends to move forward. Her simple disposition is her remarkable quality, as a result she is able to experience more peace than the average person. I envy her.

Twelfth Station - Jesus dies

In eighth grade during English class we had a unit on creative writing. One of the assignments was to find a poem we liked and copy it into our journal. I had recently bought the Rodney On The Roq Volume 2 compilation album that had the song Right Is Right by the band Shattered Faith and thought it would be the perfect song for my journal. When we had to orally present our poems to the class, my classmates were pretty bummed and confused by my selection. Most saw it as an anti-Christian song, and for my middle class-jellybean eating-Reagan supporting-Izod wearing peers it offended them a little. I don’t think they really understood the passion.

Thirteenth Station - Jesus is taken down from the cross

Almost two years ago I received a call from a former co-worker back in Atlanta. The news was that the son one of the teachers we worked with had been missing for several days. As the days passed, I received another call only to confirm what would be a parent’s worst nightmare. The police had discovered the body. When I hung up the phone, I sat in my truck overlooking at the ocean from atop of a cliff and broke down.

Right before I moved from Atlanta, I drove over to Dave’s house to meet him for lunch. While were on the patio drinking a beer and discussing our respective futures, his son Davey came down and I was introduced to him. I was amazed with how genuinely happy and positive he was. Then I observed the interaction between the two and how they displayed such a strong mutual and unconditional love and admiration for one another. In the 5 years I worked with Dave, I had come to know his family, especially Davey. During lunch, Dave talked about how excited he was to send his son off to college, romanticizing over his own experience. He wanted his son to have just as a fulfilling rite of passage as he did.

Over the past 10 years I’ve had this strange notion that Jesus had a punk rock attitude, or more accurately, punk rockers have a Jesus attitude. Maybe all of that sounds like crazy talk and you’re thinking “what the H E double hockey sticks are you talking about.” It would take me forever to explain my position, so I’m going to ask you to trust me on this and take the couple of examples below into consideration.

To me punk rock is about having a strong conviction and not compromising your values. It also about fighting uphill battles and swimming against a current. Having the cajones to stand up against something unjust and using your voice and actions to express it. Fighting for the underdog, for equality. Taking on the establishment. Risking everything and dying for a cause.

In mass, there has been talk circulating that “being a Christian is counter-culture”…sounds kinda like punk rock. In church you seldom think about Jesus from the perspective of a rebel, but if you take into account what he fought against and endured, how could you not arrive at that logical conclusion? He loved, cared for, and forgave those who believed in him and even those who denied, condemned, and killed him.

“Punk’s not dead!”

The Resurrecion

I’m looking for a quick fix, something to write on this last page. I keep typing a sentence or two and then I scratch it all out and start over. I’m a platinum member in contributing to the recycling bin.

I received a message from my friend Mady in Florida after I had sent her The Stations of the Cross box set. She made the suggestion that I should make one final piece, The Resurrection. I had given it a thought while I was printing the series and out of laziness or maybe just the avoidance of printing, the thought had conveniently sunk somewhere into my subconscious.

Reflecting back on The Stations series, it was quite an adventure indulging in the process of making it. As Ana told me during that period, it was like my personal cross, a simultaneous exploration of living in the moment and switching to the past eventually, contemplating the ultimate question of “how did I arrive at this point in time?” All the while examining my relationship between God, my family, and friends (as to include both the living and deceased, as in no longer breathing-it can be argued that a person never really dies until you forget about them). Asking these questions and exploring such possibilities wasn’t a quest to figure out life or have an epiphany that would set the world straight. I wasn’t seeking resolution; it was more coming to terms with life through intensive therapy in a roundabout way.

I had cut forty-some blocks and hand printed multiple times on over 300 sheets of paper in addition to the reflective writing of what thoughts were going thru my one-track-hyper-focused head in a period of less than a month. That was it, every free increment of time meaning skipped lunches and late hours devoted to the completion of this project. People and aspects of my life were in a sense put on hold; even gouging my finger didn’t stop me. Shit, Jesus was beat to an inch of his life then forced to carry his own wooden cross up a hill, my experience lays pale in comparison. I’m not bragging or asking for pity, I just want to share my process.

In the end, the resurrection is a metaphor that each day is a new life, a new beginning. You have the power to make the decisions on what
direction you want to go in, how you are going to treat people who are in your life. Although you don’t possess total control of your destiny, you are not immune from having some say in it.