..gangs

I just got back from watching Green Street Hooligans. It's violent and overly bloody but brings up a lot of the sociological issues of gangs that I was confronted with this summer and also the personal struggles I have been dealing with currently. Saying that, I think that it was good movie.

Gangs are very interesting to me. I think that they are the ultimate expression of our need to be needed and our need to be a part of something. They are a group of people who have found a way to unite around a purpose, and through that community, find solidarity in the 'us'/'them' approach to life and also in their own personal role in the group. It fulfills the deepest longing to be a person of substance and of belonging because it is the entirety of their existence.

I saw the heart wrenching effects of this over the summer. Walking into it I knew little about gangs, the slang, the dress, or the lifestyle but soon realized that it was something so much more. It is an identity and a security and a form of love that is not being me anywhere else. I talked to kids who were joining simply because they had no where else too go, like the vortex of the gang tasted like some sort of parental love to them. For children starving for place, substance, and love gangs are an easy solution with a high turn over rate.

But what is this need? What is this basic pangs of being human that make us all go to extreme lengths to find love and place and purpose. I try to fill my pangs with friends, and interests, and concepts, and I am always left grasping for something more. I am not satisfied and I attempt to join gangs continually. I am most likely in several right as we speak. They are entities that clamor for my heart, who want all of it and will not be satisfied with just a chunk. Even though some of them are beautiful, great things, their control in my life is deadly and often leaves me feeling like I have been through battle.

I want to join a gang with a boyfriend, I want to have place and purpose and love through that. I want to belong to someone and I want to be inseparable with them in our purpose. That would feel amazing.

I want to join a gang in Christian ministry. I want to be in a club of Christians and be on the cutting edge of God's work, astonishing people with the amazing things that we are doing. Deep down, I want to make a name for myself for how much I do for God. Parts of me want to be in this gang.

But playing out the thoughts of these two gangs in my life I find that I am still searching for something more. The pining for fulfillment is crippling at times and I want to know the way to have it go away, so that I can say I am satisfied with life and be content with all of it for once.

Laying here, I know the pat answer: Jesus. I can simply quit now and this would be nicely wrapped in a Christian box and I could feel great about everything. But that's not actually the way I feel. I feel clueless on how the fuck I am suppose to do that. How am I suppose to be completely satisfied with Christ? What does that actually, really, really look like? It would be easy in a monastery I think, no earthly distractions to loose focus on. I know the answer but I don't know how to get there and because of that I feel so incredibly alone right now. I could give up and accept a boyfriend, Christian ministry, or whatever else my heart might desire but I don't want it. I just want Jesus but I don't know what that looks like and I am sad as I type this and I wish I had a simple Christian answer that made me feel better, that would be lovely. I wish I did but I am guess I don't I suppose because Jesus is better than Christianity and I need that to be true if I am going to do this.


Oswald Chambers. Daily Thoughts for Disciples. February 14.

I want to ask a very personal question- How much do you want to be delivered from? You say, "I want to be delivered from wrongdoing"- then you don't need to come to Jesus Christ. "I want to walk in the right way according to the judgment of society"- then you don't need Jesus Christ. But some heart cries out- "I want, God knows I want, that Jesus Christ should do in me all He has said He would do." How many of us 'want' like that? God grant that this want may increase until it swamps every other desire of heart and life. Oh, the patience, the gentleness, the longing of the Lord Jesus after lives, and yet people are turning this way and that, and even saint who once knew Him are turning aside, their eyes are fixed on other things, on the blessings that come from the baptism with the Holy Spirit, and have forgotten the Baptizer Himself.