two cents about abercrombie.

Since, you know, the internet is an open forum, I figured I'd throw in my two cents about the Abercrombie CEO's rather insensitive comments about the type of customer he'd like to see in his stores or wearing his clothes.

After what I remember as a few great years in public grade school, I spent a couple murderous ones in a private middle school. I'm not sure there's anybody meaner in the world than sixth-grade girls, and the worst part is that they're just getting smart at that age, so they know how to bully without really "bullying." It's the sort of thing that's hard to stop or report because you can't quite put your finger on what they're actually doing wrong. All of this was exacerbated by the uniforms.

Uniforms were apparently devised as an anti-distraction measure, and as a great equalizer. Nope. The fact that everybody dressed ALMOST the same made the little details stand out. The detail I'm talking about in particular is the one that appears on the chest of every name-brand polo shirt. A little animal. Those moose and eagles and butterflies and polo ponies and oarsmen made me miserable because my shirts were from Walmart, so they were blank. And everybody knew it. We were like tiny walking billboards for how much money our parents had.

I understand what that Abercrombie guy is saying. I truly do: it makes sense that he's targeting a particular demographic. That's what good businesspeople do. And every store is discriminatory to some extent. I've worked in a high-end store and a more all-American store, and I can tell you that every store is hiring people in part for what they look like. Everybody does it, just not everybody is that forward about it. I knew a girl who looked like she walked out of a J.Crew catalogue who tried to apply for a job at Hot Topic. They laughed her out of the store. When I was working at the more mainstream, casual store, a girl came in for an interview wearing a suit. Professional and impressive, but she didn't get the job. They didn't want people who would wear suits.

So I guess my rather scattered point is that what this guy is saying is nothing new. Every store tries to appeal to a certain group. I think it encourages individuality. What bothers me is that what he seems to be doing is eliminate the tolerance for people who are different. Every middle schooler in America is well-aware that there are cool kids and uncool kids. Parents and teachers are working so hard to get middle schoolers to move past those differences. I just don't think you should encourage elitism based on the fact that you have a moose on your chest where the next girl has a blank space. 

immigration.

My husband and I were talking the other day about the differences between Democrats and Republicans. I kind of wondered aloud if the main difference was that Democrats tend to look at individuals as recipients of help and see the good in the programs they fund based on individual response and Republicans see the big-picture economics behind the programs and the national cost of helping so many people. I think both are correct, by the way. I think it's good to have empathy. I think it's good to be able to see individuals instead of statistical problems. I also think it's important to be financially responsible. I think both parties are right, I just think they're trying to apply different standards to the same problem (which, I can confidently say two weeks from the end of my first year of law school, doesn't usually end neatly). Perhaps this is why I'm a registered Independent.

These differing viewpoints are highlighted by the current debate over immigration reform. One side wants justice for people who have cheated the system, while the other wants to help millions of individuals who have left their homelands for good reason and come in search of not the promised land, but of something sustainable. Again, both sides have a point. I'm in school because I want to be an immigration lawyer.

I have met all kinds of people. A man with a tick-tack-toe game carved into his cheek. A woman whose husband was dragged from their house in the dead of night and shot in the street. A girl my age who was sold. A woman who died from a perfectly treatable disease I could identify with only two semesters of undergraduate anatomy and physiology. These are pretty clear-cut cases of people who need help. But what about the others? What about the woman who paid for a fake social security number so she could take a job? How about the man who is barred from applying for deferred action because he had one DUI? Or the 84% of illegal immigrant detainees who appear before a judge without legal representation? Not so clear.

Some of these people - even the ones who seem less deserving - have been to hell and back trying to make it to (and then in) the U.S. Some of them honestly don't know better. The woman who bought the social security number? She's not from here. She doesn't know how you get social security numbers.

I recognize that there are huge questions to answer with any immigration reform. Do we secure the border? How do we do that? How do we stop a massive influx of people when we announce pathways to residency and citizenship? Do we penalize those who came illegally beyond sending them "to the back of the line?" There's a lot more. But we can all agree that there's a problem, and that we're making it worse by doing nothing. Problems don't just solve themselves, so have at it America.

bam.

It's no secret that I love International Justice Mission, not just for the work they do, but how they do it. They've become a model for Christian organizations everywhere, being the best at what they do. Their employees are Christians at the top of their game, workwise. It's a great concept: you don't get hired just because you want to be helpful. You get hired because you're a rockstar lawyer from a great school, and because you have more than good intentions to offer the oppressed.

Too many times Christian organizations get away with sub-par work because their hearts are in the right place. This is unacceptable. Christians should be the best at whatever they're trying to do because our drive for excellence comes from wanting to serve God in the best way possible. We need to work better and stronger and harder, not because of pride or because we're afraid to fail. No, our strength comes from a God who never rests, never grows weary, never fails. Our excellence comes from a reliance on Him.

Samuel Adams

Love it.

excellence in the final stretch

Am I now trying to win the approval of men, or of God? Or am I trying to please men? If I were still trying to please men, I would not be a servant of Christ. --Gal 1:10

Makoto Fujimura came to speak at my school once, and he told what is now one of my favorite stories. When he was in graduate school in Japan, before he was a Christian, Mr. Fujimura was working on the piece that was for his doctoral dissertation. The way he paints, he uses gold leaf as the background - literally plates the canvas - and then he paints on top of that. It's beautiful. Anyhow, he said that at one point, one of his advisors came in to watch for a bit. After a few minutes, the advisor says, "That surface is so beautiful it's almost terrifying."

Mr. Fujimura says that, before he knew God, he didn't know what to do with that statement. He didn't have a place to put it, so to speak. And he says he was so flustered by the remark that he washed down the surface and started over.

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I guess the way Christians should deal with success is to be excellent but to give credit where credit is due. This is what I, and all successful students, should remember going into the semester. The creator of the universe, who allows us to be here and to learn with zeal, is also the one who is responsible for the success. We have a place to put this beauty, because we know where it came from in the first place. It wasn't us. It was Him.
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Last year, I wrote Mr. Fujimura an email to his website and told him that I had heard him speak, and that I remembered his story, and that I thought of it often when I had something in my hands (figuratively speaking) that I didn't have a place for. I'm still learning to put things in the right places when He hands them to me.

Mr. Fujimura wrote back.

Marissa

Your life and your future is alreasy etched in our Creator's sovereign hand. Entrust that you are God's masterpiece (Eph 2:8-10) and live out confidently into your calling...

Blessings

Mako

real and make-believe.

I'm sitting here at my computer looking at an acquaintance's Tumblr page so that I don't have to read about homicide.

I've been very disappointed with homicide in my Criminal Law class, mostly because I expected it to be so damn interesting. I looked forward to learning about it for a month, and now it turns out all I have from the experience is nausea and murder dreams. I could work on my Torts outline instead, but somehow it doesn't seem relevant this week.

My husband and I are both on spring break, and we have a friend in the hospital. She's pregnant and on bed rest and not due for 2 or 3 more months yet. Somehow outlining the degrees of murder pales in comparison to taking her dinner and talking for a while.

This isn't a new phenomenon to me. Crisis really throws things into perspective. Maybe not even a crisis situation does this, but just the shades of importance that you don't see when your life is every day the same.

Before I lived in the Dominican, I was deathly afraid of the dark. Still not the biggest fan, but when I lived there I had people follow me on the street and threaten me in a little bus. I had someone take my wallet. There were real things to be afraid of. The dark is just the absence of something, and the whole time I lived there, I never hesitated to walk down a dark street or into a dark room.

And here, again. Law school is nothing. I mean, really. I could quit tomorrow and nothing would happen. There are other lawyers in the world. Other law students at schools much more prestigious than mine. If I don't do the job, somebody else will. But there are other things in my life for which that is not true. I'm writing a fake appellate brief about a fake girl and her fake problems when I know real girls with real problems. Sometimes it's hard to draw connections between the make-believe of school and the reality that it will help me someday to change. 

five girls.

When I was in college, the same five girls got picked to do everything.

They were amazing women, compassionate and grounded, kind-hearted and patient. They smiled and laughed and gave hugs freely. They loved Christ and everyone loved them. But they got picked for everything. I remember once signing up to do missions over the summer. The school had a fully-funded missions program and you had to apply and interview and the whole nine yards. I remember looking at the sign-up sheet for interviews and thinking that I didn't have a chance in hell of getting a scholarship, because there were only like 4 slots and all five of those girls had signed up. I remember feeling like a horrible person because they were just so sweet and I was just so frustrated.

I've tried hard to be like them. I've tried hard to be sweet and upbeat and present and give lots of hugs. I've tried to smile more and speak softly of Jesus with that glow that attracts other people. But no matter how hard I try, I'm just me: the honest, rough-around-the-edges, too-loud, easily frustrated, tactless, defensive person I've always been.

In hindsight, I think the school was wrong to always pick all five of them. Not because they weren't sweet or didn't love Jesus, but because they were all the same. The Church needs all types of people. People who are sweet and give hugs, and people who will tell it like it is. The girls were awesome, but I think the school was misguided by its desire to put forth a good impression rather than pick the people who would get the job done.

I've been thinking about this again lately because of the clash of people I know between my school and the friends that I have here around the Med Center, and trying to figure out my place in the array of personalities.

For two years in college I lived with a sorority (but wasn't in it), and several of the girls were in a Spanish class with me. I remember once one of them put off a class presentation until the night before it was due. After she gave it she asked all her sorority sisters if you could tell she had done it only the night before. They said no, of course not, it was perfect, it was better than ever. Later that day, she knocked on my door.

"I know you'll be honest with me," she said. "Could you tell it did my presentation last night?"

I told her the truth, that yes, you could, but that it had honestly been very very good considering all that.

She thanked me and left.

If I can't be one of the five girls that everyone picks to be the face of their campaign or their mission scholarship or their soft-spoken, quiet exuberance, then I at least want to keep being the honest one that people can tell will have integrity and speak the truth even when it is hard to hear.