mikey arce

I started a blog to talk about some of the work I am doing with Bolivia. I will be traveling around Bolivia for the month of August, so if you are interested, go here:

The Bolivian Circus

If you are wondering what an archaeopteryx is, it's just that bird in the picture.

me: that's strange

kirsten: what?

m: there are a bunch of people hugging over there

k: that's a mailbox

m: oh...



might be time to go see the eye doctor.

New Wearable Feedbags Let Americans Eat More, Move Less

"Freedom is gone"

-drunk man outside my window that was just arrested

I am learning to appreciate mystery. When I think about mystery I find that I often think of problem solving. There is a problem, you spend some time trying to figure out an answer, and then you figure it out and *bam* you're done. Most movies you watch will resolve all problems within a 2 hour time period. Shows like 24 solve what seems like an infinite number of crises all in one day! My life is very different from that reality.

When I appreciate mystery, not only do I learn to humble myself but I also learn to enjoy things that I will never understand.

Just 5 minutes ago, I was listening to a man outside of my window. He had a bit too much to drink and he was wailing and shouting about the issues in his life, it was like he was reciting Ecclesiastes from memory.

"My life is not worth living!"

"My freedom is gone, and I don't want to live"

"Fuck you cops! I'm not drunk!"

The police showed up and arrested him for being drunk in public.
I was picturing an elderly concerned woman in her house calling the police..

Gertrude: "Hi, yes... there is a drunken man yelling profanities outside and it's not letting me sleep."

Cops: "Ok ma'am, we will be right over to take care of the situation."

Since when is our priority to sleep more important than a man's life?

His name is Mike (I overheard the police asking him for his ID). He is going through a really hard time, and he's not coping well. Maybe he lost his job, maybe he lost a loved one, maybe he has no friends? He's hurting. I realized that in our community, we don't have room for people who are hurting. They don't let us sleep. We put people in jail that we don't like, we medicate people with bad attention spans, and shove our ancestors in "retirement villages" that kill them long before they die.

Mystery draws me into questions. It probes my heart with a piercing knife of discomfort. Should I have just sat and listened to Mike get arrested or should I have gone out and fought for his safety and listened to him? I don't know, but my fear and questions often lead me to just... sitting, and waiting. What has led our culture to be a place where we don't have room for the hurting? We live in a world that calls H1N1 (or porkfluenza) a pandemic because it killed some rich white people like me, but doesn't give a shit about the millions of people with HIV because they are poor and therefore not important.

There is mystery in everything. Jesus is a mystery, and he draws us into asking questions about life, not having answers. I used to think it was about having all the right answers and knowing how to "defend the faith" with lovely facts and verses to back them up. Maybe life should be more like good art - it draws us to wonder, it makes us pause to reflect, it moves us to see clearer, and it leaves us with even more questions and an urge to create art ourselves.

So create, use your imagination, and maybe then mystery will bring us the freedom we need to make room for the hurting, the drunk, and those in the fringes of our culture.

I don't know what to write about anymore, so my next blog will be decided by way of a poll, because I really don't know what to write. I have a suspicion that no one even reads this and no one will vote.