I believe...

I was waiting on the metro platform at the airport when I saw them. A sea of young people, some chaperones, all wearing the same black shirt with the statement "I believe" in red and blue stripes and some short manifesto of said belief in tiny white letters. "I believe what," I wondered to myself, and stepped forward to face them bravely. Like other Jews and other Seas, the group parted around me as I squinted at their teenage bosoms. (As an excuse, my contacts have been really bothering me, and I haven't been reading that well. Also: standing on subway platforms squinting at the fervent breasts of Christian Youth is not taken as well as you'd think - It'll probably look as bad on you as it did on me.) I can't help but feel that my actions sped up the flow of teens past me, making it effectively more difficult to decipher their message. Didn't get the whole statement but it revolved around repenting and redemption and Washington, DC, which, honestly, can't be all bad.

If it were my shirt it would say:

I believe...
That gravity and time are sometimes negotiable, sometimes not. That life has inherant, recognizable worth, in any vessel, and judging this worth by percieved magnitude is innappropriate (not that we should let it stop us, but it should give us pause). That cultural relativism is almost universally applicable. That living one's life fully is altruistic. That the fate of giant squid foretells our own.



As they passed, clutching their duffles and pillows, I hoped that their redemption experience in DC was meaningful, effective, and involved bedbugs.