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Wednesday night bloggageness #2

I guess this sort of has to do with what Jill wrote about how maybe we shouldn’t be so concerned with who we are or who we should become, but instead, try to figure out who we were.

I don’t really like looking at pictures of that little curly redhaired little boy that I apparently was at some point. First of all, I always gripe at Mom, asking, “Mom, why the heck did you make me wear that?” We have a picture of David, Sam, and I all dressed up in little sailor suits and I think Sam has a sailor hat on. Little jumpsuits with navy stripes and yellow borders… Oh wow. Wait’ll I show that to their fiancés after they get engaged. hehe.

On a more serious note, I don’t really like looking at those pictures because I don’t understand who that little boy was. How did he turn into who I am now? There is a home video somewhere of my cousin and I in short shorts, long socks, and disgusting tie-dye and neon orange shirts, holding hands as we “walked” around a roller-blading rink. I obviously didn’t care what anyone thought about me. I just don’t identify with that little guy. Or maybe it would hurt too much to figure out where I went wrong.

So carefree, so loving. I had so much faith, never questioning God or Jesus but just really loving them with as much love as I could muster at that point. I ran around with a pop gun, shooting the bad guys and rescuing the princess… Yes, I did discover how to be a G.I. Joe and rescue princesses at the same time. I’m pretty much a stud in case anybody was wondering. My brothers and I built massive waterparks out of sand in the summer, ruining t-shirts and staining them forever. We’d put the hose at the top of a pile of sand and just see what the water would do. We built rope swings on lakes, fished for crawdads, put snapping turtles in girls’ pools, and generally did everything boys do. And a lot more.

But then, I went to high school and decided it was good to be cool. So girls became important, weight lifting a daily thing in the summer, and designer clothes an essential. Started playing sports and spent every waking moment shooting a basketball or doing homework… well, mostly. And you ask, “How’d you end up in Africa?” Good question.

Sometime last spring I read a phenomenal book by Donald Miller that told the story of a roadtrip he and a friend did one year that took them from Houston, Texas to Oregon. It’s called, “Through Painted Deserts.” At the beginning of the book, he talks about the value of leaving.

“Everybody has to change or they expire. Everybody has to leave, everybody has to leave their home and come back so they can love it again for all new reasons.”

“And so my prayer is that your story will have involved some leaving and some coming home, some summer and some winter, some roses blooming out like children in a play. My hope is that your story will be about changing, about getting something born inside of you, about learning to love a woman or a man, about learning to love a child, about moving yourself around water, around mountains, around friends, about learning to love others more than we love ourselves, about learning oneness as a way of understanding God. God has established the elements, the setting and the climax and the resolution. It would be a crime not to venture out, wouldn’t it? It might be time for you to go. It might be time to change, to shine out. I want to repeat one word for you: LEAVE.”

Leaving… I like the sound of the word. Jill, Bethany, and I, in our conversations at night, have talked about that word. I have tried to explain something deep within me that is hard to articulate, but that I think is one of the most valuable things any of us can do.

I think that we have to leave in order to be able to stay.

I’m one of those people who have to change, or I’ll seriously die. Or actually, the part of me that is most alive will die, thereby making me dead. I don’t think that it’s because I get bored with where I am. That I just need a change of pace to keep me interested or thinking, though those are great things. I honestly believe that one must leave the luxuries of home and the comforts of familiar places, culture, and people in order to realize how beautiful those things are.

I wrote a note on Facebook last spring about leaving. Here’s a portion of it:

“Maybe we need to leave to figure out how to stay. I have felt lately that I need to leave, to go be with the lepers, to cave dive with hippies, to sleep on the front lawn in Oregon with some beautiful sisters, laughing about life, to play night golf, to feed that kid on the posters from Chad, to give the girl who was raped in Sudan a hug, to go to Afghanistan and tell the orphan the world does have love left in it. To get out of here... to find something- maybe a perspective... to see the beauty in the simplicity of the foot to the accelerator... or the hugs. Or the music of it all. Maybe I need to do that so I get a perspective... so I learn the beauty of it- the simplicity of it. So that then I can come back and remember all of that as I live in this America. This place where all of that is radical but it shouldn't be.”

And now that I’m here, in Africa, trying to love people… taking bucket showers, and washing clothes in a bucket, I’m beginning to see the beauty in simplicity. Away from text messages, dating, partying, and success…here I am. I wish that everybody who had the chance to leave would do it…Jill and I talked today about how it will be hard to go home, back to all those things. We don’t ever want to forget that which we have seen, that which has broken our hearts, that which is changing us as we and talk among a completely different culture.

So I think that we have to leave in order to be able to stay… And the following is a twist on that idea…

In what is probably the greatest book ever written (Manalive), G.K. Chesterton writes,
"This round road I am treading is an untrodden path. I do believe in breaking out; I am a revolutionist. But don't you see that all these real leaps and destructions and escapes are only attempts to get back to Eden--to something we have had, to something at least we have heard of? Don't you see one only breaks the fence or shoots the moon in order to get HOME?"

When Jill quietly spoke into that dark night two weeks ago, quietly wondering if maybe we’re just supposed to figure out who we were rather than worry so much about who we are becoming, it hit me that I’m trying to leave something that is within myself so that I might be able to stay… with myself? (I’m Ron Burgundy?) That didn’t really make sense but I guess that I’m realizing that there are things that have made me into a certain person that I need to get rid of, that I need to leave. As the quote says, all these leaps and escapes that I’m making these days here in Africa, are really only an attempt to get home, to get back to something that I know is there, but that I have lost somewhere along the way.

I wish I could bring all of you here…. That we could all leave together, that we might all be able to stay, or get back to wherever home is. That we might see that life is about more than what we’ve made it.

Life has to be about something more than parties, success, big rims, stereo systems, designer clothes, text messages, girlfriends, and things… It has to be about something greater than ourselves or that which we can accumulate for ourselves. If I am the center… If “I” am what life is about, then it’s really not about much, is it?

In this leaving, I’m sure seeing a different side of this life. Did you catch that? This life…Don’t you want to be alive? To feel alive? Do you ever get sick of feeling dead? I sure do.

Here at Huruma Children’s Home, where the destitute, dying, and abused find food, help, and love, I’m beginning to see a little of what I need to get back to. I’ve overcomplicated life for so long. Maybe life was supposed to be about the simple things… the sunrise over a valley near Machakos, the sunset over a landscape straight from the lion king… Maybe we’re supposed to enjoy God, to enjoy that which He’s put in front of us as we really try to be ALIVE.

I’ll leave you with the conclusion to what I wrote last spring… I wonder if that young man had any idea he’d get the opportunity to leave… had any idea that we all have to leave in order to come home.

“Maybe it was meant to be about enjoying God- seeing him in a sunrise over the Andes next to Quito- seen with a street child. Maybe it was meant to be about seeing God's love in the eyes that girl who loves me even though my people, the people from my country killed her family and her hope... even her innocence. For as I look into those questioning eyes, maybe I will see my own staring back and realize I got it all wrong. And through our tears even though we don't speak the same language, maybe I can again enjoy God in the wonder of the hug. Seeing God, enjoying God... in the snow, in the replenishing rain, in the softness of a touch, in the breath of fresh air... what would it be like to be in a coma and then take that first conscious breath once again. I should revel in that as I see the sunrise, as I give a hug, as I play guitar and piano, as I climb the mountain, as I crest the hill...as I leave- needing that fresh breath once more so that I might be able breath a fresh breath into the body. The body that has become more concerned with the shell- the skin, rather than that which makes it alive... Maybe God can use me to wake it from its coma and show how God can breathe a fresh breath into the body once more. The air around here has gotten kind of stagnant. Let's all breathe again- enjoying Him in the process... In the morning, after the frozen night, let him shine light on the frozen twig once more... so that the life within can once again begin to grow."

LEAVE!

lovewill