Life and a Cappucinno

I am almost tempted not to blog, because Will’s blog pretty eloquently describes almost all my thoughts of last night. But, I hardly ever write anything, and I am long past due for a blog, so I though I would begin with a funny anecdote:

It was a beautiful night in Kenya, warm with slight, refreshing breeze. Bethany is relaxing on a chair, and Jill and Will are sitting next to her, on the ground. There is a cup of cappuccino that is too hot to drink that is sitting on the arm of the chair.

They are all watching the sun go down over the Ngong hills, and Will begins to get excited about the beauty of the sunset. He attempts to describe how the color of the sky will slowly leak to the sky that is in our peripheral vision. He discovers that words alone cannot capture the essence of what he is trying to convey so he rapidly stretches his long, long arms out to show Bethany and Jill how big the sunset really is. In doing so, he knocks the cup of cappuccino off of the arm of the chair, towards Bethany’s lap. She sees the hot liquid will spill all over her if she makes no attempt to stop it so she reaches out her hand to catch the mug and in doing so launches the mug further into the air.

The cappuccino spatters through the air, and rains down all over Bethany’s face, and clothes. The moral of the story is : Don’t let Will describe the sunset with flailing arm motions, or you too could be showered in cappuccino.

That was possibly the funniest moment of my week, and I am thankful I did not get cappuccino burns all over my face.

Since we left the YWAM base I’ve realized that I lot of times I am trying to do something, instead of trying to be something. Last night as I was falling asleep I began to wonder again about my identity. I wondered whether I let the things I do define me, or whether who I am define the things I do. It’s much easier, I think, to let myself be defined by what I do. It’s less thinking power, and conscious action, because I can just go on with life, and then afterwards tie my identity to whatever it was that I did. To let who I am define what I do, is much more difficult. And I am not sure yet how exactly to go about it. It makes me think of that Casting Crowns song, “Who am I ?” The chorus says :

And you’ve told me who I am,
I am yours.

Do I let the fact that “ I am His” define what I do? I don’t know that I can completely and honestly say “yes”
I love Africa because I feel like there are so many things to talk about…. Like our conversation last night about rebirth. The more I look at our generation, the more I find people who are willing to step out of the numbness and complacency of North America and find new life. And it makes me wonder whether maybe that’s the kind of rebirth Jesus is talking about. Maybe it can be accepting the life of the way of Jesus, while there is deadness all around us. Daring to seek life in a sea of numbness, and discarding the emptiness of materialism and consumerism and replacing it with real, genuine, divine love. Birth is new life. Is discovering a new way to be alive, essentially a rebirth ?

When I think of the churches I’ve been to in North America, and even in Kenya, I am struck by how much deadness I see there. There is life there, don’t get me wrong, but when I look at their eyes, a lot people don’t seem to be truly alive. And I wonder, what’s the point of a religion if it doesn’t offer a better way of life? I’m not interested in religion that exclusively offers life after death. What’s the point of “living” after we die, if we never learned how to live before we die?

We must learn how to live, in the midst of the deadness of the world, for there can be rebirth without life.


Cheers,

Bethany