I’ve spent the last two days searching for the perfect place to start new. A place to write and share about what I think it means to live better, to not suck at life, or to matter today.
And I’ve wound up back here.
gut|feelings.
This is my virtual home away from home. My think pad, my show-and-tell. It hit me today that I had been looking for the wrong answer. . I wanted people to see what I had to say because I wanted to say something important. I wanted to be heard and to be recognized for what was said. Right now, that’s not going to happen… and honestly, I’ve stopped believing that it will. Right now, all I need is a place where I can get things out of my head and into the “cosmic void” that is life. —- It’s been a tough year. The last post I shared was about leadership and then before that about Zambia. God’s good and these things have grown in me and after a roller coaster summer I am ready to do this again… more for myself than anything. It’s been a tough year. Aside from marrying the love of my life this summer threw so many punches our way I didn’t know if I wanted to push myself off of the ropes. It’s been a summer of loss, deep loss, and at the same time on of hope, because honestly what else is there left to do. Like I said, it’s been a tough year… but Cait and I are hanging on as best as we can with the help of the people who love us.
“If you can’t find your voice, you’ll end with a vocabulary that belongs to someone else, mouthing words that were written be some speechwriter or mimicking the language of some other leader who is nothing like you at all… you will not have the credibility to lead.” — The Leadership Challenge, by James Kouzes & Barry Posner
It hit me today that tomorrow begins my first day away from the “ages of adolescence” in a very real but not literal way. Tomorrow I turn 22. I will no longer be 21 which is obvious but comes (at least for me) with a lot of new things. I’ve been working for a while now at a fantastic full-time job, have been engaged for exactly 2 months and have done more work on wedding planning than I ever thought was needed, and will, after this year, never have a “milestone birthday” again, at least not like I’ve known them. There are a lot of things that someone in my position could be feeling. I feel empowered.
I was driving toward Starbucks earlier today after a morning of preparing for my family to arrive which was followed by a wonderful night out with my beautiful fiancée. Date nights are one of a kind for us. Every time we devote a night to one another we find something else out about each other, well as least I do. The thing is that my girl is truly incredible - she is the ultimate catch. Whenever people who know her talk to me about her they can’t reach the end of the conversation without complimenting her heart, strength, or free spirit. These conversations help remind me why I love her and help me get away from my focus of what it takes to love her.
It takes a lot to love her. It takes a lot. Not because of who she is (though I don’t think there exists on this planet a woman more stubborn than her, well maybe my mother) but rather because of the weaknesses I see in me. She and I have this thing where we both have a soft spot for a great romantic comedy (don’t judge me, you know they are funny). I know, I know they aren’t real life and I know they aren’t something to compare your own relationship too - and that is not what I am doing. But, to me there is a real-ness to how those male characters learn to love a woman. There is a real-ness to the written, thought through lines and character development that depicts the silly, quirky things about these women that they love. There is such a real-ness to that, a real-ness that challenges me to remember why I love my fiancée.
These lessons are the best kind to learn because they make you a better person. They not only shape how you love that special someone, but they shape what is on most days a natural inclination to be judgmental. These lessons are hard but very, very good.
On this last day of what is considered the “party year”, I sit here listening to potential wedding day songs and thinking about the love of my life. I’m thinking about my best friend. I’m thinking about the way she loves me in spite of my selfishness and insufficiency in loving her the way she deserves. I’m thinking about all of the times I’ve treated her so poorly. I’m thinking about the ways she completes me, encourages me, and challenges me. I’m thinking about her 4th grade sense of humor, they ways she laughs even though she doesn’t think something is funny. I’m thinking about the baby clothes she made me look at yesterday, the way we “play house” in Pottery Barn, and the dreams we have for the future. I am thinking about her heart and compassion for people in Africa, little orphan babies, and young women here in her sphere of influence. I am thinking about how she has been hurt and the amount of strength it takes to trust someone with love, and how honored I am that she trusts me, chose me, and said “Yes” to me. I am thinking about how lucky I am to have found this person at 22, the confidence I have in our relationship, and the way God brought us together. I am thinking about who she is going to be in the future, how she’ll support me and our kids, and how she’ll deserve even more love than she deserves now.
Some days aren’t about some deep thought about Seminary education, student development, or life calling. Some days are about taking off that idea of who you want to appear to be and bravely and cheesily dedicating HW time to telling everyone how in love you are - and how happy/thankful/privileged/honored (to God) you are for having that person.
You know the kind…I know you do.
I wanted to write today, it’s been so long since I have. Someday soon - but not now.
Too tired.
Too preemptively sick.
Too ready to curl up and fall asleep.
I pray that as I sleep God rejuvenates not only my mind and body but my heart and spirit as well.
In the midst of “those” weeks, may you search for God and yourself to find Him. May you live deeply in the tension of the darkness that seems so alive in your life as it wars with the light and gift of righteousness that you know to reign supreme. May you trust our great, awesome, strong, and heavenly Father as you live a life worthy of your calling.
This verse rocked my world tonight, yet again, so I wanted to share my thoughts with you. Verses will be bold text with my thought in italics.
“…and we ought to lay down our lives for one another. (the end of an important verse that sets up the next two perfectly). But if anyone (that means me, you, the guy across the street or the guy living on the street) has the world’s goods (let’s not pretend like we don’t know what they are) and sees his brother (you, me, the guy across the street or the the guy living on the street) in need, yet closes (active…maybe read it “chooses to close”) his heart against (definition: in opposition to) him, how does God’s love abide in him? (He’s asking…really asking…how does God’s love, which is more powerful than any evil or darkness, abide in them?) Little children, let us not love in word or talk (to impress someone or make yourself feel better) but in deed and in truth (to serve someone and make yourself love better).”
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“…and we ought to lay down our lives for one another. But if anyone has the world’s goods and sees his brother in need, yet closes his heart against him, how does God’s love abide in him? Little children, let us not love in word or talk but in deed and truth.” - 1 John 3:16-18
…that one day I’d be crying in the bathroom at one of my favorite coffee shops.
I couldn’t wait until I was home to start watching this documentary my boss and friend Chip, the leader of my Zambia trip, gave me about malaria in Africa, so I pushed play on my laptop while I was at the Java Lounge…my roommate sitting across from me and the noise of other people filling the room. I was warned to watch it alone but I thought I could make it without shedding tears. Little did I know, it would only take a few minutes for me to be in the bathroom, leaning against the wall, with tears coming from my eyes.
There are people…real people…with lives just as important as our own. They laugh, cry, and view their lives in the same way we do. But man oh man, do they have struggles we will never see. And, in just 6 short months, I get to help pass out bed nets to people whose lives will literally be saved because of it.
Shared above (click the title of this post or copy and past below)is one of Chip’s blogs…his thoughts after watching this very same documentary. Honestly, I just don’t know how else to put it.
http://chiphuber.blogspot.com/2010/10/weeping-because-of-malaria.html
During the past two years God has grown a small, piercing seed into a “must do” desire. Randomly last Fall I felt I had to go somewhere. I needed to experience something else and when my options came across the table there was one, only one that stood out to me. Stirring, my heart jumped to the paper about Zambia. Without getting into it God has unexpectedly used two people to grow this seed, people who say things and act contagiously in ways that bring that stir right back to the forefront of my mind…my girlfriend Caitlin and my supervisor Chip. This feeling, this stir wipes away my “to-do list” and makes me stop…and this week something became very clear.
There are people….people like you and me with lives, loves, tears and smiles, all around the world. People who need others to step in for their behalf because they just can’t do it all by themselves. I been receiving World Vision materials ever since I donating a small amount of money during an effort to purchase malaria nets for a community in Zambia…nets which I will be helping distribute this coming May. The latest marketing piece was a holiday gift guide, if you will, which allows you to pick out anything from chickens to water wells which you can donate to a family/community in need around the world. The child on the front made me laugh with his goofy grin and pet goat and I was instantly interested in what would fill this “catalog’s” pages. It wasn’t long into my flipping that my eyes caught those of a small African boy drinking for a tiny cup while being held by his mother. Before I knew it I was crying. There, standing over my kitchen table at 5:30 in the evening I was shedding small tears for this little guy on the other side of the world.
I never thought that a stirring in my heart would exist like this one exists…I was never going to be that guy. Slowly but surely though the stirring is getting more intense, and it makes me eager to find out why.
“Could we with ink the ocean fill,
And were the skies of parchment made,
Were every stalk on earth a quill,
And every man a scribe by trade;
To write the love of God above
Would drain the ocean dry;
Nor could the scroll contain the whole,
Though stretched from sky to sky.”
— Frederick M. Lehman
It’s that time in the evening when we stop thinking about the day in terms of “our day” and start to sink into the nighttime. On this night I can be found sitting by myself in the second of eight plastic blue chairs neatly arranged along to glass window wall that is the front of my laundromat. My laundromat. It’s my second time here, I know how the machines work without thinking about them or reading the instructions. The smell of the bathroom and the florescent lights are becoming memories in my mind. I remember the ceiling that takes me back to the dining hall at summer camp and the ATM that promises a ridiculous user fee. I’ve been here before and will come here again. It’s my laundromat.
I have to be honest…this place is starting to grow on me. Sure, on any given night of the week there are roughly thirty places I would choose to go other than my laundromat. But on nights that are the cap to a day filled with stress, exhaustion, and worry it is comforting to know that the laundromat is still the laundromat. I like the variety of people and personalities I meet here. I like the smell of old laundry detergent and dirty water. I like the idea that this place “is what it is”, a bathroom for clothing.
Everyone at my laundromat looks like the only plans they had tonight were laundry. We are wearing old jeans or sweatpants, sweatshirts and slippers, and clearly we have not done our hair for the occasion. And that’s okay, because it doesn’t matter. We don’t need to know anything about each other. We don’t care about the clothes each other owns. It doesn’t matter what fills the machines. Some washers are filled with grime from working manual labor for eight hours and in others aprons from the shift at the local diner fill the drums. Some contain children’s bedding and happy blankets. Others are filled with the latest trends and fashions. But at the end of the day it doesn’t matter because everyone has dirty clothes that need to be washed, everyone.
I’m pretty prideful sometimes. I like to think I am not but the people I love remind me all the time, which I desperately need. If I am being honest I would say that I never would have thought I’d come to a laundromat to do laundry, as if it’s something to be better than. I would have told you that I would be on the other side of the wall getting my shirts and khakis pressed for the next day at the office. I would have told you anything but that I would be in a laundromat. It’s dumb isn’t it? It’s true though.
If I have been shown one thing this year it’s that God hates pride because it separates me from Him and everyone else on this planet that He loves. I mean who am I? Who am I to be better than anyone else? Really? I am nothing without God and even then it’s Christ in me that is something. We are nothing folks, we’re nothing.
So let’s all cut the garbage. Let’s fill the chips on our shoulders and just quit being arrogant, prideful, and “better-off” than everyone else. Let’s free ourselves from all that and quit holding ourselves to such a high esteem. It’s a choice that we all must make, we must.
My lunch break today was something else…I sat with a few friends of mine, some students and some coworkers, and shortly found ourselves talking about activism. We came across the subject when someone said that they grow tired of it, wishing that all of the different activist organizations would join together, stop their need to make their cause more important, and share resources. He indicated that it’s hard to be pulled in so many directions and thus he grows tired of (I think burdened by) social activism. In the way he described it…I don’t think any of us can argue with that. Others at the table indicated how it would be nice for activism groups to be “really good at fixing one thing” and another stated that he wrestles with the priors feelings and the conviction of needing to be a part of the solution.
Truth be told, there is a lot to fix in the world. There are so many needs.
Let me raise a question…
In a world where I can:
sit in a well lit, well heated room - drink a well brewed, well sweetened cup of coffee - eat a well made, fresh sandwich - talk on my cell phone - type on a computer - drive a running car - afford my own apartment - read - write - be educated - be cared for physically, emotionally, spiritually - work - breathe clean air - drink clean water - clean myself - etc. etc. etc.,
is it ever really okay for me to grow “tired” of social activism? I don’t think it is. I don’t think we have an excuse. I am learning to not be all about the saying “to each his own”, that each persons reality is their reality and what is hard for one may be easy for another. This isn’t about what is easy for one and hard for another. Just because I don’t have to worry about not having all of those things listed above doesn’t mean the worries I do have are just as important.
This is something I am learning daily. I don’t know why God is teaching this to me now. I don’t know what I haven’t felt conviction like this before. Regardless. If you think I am preaching to you, I’m preaching to myself too. Really, I am.
In a world where the 20 year olds working 10 hours a week for 8 dollars an hour at the school where I work, are richer than 85% of the world….where I am richer than 92% of the world…I don’t think we get a hall pass on being “tired” of social activism.
I just don’t.
http://worldrichlist.com/ provided the % facts.