it's been one year since I first began this anthematic journey.
quite honestly, I had very low expectations and did not envision that I'd still be blogging a year later, though I have thoroughly enjoyed it.
if you're new here - welcome.
if you've been journeying awhile with me - thanks
I look forward to continuing and subjecting you to my short-comings and subsequent struggles.
cheers.
ps - just before a recent flight, I was rummaging through stacks of books in my office searching for 'something light' to read while flying.
guess what I grabbed as I walked out?
that's right - a little Bonhoeffer, the Cost of Discipleship.
needless to say, it still sits unread
I recently returned from a trip to Uganda. I attempted to maintain a blog while I was there to bring people on the journey with us: http://www.fbcwatotoproject.blogspot.com/
after being home for 3 weeks, I am coming to terms with life for me now.
I must tell you - I am not an amazing person. I have no dillusions of grandeur.
I am humbled beyond words.
there are those who think that it was a vacation. there are those who think 'short-term' missions is ineffective.
what they don't know is that most everyone who went paid their own way from their own pocket and that the money raised went straight to the classrooms and Watoto.
they don't know the faces of the lives that were touched and will continue to be touched through the 'short' time we spent there.
they don't know the sustainable ministry of Watoto and how even something as simple as the classrooms that were built will continue to give children a hope in life.
I was honoured to serve alongside selfless people who gave of themselves, their money, their time to serve. they sacrificed much to go.
while in Uganda and upon returning home, there was and is this low-level guilt below the surface of my mind.
I have so much.
I could have just as easily been born an orphan in Uganda instead of into a family in Canada.
but the problem with guilt is this - it atrophies the soul. it may indicate that there is something wrong or something that needs to be changed. but guilt quickly turns into self-pity/ self-loathing/ ambivalence/ and eventually numbness.
I don't want to become numb. I want to be continually broken. I want to be continually raw and new.
I want to move from guilt to thanksgiving. from atrophy to action.
I am blessed. but not for me - I am blessed to be a blessing.
...
a dear friend thought I'd enjoy this. she knows me well.
I hope you enjoy it too:
someone once (assuming my disdain for bumper stickers) gave me one that says: "My Boss is a Jewish Carpenter"
no comment.
I have a friend that I don't see often enough who regularly challenges me. over the past few years he's been on a journey to delve into jewish(ness). to view his following of Jesus in the light of Jesus' own human heritage.
what does it mean that Jesus is Jewish?
are we capable of understanding what it means to follow him without doing so in the context of Judaism?
does it matter to you?
should it?
not to even begin to pretend that I have a sniff about politics, but purely for friendly banter...
there has been talk these past few days since the throne speech about changing the Canadian National Anthem.
thoughts?
- are you in favour of reevaluating the anthem?
- are you offended or vicariously offended by the current anthem?
- what changes would you propose?
yet life remains the same. maybe the vantage point has change.
my life truly is a story, somedays rivetting, somedays melancholic.
finishing Donald Miller's A Million Miles in a Thousand Years, I am again struck by 'story'
"He said to me I was a tree in a story about a forest, and that it was arrogant of me to believe any differently. And he told me the story of the forest is better than the story of the tree."
it's struck me recently that we've become a society of like or dislike. now, facebook really has nothing to do with it - but the opportunity to casually boast about that which we like or dislike has become second nature to many.
so, I've made a decision - I'm going to like more things. no, I'm not going to click 'like' more often.
what I am going to do is this: cherish more.
my life, my family, my friends, my experiences...but more than that.
instead of necessarily categorizing the items in life to like or dislike automatically - I want to like more/ cherish more. things that may not be in my scope of natural-likeness.
it's become acceptable snobbery to align ourselves with this genre of music or that, this type of movie or that, this book or that, etc.
we shut out the things we don't like. closed-minded souls we are.
but I want to appreciate more. see the hidden qualities. grasp the texture of an unknown tapestry.
so, you listen to your country music, watching Twilight and reading it as well - and I'll be standing there silently applauding your horrible choice in entertainment but appreciating it anew all the same.
following that post, I had to do far more apologizing than I thought I would - apparently people (few as they may be) gave me far more credit than I'm due. a few actually took me at my word and believed I had co-authored a book with Donald Miller, which I still feel horrible about to this day, though I laugh quietly about it as well.
enough about that.
as I'm reading this new book, the concept of 'story' has been slapping me in the face - mostly because that is what the book is about.
here is a snippet:
"The ambitions we have will become the stories we live. If you want to know what a person's story is about, just ask them what they want. If we don't want anything, we are living boring stories, and if we want a Roomba vaccum cleaner, we are living stupid stories. If it won't work in a story, it won't work in life."
