Rumored Thought (Pt. 2)

Check out Part 1

Safety in mission is a relative impossibility, rather implausibility.

My dad told me just before I trounced off to Egypt for a summer, “I know you’ll be safe, ‘cause you’re in the center of God’s will -- but I guess that’s not safe, it’s just right.”

We can’t embark on mission and expect to come out the other side the same. We’ll be changed; we’ll be effected by what we’ve seen, whom we’ve spoken to, and the relationships we’ve built.

If we informally understand safety as the retention of normality than we must never see mission as safe. (And more often than not when we, as modern Americans, talk about safety we mean the normal.)

Internationally I’ve been in some rather dangerous experiences all for the sake of mission (things I’ve not told my mom… until she reads this that is), it wasn’t safe. Locally I’ve been in situations just as hairy.

My point is this: mission will never leave us the same. It won’t allow us to be just as spunky as we were when we were kids. It’ll wear our souls out and cause us to be ragged and rough. It won’t polish us up and let us be the neat little Christian legalism has told us we ought to be.

“The Prince of Darkness grim, we tremble not for him;

His rage we can endure, for lo, his doom is sure, 


One little word shall fell him….

Let goods and kindred go, this mortal life also;

The body they may kill: God’s truth abideth still,

His kingdom is forever.”

Life is a tempest, which will drowned our tiny boats eventually. We are not as we once were; we are not children anymore. No, and the cares of life have brought us the realization of reality. So why should mission be different? Why should mission cause us to be clean and neat and safe when it asks us to do precisely opposite?

No. No, mission isn’t safe, and we’ll not come out the other side of it the same. Thank God.

Trip Thoughts: Part 2

Could’ve sworn that sign said, "Judas Baptist Church." awwwwwkward.

The only thing begging for my time is an unfinished game of solitaire & a book.

Reminder: never buy a graphic tee, sport a mullet, or have a chester-molester mustache.

I hate being a tourist. But I love traveling. Issue.

Craziest line I've heard so far: "I started smoking heroine 5 years ago... But I only do it every now & again."

Merridees coffee house... Shoot Franklin, TN altogether is like a place I've been to in a dream. Gorgeous. I'd live there.

Southern hospitality? Nah.

I wonder how many broken dreams are in this town?

People are incredibly interesting to me.

Elevator do’s/don’ts means whaaaa?

That awkward moment you get off on the wrong floor and walk into the wrong room. That never happened to me... I mean it could've... Maybe.

"Honey, I'm in the car that's why it's so loud." said the man on his phone next to me at the bar...

Taylor Swift didn't take me up on my coffee offer. Fiddlesticks.

I've got a love triangle going on: Wichita, Nashville, & India... Scotland, Egypt, Germany... I'm in trouble.

Kansas roads- superb

Tennessee roads- wonderful

Oklahoma roads- meh

Arkansas roads- I can't think of a word worse than, "absolutely-terrible-and-deplorable."

Might as well work on my left arm tan while I'm driving.

I'm in a parking lot on I-40. Going nowhere. For the second time. Both times in Arkansas... Makes sense.

Merging seems to be a tricky task in this strange land.

I'm glad Wichita has more than 7 stoplights.

Shell & Subway are the saviors for most tiny Arkansas towns

Tulsa, get a life.

Wichita is like a tiny Nashville. & Without all the money.

Returning has been like a bad break-up. Fooie.

Political

I’ve been having quite a few ‘political thoughts’ this past weekend (scary). Usually I like to steer clear of that whole arena of thinking and talking (some who know me, know this well).

(I'm calling it as I see it.)

But here’s the deal, the thing that sent me thinking all day Saturday. There is no leader to follow, none. None which will fix the problems of the nation or help the plight to get better.

Sure, they’ll all promise it when the time is come for ballots, but will they do it, no. It’s the same great scam over and over and over…etc, a suit stands in front of crowd gets their votes and makes a career out of what should be an honor.

Working for a few days a year then taking the rest of it off, tossing around some legal jargon (which they probably don’t understand) and then campaigning to get re-elected, using the same lies they used last time.

We’re used to it, we expect politicians to lie.

That’s despicable. We expect the people who lead us to lie to us…

I’m not going to tell you who to vote for. I’m not going to give you some savvy political advice. All I want out of this is to make a few people think.

Think about the simple fact there is no leader to unite a nation unto its salvation. Sooner or later all nations fail and fall Egypt, Greece, Rome there’s not yet been an exception.

I’m an American, an (voting) American who’s tired of crappy politicians and a fractured, divided and leaderless country (leaderless in the sense of none to unite all). Men died to see a free country; something tells if the vast majority of those men saw us now they’d be sorry.

But we don’t hope in a nation do we?

We hope in God. In Jesus.

My Past

I’ve been doing a lot of reminiscing lately. Remembering things I’ve done and places I’ve been in contrast to where and who I am now.

Typically I don’t look back. (but I may try to forget some things, but even those things are daring to be remembered too.)

Red Lobster, that’s where it began. Eating a lovely meal with grandma. Thinking, “Tables were never this clean in Egypt and food was never this good in Uganda.” Seeing, in stark contrast mind you, the difference from where I was and where I am.

That’s where many of my thoughts have been lately.

There’s a dirty and bland world out there. There are starving children and kids with AK-47’s killing each other and their families. There are women dying in the streets far away from their home. And a man with one hand no lips, no eyes, and acid burns on his face begging for money in a dank corner of a Ugandan market.

We’d consider it out-of-control, they’d consider it normal.

Egypt I loved, Uganda scared me, Israel was homely, Amsterdam was crazy, and Frankfurt was too short.

This isn’t a list of credentials to be read and envied. It’s not a look-at-me-I’m-better-than-you-cause-I-traveled list. It’s just a dude remembering how good we’ve got it here in, “no-where,” Wichita, Kansas.

We can drink the water in the showers, and brush our teeth from faucet water and not a bottle. We all (for the most part) have cars (no matter how crappy they are). Houses, safety, and pets we don’t have to eat.

No-where Wichita seems like a vacation compared to war-torn Africa. #justsaying