| i am awake at three am, thus...here i am so I have been thinking a lot...i had a meeting tuesday night right before i left school for the semester, and we talked about ministry on camps and what it SHOULD look like and how we can get there...and they asked me to speak at intervarsity large group a few weeks into the semester..and i feel like i have a million things to say....at the meeting they showed the first part of a video series they are thinking about using next semester to facilitate conversation, its focus is on evil and its presence in the world, was a little outdated at times, but i think it touched on world issues..and some taboo things that people aren't willing to address...as soon as the video was over we had discussion about using it, and i was surprised by people's attitudes...most were like wow, that was intense...i don't know if you should show that, it will make people uncomfortable..and i don't think people will like it, and i think it was inappropriate for them to be talking about sex slavery and walking down a street of brothels in europe..speaking like now isn't the time to be bringing this stuff up If now isn't the time, then when is? i think that deep down, even if things make us uncomfortable..most people would prefer the truth, and i think that people need to be challenged on that way more then they are. i think that my generation, here, often lives in this place of comfortable complacency, sheltered from the streets of brothels, the sex slavery, the starving children, stolen in the night, from the dirt, the grime, we are sheltered from the least of these. I want more. the word compassion, when broken down in the latin means "to suffer with". i want that. i want to suffer with. i am sitting in america getting my college degree, along with 5500 other people at lewis, and you know i want to see something come of it. i don't want to live in a safe politically correct arm chair watching the world float by coated in apathy. i want challenge. i want my life to reflect my core beliefs. i want to be defined by my love, not just by the words that come out of my mouth. i want to see a church figure out what unity looks like, and to work together, like ONE BODY. how can we be followers of Christ when we cant overlook the nit-picky dogma issues with people who basically believe the same thing we do, why would other people think we could love them if we cant even love eachother. i want restoration. i want to be part of the solution. i want reality, however painful that may be, i want my life to be entwined with those around me, the joys, the heartache, births and deaths, watching my friends children grow, attending 90 year old birthday parties, cradling babies 10,000 miles away in streets with out names. i want to celebrate humanity, and bring dignity to people that are passed by at the end of the day..i guess what it comes down to is our willingness to be apart of the mess. our willingness to leave behind the comfortable ignorance and know what is going on in our world. to be passionate AND ACTIVE. the more people ask me what i want to do with my life, the less i feel inclined to answer some profession recognized by the books. to be honest, i don't know that it matters, my chosen profession to love people. to suffer with them, and honor them where they are at. to be apart of the mess. so what does this mean? I want to go back to school next semester and challenge my community. I am hoping for some challenge in return. I want truth, and honesty. i want the mess. i want openness. I want community, and love. i want to better recognize the place we are at in this world. and i want to see my hands, my feet, as part of the solution. on that note, i am attending a giant conference in a week. it is a missions conference. and i am hoping to get some direction. i know that all this has to start here and now, but i am hoping for some substance to the dreams i have for africa and india. where ever i end up...love is in these arms. |
