Time (DOP #3 2016)

We always think there is going to be more time.

Over and over again we hear a story about someone who just wasn’t ready for something to happen.  Often it is regrets over the loss of a loved one, perhaps a broken relationship, or suddenly realizing your kids grew up while you were busy at work.  We always think there is going to be more time.

I put off work to browse Facebook, thinking that I’ll find more time to finish my tasks later.  I press snooze on the alarm clock as many times as I think I can get away with, usually resulting in missing the first 5 minutes of my work day.  I pay my bills at the last possible moment, not because I don’t have the funds, but rather because I forget what time it is.

I’ve heard people wonder about the Holocaust, asking how it could have gotten so bad, how could no one do anything to stop it.  I’ve heard the same about things like so many different conflicts and tragedies.  People can always look backwards and see the signs of an approaching catastrophe, but always wonder why no one stopped it.  The list is long, Somalia, Syria, ISIS, Kosovo, and Rwanda come to mind, with many more that could be added.  We always believe we have more time.

There is a new genocide brewing in the world, many organizations are already pointing towards it, begging someone to do something.  We are running out of time.

There is a clear and present threat of a coming terrible genocide in South Sudan.

I don’t what I can do to change it, I don’t know if anyone can do anything, but in pursuing peace there are difficult things that must be done.  At the moment the only thing I can think of to do is tell everyone I know that it is coming, perhaps it has already begun.

Sometimes it is difficult to care for people we will never meet, but if you live life from a Christian worldview, can you imagine Jesus being unaffected by this news?  Would Jesus shrug his shoulders and say “That sucks…oh well, nothing I can do about it.”  Even when the Canaanite women asked Jesus to heal her, and he told her that he was sent to the people of Israel, he acted to heal her because her faith was great.   How much more is our mission to reach the whole earth?

What if we lived in a world where the Church knew how to intervene in a crisis like this?

What would that even look like?

What would it take for the Church to intervene?  Unity, for one thing.  We would have to be united in following the God man who gave his life to heal the divide between us and God.  Surely he would desire that same unity in those who are called by his name.

The Church is the most powerful organization on the face of the planet, and we squander that power so that we can stay comfortably content in our padded seats, meeting together on Sundays to have coffee and hear someone talk about finding our best life now.

Blessed are the peacemakers.  Not the coffee drinkers.

Time is a precious thing.

Never waste it.

Understanding (DOP #2 2016)

25 Days of Peace is back for another year of compelling posts from nearly 10 contributors.  This year you can check out the action on Facebook, or at 254peace.org!  I can’t wait to hear from some of my favorite voices as they wrestle with peace, and what it means in their life during this Christmas season.  As always, subscribe to get my latest posts delivered directly, and head over to the Facebook page to connect with the rest of the contributors.  

I’ve (very) recently started trying to learn Spanish.  I’ve been to a Spanish speaking country several times in my life, and I currently live in an area with a reasonable number of Spanish speakers, a coworker who can speak Spanish, and I’ve recently met someone who has inspired me to finally make an effort to learn.  I’ve learned just a few words over the past few years, mostly just enough to apologize, or ask to be excused.  I might be able to ask how old you are, and if you are less than 10 years old, I might even understand your answer!  (Thanks to Seasame Street!)

I’ve often marveled at the ability of others to speak another language.  As someone who struggles to communicate in English, to me it is a miracle to be able to communicate with people from another culture.  Even though I can’t speak Spanish, when a situation would arise requiring me to communicate with a Spanish speaker, I would just make gestures and repeat the English words until I made myself understood.  It is a crude method, fraught with frustration, but it is usually worth the effort in the end.

When I have to gesture and point my way to communication, it reminds me that we as people often don’t put in enough effort to really understand the people around us.  When you speak my language, I automatically assume that you use words in the same way that I do, that my thoughts must be your thoughts as well.  Obviously, this is not true, and misunderstandings happen regularly in my life from a lack of effort on the part of both parties to really communicate.

When I take the time and effort to try to communicate outside of my own language, I find there is a connection that happens when meaning is finally communicated from one person to another.  The struggle and confusion can absolutely be worth it.

So why do I want to learn to speak Spanish if I can usually make myself understood when necessary?

I want to fully understand.

As our nation becomes increasingly polarized along nationalistic lines, l want to be available to be a bridge between two cultures that are not at peace.  I want to use my ability to communicate in English to tell the stories of those around me who can’t make themselves understood by those who won’t put in the effort to listen.  When a whole people group is maligned, made out to be the enemy of our success as a nation, I know that unless people are willing to stand up on their behalf, there is a genocide of sorts, lurking around the corner.

In every culture here in the United States, you can find good and bad.  In the same way that not every immigrant comes here illegally, I understand that not every immigrant obeys the laws.  I hope to celebrate the good, and expose the bad.  Dividing rightly the truth of the matters at hand from the false and terrible rhetoric.

In the pursuit of peace, sometimes we all need a little help understanding.  I hope to one day learn enough to be the beginnings of that bridge of understanding.  No lasting peace has been found without dialogue between the parties at war.
No lasting peace has been found without reaching understanding.

Feliz Navidad!

Full (DOP #1 2016)

I ate way too much for dinner tonight.

I had been sitting in front of the computer, procrastinating, not writing my first post for 25 DOP, when my phone rang with an offer to join a friend for dinner.  Since I knew I was working against a deadline, and really should stay focused on getting my post done, I promptly decided to join him.  Which is the way my brain works when I am up against a deadline.  I make procrastination an art form.

I digress.

We went to a nice little Mexican place nearby, and I ordered my normal order.  It arrived incredibly quickly, and I dug in with my typical fervor for delicious food.  We sprinkled conversation over our meal, small things, work things, future plans, it was a fairly typical dinner conversation.  It was about midway through that typical conversation that I realized I had made a mistake.  A terrible, terrible mistake.

I wasn’t hungry.

I had spent most of the time before dinner snacking on crackers and cookies.  I had probably eaten my normal dinner quantity in random snack foods.  I wasn’t just not hungry.  I was full.

I digest.

As I drove home in a surprising amount of stomach discomfort (I couldn’t just leave that beautiful meal there to get cold!) I started to think about my life choices.  I should have eaten less, or I should have waited for the invitation that I suspected would come.  My friend and I talked about getting dinner together before I left work, I just couldn’t wait to satisfy my hunger.  So instead of waiting for the meal that I normally enjoy so much, I filled up with the garbage I didn’t have to wait for.

How many times do we fill our own lives with garbage instead of waiting for what we know we really want?  How many times have I bought something that I knew was going to just be buried under a pile of clothes I don’t wear?  How many times do we eat, when we are already full?

As I sit, typing, with an aching tummy, I find that being full has not brought me peace.  In fact, it may be a while before my stomach feels peaceful again.  As I sit, typing, with a full schedule and so many plans, do I find the peace that I so desperately long for?

What if I spent the next 24 days focused not on getting my fill of peace, as though I were a bear preparing to hibernate through a long winter, but rather, making room to be filled?  If I clean out parts of my life that are filled with junk, how much more satisfying will those moments of peace be?  What if I tried to share the things I don’t need with those around me who are starving!  How different would this world be if we all ate just enough, and shared the extra that fills our lives with unnecessary pain?

Instead of racing to the next Christmas party, or speeding down the congested streets to buy that one last necktie for dad, what if we found a way to cherish the moments we have together.

When you are hungry, even the smallest morsels of food are fulfilling, rewarding.  When you are over-full, even the most exquisite foods can be a chore to eat.

I want to be hungry for peace.

 

25 Days of Peace has returned again!  This year you can check out the action on Facebook, or at 254peace.org!  I can’t wait to hear from some of my favorite voices as they wrestle with peace, and what it means in their life during this Christmas season.  

Watch 31 (2015-2016)

 

Every year on my birthday, I retire the watch I’ve worn for the past year.  I started the tradition several years ago as I contemplated the path that I thought lay ahead of me.  I wanted a way to look back in time and see who I was in the past, to see who I am now as a result of that past.  I put on my 6th watch this evening.

Each watch is a testament of sorts, an anchor to that year of my life, a physical link to a time that is past.  Perhaps one day I’ll have children, perhaps even grandchildren, and my hope is that they will allow me to tell them a story about each watch.  I hope the stories will illuminate parts of my life, like the glowing back light illuminates the thin hands marking time as they tirelessly march in never varying circles.  The moments I reveal to those who would listen will be the memorable ones, the accomplishments, the relationships formed and broken, the moments that shaped who I would become.  Imagine the joy of showing an eager listener the timepiece I wore when they were born, perhaps they will hearken to the reverence of time itself invested in watches worn in times of mourning.  I hope the stories will reveal me.  That I will be known.
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When I am asked about this year, I am afraid that I will be quick to pass over it.  I’ve done little of note this year.  Perhaps the most important thing I have done this year is to help record a CD with some of my friends.  I won’t be able to point to trips I have taken, funds I have raised or buildings I have built.  I have little to show this year for adventure and feats of daring.  I have worked many hours, I have slept as much as I could get away with, and I have lived a plain life.  I’ve watched as the legacy I thought I had been building had holes punched in it, as it crashed down around me and lay in ruins at my feet.  I could only stand idly by while 15 years of my life and work was pulled out from under me.   I struggled to fulfill the most basic obligations of society.

What will there be to say about this past year?

I do not know that path ahead, but when someday I am asked about this year, I hope I have the courage to share those things that were done in me instead of by me.  For the first time in 15 years I have found freedom from habits that have held me in tight bondage.  I was given the courage to finish a self destructive relationship.  I found enough courage to ask for more responsibility.  I sought a place to use gifts that I was afraid were too weak to be used, and I spent time developing those gifts.  I’ve worked towards paying off obligations, and as each is paid, I find myself closer to my next adventure.   I’ve re-learned to invest in people, because if I will ever have a legacy that can survive the destruction of a sledgehammer, it must be a legacy built in peoples hearts.   This year has been a year of learning, a year of preparation.

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Time is a treasure that we hope to fill our treasure(d) chests with.  Each tick of the second hand like a heartbeat keeping us alive, but drawing us ever closer to the end.  Each beat, is one less to be completed.  Do not doubt that each beat, each second, can have value.  Even if what you are walking through isn’t exciting, it can be life changing.   I know that someday in the future, when I tell the story of this year, it will be foreshadowing the things to come in my next.  For now I see only in part, but one day it will be revealed in its fullness.

Adieu (DOP #25 2015)

This, my last post in 25 Days for Peace, is deplorably late.  I felt drawn to my final post from last year, and wanting to create something like it, found myself stuck.  It took until early this afternoon to breakaway from a desire to repost last years and call it done.  It felt wrong to end with a repost, however, so I missed the deadline in order to bring something fresh.  What I found follows. 

There comes a time in every journey when the final step is taken.  Frodo departs for the Grey Havens, Peter, Lucy and Edmund find themselves “farther up and further in”.  The Little Prince finds his way home, Jean Valjean finds the arms of Fantine as he crosses between worlds, Elijah Bailey solves the last mysterious murder, and Harry Potter watches as his children board the train to Hogwarts.   In those moments, there is a finality, a sense of accomplishment and resolution.  There just isn’t anymore to the story.  The steps that can be taken have been.  It is over.

I am tempted to greet the end of this 25 days of writing in the same way.  A journey that has been completed.  I have taken all of the steps required of me and written my 25 posts.  I can rest in a sense of accomplishment and completion.  It was a more difficult journey this year, and it was difficult to find time to write.  I miss the depths I was able to explore last year, but at the same time I think this year has changed me more than last.  I think I recognize the change in me the most in the discovery that my journey is not yet over.

The sense of finality that I can apply to a fictional characters story does not belong to me.  I live past what I have written, and I endure beyond the end of this challenge.  I do not cease to exist now that I am done writing for the year.

I find that I must compare my position now to that of Christ, born so many years ago.  Most Biblical historians believe that roughly 4000 years passed from the moment in the garden where Christ was first foretold, to the time when He was born of a human woman.  His birth begins the ending of the story of the old testament, being the fulfillment of many prophecies found inside of it.  In that moment, he begins a new story, living on earth for the next 33 years.  In his death, He strikes the mortal blow to death itself, rising again from seeming defeat.  The book ends.  The Bible is complete.

Yet the story continues.

We live in anticipation of the fulfillment of more prophecy.  We believe that each moment draws us closer to the end of this earth, and the creation of something new.  The story is not over, but continues on, steadily progressing to a new beginning.

In this I find that my story is not yet over.  I have more to do, and an end of my own to work towards.  Writing about peace is my old testament, now I am poised to continue the work.  I don’t know what that means, but I do know that there is more to be done.  Instead of finding an ending at the conclusion of this month, I am finding a new direction.  Again, I don’t know what the future holds, there are no prophecies (that I am aware of) about my final destination.  I do know that the work began in me will be completed.

So for now friends, adieu.  Your companionship in this journey has been most comforting.