Posted by
ne on Thursday, November 30, 2006 12:09:00 AM
Last week I went to the $2 theater and I had the entire
theater to myself. If you ever get the
chance to do it, you should. Two years
ago I would have disagreed with you, but that was before I lived alone. It’s funny the older I get, the more
comfortable I feel about doing things alone.
If you talked to me five years ago I would have thought you were out of
your mind. Since then I have realized
that I am not alone, I never have been alone, and never will be completely alone.
This reminded me of my time in Thailand. Kansas City
and Thailand
are very similar. No
the climate may not be the same but the season of my life is the same. I am here standing on the edge, living in a
foreign country, alone. I am working on
incredible projects, projects I would have never dreamed of. I got to visit most of the royal projects,
and travel all over northern Thailand,
but I was never completely alone. Kansas City, a place
where I grew up, I place where I called home, and now get to work with some
amazing people on my research project.
There’s been numerous bumps on the way, but in time they rounded out to
be alright, not too shabby in fact.
Why am I not alone? I
began to realize the Christianity thing, spirituality fit my soul like a
missing puzzle piece. It was rather awe-inspiring,
actually. I realized I would never be
alone because God was right there with the entire time. Sometimes I get caught up with the check lists
and formulas of life, "I have a plan," I would say to myself and everything will
a-okay. Give it a week trust me… the
walls will come tumbling down. Then, I began to wonder if the actual language
of life was not just a duty or a way of life, but that there is more to the
hidden language.
I like how Donald describes it… I would paraphrase it but
I’m lazy.
I don’t mean to sound like a
pop-psychologist. I am only pointing to
the obvious stuff that is taking place in our souls that nobody wants to talk
about. It is obvious stuff that
Scripture seems to waltz in and address matter-of-factly.
And that is the thing about
life. You go walking along, thinking
people are talking a language and exchanging ideas, but they whole time there
is this deeper language people are really talking, and that language has
nothing to do with ethics, fashion, or politics, but what it really has to do
with is feeling important and valuable.
What if the economy we are really dealing in life, what if the language
we are really speaking in life, what if what we really want in life is
relational?
Now this changes things quite a bit,
because if the gospel of Jesus is just some formula I obey in order to get
taken off the naughty list and put on the nice list, then it doesn’t meet the
deep need of the human condition, it doesn’t interact with the great desire of
my soul, and it has nothing to do with the hidden (or rather, obvious) language
we all are speaking. But if it is more,
if it is a story about humanity falling away from the community that named it,
and an attempt to bring back to that community, and if it is more than a series
of ideas, but rather speaks directly into this basic human need we are feeling,
then the gospel of Jesus is the most relevant message in the history of
mankind.
-Searching
for God Knows What