It's my own fault that I'm up this late. I chose to get a chai tea with espresso at Starbucks with my house mates at 8 pm. I'll regret it tomorrow morning when I have to get up for work, but for now my mind is restless so I'm just going with it.
As though I didn't have a hard enough time getting up in the mornings. Yet another struggle that, as menial as it might seem to others, I need to learn to lay the guilt of (so many missed classes and days of work,) at the foot of the cross and kill as part of my old, lazy nature.
So here I sit, on the couch of my apartment, with my chamomile tea, listening to Sufjan, and contemplating sleeping on the couch, where I might have a harder time oversleeping in the morning.
At least I'm using my sleeplessness productively; finally returning e-mails months overdue. Making to-do lists that I might actually accomplish when tomorrow comes.
And there are so many things I need "to-do..."
An ever-present pile of dirty dishes in the sink stare me down, a bathroom that must have only just now suddenly become dirty because I certainly didn't notice it before...
Little projects of my own, some necessary, some not, that lie around the house and around my mind half finished. Correspondences and prescriptions that have been pending for too long, both designed to ease my breathing.
So many sins and questions un-bathed in prayer and fasting- indulged, rather, in vain attempts of self-attained understanding.
Monday, July 16, 2007
Uganda
I am finally going to post about Uganda. Not that I've finished "processing," which has almost become a meaningless term to me, since I just keep using it am no longer sure what I mean by it, what it looks like, and haven't tasted of the fruits of it, for which I had so desperately craved and expected.
Those fruits, I suppose, were understanding and peace. The first I have not yet come fully to. Ok, so I never will in regards to anything, let alone this trip. Although God has given me some small measure of it for now. All I need of it, anyways.
The second, peace, I have had all along. Peace not being an emotional feeling of ok-ness, but rather that all-surpassing sort of peace that is present by the power of the Holy Spirit, despite everything seeming to be in spiritual chaos in my life. I know, and knew even on the trip, (and what thankfully reminded on the trip,) that God has a plan and that everything is in his hands, working out in His perfect design, and is working out my good.
But I think I've digressed...
I do have a short summary of the trip that I'm pulling from an e-mail I wrote just a few minutes ago to a dear friend, whose father I met, crazily enough, while I was in Uganda. It was one of those things that just smacked me over the head with God's obvious grace to me on this trip, since I met him when I was feeling especially discouraged and talked to him, who had great wisdom and insight, about all the things I was going through. Anyways, here is the summarizing excerpt:
I pretty much had an emotional breakdown in front of everyone, including your dad, at one of our nightly meetings. Everyone was emotional that night, and many were wrestling with the same sort of issues that I was, and it all hit me at that moment and I pretty much had to be lead out of the room weeping.
My struggles concerned the nature of the way we were evangelizing. We didn't have relationships with the people we talked to (which would have been difficult since it was door-to-door,) and while I wasn't sure exactly how it should be done, having never really done it before, I was uncomfortable with how most of the people presented the gospel. It also bothered me that we, being the rich, white, westerners, came to a third world country, where the people literally have nothing, to share the gospel with all word and no deed. It seemed like a half-gospel, when the book of James calls for both word and deed. The fact that people listened to us simply because we were those white economic symbols of education and modernization, seemed like an issue we should have addressed. I'm not sure how we could have addressed it, but it felt like we encouraged an idealization of us by taking advantage of their listening to us but never addressing it. Plus, I'm not convinced that most of the people who "accepted" Christ didn't just do so because we were white, or because they are just a gracious people by nature who wanted us to be happy.
I was also dealing with some personal issues in regards to my own calling, faith, priorities, and pride.
But I don't at all regret the trip. I learned and grew so much, especially in light of what I went through. I knew these were questions I needed to be asking, and issues that needed to be brought out and faced in my life, especially given what I want to do with my life. And Dr. K is doing a lot of good things in Uganda, and it is exciting to see God moving there through his ministry and, even, through some of what the team did while we were there. Good friendships were formed, and I love Africa! It was exciting to be there and worship with and get to know our Ugandan brothers and sisters. I especially enjoyed the last week (enjoyed being a relative term,) because most of the team spent it living with one of the pastor's out in a village. We had no electricity, no plumbing, we were out in the middle of a village surrounded by African landscape, our walls in the house didn't go all the way up to the ceiling and so every conversation was heard throughout the house, and there were no doors, only transparent curtains, and many of us got sick. That week was an experience I am immensely grateful for.
It was definitely God's design that a few days later I wasn't feeling well and so stayed at the house one day. Besides Dr. K's house staff it was just your dad and me at the house, and so we ended up eating lunch together and talking, where we discovered the connection. When we ended up talking about my breakdown it was very edifying to hear his point of view of the situation and what I was going through.
I will most likely post more about the trip later on, but this is a start.
Those fruits, I suppose, were understanding and peace. The first I have not yet come fully to. Ok, so I never will in regards to anything, let alone this trip. Although God has given me some small measure of it for now. All I need of it, anyways.
The second, peace, I have had all along. Peace not being an emotional feeling of ok-ness, but rather that all-surpassing sort of peace that is present by the power of the Holy Spirit, despite everything seeming to be in spiritual chaos in my life. I know, and knew even on the trip, (and what thankfully reminded on the trip,) that God has a plan and that everything is in his hands, working out in His perfect design, and is working out my good.
But I think I've digressed...
I do have a short summary of the trip that I'm pulling from an e-mail I wrote just a few minutes ago to a dear friend, whose father I met, crazily enough, while I was in Uganda. It was one of those things that just smacked me over the head with God's obvious grace to me on this trip, since I met him when I was feeling especially discouraged and talked to him, who had great wisdom and insight, about all the things I was going through. Anyways, here is the summarizing excerpt:
I pretty much had an emotional breakdown in front of everyone, including your dad, at one of our nightly meetings. Everyone was emotional that night, and many were wrestling with the same sort of issues that I was, and it all hit me at that moment and I pretty much had to be lead out of the room weeping.
My struggles concerned the nature of the way we were evangelizing. We didn't have relationships with the people we talked to (which would have been difficult since it was door-to-door,) and while I wasn't sure exactly how it should be done, having never really done it before, I was uncomfortable with how most of the people presented the gospel. It also bothered me that we, being the rich, white, westerners, came to a third world country, where the people literally have nothing, to share the gospel with all word and no deed. It seemed like a half-gospel, when the book of James calls for both word and deed. The fact that people listened to us simply because we were those white economic symbols of education and modernization, seemed like an issue we should have addressed. I'm not sure how we could have addressed it, but it felt like we encouraged an idealization of us by taking advantage of their listening to us but never addressing it. Plus, I'm not convinced that most of the people who "accepted" Christ didn't just do so because we were white, or because they are just a gracious people by nature who wanted us to be happy.
I was also dealing with some personal issues in regards to my own calling, faith, priorities, and pride.
But I don't at all regret the trip. I learned and grew so much, especially in light of what I went through. I knew these were questions I needed to be asking, and issues that needed to be brought out and faced in my life, especially given what I want to do with my life. And Dr. K is doing a lot of good things in Uganda, and it is exciting to see God moving there through his ministry and, even, through some of what the team did while we were there. Good friendships were formed, and I love Africa! It was exciting to be there and worship with and get to know our Ugandan brothers and sisters. I especially enjoyed the last week (enjoyed being a relative term,) because most of the team spent it living with one of the pastor's out in a village. We had no electricity, no plumbing, we were out in the middle of a village surrounded by African landscape, our walls in the house didn't go all the way up to the ceiling and so every conversation was heard throughout the house, and there were no doors, only transparent curtains, and many of us got sick. That week was an experience I am immensely grateful for.
It was definitely God's design that a few days later I wasn't feeling well and so stayed at the house one day. Besides Dr. K's house staff it was just your dad and me at the house, and so we ended up eating lunch together and talking, where we discovered the connection. When we ended up talking about my breakdown it was very edifying to hear his point of view of the situation and what I was going through.
I will most likely post more about the trip later on, but this is a start.
Friday, July 13, 2007
Seven Swans
I'm listening to Sufjan Steven's Seven Swans album, which I recently acquired. It is a beautiful album, and I have heard that it is his most spiritual album. I'm excited about dissecting the album.
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