Some real conversation for your....

I’ve been thinking about Jack Kerouac’s book On the Road lately. In the novel, Sal Paradise goes back and forth, from one ocean to another across the American landscape, many times in hopes of finding exactly what his last name so blatantly suggests. In the end, he finds that there is no perfect place and that anywhere you are, you have to deal with the same personal, interpersonal, and spiritual stuff. Sal realizes this, albeit with some resignation, but his friend, Dean Moriarty, never does and foolishly keeps looking for a place that doesn’t exist. As such, Dean lives in a state of unquenchable, but very fleeting excitement, and leaves damaged roots everywhere he goes.

I think that’s kind of what that book is about, but it’s been about a year since I read it, and maybe I’ve made it into something it isn’t. Regardless, it’s been a comforting thought. I mean in the end, we should never feel completely at home anywhere we go. We’re all, every single one of us, foreigners. There is something bigger and something better, and it’s those longings in us that can’t be fulfilled that let us know that this is true. So in the present, let’s not make this an excuse for complacency, but instead go to where the need is and meet it the best we can. There is no paradise here on this globe that you can escape to, but there are places everywhere that you can help make at least a little better.

I listened to a talk by Rob Bell yesterday called “Heaven and Wine” on Melia’s ipod. It was amazing and I would encourage everyone to check it out. Our focus has to be here. It’s Gnosticism to only think of the beyond without working to change the present. The now (the physical) can be made good and it’s every single person’s responsibility to aid that process.

Such things might be contradictory and maybe that’s because I’m just typing as fast as my thoughts are coming, but in the end, the relation of the finite to the infinite is a bit paradoxical. Kierkegaard (the king of the paradox), in Fear and Trembling, says the standard is the knight of faith, and not the knight of infinite resignation. “A purely human courage is required to renounce the whole world of the temporal to gain the eternal; but this I do gain, and to all eternity I cannot renounce it – that being a self contradiction. But a paradox enters in, and a humble courage is required to grasp the whole of the temporal by virtue of the absurd, and this is the courage of faith.”

With all of this in mind, I’m grateful to be here in Vietnam and I’m also grateful that all of you are exactly where you are. Derek Webb, in an interview with Donald Miller, (which might just be my favorite sound bite ever) talks about brining people a taste of what is to come. His example: there are 300 million without drinking water in Africa. By helping to build wells in these struggling communities and empowering the people to continue the work, we are giving them a taste of paradise. By helping to meet their thirst, we are giving them a glimpse of a place where there is no thirst. With this in mind, let's all act both locally and globally.

I hope all that made since. It’s been a tough, but good, week as I continue to adjust to my role here and all these things have been heavy on my mind. Maybe some of the things I said were wrong according to that most abstract, but still important, of sciences that oftentimes burns more bridges than it builds, but, once again, it’s just what I’ve been thinking about lately.

Be brave, be courageous, and be bold. As C.S. Lewis says in A Grief Observed, “Only a real risk tests the reality of a believe.” And of course, thank you so much to all of you who have helped me to get here and have kept me in your thoughts. Without you, this risk wouldn’t be possible.

Sorry this post wasn’t funny, but as the T.V. theme song used to say, “Different Strokes rule the world.” That show, believe it or not, was Different Strokes. So thank you for your wise words Gary Coleman.

…On another note, this morning I was at a gathering with a woman from Burma. She broke into tears while discussing the current situation and the lack of safety for the people there. It made that issue so much more real. Please, if you could, keep this in your thoughts as well.

…I’ll post with some pics very soon too, in hopes to describe a little more concretely just what life over here is like.

Take care.