A Step Too Slow

All of us have, at one time or another, been warned by Wallace Shawn never to get involved in a land war with Asia. Only slightly less-well known is to never go in against a Sicilian when death is on the line. While I felt that I understood, and even abided by these principles, the one that proved to be elusive was that you never play basketball in Mexico unless you are wanting a general reminder of why they overcame at the Alamo.

Sitting on a bench in Tecate, Mexico, feeling like I was about to vomit because I haven’t ran this hard in months, I looked around at my team of US Deportees (that was why they all spoke English) and wondered, “How in the world did I wind up here?” I wasn’t upset or depressed, I was simply amazed at the fact that I was 2000 miles from home playing basketball on a court sans A/C in Mexico with impossibly tight rims, and it felt as if I had stepped into some alternate reality. I felt that if I had grown up in Tecate (or had recently been deported from the States), this is what day-to-day life would feel like.

This is important because, running camps all summer long, I rarely get a chance to truly feel what it is like to live in the places where I spend 1/4 of my year. There is a buffer of safety and normalcy (at least what I know of normalcy) within the walls of our camp. And even though I leave these walls to go to the worksite, or get supplies, or even go to the beach, every reason I leave the safety net is always related to work in some manner. Often, in most cases, the safety net even goes with me in the form of a 150-person small army known as the campers and their leaders.

And so, standing under an iron hoop (probably steel nowadays) snagging rebounds as teammate Arte (who informed us he went to Penn State . . . State Penitentiary, that is.) cordially shouted, “Where’s My CHANGE? GIVE ME MY CHANGE,” I realized that I was here, playing basketball on a purely social level. This game of Mexican hoops in no way benefited the Mission. As a matter of fact, none of the campers or their leaders even knew I was here playing basketball (don’t worry, there were staff back at camp), and even if they did, it would not have made the slightest bit of difference in their trip. This was basically playing ball just to play ball.

And that is what amazed me.

In that moment I knew I had succeeded in transcending the “us” and “them.” It had become “me” in the midst of them. I was caught up in a slow moving Mexican Hurricane (actually, some of them where pretty fast).

Now, I’m not naive enough to believe that I was thought of as a brother Mexican. Derogatory curses from the other team based on my lighter-shade-of-pale skin reiterated this. But it was these very curses that excited me, because they told me I was in a place where these people felt confident and comfortable with insulting me. It meant that I did not have an entourage of 150 Americans with me as a safety net. I was truly out of my world and into theirs. And as small as that made me, it felt exhilarating.

Little Nemo had left the reef to explore the immeasurably big Ocean.



Peace,
eric

Thank You, Mr. Rockwell

I just finished my civic duty of voting in the Tennessee primaries. As i get older and i become more aware of the world around me, i find it incredibly interesting that a major portion of my future could be decided in November. Granted, this happens every 4 years, but i guess with the onset of maturity and responsibility comes a greater weight to the voting process, at least for me.


(not actually me)

The beauty of this, for me, is that our actual votes can make a difference, regardless of your opinion of the Florida ballots in 2000. (Would there even have been a discrepancy if individual citizen votes were not counted?) As Americans we can complain all we want about corruption in politics and how there seems to be little point to it, and there is some case for both of these.

However, the fact remains, that we are a people who believe in the power of one. Who believe in our power of choice, collectively and individually. We love stories about individuals who stood against the masses and made a lasting and impacting statement. Just look at who our national holidays are named after. Our nation was birthed from people who boldly thought that their voice actually should be counted and that their choice should be heard. (Yes, they were white, slave owning men, but all things have to start somewhere. It was the very freedoms that these men wrote about that empowered and inspired women and minorities to stand up and demand that their choice should be worth something)

I look at the political situation in countries we visit with Mission Discovery, and the presence of true corruption is indeed oppressing. (Chad, Kenya, Mexico)Why vote when the next person in line for the presidency (or so deceivingly named dictatorship) is just another corrupt despot who will enact his will upon the populous? And when this has taken place your entire life, do you even have hope that positive change could ever take place?

We, Americans take for granted just how much we believe in the power of our choices. And that is why, regardless of whether my candidate wins, i feel a responsibility to wait in lines on rainy days, just to push a few buttons on a machine that looks like an early 1980's cash register. Because i think me pushing those rubbery buttons will actually change the world around me. Idealistic? Maybe. Naive? Never. It would be naive to think that free-will choice, our greatest God-given gift, means nothing in this world.

And here in lies the catch: my choice does not end as soon as i walk out of my local polling destination. If i simply vote, cross my fingers, and hope for the best, (which all too often i do) then i am yet again taking the power of my choice for granted. Each day i have a choice to make a difference in this world on a personal level.


(not actually Abraham Lincoln telling Gene Hackman, "It's about time Jimmy played ball!")

I think something should be done about the local homeless population? Great. If launching an educational job-placement program sounds way too involved and drastic, then i should simply make a sandwich and go sit down with one of our street-side brothers/sisters and listen to their story. I can't stand the border situation? Then i should take a few days to cross it and make the colonia a place to call home, and not just a dusty waiting room with a chance to swim to a better life. If the world around us can be affected by those making choices of negative influence, why can we not affect it by making positive ones?

Like i said, i am more guilty than anyone of sitting on my laurels while expecting someone else to do what needs to be done. However, I am slowly awakening to the responsibility that comes with my ability to chose. In other words, why should i wait for a government to do something when the choice is mine everyday?

Peace.

This is just a nightmare
Soon I'm gonna wake up
Someone's gonna bring me round
Running from the bombers
Hiding in the forest
Running through the fields
Laying flat on the ground
Just like everybody
Steppin over heads
Running from the underground

This is your warning.
4 minute warning.

I don't wanna hear it
I don't wanna know
I just wanna run and hide
This is just a nightmare
Soon I'm gonna wake up
Someone's gonna bring me round

This is our warning.
4 minute warning.
- Radiohead, 4 Minute Warning

A Beautiful Explosion

I recently saw a movie where a man stood on the brink of an explosion. While this is normally not a good place to be (in my humble opinion), this movie was different. This was the guy’s ultimate sacrifice to save the world and all in it. So it was a choice for the man to be standing in front of the on coming blast wall as atoms expanded and multiplied. As I watched, the camera was positioned directly behind the man during the explosion, so all that could be seen was his light-permeated silhouette of the man as the blast wall past around and through him. Of course, beautiful music was playing, making this moment a moment of beautiful sacrifice and not one of sad loss. It was poetic and epic and actually kind of took my breath away.



My good friend Jon and I were talking the other day, and I decided this movie was a metaphor to explain what it is like to do what I do. To be down in Mexico as students from a far off land come and show love by holding children and building homes. There is a simple spark in the middle of all of this that I get to stand next to and watch as it expands and multiplies. It is a growing invisible, spiritual explosion that slowly envelopes all who are down there. It ignites as you look into the eyes of a child who has not eaten in a while. It ignites as you look into the eyes of an 80-year-old couple that will sleep in a bed for the first time in their lives. It ignites as you look into the eyes of a mother who has recently lost her son. It ignites as you watch jaded teenagers crying as they leave families that they have known only for a week. None of us (students, leaders, Mexicans, or myself) held the match, but we are caught on fire all the same. None of us are the catalyst for this explosion, but we are the atoms used to transfer this Holy fusion from one person to another. We hold hands and tell stories that inspire and burn.



And me . . . I stand at the epicenter of this blast as the man from the movie. I am a silhouette before the expanding light reaching out to permeate my being and engulf me until I am completely swallowed by the blast wall. And the beautiful thing is that it was never meant to reach only me, but any that would turn and simply take the time to notice its effect.

This beautiful explosion is not just reserved for Mexico and those in it. No, this explosion is no respecter of borders and so it enters the States by way of students who saw their Creator for the first time. And they carry this permeating light back to their own families, their own churches and their own schools back in their own towns. It grows and we hear stories of how far it has reached. Places like Oregon, Wisconsin, Maine, Missouri, and Indiana. We hear stories of people wanting to help the poor in their hometowns. Finding coats for the homeless, and repairing homes for those who can’t. This is the invisible explosion that the Creator ignites. And like most things, I need to be in the middle of that. I want to be right next to the spark when it happens. And then I want to be engulfed and just wait for the beautiful music to kick in. To wait for the poetic moments that take my breath away.

This is my dream. And you are helping me live it.

As I start my ‘08 travels this week, I realize I haven’t told you “Thank You,” enough. This I know for sure. Thank you for all you’ve done and all you are continuously doing not just on my behalf, but on behalf of the spark. God uses your hands, your prayers, and your support to ignite His beautiful, invisible explosion that is engulfing us all. May the light and the heat reach you. May it permeate you where you sit as you read this.

Thanks again.

Eric

All you have to do is look out for a little extra brightness in the sky. So if you wake up one morning and it's a particularly beautiful day, you'll know we made it.
-Cillian Murphy, Sunshine

And regardless, in the evening
A light is thrown by the setting sun
It speeds along this vast familiar
And silently crosses everyone
It's the light that's changing
- Mason Jennings, The Light (Part II)

Gimme Shelter

A little update.

Anna and i have solved our car issue and are now tackling the bigger issue of shelter. While we have had wonderful shelter over the past 3 years (actually the past 25 and 27 years respectively), we have decided that it is time for us to take steps to acquire our own shelter. We are now currently in a contract to buy our first Condo. This is an exciting and an amazingly involved process. I knew there would be paper work, but i never would have guessed how much. But i guess all is fair when it comes to borrowing money from banks.



(Not actual Condo)

A Beautiful Song

I was just listening to this song and thought that i would share the lyrics. Probably one of the most beautiful songs i've heard in a while. I can't get tired of it.

A Dream for Us

cause what i feel inside
i dont want to hide
it's you that got to me
its what i want to sing
cause i've got a dream for us
running through my mind
sitting on the beach
looking at the sea
and we're old and tired
and time has made us smile
as we go on counting things
people in the breeze
we're not the only ones
there's hundreds on the shore
looking at the sea
but it's just you and me
if the day never comes
i sink beneath the tide
will you still be with me
or disappear?

- The Appleseed Cast

Longevity Beyond Plastic . . or. . .How Jesus Defeated Optimus Prime

As last i left you, the faithful reader, i had just announced my 2 points:
1) Christmas should be about our selfishness
2) Christmas should be about our inability to grasp God.

Today we discuss point numero uno.

Christmas should be about our selfishness.

What Christian in their right mind would even begin to agree to this statement? (What Christian in their right mind would volunteer to be crucified upside down? We, as a people, have a very peculiar way of classifying our sanity.) To answer the first question: not many. Not many people would dare say that Christmas, the time when we celebrate the birth of our savior, should be about our selfishness.

But think about it. What better time to be reminded of why we need the very one we are supposed to be celebrating. Remembering the one who died for our sins would seem a little less blasé (to me) if, for a season, we (Christians) honestly realized how fallen we still are. How selfish. How fully ruined and evil.


Now this isn’t to say that this is our Mardi Gras (no offense to Catholics, but lets be honest, we know what goes down in New Orleans). This is not an encouragement to celebrate our wickedness.

No, it is simply a time to look past our blinders of self righteousness, which, as a people, (and I mean the Church this time) we have a tendency to wear quite often. What if Christmas was not a time to pretend how much love, remember, and honor our savior, but a time to remember just how much we still need him. No matter how long we’ve been a Christian. No matter what position of leadership we hold in our local church. No matter what good deeds we do, or how many times we’ve prayed for forgiveness. No matter how much we remind people that, for us, Christmas isn’t about the presents.

So this is exactly why Christmas should be about our selfishness. It is the very reason that a savior was sent to us. If ever we achieved some kind of homeostasis with in the laws of good and evil, would we still not be tainted?

As the church one of the biggest issues we face is how to overcome a “holier than thou” opinion that many people have of us. What better way to confront this issue than by openly admitting our depravity.

For at least a few days a year, we would honestly and openly say to the world, “You know what, we aren’t perfect. We don’t even come close. We have addictions, vices, and dirty secrets that we just can’t shake. We are no better than anyone else. Some of us are meth addicts. Some of us are addicted to pornography. Some of us can’t help but lie. Some of us are even attracted to the same sex.” Gasp. Not that this would describe anyone in our churches (I hope you picked up on the sarcasm). “And that is why we are celebrating. Because we, like everyone else, needed a savior. And he came. He came for every lying, cheating, stealing, lusting, last one of us. As a church we are as imperfect as any other group of humanity. That is why we are clinging to the birth of a baby 2000 years ago.”

And that is why years from now, as a greater self-realization washes over the child who, at the age of 6, huddled under blankets with anticipation of giant transforming robots awaiting him in the living room, a Jewish baby will start to take precedence over the great Optimus Prime.



And now i leave you with a wonderful quote by the great Fyodor Dostoevsky from his book Notes from Underground:

Tell me this: why was it that, as if by design, in those same, yes, in those very same moments when I was most capable of being conscious of all the refinements of “everything beautiful and lofty,”3 as we once used to say, it happened that instead of being conscious I did such unseemly deeds, such deeds as. . . well, in short, as everyone does, perhaps, but which with me occurred, as if by design, precisely when I was most conscious that I ought not to be doing them at all? The more conscious I was of the good and of all this “beautiful and lofty,” the deeper I kept sinking into my mire, and the more capable I was of getting completely stuck in it. But the main feature was that this was all in me not as if by chance, but as if it had o be so. As if it were my most normal condition and in no way a sickness or a blight, so that finally I lost any wish to struggle against this blight. I ended up almost believing (and maybe indeed believing) that this perhaps was my normal condition.

Peace.

But if you try sometimes . . .

Belated Season's Greetings to all.



If you would but humor me in a little convoluted philosophical Christmas exercise, I would be grateful. Here we go:

The only true way to measure the reality of time is to count the passing of each year’s Christmas. As any good American child knows, from Turkey day on there is but one goal at the end of the snow-covered, seasonal rainbow, and that is December 25, Christmas Day. 27 Days. 27 days filled with anticipation, counting, and may be some last-minute good deeds. Why? Why is this the goal? Why is this the object of fascination, so much so that it can alter the very behavior of an individual? One reason and one reason alone, my Yuletide Inquisitor: This is when we get what we want. Not just what we need or something for free, but we specifically get excited about getting something we want.

Now, everyone and their mother (literally), will argue that this is exactly what is “wrong with Christmas these days.” Golden opportunities for greed and Capitalistic exploitation by major corporations have become the reason for the season instead of the birth of our Savior. This blatant display of greed shows how lost we’ve become. It shows how selfish we are as a people (by “a people” I mean Americans) It shows that Christmas is all about us and no longer about anything greater. It is no longer about our savior, born this day, 2000 years ago.

But let’s be honest. To a 6-year-old the birth and death of some baby 2000 years ago, no matter how historically significant, just does not carry the weight of a 30” tall, fully poseable Optimus Prime with 45 different points of articulation. Call me a pagan or a cynic, but its true. I’ve been there and I bet a lot of you have too. Nobody wakes up at 4 am to go read Matthew Chapter 1 (the Christmas story) because they just can’t wait any longer. Think about it: to a 6-year-old the idea of sin and forgiveness is incredibly intangible, and pales in an attention-deficit comparison to a giant plastic robot that the kid can actually feel and touch.

And this is exactly what Christmas should be about:

Our selfishness. Our inability to grasp God.

Besides the fact that I just bought me a ticket to hell in most people’s minds, I would love for you to join me next week for the further exploration of my first point:

Christmas should be about our selfishness.

Have a Happy New Year.

I have been a selfish being all my life, in practice, though not in principle.
- Jane Austen