The Small Things

I find that while I have been gone I tend to focus on what I an doing as a big picture. And all the small mundane daily actions and interactions just fall lightly somewhere into this big picture.

But I was reminding a few days ago that though the big picture ultimately stamps who were are in that period of time, its the mundane daily details to define who we really are.

Everyday we have the opportunity to say hello to someone when they look at us instead of putting our heads down. Everyday we have to chance to put our candy wrapper in the trash instead of throwing it on the ground. Everyday we have the amazing possibility to use ever small, mundane thing we do to become better people.

Its easy to step back from life and try to see it as a big picture and that everything we are and do falls into that picture and defines us. I tend to do that quite a bit. As much as that is true, I believe it stumbles us from seeing all the small opporunities we have to be somebody great. Because really, throwing a piece of trash in the bin isnt that epic or exciting. But if we wake up day after day and commit ourselves to living life for the small things like throwing our wrapper away or smiling at somebody we dont know, we will begin to slowly become the amazing people we are meant to be.

There's the old saying that big things come in small packages. I think we can apply this to the little things in life. For every small thing we do, there is a big opportunity to let it change who we are. Though these opportunities appear like small insignificant daily tasks they are really thousands of chances for us to become better and more loving people.

Its all about the small things.

Forget Something...?

In the 9 months since I have left Peru, I have not been able to replicate the amazing and intimate connection that I had with the people there. I have tried to explain the unexplainable closeness I had with the people I was working with there. And though the work I have done since had influences me in so many ways, I have yet to understand what it was that created that intimancy with the people in Peru.

I seriously could not pinpoint an action or event that would give way to any type of explanation for this until last night.

I was listening to one of my favorite speaking, Rob Bell, and he was talking about our responsibilities as Americans to reach out to the opressed and marginalized. Its nothing new, nothing that we dont know. But at one point in his talk, he said something that instantly made me realize that had forgotten to do something so simple but so important: We need to love people.

Yeah, that simple right? I know that already.

But I realized in that moment that somewhere inbetween leaving Peru and entering Mongolia I stopped loving the people I had came to work with and live with. I was still there working and trying to do what I could with the little time I had butistopped trying to connect with the people. I think i began to see what I was doing as a job and not as the original commitment I had made to God: To love the people I am surrounded by and learn from them.

I dont say this to belittle the work I have done since Peru but my heart has been plagued with this absence of connection, and I didnt know why until yesterday. I let my heart and mind settle on the idea that working itself was enough, that being there was enough. And by doing that I lost the intimate and irreplaceable bond that only truly loving someone can form.

I think its easy for us to lose sight of this day in and day out. There is so much going on throughout our days that trying to show a bit of love to everyone you meet becomes a serious burden.

Loving people means going out of your way to give a friend a ride to work because their car broke down.

Loving people means staying up all night to talk with a heavy-hearted friend even though you have to work early the next morning.

Loving people means actually listening when people talk, instead of just waiting to speak.

And loving people means still going to play with the kids after a 9 hour journey to Burma to get your visa renued.

Somewhere along the lines, I forgot to do the most important thing I can do: Love

Attitude

I have consistently gone through these periods of time since I have been gone that are plagued with an unwarranted "attitude" toward life and the way things work out for different people, even if those people arent anger about it themselves.

The attitude is sometimes characterized by anger, sometimes pride, or experience. And in the worst of these times it is a combination of all these things. Its as if I am saying to God or whoever, "Well...what do you have to say about this?" And then I arrogantly wait for some answer.

I think that if you look through my blog you can probably see in my writing when I am going through one of these times or when I have just came out of it. Not to say that what I write at those times is insignificant or irrelevant, but you can definitely see an attitude in the way I word things. I have been trying to figure out why my heart seems to fall into these "dark" valleys of pessimism and sarcasm and I cant seem to see it coming or dont recognize it until the time is over.

I am beginning to think that it is a way of trying to avoid experiencing the negative emotions that come with the type of things I am doing. I think for me it is easier to get angry and point fingers and ask questions that dont have good answers so I can feel prideful than to just cry and experience the pain that certain experiences bring with them. Its quite childish now that I see it written out, but I think it might be true for many of us.

What I do know is that when I let this happen my spirit is "loud" and uneasy. My thoughts are all incomplete and my words are weightless. Everything that comes from my body and being is inconsistent and arrogrant. And its in these times that I feel I have so much to prove to everyone. That what I "know" is what everyone needs to "learn." My "voice" needs to be heard, I arrogantly think to myself.

Its not until these times have passed and my spirit is humble and at rest that I realize what I have just let myself become. Its like night and day. And when I am "restored" my humbled spirit all I want to do is listen to people and understand them. My "attitude" of sorts is completely reversed. Its at this point I realize that my "voice" is but a faint whisper and can easily be blown away with the wind.

I pray that I will be able to set my pride down for just a minute when I see myself falling into this "attitude" and ask the people around me to remind of how much I am not.

When Thank You doesnt mean Thank You

I feel like the meaning of "Thank You" has completely left phrase.

I am constantly the recipient of immeasurable generosity. Since the day I left the States I have said thank you to many times to remember. And now when I say the phrase it feeling like any 2 words put together that have absolutely no meaning. How can I say thank you in a way that people see the actually graditude I have in my heart?

For awhile the nod of my head or a small smile seemed bridge the gap between the words of my mouth and the emotions in my heart. But now I cant seem to find a way to explain to people that buying me a cup of coffee or asking me over for dinner means so much to me. How do I tell them that its because of people like them at home and all over the world that I am able to be doing what I am doing?

Most the people dont even expect a thank you and maybe its more my problem with learning how to accept generosity than anything. But either way, I wish there was a way to open a window to my heart so that those people could look in for just a moment and see how much they mean to me.

Thank You. Again and again and again and again.

Sorry

To anyone who reads these things I want to apologize for the agressiveness of my last post. I meant everything in it but I think when I say "we" in most my posts I am usually refering to my own shortcoming and tend to try to generalize them so I dont feel like such a bad guy.

Its much easier to address a problem if it is something that is communal instead of just a problem with ourselves. So when I write I try to refer to "everyone" as having the same stuggles and shortcomings in this life when that is an obsurd assumption.

Thank you for continuing to read this and for supporting me on this journey.

The "Least of the Least"

I went out to dinner tonight with a thai women who houses, supports, and mothers 8 people ranging from 2 1/2 to 26 years of age. They all have some degree of disability but are able to function together in different amazing ways.

As I was sitting there taking in the environment around me I started to think that these people are who we in the West would consider the "least of the least." They have no money, no real possesions to call there own,and and most of them have no future if I am being honest. They are sick an unable to get the proper care that could change their lives.

But as I sat there and interacted with each of them I became really convicted and humbled.

No, they dont have money or a home to call their own. No they dont have a "regular" family and parents that love them. No, they might not ever get to experience life the way we think all people should experience life.

In that sense its easy to say they are the "least of the least."

But that is wrong. Its just wrong. Because this group of people are more rich in spirit than most the people I know living in the States. They are smiling and they are happy with the life they have been given. How many of us can say that about our lives?

As I rode home from dinner I really had to think hard about this. Who are we to decide that these people should be dubbed the least of the least?

I know I am treading in deep water here, and I know that the impovershed and sick truly do need a chance, an opporunity to make their lives better. Ive been living with the "least of the least" for nearly a year now. In no way am I trying to belittle the horrible struggles they go through and experience day in and day out.

I think what I am trying to get at is that these people live in such horrible circumstances yet they are so rich in spirit and happiness. But we belittle their massive hearts by saying they are the "least of the least" and they need our help to improve their lives.

When really, we in the West should be calling ourselves the "least of the least" when it comes to anything outside of the material world. We have nearly no spirit or happiness. We are so caught up in all the material crap that we cant see we need to change our hearts before we can really make a difference in anybody elses. We go into a developing country thinking to ourselves, "we have to make their life better, we have to make their life more happy," and just turn a blind eye to the fact that we ourselves need the most help.

We have become a people who would rather try to fix other people's lives instead of starting with ourselves. It so much easier to want to change someone elses life than acknowledge the problems we harbor in our hearts.

When we as a people can say honestly that we are poor in spirit and need help, we will know that the world should be ready for a beautiful change. But when that time will come, I have no idea.

The "Not So American" Dream

Do you rememeber the good old American dream?

I cant remember how it goes exactly: a wife, a decent size house with a white picket fence, a good job, two cars, 2.5 kids, and so on. Or something like that. Its not exactly the same as it used to be but it definitely still exists in our minds.

I was walking today through the neighborhood where the children's home I am volunteering is. And I began thinking(or dreaming might be more relevant) of how I would like a small 2 bedroom house in some foriegn country where I would be working with sick and orphaned kids and how I would have a motorbike to drive to and from where ever I needed to go.

Then for some reason I started to think about the "American Dream". And after I defined it in my mind I began to think about why it is something that has become almost looked down upon by most people. Its not because the house or the cars or the kids or whatever is a bad thing to want, but because consistently from generation to generation we have romanticized this idea of life and when we actually get it, it lets us down. Its not what we thought it would be. The wife isnt all we expected and the kids are annoying. Not to mention the house and cars...

So in reality its not the wife or house or kids that let us down or deceive us. Its our romanticized idea of those things.

Now it is easy to think that my dream of living in a different country working with kids is a great thing to dream up. But after thinking about for a bit of time I came to the conclusion that my dream was no different than the good old American Dream.

When I romanticize the idea of living in a different country working with sick kids its no different than any other person dreaming up any other idea of what their life should be. We become married to a certain idea of what life should be and when it doesnt deliver we are disappointed at least and devestated at most. We miss the entire point of living.

I think it is a very hard thing to actually take life as it comes. But no matter how we romanticize our life, unless we take life as it comes, we will consistently be let down and frustrated. Not because life let us down, but becuase our mutated ideas of what our lives should be have missed the whole point of being alive.