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