Thoughts About Life

poverty is so hard to see
when it’s only on your tv and twenty miles across town where we’re all living so good
that we moved out of Jesus’ neighborhood
where he’s hungry and not feeling so good
from going through our trash
he says, more than just your cash and coin
i want your time, i want your voice
i want the things you just can’t give me

so what must we do
here in the west we want to follow you
we speak the language and we keep all the rules
even a few we made up

come on and follow me
but sell your house, sell your suv
sell your stocks, sell your security
and give it to the poor
what is this, hey what’s the deal
i don’t sleep around and i don’t steal
i want the things you just can’t give me

because what you do to the least of these
my brother’s, you have done it to me
because i want the things you just can’t give me
--derek webb, rich young ruler


I was thinking through my pen this morning, cowering from the realities of truth and life and yet desperately wanting to grasp it all . . .
“My body is weary. My soul is bruised. Some days I feel 90 years old.
But there is a someday when none of that will matter. So to pick up, to press on, to live joyfully, freely—being filled up with love and pouring it out. To yearn for, plead for, fight for justice. To care.
Not because I’m better person. Not because I "should".
But because I can and I want to because—Amazing! I’ve been loved like that, I’ve been fought for, I’ve been bought by blood, by a poured-out life, justice and mercy have been purchased and given for me. Not because it had to be. Not because of proving something. But because He wanted to. Incomprehensible.”

This thought of what to do next in my life has been pretty all-consuming. Not just because I don’t like making decisions but because I recognize that either choice I am facing will be painful. In my frail humanity I long for the easy way out. But here, there is none. To stay here means to give up so much there that I always thought I wanted out of this life. To leave means to break my heart for the ones here. I know these choices aren’t necessarily exclusive of aspects of the other. But in a sense, I guess I realize that I need to make this decision on the “either/or” side of life, because otherwise it’s too muddy for me to see. And all of you who have ever listened to me talk and cry for endless hours when facing other decisions will probably just groan and be glad you aren’t around for this one:) But the dichotomy I feel like I am facing is huge. And I want both. And neither is inherently “wrong” (bye bye fence and freedom, I already got that figured out here and it’s NOT helping!!).

Today mostly I am glad that life’s not about me. It doesn’t revolve around me, it doesn’t rely on me. I’m not that important in the scheme of millenniums. Because I’m not in charge. And that, that is a wonderful thing.

So I don’t know about tomorrow. But today’s work is clear. And right now, that’s enough.