So here are my thoughts...
Picture 1
I wonder if we choose industry over what Jesus stood for? Do we choose progress over depth? Wealth over authenticity? Proficiency over love?
I wonder how the story of Jesus would play out if he were born into the western world today, not 2,000 years ago.
Picture 2
Does this picture go to far? Does it make Jesus too friendly? Or maybe, is it something this world is desperately looking for? A Jesus they can relate too... A non-judgmental Jesus?
I have to say I prefer to spell Jesus, G-sus.
Picture 3
When I see this picture I remember Jesus' words to Peter, "those who live by the sword, will die by the sword." I wonder, do we in the western world make Jesus out to be about war? Does he figuratively has his hands on a gun, trying to straighten out Christianity or the world? Ready to fire at any time?
Is he a Jesus cowboy (sorry Texas), someone who ain't gonna let himself be a pushover?
Or is this Jesus holding the gun that he took from his disciples. Urging them to give up violence. To be peacemakers.
Or maybe he removed the bullets...
Tuesday, August 08, 2006
Monday, August 07, 2006
Saturday, August 05, 2006
A Humble Christian, #2
In my last post I said there were two things that changed my life that day. I left the second out purposefully. It is too close to my heart to not give it its own posting. This was the hardest lesson I learned on the trip.
After finishing our feast (and it was) of beef and posho, we went back outside to the children. What happened next shook my world (and still shakes it).
There we were 3 white American boys standing in (or should I say standing out) front of at least 100 African children. And the children began to reach their hands out to us. They were not like the children in the towns. They did not want money. They did not want food.
They wanted to touch us. To touch us.
Words cannot describe what I felt. Why should they want to touch me? Who am I? What special thing did I do? I felt like a kid who just met her favorite celebrity. She shakes his hand and afterward tells her mom she will never wash her hand again. I never want to wash my hands again.
Humility. This is humility.
Not the type where people don’t take credit for something they did, though secretly they desire the attention. This is real humility. What more words can I say?
When I hear the words humble and Christian, one image comes to my mind:
A humble child invisible to the world.
After finishing our feast (and it was) of beef and posho, we went back outside to the children. What happened next shook my world (and still shakes it).
There we were 3 white American boys standing in (or should I say standing out) front of at least 100 African children. And the children began to reach their hands out to us. They were not like the children in the towns. They did not want money. They did not want food.
They wanted to touch us. To touch us.
Words cannot describe what I felt. Why should they want to touch me? Who am I? What special thing did I do? I felt like a kid who just met her favorite celebrity. She shakes his hand and afterward tells her mom she will never wash her hand again. I never want to wash my hands again.
Humility. This is humility.
Not the type where people don’t take credit for something they did, though secretly they desire the attention. This is real humility. What more words can I say?
When I hear the words humble and Christian, one image comes to my mind:
A humble child invisible to the world.Friday, August 04, 2006
A Humble Christian, #1
On Wednesday night I was speaking at a church in Truby, TX about my mission internship to Uganda this summer. Since I arrived home on July 9th, I have been asked I don’t know how many times, “What did you learn from the trip?” How do you answer a question like that!
I just spent 7 weeks in a place where the people give you an abundance of food you could never eat. (Which also happens to be a Ugandan family’s rations for the week.) I saw starving, dying children. I encountered evil face to face. I saw evil at its highest.
I felt the sting of real humility.
I almost cried while I was speaking. If you know me, I am not much of an openly emotional guy. I like to pretend I’m a thug. I grew up in the hood and sometimes get full of that “Bring it, you don’t scare me” attitude. I get full of myself and think I can take on the world, much less a few punks. (Funny since I have never been close to getting in a fight.) I get proud, pretending I am bigger and tougher than I really am.
Not this time. Not when I talk about what happened 2 months ago in a small village in Uganda.
We arrived in an IDP (Internally Displaced Person) camp early Saturday morning. I will never forget the children there. Some call them the Invisible Children. Invisible to the world, these children endure hideous injustices. Their parents are stripped from them in death, while the children are forced to face the cruelty of the Lord’s Resistance Army.
You see the scars of evil on these innocent, beautiful children. You see it physically. Some bear the scars of burns and cuttings on their faces. Most of them bear the stomach of hunger as a result of the selfish actions of others. Shaped by the actions of selfish humans, you would think these children could not help being selfish. Nothing is farther from the truth.
As we got out of the truck, the children slowly gathered around us in a circle. They wanted us to take their picture. Everywhere we went, they followed us. Everything we did, they mimicked.
Here are some pictures of the children:
I just spent 7 weeks in a place where the people give you an abundance of food you could never eat. (Which also happens to be a Ugandan family’s rations for the week.) I saw starving, dying children. I encountered evil face to face. I saw evil at its highest.
I felt the sting of real humility.
I almost cried while I was speaking. If you know me, I am not much of an openly emotional guy. I like to pretend I’m a thug. I grew up in the hood and sometimes get full of that “Bring it, you don’t scare me” attitude. I get full of myself and think I can take on the world, much less a few punks. (Funny since I have never been close to getting in a fight.) I get proud, pretending I am bigger and tougher than I really am.
Not this time. Not when I talk about what happened 2 months ago in a small village in Uganda.
We arrived in an IDP (Internally Displaced Person) camp early Saturday morning. I will never forget the children there. Some call them the Invisible Children. Invisible to the world, these children endure hideous injustices. Their parents are stripped from them in death, while the children are forced to face the cruelty of the Lord’s Resistance Army.
You see the scars of evil on these innocent, beautiful children. You see it physically. Some bear the scars of burns and cuttings on their faces. Most of them bear the stomach of hunger as a result of the selfish actions of others. Shaped by the actions of selfish humans, you would think these children could not help being selfish. Nothing is farther from the truth.
As we got out of the truck, the children slowly gathered around us in a circle. They wanted us to take their picture. Everywhere we went, they followed us. Everything we did, they mimicked.
Here are some pictures of the children:
There are two things that day which changed my life forever. First, we were invited inside the church to eat food. I remember thinking, “The food I am about to eat is more food than these children will eat in a week.” But to not eat would be to offend my African brothers and sisters.
As you can imagine, the children watched us more closely. Even though they were starving, they were not interested in food. They were interested in us. (Something I still cannot comprehend.)
So I wonder, “What’s so special about me?”
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