Seasons of Life

"It takes a lot of courage to release the familiar and seemingly secure, to embrace the new. But there is no real security in what is no longer meaningful. There is more security in the adventurous and exciting, for in movement there is life, and in change there is power."

- Alan Cohen

The world was meant for change, and with it growth. Seasons come and go - dispensing with the old life and creating new, budding life. With every season there is beauty: snow glittering in the full moon, the smell of summer on your skin, the enticing mystery of fall, and the new intoxication of spring.

Life is this way as well. The seasons of life, however short or long, have beauty within themselves, though they at many times do not feel beautiful. I am only in the first season of my life, when I look at the long run. 23 years is not a long time to roam this earth. There are many lessons I have left to learn, but this is the season of learning.

The college season is the time we set out on our own. We discover ourselves, how strong we can be and how weak we really are. We discover our true loves and our true hates. We discover the people we are supposed to be.

The season of love - new love - is much like spring. It is intoxicating. Consuming the entirety of our lives. Every moment is spent with that person. Every moment away is like a century. Everything he says is romantic, funny, or sweet. There are deep conversations that last long into the midnight - and the masks are taken away from our faces as we endeavor to reveal our true selves to this special person.

The season of breakup is equally full of feeling. The kind of feeling you wish didn't exist. Change. Fear. You take back up the mask - simply for survival's sake and continue on with a false stregnth. You see him - he's picked up the mask as well and you both see through the facades, though neither of you wishes to point out the falsity of the encounter.

Time moves on. Hurts vanish. Love fades. And you become stronger for them.

Society is Brainwashed

George Bernard Shaw wrote:

People will stand anything as soon as they are matured enough and cultivated enough to be suscepitable to the appeal of the particular form of art.

Shaw was speaking about theater, which in his day and age was changing rapidly from the traditional well made play to the more serious problem play. However, I wish to direct my thoughts toward society. Society shapes our perceptions of life. It shapes our expectations of life. It taints everything we see with either rose or black or clear. And just as Shaw states, as soon as people are matured enough (or brainwashed enough) they will stand anything.

You see a man walking down the street. He is dressed in rags, pushing a grocery cart with a towel wrapped around his head like a turbine. He mutters to himself and beggs change from you as you walk out of the gas station. You see a threat. A man who is different from you, probably wanting money for booze. Society has taught you that.

If you have ever been homeless or been friends with the homeless, however, you know that this man is simply in need of love. You can look past society's tint and see the reality of his need. Then and only then can you meet his need and be love to him.

Society tells us so many things about right and wrong, dirty and clean, acceptable and unacceptable, success and failure.

A professor recently asked us, "if marajuana were legal in the United States, would you use it?" It got me thinking - What makes it wrong? We use caffine to alter our states of mind. Or anything for that matter... how much do we let society dictate our thoughts and opinions about things?

Perhaps George Bernard Shaw's statement could be altered in this way to describe society:

People will stand for anything as soon as they are informed with enough propoganda, persuaded long enough and finally brainwashed enough to accept a certain point of view.

When Pigs Fly..or at least their Livers

Pigs and their kin have been worshiped, despised, and otherwise referred to throughout human history. Some societies have set them upon a high and decorated pedistol, while others preferred to hurl them deep within the bowels of the earth to keep their master company.

The Jews regarded them as unclean and were forbidden to eath them. The Celts had a god of swine dubbed Moccus, who in Roman mytholigy was entitled Mercury. In Germany, they were known as good luck charms. In England, they were said to be the bringers of bad luck.

Odysseus' crew was turned into pigs in The Oddesy. Soviet leaders are represented as pigs in Animail Farm. Pigs were used as symbols of the dark side of human nature in Saw and it's following sequels.

"When Pigs Fly"
"You can put lipstick on a pig, but it is still a pig."
"Sweating like a pig"
"In a pig's eye."
Economical sausage-makers were said to use "everything but the squeal."

Presently, many people make their living from pigs. Pigs are kept as pets, sold for meat, and taken to the fair. And you may be asking yourself about now: Why this random dialogue on pigs? The answer, my friends, is that I picked up fresh pig livers from the butcher yesterday for my mom to make liversausage. The butcher cut them out of the pig, put them in a bag and then we took them to the house to soak in our sink for several hours. I do not envy the nose that must smell that stench.

Mombasa Adventures

Taken From Kenyan Journal: Days in Mombasa

For the last week we have been in Mombassa, ministering to people through Ushindi Baptist Church, the biggest church in Kenya. It was nothing like life in Limuru. Mombassa seems, to me, to be darker and far less receptive to the gospel. There is also a very large Muslim pressence in Mombassa, and because of that we all felt much more hostility from the Kenyan people.

The media team swelled from three of us to 11, as many of the Kenyans from the church wished to join in our efforts to make a documentary. It was a huge challenge for me to find enough work for 11 people when we only have 2 video cameras and 3 photo-cameras. We spread out the cameras as much as possible - and it turned out better than I expected.

We've gotten very far in our mission to document this country. It's fantastic.I was able to interview an old Maasi man, which is a tribe that still lives in the old traditional way. That was a lot of fun and very interesting. They are cattle herders and nomads. They build their homes in little domes and cover them in cow manure. He told me how he had killed 4 lions and 1 cheetah in his lifetime, which were trying to kill his cattle.

Spiratually, things exploded when we got to Mombassa. Throughout the week, we held outreaches in the streets....literally. There were sounds systems set up in the middle of the street and we had worships services out there. Many, many came to Christ through the outreaches, the medical teams, and the evangelism teams. Also there were demons cast out of two people. I didn't personally experiance that, but several of our other team members did. Nearing the end of the week, the Muslim extremists in the city took over our outreach location and began to preach against us specifically - telling the city that they must disturb the outreaches so that the word of God could not go out into the community.

The last night there were two Muslim Death Marches through the streets. Dr Shaw explained that Death marches are when the Muslim extremeists beat drums and blow trumpets and make noise as they go through the streets to someone's house. At the house they call up the spirits of the dead and ask them to talk with Satan to give them power to face the small things of life - sickness, poverty things like that. Mirracilously, Dr Shaw's sermon landed in between the two death marches.There are so many other stories about God's fantastic work in Mombassa, too many to mention. Today we traveled 11 hours on a bus back to Limuru and Brackenhurst. It's great to be back here - especially since we emptied ourselves so much in Mombassa. I am looking foreward to what God will do in the next week.

Photos: Top is a Kenyan man who wants to be a member of CNN. Middle is a picture of the Mombasa Tusks - symbols of the slave trade history of Mombasa. Bottom is me videoing Dr Shaw, our leader, speaking to some Kenyans after the service