This won't last. I know it won't. But that doesn't stop me from starting it anyway. I've been through the journaling mode too many times to count, and each time I set it aside in favor of ... um... well, I just set it aside. I've gone as many as a few years without journaling, and I've never gone longer than about 2 months straight of any sort of consistent entries. But we'll see how this pans out.
I'm guessing nobody will ever read this either, but I suppose that doesn't matter. It might be a positive thing in many cases.
Today I just finished Philip Yancey's Soul Survivor. It has successfully hardened that which I've already been seeing as a theme running through my thoughts over the last couple weeks and maybe months. I set out this semester with the goal in mind of learning to love people. In the past, I've tried so hard to 'minister' to people (a term I'm coming to find a distinct distaste for) and yet totally missed them. It became my job, or so I thought, to 'help' these people by guiding them towards Christian principles. Looking back, I came to the conclusion that I failed every one of them. Valentin, I am sorry for never really caring about you, for being too consumed by my drive to be a good ministry team member to meet you where you were. John, I'm sorry that I never listened, that I was so at a loss for what to do with you that I avoided you. Steve, I'm sorry for treating you like a project and not a person, caring about making you a 'disciple' rather than caring about you.
I look over the people Yancey depicts in Soul Survivor, and I ponder... There is a thread that runs through many of them. Sometimes the thread is incredibly strong and vibrant as in his look at Paul Brand. Other times is is weaker but still present as in his chapter on Henri Nouwen. But the thread draws me in a way I can't understand. It is love, given to any, without prejudice, without expectations. Pure, usually sacrificial, almost always palpable. And this love changed lives. I am awed by the life of Mahatma Gandhi, challenged to the point of silence because I cannot fathom how a man could live so strongly on principles, neglecting his own life and self. But his is also a life I do not envy, because he did not understand, did not accept, the love offered him, and he failed in many times to give that love to others.
I have a little card taped to my bathroom mirror. It says simply, "Your life is not about you." And it's not. I know it isn't. But as the days go by, I find myself convicted by my own handwriting. If my life isn't about me, why do I cling to it? If my life isn't about me, why am I surrounded by personal possessions, living alone, looking for ways to satisfy myself primarily?
"Whoever finds his life will lose it. Whoever loses his life for me will find it."
I have been struck for many years by the simple statement that ends Matthew 5, "Be perfect, then, as your heavenly Father is perfect." The verse came into my head from seemingly nowhere when I wrote an essay years ago, and it's never left. But only today did I notice it in context. Everything that leads up to that verse can be boiled down to this: love as I have loved you, and will love you. That, then, is how we are to be perfect. By loving perfectly.
All the Old Testament, and I believe all of the New, can be boiled down to two commands: Love God with everything. Love people like you love yourself. There is no room for pride in that, no room for prejudice, no room for hate, no room for selfishness. I tell you that the world will not change for the better because of money, because of power, or because of politics. And it will not change because of religion either. It will be better only because of love.
And yet I'm so bad at it...
I just spent three hours this afternoon talking with a friend. A friend of his was beaten to death not long ago. He is apparently familiar with the attacker and believes that he's a religious zealot. Now he's at a total loss. He doesn't know what to do; he's hardly sleeping, eating almost nothing, he's killing himself running every day because he wants to just get away from everything, beat the anger and rage out of himself... His chiropractor tells him that he can't even work on him anymore because he's so tense than any work the doctor could do would only cause more harm than good. And he's coming to me for help.
I am at a total loss...
He's had a few other people come up to him along the way. At least one has prayed for him. Somehave passed on religous words, "God is in control. God is love. Don't take out revenge; that's for God. Love your enemies." Maybe they are all true, but when you're hurting, they're trite. They're garbage. It's like trying to fix up a 3rd degree burn wound by putting a Band-Aid on it. But when you're in his situation... it's a Band-Aid made out of salt... The killer was a religious zealot. He's furious with religion. He blames religion for the pain, for the deaths (this isn't the only one he's seen...), for the wrongs. And people are throwing more religion at him?
Not that I have anything better to throw at him... I just know that isn't it. All I can do is listen to him, love him as best as I can, and sit with him, feeling helpless. And maybe that's all I need to do. I just don't know, though.
I'm brought back to that same thought, love your neighbor as yourself. Love heals wounds in amazing ways. Even he knows that, and some of the things he's talked about show it. But he's hurting... Oh, he's hurting...
My friend continues to struggle, but wounds are healing, I think. Unfortunately, those wounds may be reopened soon. It seems that the assailant is not going to be charged.
I talk with him every now and then. Or more, I listen. But I really don't do it all that much. Partially, we just seem to be on opposite schedules or something. We're not free at the same hours, I guess. We seem to just play phone tag, but he leaves pretty long messages. The other thing is that I'm reluctant in so many ways to call him. I go to bed at night, and I struggle with whether or not I should call him. I've been lacking sleep lately, and I don't do well without it. Sometimes I do, and he's not there, of course. Other times, I just know that I ought to call him, and I don't. I'm afriad, I guess. Or I don't want to be bothered. Sick, isn't it? I'm too selfish to be "bothered" by someone who's hurting... God help me; I'm a proud and selfish man... Evil and sin's roots still work in me. Rip them out of me, Lord... Rip them out...
On another note, I did something that I just might end up regretting soon. I deleted every game, every movie clip, and most of the sound clips off my computer. I am so easily distracted from the things that I need to do. I have committed myself to pray, and I should want to... but things pull me away from it. This computer right here is actually a lot of it, and there's a part of me that would be rid of this thing. The only thing that stops me is email, Mapquest, and my 3D modeling (which I occasionally print, frame, and give as gifts for various reasons). But still, I want to be rid of as much distracting stuff as I can. I'm planning on getting rid of some of my old books that I have with me that aren't necessarily edifying (they're not bad, just not particularly beneficial either) and some tapes of the same nature. I came here to LA with as little as possible, but I've collected too many things along the way, and some of the things I brought I really didn't need.
Maybe I'm going too far, but I really feel the need to simplify things here. God gave us more than enough to enjoy if we would only try to appreciate those things. All too often, I botch that job, going after the mindless or the extravegant. I have grown up in an entertainment-based culture, and I want to be free of it. Entertainment is not bad, but it's addictive, and it easily begins to rule you. But I am not to be ruled. So I'm ditching distractions. Here goes nothing.