Aude sapere

It was while lying beneath the infinite audience of the stars that I thought to myself a few days back, "I love these times: times when I can snuggle up to the earth and be held in the loose embrace of the grass. My eyes turned to the sky allows my vision to sink beneath the surface of myself into the pasture --or cage?-- of my soul. It is a breath of fresh air; having spent the extent of my measure beneath the waters of human interaction and social bustle, to break the surface by diving into the silence of nature and myself is revitalizing."

The first half of this week found me in Nakuru working at a boys home. Our task was simple for the two days we were there: dig a trench, to begin laying the foundation for a cow shed which will also provide bio-gas to the home, relieving the pressure of deforestation and high propane costs from the orphanage. Looking at the field where the shed is to be I was surprised at how little work they had assigned us, and even enquired if there was more work to be done after we finished digging.
The next morning as we began work proved my skepticism ill founded. Never before had I known digging to be so strenuous. Exhausted I looked at my watch only to find a mere half hour had gone by. Seeing our soft muscles and weak backs, some of the Kenyan men who lived at the home came to join us. They did much more than join! By the end of the day it became one Kenyan doing all the hoeing (which was most difficult) and four of us behind him just struggling to keep up with the shoveling!
It was what stands out to me as the second great humbling from a single event since starting college. The first was when I tore the ligaments in my ankle and was forced to use a wheelchair in the St. Louis Zoo, but even that I got out of in less than an hour, my pride to deeply bruised but the lesson learned none-the-less. This time, however, there was no escape. Hour after hour I watched as my body failed my, weakened by years of strengthening my mind. For hours I watched people whom the majority of the world doesn't give a chance work four times harder and faster. And it wasn't because they were brutish and only good at it. No. One was a high school teacher, one a pastor, and the third a farmer. I weighed at least fifty pounds more than the heaviest of them. And yet their skill, their relentless advance through the unrelenting soil taught me much.
First, it reminded me that for one in my blessed place in life, living becomes a series of trade-offs. It is extremely difficult to have a strong education, back, and social net. Very often strength in one means weakness in another. Two of the three are within grasp, but all three are too much.
Also it made me consider and reconsider my priorities. Realizing that for every one thing I choose to do there are ten things I choose not to do, I had to revisit that which I called important. I had been thinking on what ministry I ought to be involved in heading back to Pacific, I have thought much about relationships, and also of my future.
Last year I believe I attempted to do too much in the way of ministry, so that there were periods months long where my ministry was an obligation put on me by myself and other humans and not at all what God had in mind for me. There were also rapids I floundered down, being caught up in the roll and tumble of American Productionism, which effectively turned my ministry away from the glory of Christ and into the mirey alleys of Unit Output and Time Input, running parallel to one another and weaving and tangling so efficiently that once I got enough head about me to stop and look around, I couldn't tell which way was air and which way was earth. I was also reminded during these few days how little knowledge of the Word I seek outside of the Word itself. I mean this in regard to listening to the words of wiser Christians through discipleship and/or reading books. To top this off were two other thoughts, semi-related: I've been thinking quite a bit about how the Alpine House ought to be used this upcoming school year as well as how we five Alpine House Men can continue to grow in Christ as a house, as well as individuals. Between these many different criteria, I've come to settle on the idea that I ought to step back from diliberate, corporate ministry. Many ideas are still floating around in my head, but I am looking at my spiritually weak muscles and have decided that sharpening my skills in public ministry is not worth what it has been costing me in the tone of my spiritual physique.
I have been reading through Isaiah and have again and again found myself challenged by the words of the prophet. In regard to the supremacy of Christ, the message in clear. In chastisement for straying from the Mighty King, the command is stern. In reminding of our incompetency with righteousness on our own, the words are a paintbrush which slap me in the face as they paint broad stroke pictures of my need to establish a deep fellowship with my King through individual meditation and community pursuit.
Hopefully as the details of my new desires and different direction take on physical form through disciplines or scheduling, I will have the blessed opportunity of witnessing as the Spirit grows myself and my community in widsom as we are led into a deeper worship with our Adonai.