A Philadelphia Inquirer article today reported that Untied States Military Veterans comprise 25% of America's homeless population. That makes me sick. Have we really that little heart to reach out to these who have stepped up to serve, then have to live alone in suffering? Think what you will about politics, war, etc, these men and women deserve our respect and our assistance.
I watched the move "Jarhead" the other day. While I can't recommend it for everyone because of explicit language and sexual content, I get the impression from some former Marines that it paints an accurate picture. If you're interested to see WHY so many veterans find themselves so lost when they return to civilian status, I believe this movie provides some answers.
Tuesday, November 13, 2007
Tuesday, November 6, 2007
Back to Basics
Forget everything I wrote yesterday. Well, it was all true, but I was way too concerned about fitting the word "listless" into my post. In the last 24 hours I've screwed up a lot and have been led back to the fact that all this is simply about following Jesus. That's it. I seek to follow Jesus. I do a lousy job of it, but that is what I seek to do and that is the task at hand that I need to remember. "A life in non-fiction" sounds sexy, but really I just need to follow Jesus. So, scratch what I said. I want to live a life that follows Jesus. Donald Miller is right. It really is that easy. As the wise Matt Spainhour once said, "Life is simple."
Monday, November 5, 2007
Life in Non-Fiction
I'm through with the vanities of Amory Blaine. The protagonist in F. Scott Fitzgerald's (remember reading The Great Gatsby in high school? same author) first successful novel This Side of Paradise, Blaine spends his days chasing hopeless romance and selfish ambition, leaving him lost and alone. The novel ends as he adjusts to the realization that his intellectualism is bankrupt: "He stretched out his arms to the crystalline, radiant sky. 'I know myself,' he cried, 'but that is all-'"
I have decided to know more than myself, more than the comforts that surround me, more than the affluence I'm blessed to receive. The life of Amory Blaine was a life of fiction, and I mean that in a far deeper way than the simple fact he was a character in a novel. He choose to capitalize on the corruption of a culture that Fitzgerald wrote, was "a new generation dedicated more than the last to the fear of poverty and the worship of success; grown up to find all Gods dead, all wars fought, all faiths in man shaken." I see a lot of this blinded view of reality in America today, in its Church, and in myself. We choose to see the world through fictional lenses, stained with security few in the world know.
I want to live a life of non-fiction.
I've been throwing this idea around in my head for a while. Lost in a sea of stress and errands and preparation to leave the country last minute for a disaster response trip to Nicaragua a few weeks ago, I said to myself that I was at the time lost in non-fiction, burdened with the realities of the world to a point at which I longed to escape. It was then that I picked up Fitzgerald's novel off the shelf, seeking to self-medicate with stories of Amory Blaine's attempts to woo various women in a fictional paradise.
It didn't take me long after reaching the hurricane ravished, rural village of Tuara, Nicaragua, to despise the vanities of Amory Blaine, and more so my desire to allow my own life to drift into such listless realms. Somewhere in a woman's story of loosing her 23 year old son at sea during Hurricane Felix, or a mother's explanation that her beautiful 10 year old girl had been raped when she was 7, I realized that life rarely exists in the world middle to upper class Americans have created for themselves. It was in a moment walking to the well to retrieve water to bathe when I saw the before mentioned 10 year old girl scrubbing the laundry of her family that I resigned myself to break the American mold and live a life of non-fiction.
The world simply isn't safe, comfortable, warm, with riches and a full belly for most of those who live in it. I live the simple life as an individual born into the upper 1%. I believe there is a place here, and good I can accomplish, so I have no intentions of simply disposing my blessings. However, I must keep my life's relation to the rest of humanity in focus, and I must keep the picture clear. My life must be one of non-fiction.
I have decided to know more than myself, more than the comforts that surround me, more than the affluence I'm blessed to receive. The life of Amory Blaine was a life of fiction, and I mean that in a far deeper way than the simple fact he was a character in a novel. He choose to capitalize on the corruption of a culture that Fitzgerald wrote, was "a new generation dedicated more than the last to the fear of poverty and the worship of success; grown up to find all Gods dead, all wars fought, all faiths in man shaken." I see a lot of this blinded view of reality in America today, in its Church, and in myself. We choose to see the world through fictional lenses, stained with security few in the world know.
I want to live a life of non-fiction.
I've been throwing this idea around in my head for a while. Lost in a sea of stress and errands and preparation to leave the country last minute for a disaster response trip to Nicaragua a few weeks ago, I said to myself that I was at the time lost in non-fiction, burdened with the realities of the world to a point at which I longed to escape. It was then that I picked up Fitzgerald's novel off the shelf, seeking to self-medicate with stories of Amory Blaine's attempts to woo various women in a fictional paradise.
It didn't take me long after reaching the hurricane ravished, rural village of Tuara, Nicaragua, to despise the vanities of Amory Blaine, and more so my desire to allow my own life to drift into such listless realms. Somewhere in a woman's story of loosing her 23 year old son at sea during Hurricane Felix, or a mother's explanation that her beautiful 10 year old girl had been raped when she was 7, I realized that life rarely exists in the world middle to upper class Americans have created for themselves. It was in a moment walking to the well to retrieve water to bathe when I saw the before mentioned 10 year old girl scrubbing the laundry of her family that I resigned myself to break the American mold and live a life of non-fiction.
The world simply isn't safe, comfortable, warm, with riches and a full belly for most of those who live in it. I live the simple life as an individual born into the upper 1%. I believe there is a place here, and good I can accomplish, so I have no intentions of simply disposing my blessings. However, I must keep my life's relation to the rest of humanity in focus, and I must keep the picture clear. My life must be one of non-fiction.
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