with everything,

“How else would you rather live than to have it hurt when you leave someplace?”

That quote could, in all actually, describe the rest of my life.  In less than 48 hours I will be getting on a plane destined for San Diego, CA and I will be setting off on the wildest 5 month adventure my young life has seen yet.  I will be getting ready to devote every second of every day to ending a war that terrorized Central Africa for 26 years and for every moment I am working, I will be directly affecting the world’s slavery count.  I know that it is where I am suppose to be, but I can’t help but think about my friends going back to Fayetteville in two weeks.  They will move back and get settled in their dorms, or apartments, and start back with school and I will not.  And I didn’t realize the weight of leaving, until today.  I was sitting in Starbucks working on the pre-arrival assignments for Invisible Children when it hit me… I’m not going back, I’m really not going back.  The longevity of that truth struck me hard and left me with not just a broken heart, but a crushed heart.  I haven’t realized how attached my heart was to Fayetteville and the people there until just about three hours ago.  It grieves my soul that I won’t be going back and that I won’t get to further invest in the incredible relationships I have been able, by the grace of God, to establish.  For years I have read Paul’s words in his letters to the churches and skipped over his desperate plea to return to them, because I never understood the pain of leaving a place and a people that you love so much.

This last week I had the privilege to go to Passion 2012 in Atlanta, GA.  It was an incredible four days.  45,000 students gathered to proclaim justice in the name of Jesus all around the world who are stuck in slavery.  I had heard many of the statistics before but never have I so deeply felt a need for justice as I did in those four days.  And as I sat in the seats next to my fellow world-changers, I became increasingly humbled throughout the conference because Jesus was allowing me to be involved in His great heart for justice next semester with IC.  There was one day when we sang a song that said, “Your love never fails, it never gives up on me. You never give up on me” and the words after those were, “On and on and on and on it goes, it overwhelms and overcomes my soul. I’ll never, ever, have to be afraid, because one thing remains.”  In those moments I saw the faces of the people who I will meet one day in Heaven, who will come up to me and tell me how because of my involvement with Invisible Children, they weren’t abducted by the LRA and allowed a chance to live and to accept Jesus.  I saw them, I saw their eyes and their mouths and their souls.  And just as I felt like my heart had had too much, Jesus gave me the precious gift of confirming my choice to leave Fayetteville to work with IC by sending His servant, Christine Caine to speak.  She talked about justice and how it is one with evangelism, about our need to act, and about a desperate and unshakable hope in the redeeming blood of Jesus.  Over those 30 minutes, God confirmed so much for me.  I know without any doubt that I am going where He is leading me.  I am so humbled to be a small part of fighting injustice, and this amazing chance to pursue God’s heart.  Because I realized something this week, those child soldiers that we’re advocating for, they are part of the total of the 27 million slaves in this world.  It’s time for me to act.

But even with that beautiful and vital confirmation, I still have a deep longing to go back to Fayetteville.  It hurts me to think about my friends moving on and about not being with the people I’ve got to share Christ with and so on and so forth.  But this is good.  I need to hurt, I need to mourn, I need to grieve.  If I’m living the way that Jesus desires for us to live, then doesn’t it make all of the sense in the world to have pain when we leave a place?

So with that being said I am more than excited for this journey and beg each of you to pray for my team and I as we promote justice and desperately plea with the youth of America to open their eyes.  Please pray for me to love and to give and to walk in justice and truth by the power of the Holy Spirit, every step of the way.  Although my heart will mourn leaving Fayetteville, I am confident by God’s grace that I will get to return to those people I love soon.  I will come back to the UofA and continue in my prayer to reach the students for Christ and to see great revival on that campus (and I’m continuing to pray for that hard, even in my absence).  

These next five months are going to be crazy and many people have asked me if I’ll be blogging or not and the answer to that is yes, but in a different form and fashion.  I will be blogging once a month.  Each month I will be sending an update to supporters and friends via email about what is going on (if you’d like to receive that update just shoot me your email address on Facebook or Twitter) and I will be also be writing a blog.  So please be on the lookout for the updates so that you can continue to labor with me and for me in prayer.  I covet each and every one of your prayers, my friends. 

On the second night of Passion, Hillsong United played a concert.  I had never seen them live before so I had no idea what to except.  The last song they sang was called, “With Everything” and what happened during those 10 minutes or so was nothing short of divine.  I experienced the presence of the Holy Spirit like I never have before as I screamed out the anthem of our generation.  “With everything, we will shout for you glory.  With everything, we will shout for you praise.”  I danced and cried and shouted to Heaven the words of complete and utter surrender.  The place was literally shaking from the 45,000 voices rising in unison.  I will never forget the declaration we made in those moments.  I will never forget the cry… Freedom.

And with that being said, the next months my blogs will be on a consistent theme of “with (fill in the blank),”.  Each one highlighting what I am learning and how I am growing by being on the road and fighting justice on a daily basis. 

Although my heart is mourning leaving Fayetteville, it is eagerly looking forward to the journey ahead of me and I stand by God’s beautiful promise:

“Is not this the fast that I choose: to loose the bonds of wickedness, to undo the straps of yoke, to let the oppressed go free, and to break every yoke?

Is it not to share your bread with the hungry and bring the homeless poor into your house; when you see the naked, to cover him, and not to hide yourself from your own flesh?

Then shall your light break forth like the dawn, and your healing shall spring up speedily; your righteousness shall go before you; the glory of the Lord shall be your rear guard.

Then you shall cry, and He will say, “Here I am.” If you take away the yoke from your midst, the pointing of the finger, and speaking of wickedness, if you pour yourself out for the hungry and satisfy the desire of the afflicted, then shall your light rise in the darkness and your gloom be as noonday.

And the Lord will guide you continually and satisfy your desire in scorched places and make your bones strong; and you shall be like a watered garden, like a spring of water, whose waters do not fail.

And your ancient ruins shall be rebuilt; you shall raise up the foundations of many generations; you shall be called the repairer of the breach, the restorer of streets to dwell in.”

-Isaiah 58:6-12

With everything, hallelujah.

Questions and Answers

       I will never forget the night I first talked to George.  It was early in the semester, on a Sunday night around 1 A.M., so I guess it would have technically been Monday morning, then.  I was doing my laundry and decided that while I was waiting for it to be done, I might as well take advantage of the waiting and study for an upcoming geology quiz.  But instead of sitting in the laundry room, I relocated to the room across the basement with all of the vending machines, on account of two abnormally loud chatty girls.  It’s funny how small changes like this can be so vital in how your life plays out.  So there I am sitting on the floor, listening to Andrew Belle when George walks carrying Jimmy Johns.  I only slightly knew George and that was only because he lived three doors down from me on my hall.  He got to the vending machine and punched the buttons to get his drink.  When he turned around, he spotted me immediately and greeted me warmly.  See the thing about George is that he’s genuinely and authentically friendly.  I don’t know many people like that, so when I greeted me as he did, I was almost taken aback.  Nonetheless, I returned the favor immediately, greatly anticipating his sincere hello.  It was the normal dialogue, you know, the “how are you?” “good man, how are you?” and so on and so forth, however with George, that kind of talk is always different than with other people, it’s bona fide, it’s meaningful.  Even as the semester spanned out, even these small “catch-up” talks with George meant more to me than the majority of other conversations I would have with people.  But that night, instead of saying the usual, hello goodbye, he sat down next to me on the floor in the basement of Humphreys.  What followed was a talk that really did set the course for the rest of my semester, possibly leading me to where I am now with taking the spring semester off to tour with Invisible Children.

            In the hour or so that followed, George and I began to pick away at the monotonous questions that most people ask while talking for the first real.  Before either of us knew it we were talking about why we were at the UofA and I was telling him about my bout with my ankle years ago that allowed Jesus to finally get a grip on my life.  We talked about how there must be a reason for everything and why we didn’t really believe in coincidences.  And somehow we started to talk about the questions we had with life, with the world, with why things are the way they are and so on and so forth.  I remember him clearly saying, “you know, Chris, I guess there are just many questions to be answered and many answers to be questioned.”  We talked about how every morning when we get up, we are faced with a day full of questions that are begging to be answered and on the same page, so many answers that are waiting to be questioned. 

            That talk not only set in motion motivation for the rest of the semester, it also gave me a friend in George and because of getting to know George, I also got to know and come to deeply love the rest of the guys on my hall.

            A couple of nights before I packed up and left Fayetteville for the year, my friend Connor asked me, “so, was it worth it? Was this semester worth it?”  And as I look back over my four months, I relive moments of great triumph, like the night I met George, and great sorrow, like the night we heard that Westboro would picket Garrett Uekman’s funeral.  I vividly recall the first week of school when I awkwardly walked around campus in a freshman gaze, staring wide-eyed at every new adventure around every turn.  This semester was full of long hours in the library, mindlessly studying Geology and others in that same chair, full of dancing as Steinbeck’s words of Salina’s Valley and ‘timshel’ rang a new symphony for humanity in my soul.   It was also a couple months of learning to love people.  Until this year I could easily escape the eyes of everyone by simply retreating to my house in the middle of the woods and shutting my door to the world… but not this year. I had no choice but to embrace everyone at any time of the day and finally let my little perfect Christian bubble be popped.  I got to witness people throwing their lives away and others gaining them.  I was blessed enough to meet and learn from laborers who were giving up everything to share Christ with students around them.  I experienced healing and community in the Church in a way that I never thought would be possible.  My heart’s desire for the Nations to know Christ grew as my heart for individuals grew as well.  So much so that when I would sit and study or read, I would look over and see someone studying who looked unhappy and before I knew it, I was getting emotional over this person I didn’t know.  Maybe I just sound like a baby?  But I’m okay with that, because I honestly think that this semester was the time in my life when I learned to feel and to feel deeply, at that.  I gained and I lost, I laughed and I cried.  I walked and I ran, and I danced.  And then I danced some more.  But more than anything, I learned to question and to seek answers.  Every single day of this last four months has held something different for me; whether that was attempting with all of my might to share the Gospel with everyone I talked to in some way, shape, or form or having to discipline myself to not wait to study until the night before a big test.  But as I saw what it meant to answer questions, I saw in the same paintbrush stroke, my restlessness. I had to move.  I needed to move. 

            For far too long, I have stayed in the same place, going through the motions.  I have been in Arkansas for too long.  Although I have been growing and learning, by the grace of God, I came face to face with the truth that it is time for me to move and roam and to answer some questions that I couldn’t ever hope to answer by staying in Fayetteville.  So God opened up the opportunity to be a roadie with Invisible Children and to travel the country and to tell thousands and thousands of students about injustice in the world. 

            The night before my friend George left school, we sat in the 6^th floor study room and went back over our previous semester.  We reminisced about the first time we talked in the basement of Humphreys many months before and went over our experiences since.  It’s funny to see how much someone can grow up in four months.   We talked for a while and finally came to the topic of me leaving for my adventure with IC.  He sat musing and with a smile remarked, “This semester your desk was the University of Arkansas, but next semester your desk is the youth of America. What are you going to do with it?”  The words hit me right in the chest, because I hadn’t even thought about it like that.  “Can’t wait to hear about the questions you answer and the answers you question,” he went on to say and left my head spinning with excitement for the journey I had ahead of me.  The night went on and the conversation turned spiritual, leaving me talking about being in front of Jesus one day, being in front of my Soul’s Desire.  And that’s when he said, “I guess that’s when the world’s biggest question will be answered.”  And he’s right.  When I’m in front of Jesus, everything will make sense and everything will be answered.  All of my questions about injustice and hell and everything in between will be set right, and I will finally be satisfied.  But until then, I will pursue the mountains, seeking to know Christ and to make Him known.  To answer and to question.   To love and to hurt.  To grow and learn.

            So was this semester worth it?  Yes. Undoubtedly yes.

with liberty bound together,

            I remember so clearly that moment when I was standing in the IDP camp in Gulu, Uganda when I had the thought, the thought that would define the course of my life.  I remember the exact place I was standing, what I was wearing, what I was holding when I thought it. 

“I have to do something. I can’t just let it all happen anymore.”

My heart hasn’t forgotten that hot and humid day in June and when I returned back to the States, Jesus immediately let me start pursuing justice and hence, fulfilling the promise I made to myself.  It’s humorous to look back now and wallow over the memories of when my friend Luke first told me about Invisible Children.  He was so excited and kept saying how we needed to help, needed to show the film, and so on and so forth.  Well, I finally bought into his dream after returning from Uganda for the first time and started working with others, putting on benefit concerts to raise money for this non-profit that was working tirelessly to end the longest running war in Africa.  As the years went on and I returned back to Africa again, my heart became more and more bonded to the cause and this last summer I was invited to attend the Fourth Estate; a justice conference held by Invisible Children in San Diego.  Over those four days I sat and listened to the world’s most passionate activists and caught the infectious dream of a world alive with peace.  Jesus did something to my heart sitting in the auditorium of USD and even now as I try to adequately describe it all with words, I find myself at a loss.  It was deep and profound, so much so that when I was on the plane flight home, I wrote in my journal that I felt more alive than I ever had in my whole life. 

When I started to follow Jesus with my whole life, He gave me a heart to tell everyone about Him.  A desire to see people come to know Him, but He also gave me a desperate plea for justice.  My vision and my heart’s eternal and final cry is for the Great Commission to be fulfilled and hopefully, by the grace of God, I will be able to help serve that dream come true by going to reach the unreached soon.  But for this moment, He has placed me in Fayetteville, Arkansas to glorify Him.  And my earnest prayer is that this last semester, I was able to do just that.  I’ve met some incredible people and been able to invest in phenomenal relationships.  He has blessed me with the most amazing group of guys to call my family, d-wing in Humphreys hall and some other friends who have there to laugh with me, cry with me, pray with me, and live with me.  I have fallen in love with this campus and the wonderful human beings who walk next to me. A group of monumental world changers who aren’t afraid to dance on Dickson in banana suits and who are willing to risk everything just so children in Uganda, who they have never met, may have a chance to live.  I have learned so much about what it means to love and to live astonished. 

A couple of months ago the idea of being a roadie with Invisible Children crept into my mind and wouldn’t leave.  A roadie is someone who goes on tour, in a van, around the United States showing an Invisible Children film at different high schools and colleges to not only raise awareness but let people get involved.  My life has been so deeply affected by these roadies and I knew that if I were one then I would have the chance to radically challenge the youth of America to see that the world is bigger than them, that the world is bigger than America.  Being a roadie is a unique position where you can do justice day in and day out.  So I applied.

This last month I have been in prayer and others have been praying for me on whether or not I should go be a roadie with Invisible Children or stay here in Fayetteville.  I can honestly say that from the beginning of the process I have had a strange and divine peace about the entire thing.  Throughout all of the interviews and even the phone call telling me whether I was going to be a roadie or not, I had no anxiety.   I knew that if Jesus wanted me to stay here in Fayetteville next semester and continue to labor with the specific people I have come to love, then I would indeed stay here.  I also knew that if He wanted me to travel and be a roadie, then I would go. 

Next week when all of the students from the University of Arkansas leave for Christmas break, I will be moving out of my dorm for the year.  I will be preparing to leave Arkansas and arrive in San Diego January 9^th to begin this new chapter in my life of being a roadie with Invisible Children. 

My heart is torn.  Since I found out and have started to tell people, it has been an almost painful thing walking throughout campus and thinking I won’t be here in the Spring.  It has been astronomically hard to walk up and down my dorm hallway and know that I won’t be here to deepen my friendship with those guys even further.  I don’t really understand the timing of it all but to give a little background, I am planning to study Arabic here at the University and once I start, I cannot take a break.  So if I were to stay here and start Arabic then I wouldn’t be able to be a roadie with Invisible Children until I graduate and I am very prayerful that by that time, the Lord will have given me the green light to go to the unreached.  So the fact that this was my one chance and the fact that I got accepted is Jesus saying as clear as day to me that it’s time to go.  It time to jump. 

It’s time to leave and travel and learn to love and learn to follow and to grow even further in my understanding of what it means to dance in joy and sorrow.  I will be able to share my plea for justice with thousands of students and try with all of my might to let them catch the dream of our liberty being bound with the liberty of children in Uganda, of the man in the slums of Mumbai, and the widow in Beijing. 

My heart is full and ready to go, to follow Jesus where He has me going and to experience Him in a way that I never have before.  To pursue justice and tell everyone about the Grace that has found me and given me breath.  I am at last, risking the ocean.

 with liberty bound together,

Chris

I am thankful until the end.

Love is a funny thing.  So is a broken heart.  And I really do believe that the two mixed together makes one of the most beautiful creations ever known to man.  Because I think when we learn what love is and how to love and then we have our hearts broken, we get a small taste of what Jesus feels when He looks upon us.  The way He felt so deeply towards us that He stepped down from the throne of the Universe to become the curse that would kill our curse.  The way He writhes in agony over His children walking away from Him to a Lover much less wild.  Love and a broken heart may together be the most divine encounter in the entire world.  When love and a broken heart mix, changing the world follows.  Really, just look at what Jesus did and what Paul and Peter did and what Martin Luther did and Dietrich Bonheoffer and MLK and Mother Teresa and Bill Bright.

And as I look at love and a broken heart I think that maybe I’ll always be stuck in this place of being between how the world is and how it should be.  A couple years ago I realized that I was camped out there, that my heart found a temporary home in that great chasm shortly after I gave my life to Jesus.  I found out that life is not only short but it also both beautiful and horrifying in the same breath.  I saw the dream of Eden and longed for it.  But my friends, we are a far way from Eden.

I don’t really know why I thought I would move on from that place once I walked further into the mountains with Jesus making my feet harder with every step.  I’m not sure why I made myself believe that this time of being on my knees would be my last time.  Did Paul ever think that?  Surely not.  So why would I?  Whatever the reason was, it’s gone now.  And until I see Jesus face to face, I’m going to be here in this place where I can see clearly how the world is and how it should be.

This last weekend a football player was found dead in his dorm room.  His roommate saw him playing videogames early Sunday morning and came back in an hour later to find him unresponsive and when they took him to the hospital, he died.  Dead.  Just like that.   An enlarged heart. That quick. 

Sunday night I was at a church service where a leader of FCA got up and she rallied us and told us that this is where the body of Christ came into play.  That we would love Garrett’s family with prayers and support and that this family would come together to grow and to endure.  And then we prayed and we prayed that Jesus would be glorified in the midst of tragedy.  Then I came back to my dorm later that night only to find that Westboro Baptist Church was planning on protesting his funeral.  Automatically I was welcomed back into the chasm and overwhelmed with a rush of emotion.  Broken for Garrett’s death and broken for the depravity of man.

            I wish that all of these questions I have about justice could be answered quickly and easily.  I wish that we didn’t have to sit around and wonder why Jesus lets His name be trampled upon so much.  But then just as I begin to judge the people of Westboro I come to a reality that leads me to my knees yet again.  If He didn’t, then I would have been done for a long time ago.  Aren’t I just as sinful and deceived?  Didn’t I put Jesus to death as well?  Aren’t I Judas too?

            I don’t understand why the world is how it is and sometimes I let sorrow attack me into believing I need to know why.  But it all comes down to the question of if I truly and wholly believe that God is sovereign.  And I do.  Though I may sometimes mutter that fact through gritted teeth and with clenched fists, it still doesn’t change that the Living God cares for us.  He is sovereign.  I believe that with everything I am.

            My heart is heavy on this Thanksgiving day.  But although it is heavy I have tasted a small portion of what it is like to love with a broken heart and for that, I give thanks.  Jesus is alive and hope breathes.  I am thankful until the end.

Hallelujah.

Who are you again?

For some reason, very unknown to me, I have the ability to remember things.  Most things.  I can remember people who I haven’t seen since first grade in an instant and where I read a certain quote in a book, right down to the line and the page.  I don’t know why.  I usually don’t ask questions about that.  I seem to ask questions just about everything else in life except for why I can remember things, people in particular. 

            But with that memory, it also brings up some awkward moments.  I guess the word awkward maybe too strong, but nonetheless, I use it here.  There are moments where I’ll recognize someone and say hello and they obviously don’t remember me.  So then I have to try and explain to them how we know each other.  “Oh you know, we were in pre-school together!  We always played near the fence and pretended the War-head wrappers on the ground were real witches!” or “Don’t you remember fourth grade in Mr. Whitlow’s class?  We read Series of Unfortunate Events together!”  Often times they truly don’t remember me but sometimes I can see it in the way they flash they eyes towards my face, I know they know me.  I can see it and for the life of me I just don’t know why they claim ignorance. 

            The fact that people pretend to not know other people fascinates me.  For years I have had trouble understand why someone would do that.  Pride?  Embarrassment?  The fear of being too creepy?  I just don’t understand. 

            But recently I ran into a person who I hadn’t seen in a very long time and they greeted me in the way I tend to greet others.  They were excited and asked me if I remembered them and to my own surprise I said no.  But the thing is, I did remember them.  But I still said no?  Why would I have done that?  Why would I have done exactly what I hated others doing?

            Maybe I did that for the same reason I turn my eyes away when someone who has been crying makes eye contact with me.  Or maybe I did that for the same reason that I always lie and tell others I threw up the first time I ever had sushi. 

            The more I look into myself and my motives for why I do certain things, I come to a tall and wide brick wall plastered with red.  There are giant stop signs on the wall and if I’m not mistaken, the red streaks are blood, not paint.  But whose blood?  My blood?  Their blood?  His blood?  I can never really be sure. 

            Maybe I pretended not to know that person because some days I pretend to not even know the very person who formed me inside my mother’s womb.

Maybe it’s just because I pretend to know myself. 

“For I do no understand my own actions.  For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate.”  Romans 7:15

            

timshel

I recently finished reading East of Eden by John Steinbeck and I'm pretty sure this is the first book that I have ever read that in turn, actually read me.  I went through so many emotions reading it because it lays out humanity so clearly in the 600 pages of love, hate, anger, laughter, tears, and rage.  I almost feel like I have a lost a close friend now that I'm not in the middle of the novel waiting with increased anticipation on the next big twist in the story.  And as I've been chewing on the book the last couple of days, a short and simple poem started to form and I decided there would be no better way to share my heart about the book than by sharing this poem.  It's the very best way I know how to express the anguish and triumph my soul experienced and I hope that it resonates with an ability beyond words how immaculate the miracle of choice truly is.

Life is a deep, beautiful, and complex box

Only partially full with the world

Leaving so many questions to be answered

And so many answers to be questioned

Each of us are adding ourselves

To the box and let it be known

Without choice, we are all tragedies

Greatness is near, taunting our every breath

Maybe we can live with glory

Instead of just being poison-filled corpses

Our forefathers and beyond

Went their own way

But we can decide to go West

When they are all being herded East

Humanity writhes in the agony of decision

“timshel”

Is written in blood on every noose

That is tied around every man’s neck from birth

“thou mayest” the blood cries

And oh, hallelujah, that they can choose to take it off

But only they can choose

Perhaps poetry is not just for the weak

But instead for all of mankind

For the fantastic and the magnificent

The beautiful and the mysterious

For the lonely but the satisfied

The broken but the full

For the rejected but the authentic

The sick but the hopeful

What if the sky is closer than we first believed?

Laughing and crying

Running and crawling

Living and dying

We are climbing our ladders to the stars

And I am led to believe

That time is never better spent

Than when learning to dance.

"I want a purple egg."

         Last night I was riding with some friends to go bowling and it was raining. The rain was just hard enough, but just light enough to leave a really shiny glint on the road, in turn making it incredibly hard to see.  I usually try to steer away from any morbid thoughts but every now and again, I let my mind go there.  So I thought the simple thought, “If I were to be in a car wreck and die right now, would I have changed anything?”  My thoughts went deeper to the idea of my funeral.  Who would be there? Would it matter?  Would people be sad?  Would people be joyful?  Would people be singing or dancing or sitting on pews wallowing inside of themselves with tears of sorrow and pain? Would people remember me for my words or my actions?  Or possibly just the fact that I was young when I died and for some reason that means that a form of injustice took place and people are now obligated to mourn for my death?  And then I went to the realm of thinking about how would it be for me.  Here I am a kid learning and growing each day and to the world I’m at my prime, right?  Seeing what it means to live and forming my steps.  But I thought about if I were to die at that moment, what it would be like to be in Heaven the next.  I don’t really think about that too much.  But what if it’s just an immediate switch?  No time lapses between my soul leaving my body here and being in front of Desire.  What would that be like?  To be embraced by Eternity and what would the tears feel like as they rolled down my cheeks onto the warm arms of my Savior as He held me close to His true and beating heart.  And then the truth of Eternity kicked my chest in as we continued to drive down the interstate in the rain.  Eternity.  My soul.  Your soul.  We’ll be somewhere, doing something.  And I started to hurt because I thought about the seven billion souls that made up the human race and where we would all spend Eternity. 

            The other day I was in the library reading, which I seem to be doing this a ton these days.  I was reading East of Eden by John Steinbeck.  I have been reading this book for about three weeks now and I’m starting to get nervous because the pages in my left hand are beginning to be thicker than the amount of pages in my right.  This book has read me more than I have read it, if that’s not too cliché to say here.  The book paints such an accurate picture of humanity; of evil and good, heartache and love and sorrow and joy and pain and laughter and brutal honesty and brutal betrayal.  I have gone through a wide range of emotions during this book, cried and laughed at the same time and made an absolute fool of myself in public because I couldn’t help but gasp out loud as that cursed shotgun went off.  Maybe you could say that I’ve learned how to dance while reading this book.  But there was one in particular day when I was packing up shop and saw a man sitting reclined in a chair reading with a look of pure ecstasy on his face.  I observed him for a moment and knew that he was learning to dance, with whatever book he was reading as his partner.  I don’t know what it was about that man, but a deep longing for the human soul arose in my chest.  I am madly in love with people.  Their souls and their beauty and their eternal worth.  I firmly believe each of us spend Eternity someplace and I long with a desire that burns me to physically hurt for every one to spend Eternity in Glory.  I feel pain when I see others experience pain and is it too far too say, taste death when others do?  Maybe I’m getting ahead of myself.  There’s a good chance I am, I do that a fair amount. 

            But what I know for a fact is that people matter.  As Steinbeck says through the words of his beautiful character, Lee, “I feel that a man is a very important thing- maybe more important than a star.  This is not a theology.  I have no bent towards gods.  But I have a new love for that glittering instrument, the human soul.  It is a lovely and unique thing in the universe.  It is always attacked and never destroyed- because “Thou Mayest.”  Thou mayest comes from a words called, timshel and this word has revolutionized my life.   It is Hebrew and used in Geneses 4.  It tells the story of mankind and how we have a choice whether or not to follow in the sin of our fathers.  A choice whether to be great, to live, to dance.  A choice whether to follow and know Jesus, life, hate, fullness, emptiness, love. 

We choose.  And I think everyone spends Eternity someplace and my heart yearns for us all to spend it together.

There is a scene in East of Eden, maybe the most profound piece of literature I have ever read where Dessie comes back to her childhood home.  She has gone through tragedy and has lost the vigor to live.  The scene tells of her waking up in her house and going through all of the memories of her life and the things that made her who she was.  She has come home to stay with her brother, Tom, who has also lost vigor.  But when she gets downstairs and see him, she realizes that he has chosen to look past pain and start again.  And she sees with unblinded eyes that she can choose to live and not be the same, not to let sorrow control her thoughts and dictate her steps.  Tom asks her what kind of egg she’d like and she replied, “I want a purple egg.”  Symbolizing her choice to live differently.  Symbolizing her choice to choose her destiny.

I sometimes wonder, and when I say sometimes I mean everyday, what it would be like if we all chose to love people.  To acknowledge each other’s incredible worth and act upon that worth.  And now my heart cries, what would it look like if we all wanted purple eggs?

I know I’m not alone in this.  Out of the other seven billion people that surround this planet, at least a couple of them must desire a purple egg every now and again.

By the way, I hope that there is dancing at my funeral.  Lots and lots of dancing.