skip to main |
skip to sidebar
You have to take risks, he said. We will only understand the miracle of life fully when we allow the unexpected to happen.
Every day, God gives us the sun--and also one moment in which we have the ability to change everything that makes us unhappy. Every day, we try to pretend that we haven't perceived that moment, that it doesn't exist--that today is the same as yesterday and will be the same as tomorrow. But if people really pay attention to their everyday lives, they will discover that magic moment. It may arrive in the instant when we are doing something mundane, like putting our front-door key in the lock; it may lie hidden in the quiet that follows the lunch hour or in the thousand and one things that all seem the same to us. But that moments exists--a moment when all the power of the stars becomes a part of us and enables us to perform miracles.
Joy is sometimes a blessing, but it is often a conquest. Our magic moment helps us to change and sends us off in search of our dreams. Yes, we are going to suffer, we will have difficult times, and we will experience many disappointments--but all of this is transitory; it leaves no permanent mark. And one day we will look back with pride and faith at the journey we have taken.
Pitiful is the person who is afraid of taking risks. Perhaps this person will never be disappointed or disillusioned; perhaps she won't suffer the way people do when they have a dream to follow. But when that person looks back--and at some point everyone looks back--she will hear her heart saying, "What have you done with the miracles that God planted in your days? What have you done with the talents God bestowed on you? You buried yourself in a cave because you were fearful. . . So this is your heritage: the certainty that you wasted your life."
Pitiful are the people who must realize this. Because when they are finally able to believe in miracles, their life's magic moments will have already passed.
(excerpt from By the River Piedra I Sat down and Wept, by Paulo Coehlo)
Nearly four years ago I read this novel and here is what I journaled the day I came upon that passage. "This is so descriptive of me. . . afraid. Afraid of launching out into new ministry, new dreams. And this pictures my ultimate fear; that I will reach old age, not having pursued and lived my dreams/God's calling. Only possessing the certainty that I wasted my life. God, give me courage and discernment. The latter to know what and where and how you desire we spend the rest of our life together. The former to go for it."
I look back and see the demanding nature of my insecurity then--wanting to know what, how, when, why, and where before making a move. Today--this season of my life--I can honestly say I'm going for it. And it feels pretty good. Really good, actually. I'm not suggesting that there's a new me and I now refer to myself as Braveheart; maybe Tentative Toes, which is to say that fear is still present, along with every other feeling contained on the universal feeling vocabulary list. But I'm going for it. We are going for it. My wife and I are leaving our predictable and secure careers and heading to Honduras for a three month trial-basis to serve the poor. We will be working with Mercy International, the mission base I have served on short-term mission trips the past 10 years. We will then return home and they will evaluate us and we them, and a decision will be made as to long-term relocation.
We will leave around the first of March. This has been years in the making, years in summoning the courage and trust to do this. Years of clinging to the false security of our comfort zone. But now we are going for it.
You have to take risks, he said.
Maybe David Bowie was stuttering after all when he sang about ch-ch-ch-changes. My wife and I have just made the most monumental decision in recent decades and I certainly find myself stammering and stuttering as I come to grips with it all.
We are both quitting our respective jobs/careers as of Feb. 1 and we're going to work with and serve the poor in Honduras for 3 months, beginning in March. Mercy International in Yamaranguila, Honduras has invited us to do so and we have accepted. And a significant part of me says, "You did WHAT?!?" The bolder, trusting side says, "YES!!!!" At this point it an ongoing internal dialogue hundreds of times a day.
Ch-ch-ch-changes. Some of us thrive on change; some of us dive from it. I personally thrive on diving from change. Gimme my predictable comfort zone within which to operate and then a comfy haven to come home to at night. I want the American Dream--without the divorce, the rehab, the ulcer, the mid-life crisis, the sense of pleasure but no purpose, the spoiled adult children. But then it wouldn't be the American Dream--now would it. I want my comfort zone but I find myself getting complacent in it. I find myself becoming soft 'n pudgy-- the Pillsbury Dough boy with a remote.
I believe there is something innate within us that needs adventure; we need a cause, a purpose greater than our own ego. I need more than my acquisitions and accumulations. I don't buy into the idea that he who dies with the most toys wins. He still dies. By the way, have you heard some variations of that 80's mantra?
Judaism - He who buys toys at the lowest price, wins.
Catholicism - He who denies himself the most toys, wins.
Atheism - There is no toy maker.
Anglican - They were our toys first. Branch Davidians - He who dies playing with the biggest toys, wins.
Hare Krishna - He who plays with the most toys, wins.
Polytheism - There are many toy makers.
Evolution - The toys made themselves.
Church of Christ, Scientist - We are the toys.
Communism - Everyone gets the same number of toys.
Baha'i - ALL toys are just fine with us.
Amish - Powered toys are a sin.
Taoism - The doll is as important as the dump truck.
Mormonism - Every boy may have as many toys as he wants.
Voodoo - Let me borrow that doll for a second....
Jehovah's Witnesses - He who sells the most toys door-to-door, wins.
If there is someone I have not offended, please let me know. I have been known to digress and I believe this might be one of those instances. I will get back on-course.
As inviting and alluring as it may be at times, I don't want to settle for the status quo. I don't want to observe life like I'm some Audubon bird-watcher. I want to fly; I don't want to watch birds do it. There is a stone plaque that sits eye-level on my computer desk. I'm looking at it right now. It reads,
Remember this; when you're through changing. . . you're through.
Now THAT makes me stutter. That jolts me out of my false sense of security and possibly settling for less than what God intends for me. How about YOU? Are you embracing ch-ch-ch-changes? Are you resisting the life of consumption? You and I will make an impact--either on the couch cushion or on others. I'm far from it but I want to embody that axiom, If you're not living on the edge you're taking up too much space.
My hope for not only me but you is that we will discard our pipe dreams and embrace our God-given dreams. That we will summon the courage--the faith?--to go for it in spite of the obstacles. Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn’t do than by the ones you did. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the tradewinds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover. (Thank you, Mark Twain)
The Foo Fighters in "My Hero" pose this question in a lyric about heroes, people who discard their apathy and give all they've got to make an impact on this pummeled planet. "Don't the best of them bleed it out while the rest of them peter out?"
May God give us grace not to settle for being one of "the rest of them." May we bleed it out because we are fueled by a heart for others, a restlessness with the status quo, a compassion for those who are suffering.
