Courage to Start, and the Courage to Continue & Perhaps the Knowledge to Do Both

"Leave.
... It is a beautiful word, isn't it? So strong and forceful, the way you have always wanted to be. And you will not be alone. You have never been alone. Don't worry. Everything will still be here when you get back. It is you who will have changed." - 'Through Painted Deserts: Light, God and Beauty on the Open Road' by Donald Miller

This blog comes after about a week of having too many muses to write about.  I have a number of half started posts tucked safely in a Microsoft OneNote tab, and none of which I could seem to finish.  Sure that's a symptom of ADD. A condition I have been told that I have by plenty of people qualified to know.  But ADD is not to blame for lack of follow through here.  They were all good starts that pointed to something else.

If everything goes as planned, and I'm awarded the appropriate transfer credit after hounding down old professors in Cheney for syllabi, as well as receiving a passing score on a CLEP test I will have completed all the coursework that I will need to do on campus in this semester, I will be able to walk at graduation in April and I'll complete the final nine credits online over the summer.  If all this is true, I have four months left in Miami according to the little counter I put on my Facebook profile I have about 107.5 days left. So I'm applying for seminary. It's the next step and it's my calling. God has made that clear, but I'm anxious.  I've been anxious for about a year and a half now.  I know I talk about how much I don't like Miami... I've even said I hate it on numerous occasions.  That wasn't always the case.  When those four months are up and I'm finally finished here, I won't be leaving Miami I haven't really been there for a while.  I left for Iowa a year and a half ago.  After that I went to Colorado and down to New Mexico and when the plane landed in Miami and the shuttle pulled up to the drive of the house I'd been living in for the past year I wasn't there.

My heart checked out of Miami some time ago.  Going back to the heat and humidity of Florida after hopping around the country, seeing farmland and playing with cousins, roadtripping from Denver, Co to Ghost Ranch in Abiquiu, NM and hiking, climbing, and camping along the way?  No, I never really came back.  So where I've been for the past year and a half is moving on.  I've just been waiting for my academics to catch up with me, and it looks like they finally just might do that.  It's not a bad thing that I checked out that long ago.  What I learned in my year working at Sweet Home was that I needed to commit to a place, and that I needed to finish school, picking up and leaving Miami wouldn't help in the long run and for all my complaining it's not such a terrible place especially with the right roommates.  I didn't want to be in Miami but I knew it was the right place for me for that time.  I wouldn't trade the people I've met here, good or bad, for anything.  I've been shaped by experiences that were never supposed to be a part of my mission year.  So I committed to stay for two more years, but I knew that just as I was called to stay I would also be called to leave.  So, 107 days and the counter keeps going down.  Not all those who wander are lost, I'll be moving on to the next thing still moving, but still not lost.


If I'm not really leaving, because I'm already gone... why the Donald Miller quote?  Why talk about leaving? Because:

• This week I picked up 'Through Painted Deserts' again and I intend to finish it this time.
•  I also saw the movie 'Romero' for the first time since I had to watch it for class last Spring.   I watch Romero and see a devout man of God advocate for his people and as a result he is mistaken as a figure head for a Marxist guerrilla movement and assassinated. He wasn't too different from the savior he professed.  A friend of mine on Facebook has put something like this under her political views: If Jesus ran for president he would be executed... oh, wait....  
• Then Product Red (one of the groups Bono is affiliated with) announced that Nike is joining the cause, which sounds great until considering the irony of Red's mission compared with Nike's business practices... same goes with Gap for that matter.  Companies discovered to use (or who have come out and admitted, but not repented, use of) child labor in sweat shops are welcomed into a cause that intends to try to eliminate poverty, the same poverty these companies perpetuate.  Isn't that what we're talking about when we say "Robbing Peter to pay Paul?".  
• Next the Nobel Peace prize acceptance speech was surprisingly militaristic this year.  A world leader who is accepting an award reserved for those in our culture who do the absolute most for peace, some taking vows of poverty, some are awarded it posthumously for the way in which they lost their life, and in this leader's acceptance speech for such an award he advocates war.  I realize the situation he was put in, but it would have been better and done more honor to the award had he chosen not to accept it.  
• Finally, there's a homeless man Sara and I see frequently when we head east on Coral Way back toward home, he has a dog that looks like a purebred boxer.  It's a beautiful dog in much better shape than it's owner.  For the second time since I've been back in Miami after the break Sara and I took him a warm meal and some hot tea, last time we brought him a can of dog food too.  Tonight Miami is pretty cold, cold for Miami at least.  With the wind chill it's about 40 degrees out, and we imagine that having a dog probably makes it hard for him to get into a shelter.A man without anything else in the world loves and cares for another creature so well that you could see any suburbanite family walking it on the street, and because of it he can't get a bed.

So many things seem so upside down.


So, Donald Miller tells me I should leave, in the most literal sense I will be and I'm preparing for that move.  That quote is much more like a call to action though.  I sincerely doubt I will ever be nominated for a Peace Prize, I certainly will never run a company (of moral practices or otherwise) that could produce anything for product Red.  I don't even think it would be wise to try to convince a shelter to allow pets, there are some very good reasons to not allow them.  All of this is symbolized in that road trip Donald Miller is talking about.  Leave, get off your butt, get out the door, do something.  The question is where to start, poverty in our own country and abroad? Human trafficking? The genocide in Darfur? Advocating for foreign aid to prevent war so we won't need it for damage control? (I don't accept the concept of just war, but I'm not a pacifist.  I believe that war sometimes becomes necessary to clean up messes we could have prevented and I do think that applies throughout history.) Mother Teresa once said that we can do no great things, just small things with great love.  What would that look like? How would that start? Do I have the courage to start that journey?  Even if I can get out the door, how do I keep going?


I'm incredibly independent but frequently I think the catalyst to get me to jump, to just get up and leave is a traveling companion someone else who is also willing to throw caution to the wind and come with me.  But I'm not alone, I've never been alone.  Sometimes it's just hard to live into that faith.


Just the thoughts rolling around, I wanted to leave you with a scripture and prayer that mean something to me.



(Psalm 73:21-28 NRSV)When my soul was embittered, when I was pricked in heart, I was stupid and ignorant; I was like a brute beast toward you. Nevertheless I am continually with you; you hold my right hand. You guide me with your counsel, and afterward you will receive me with honor.Whom have I in heaven but you? And there is nothing on earth that I desire other than you. My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever. Indeed, those who are far from you will perish; you put an end to those who are false to you.  But for me it is good to be near God; I have made the Lord God my refuge, to tell of all your works.






May God bless you with discomfort
At easy answers, half-truths and superficial relationships
So that you may live deep within your heart


May God bless you with anger
At injustice, oppression and exploitation of people
So that you may work for justice, freedom and peace


May God bless you with tears
To shed for those who suffer pain, rejection, hunger and war
So that you may reach out your hand to comfort them and
To turn their pain into joy


May God bless you with foolishness
To believe that you can make a difference in the world
So that you can do what others claim cannot be done
To bring justice and kindness to all our children and the poor


(Franciscan Blessing)