It’s two months and two weeks later than I thought it would be, but in three or so hours, I’m going to fly across the world, which is something I’ve never done before. I suppose I can’t emphasize ever enough how much I don’t know what I’m getting myself into, how very afraid I am, but in the same way I’m very thrilled, thrilled I have a chance to do this, thrilled I get to be anything, or try to be something, good to somebody else.
I know it’s something I can do here. I know I’ve explained to very many of you how very much I wish I could, but I feel like I need to be taken away from what’s comfortable - as if I’ve ever been completely comfortable anywhere - to try and extend beyond me. There’s a lot of wonderful things out there, and a lot of terrible things, and I feel very much like someone busy looking in a mirror at a blackhead on his nose when there are wonderful mountains and magnificent rainbows all around. I like to believe that helping each other is something we’re all supposed to do, and voluntarily, but how can I say that, if I don’t even do it? (And I’m grieving now that I’ve had the chance to be ever so kind to all of you and so often chosen the opposite.)
Likewise, I know we can be good people, and do good things, without GOD, and that a lot of people do completely awful things claiming it’s on GOD’s behalf. I hope I’d still want to do good things if I didn’t believe in GOD, but, I don’t know, I’ve always doubted, but I’ve always had this certainty, and I know it doesn’t help that it’s inexplicable, to outweigh that. To believe is very much to love. Sometimes it feels very stupid, but then there’s this sudden remembrance, and this ephemeral nearness, and it’s worth all the moments of uncertainty. It may not make those desperate feelings any less difficult, but there’s always a point where you know you believe, and you know you love, and even if it doesn’t resolve everything, it’s all something much more than it would be otherwise.
This world is so much bigger, and so much more complicated, than any of us could ever fit inside our minds. There’s always going to be something we don’t understand. This is a joyful and unnerving prospect. In the two months I’ve been waiting to leave, I’ve learned that much of Ethiopia, Somalia, and Kenya have been suffering a famine. This doesn’t make me particularly more confident in me trying to be there for someone else, but it does make me confident that people do need to try to help. Now I’m again repeating something I wrote in a lot of letters I sent to a lot of people: this world is so much more complicated than we can comprehend, and redemption is a thing that keeps going far beyond where we want or expect it to, and even the smallest gesture of faith can do a lot more than we believe it will, and it’s not just limited to people we know, or people we like. I’m not here to be right - if the Bible tells me anything, it’s how right GOD is, and how even at my best, I’m only guessing - I’m here to try and act with a small gesture of faith, and I hope it comes to some merit. Yes, and I’m guessing on something better than good, and I’m not just going to talk about it. I want to start living those good things.
(Source: theringofwords)
