Spiritual Update 002

Wow.

There are so many things I've been confronted with over the last month and so many questions are being raised that I can't avoid while I am traveling around these places. It's easy to ignore poverty when you don't often see it but when it stares you in the face daily you have nowhere to run and nowhere to hide...maybe the Annapurna Circuit...but that didn't last forever so I will share really honestly about how I am being challenged in this area and how God is chipping away the greed in my heart.


Compassion vs Common Sense

Ok, so I made a deal that I wouldn't give any money to beggars before I left and so far I've been able to do it. But I have to share with you what happened in Afghanistan which is something I will NEVER forget. If you haven't read my previous entry about how crazy Afghan drivers and roads are let me just say again, they are insane.

So me and my Uncle were being taken around Kabul and I caught the eye of a young girl who I don't think could have been any older than Grade 2. The traffic is not moving too fast so she runs across the road and over to the window I am sitting next to. She looks at me with puppy dog eyes with some sort of poster or something she wants to sell me. I look at her desperate eyes and then quickly break contact, staring straight ahead. The traffic starts moving again, the girl gives chase, but slowly disappears in the rear vision mirror. Roughly two hundred meters up the road we approach a T-intersection and stop and moments later the same girl is at the window again.

I started contemplating what to do but my hesitation to act was long enough for us to pull out onto the road which was far less crowded. As soon as I saw the clear run ahead I knew I wouldn't be seeing this young girl again.

That made me feel like rubbish. I hoped and wished that somehow we would pass her later that day and have a chance to make up for it. It just didn't feel good. This girl should be laughing and having fun in a school playground somewhere but instead she is running through traffic in search of money...and I didn't help!

Here's a rough idea of what I said 'no' to.

I still don't know what I would do if that happened again and that is a pretty hard place to be. I could give money to every random beggar that asked me for it and all I would have accomplished was to fill a few stomachs and prolong someone existence. I might feel good at the end of the day but I wouldn't have really helped anyone.

Compassion battling against common sense.

When I think about it I would be far better off saving up some money to buy someone a sewing machine, send them to school, buy a well, some seeds for crops...these things provide life and sustain many people and that is what I want my money to be doing.

Or do I...

I might pretend I am acting with 'common sense' by saving my money and all, but really, my heart secretly wants all these things and comforts for myself. I could say that I 'm setting myself up first so I don't have a whole bunch of expenses like a big house loan or something like that but secretly I just want to look after myself first.


(Jeremiah 17:9) points out my struggle, "The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it?"

Sometimes it would just be a whole lot easier to act out of compassion.

Now this is just the start of it.

I was chatting to a Nepalese guy Meghraj who had grown up in extreme poverty in a huge family in India. He worked his backside off and now has a stable job and a steady income. He said two things that impacted me. The first was that he is sending money back to his family.

Now I'd like to think that if anyone in my family needed money or was going without something basic like food, clean water, education or warm clothing then I would immediately be willing to help. That's fine, I am happy to believe I would do that, however...

I asked him about religion as well and he said to me 'we are people first, I am person, you are person...we are all people', pointing out this is what mattered first. When I combined the two things he had just shared I thought immediately of the Biblical account where someone comes to Jesus' wanting to limit their circle of compassion and responsibility to just a few people.

"Who is my neighbour?" the man asks in (Luke 10:29)
Jesus replies with a story that screams the answer... EVERYONE!!

Everyone. We are all people, or as it is put in (Acts 17:28) 'we are God's offspring'. We are one big family, humanity. So having already said I would help my family leaves me with no choice but to consider everyone my family as I also try to justify myself with questions like, "Who is my brother".

Aaaaaaaaaargh, this is messing me up!!! I cannot avoid these questions any more. I must find answers. I cannot ignore things.


Other religions

Another thing I can't ignore are other religions. I have come into contact with many since I have been gone and there is one thing I have noticed that sets Christianity apart from them.

Grace.

I have seen devoted Muslims praying 5 times a day, people passing under 100 running taps to become pure, chanting, burning incense and a heap of other customs required or encouraged by the various religions. I am so glad for grace because without it I would never know for sure I was loved and accepted by God. Good Friday has just been and so it was a really good time to reflect on that and the fact that we can be secure not in ourselves and our own abilities but in Gods grace.

So, there are differences, but there are also many similarities that we fail to celebrate and acknowledge. I had a great discussion with Botak (a devout Muslim) in Malaysia about purity and the distortions from a healthy sexual relationships. Just wandering around and seeing some of the philosophies and slogans of other religions makes me wonder how different we really are.

I saw a bumper sticker similar to this in Malaysia which started me thinking about all this.

We say God, they say Allah. Does it really matter what we call our God?

Well, on the track I got talking to these really cool New Zealanders about religion, philosophy and all that. They both really have their heads screwed on and have done alot of reading and I really respect people like that.

Anyway, Anthony made a comment about relgions saying 'they are the same thing anyway'. I thought about that for a bit as we walked and then had to disagree, saying that I am a follower of Jesus and that if something contradicts what Jesus was on about then I am actually not following the same God. I also said that this also applies to distortions of Jesus that come from within the church. For example 'Gods' like the Jesus of prosperity or consumerism. Those are not the same God that I hope I am following. As a Christian I believe that Jesus is 'the exact representation of God' and so far as other religions remain consistent with Jesus, I am following them also.

My principal Sue Starling once said "All truth is Gods truth." So I don't need to go around making exclusive claims on it as 'Christian'. We do share a lot of truth with other religions (well actually we'd rather claim it as ours than share it!) Maybe it would be more helpful to focus on that before we focus on all the differences.

After I'd said this Anthony went on to clarify that he meant it's the same spark that triggers the search, the sense of 'something more' that is what is the same God, we just go about searching for that God in different ways. Ecclesiastes says that God has 'set eternity in our hearts' and Romans speaks of Gods invisible qualities and divine nature being revealed to everyone through what has been made. It has certainly been staring me in the face over the last few weeks.



On the flip side

So one day I want to start making Ambigrams as a business and as I was sitting in the house of my 6th hosts so far this trip I made this one.

On the side you can see it says 'last' but if you flip it over it says 'first'. Which has stood out to me over the last couple of weeks as I have had people put me up in their houses, cook for me, make beds for me and wash my clothes.

On the flip side...

One day things will be flipped on their head and the people who turn out to be greatest are the ones the world considers least. 'The first will be last'...(Matthew 19:30, 20:16)

I'll tell you who is going to be right up there. Women. They are always serving and humbly doing the things that make the world turn. I don't want to sound like I think women should be in the kitchen or anything but that is one of the spots they often find themselves, especially in the countries I have been visiting. I admire that a great deal. People like that make the world go round.

Tell you who else ends up on top when things get flipped on their heads. Afghans. Man they are such considerate people. I went to one house and as soon as I was out of bread more would be handed to me, like they knew and were keeping track of whether I had any in from of me at all times. Then when we went to leave my Uncle pointed out a really little thing that I wouldn't have noticed otherwise. Our shoes that we had slipped out of had been turned to face the door so we could slip back into them without turning around. Who cares you might say...well I guess we'll see when things are flipped on their head!

'If you want to be the greatest, you must become the servant of all' (Luke 22:26, 9:48, Matthew 20:26, Mark 10:43).



On this theme I have also designed a tattoo I might get one day. I'm not much of a tattoo's person but I'll explain this one quickly.

It started as the number 8 tipped on its side as a reminder that God is looking down at me and smiling. Then it turned into what you see above. This represents me as a person with both the number 8 and the fact it's an Ambigram, (meaning you can flip it and it will look the same) which captures my identity as a Math teacher. The two fish symbols you see represent my identity as a Christian. The infinity that you can also see represents God, the infinite with no beginning or end...Pretty cool huh??



Pride, my sustainable form of energy

'And I saw that all labor and all achievement spring from man's envy of his neighbor. This too is meaningless, a chasing after the wind.' (Ecclesiastes 4:4)

One thing I have been struggling with a bit lately is being really proud and jealous of my uncle. He is a very prayerful man and loves praying on any occasion. I have been intimidated by this and sought to belittle his dependence on God by thinking that he is being legalistic or trying to show off by praying out loud.

I really need to break this habit of cutting down those who are doing a better job than me, know more than me, are more talented than me, have more to offer in than me...I don't know when it started but it is like a default for my brain to cut other people down, a pattern that has formed somewhere along the line that I need to stand against.

I have also been reading a book called Becoming a valiant man. It talks about brain tracks and pathways that your brain knows by default through years of training and patterning whether conscious or not. Alan Meyer, the author likened habits to motor skills in which your brain learns a pattern and just knows what to do because it has been repeated so many times. I reckon that is really helpful for me to understand because of what I know about motor skills. I know that once you have mastered a skill you no longer need to think about it, you can just do it. In the same way the bad habits formed in our brains bypass our thoughts and cause us to do all sorts of crazy things. When our mind catches up we can realise what we have done and how stupid it was.

I remember one time I dropped something hot but because of all the Hackey-sack I was playing at the time I immediately swung my leg at the hot object to stop it falling to the ground. I didn't have any shoes on so it hurt and I remember then my mind caught up after this reaction and realised what a dumb idea it was!

He suggests these pathways can't be unlearned because they are so well formed and so ingrained in us. Instead, he suggests forming new and healthier pathways to replace the old ones so our brain doesn't insert "Hackey sack dropping to floor program" whenever anything falls near my leg.

So instead of pursuing dumb thoughts that reinforce finding my worth from 'stuff' and 'achievements' I need to remind myself of my inherent value so I don't spend my time thinking..."Well, I've been to more countries than you' or 'Well, I could hike as fast as you if I wasn't carrying such a heavy pack! (That excuse doesn't work for porters who are carrying 3 times as much as you!!!)

So if anyone has any good suggestions, ideas or quotes to replace my proud silly thoughts with feel free to send them to me.


Sorry to go on for so long, hope this has gotten you thinking,
Love Andrew