I’ve been discovering the concept of unconventional worship over the past 3 months. I love a good N Squad worship session when we gather around one of our many talented guitar players and sing together, usually in a hostel living room or parking lot. But that’s not enough for me. I can’t foster any sort of relationship with my God without enough time with Him. Sometimes my heart doesn’t sit in the right posture during a ‘worship sesh’. I can’t focus, I can’t feel it and I can’t fake it. I used to think that meant I was a bad Christian. Either that or I had a bad case of “worship sesh ADD.”
I’m glad I don’t believe that lie anymore. My vertical worship doesn’t fit in a box and that’s awesome. So, I say all that to give some insight into my journal pages. I keep a written journal separate from this blog. I love my journal. It’s orange, pink, grey and cream chevron and I can pull it out anytime I want and write whatever I want.
Sometimes my words stand straight and lined just so the page can fit all that I have to say, but sometimes my pen defies the rules of horizontal lines. When I don’t have a plethora of words the 20 lines aren’t necessary, but why not take advantage of that whole page anyway? Diagonal, hugging the binding, spiral, up-side-down? All of the above.
Some phrases stick with me in an unnatural way. Lyrics, lines from a favorite book, and words of life from those around me are the reoccurring things that fill those beautiful journal pages. Most recently I’ve been jotting down the things in my surroundings. I don’t know if you knew, but I’m on the World Race. My days are never the same. The one reoccurring event is when I sit back and take in my surroundings, the place, the people or the activity, and have that “is this real life?” daily revelation. That doesn’t mean that my current place isn’t uncomfortable, current people aren’t annoying or current activity isn’t difficult. Good or bad it’s still my opportunity to thank God, another way to tap into that vertical worship and spend some time with my Lord. I wrote this on one of our many bus rides last week and for some reason felt like I should share and transfer from page to screen.
3.28.13
Happy Birthday, Daddy!! I hope we get to Santa Cruz and settled in our hostel with enough time for me to tell him that. We're on bus #3 of 3 traveling from Cochabamba, Bolivia to Santa Cruz. It's 9:48am on Thursday and we've been traveling on buses for 48 hours straight since we left Lima Tuesday morning, more than that if you count the bus from Chincha to Lima on Monday. I've seen movie-like landscapes on these bus rides and now we're currently weaving slowly down skinny roads with poor pavement through the rainforest. There's these giant canyons spliced through the center with rushing streams that are so dangerous and beautiful at the same time. I would LOVE to raft that stream. The giant rocks dot the path as if they're trying to stop the flow, but the water laughs at the strength of the rocks and glides over and around the great bullies, not to be stopped but also to soften their sharp scowls into smooth and shiny faces reflecting the sky above.
We just passed a man. I'm guessing he was about 80 but I've been wrong about almost everyone's age in South America so far. He was sitting under a covering made of bamboo shafts, about 6'x6', wearing non-descript old clothes and a memorable knitted hat, you know, the ones with the llamas on them and braided strings that come down over each ear. He was surrounded by massive clusters of bright yellow mini-bananas. He was chewing on something but it was the kind of chewing where you know they probably don't have any teeth–kind of where you can see their lips collapse into each other in a soft mush. I guess bananas would be a fitting choice for him then. He looked happy. Dirty, but happy.
Some of these trees and plants are kind of bizarre-looking. Liek something from a carnival, up-side-down merry-go-rounds or a cotton candy explosion on a stick (but green instead of pink). Between those two banana trees there was a clothes line hung that reminds me this isn't just a movie set for yet another King Kong remake. There's families here. Maybe that was the toothless old man's clean shirt hanging there. Maybe that round woman in her long skirt, shawl and long black braided hair and round hat that sat oddly on the tip top of her head was the banana man's wife. Which would mean that that sheep tied to the tree was their's too.
That's what I do, I make up story lines with the bits of things I view along the way. I love having the window seat. I can thank Molly for letting me have the window seat. I think I just counted the fourth waterfall I've seen. Since I'm on the left side of the bus I get jolted back to reality every time a truck speeds by in the opposite direction.
I haven't washed my hair in 2 days and the only sleep I've gotten has been sporadic, but I'm not crabby about it. That would probably surprise my family since they know what I'm like in the mornings. But all of this makes it worth it.
