“It would seem that Our Lord finds
our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures,
fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us,
like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he
cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far
too easily pleased.” C.S. Lewis, “The Weight of Gloryâ€�
During our time in Nicaragua, we worked
for a brief time with a US-based organization called “Amigos for Christ�- an
organization that has offered monumental aid to the Nicaraguan population
following the destruction of Hurricane Mitch. We learned that following the
hurricane, hundreds of Nicaraguans were displaced from their homes and had been
living around local dumps for years, spending their time scavenging the dump
for food and anything that others consider trash that they, perhaps, could sell
for a small profit. The staff of “Amigos for Christ� has worked tirelessly and
created an entire community of new homes for the displaced people- a community
that provides school for their children, job opportunities for the unemployed,
and daily fellowship with those in similar situations. The community that the
organization has created essentially provides a brand new start- a brand new
life- for those that had formerly seemed to be in a hopeless situation. On our
first day working with Amigos for Christ, we visited one of the dumps where so
many displaced people had lived for years. The landfill that was laid out
before my eyes was ridden with years of worthless junk and stenches that I
struggled to breathe in (and I can tell you from my hospital experience that I
have taken in my share of unpleasant odors). This was a repulsive place even to
visit- definitely no place to build a home. To my surprise, though, many people
had erected make-shift shacks that served as their homes. Our contact explained
to us “Even though we have offered these people a new start and homes in an actual
community, they are resistant to leaving. Even though this is a dump, they’ve
built their homes here�. This broke my heart…these people don’t have to live in
a dump; there is hope offered to them. They could go to a place where there is
life, a place created just for them, a place that requires them to do nothing
in return. But, they have settled…they have made their homes in a place less
than what they were created for, and refuse to leave.
What dumps do we create for ourselves? What trash do we sit
in and make our dwelling-places in while there is real life offered to us? Are
we far too easily pleased with the entirely temporal pleasures that even subtly
fill up our lives…things as insidious as busyness, entertainment, or a
seemingly comfortable life? Where do we consider our true home…have we built
for ourselves a home in a place that is a “dump� relative to what we were
created for?
“Now we know that if the earthly tent we live in is
destroyed, we have a building from God, an eternal house in heaven, not built
by human hands. Meanwhile we groan, longing to be clothed with our heavenly
dwelling…� (2 Corinthians 5: 1-2)
“Don’t let your eyes get used to darkness, the light is
coming soon. Don’t let your heart get used to sadness, put your hope in what is
true.� JJ Heller, “Back Home�
