I don’t know if you are aware of this, but Qatar Airlines may be the very best way to fly. We’ve had the opportunity to fly with them on four flights now and they are just exceptional. Great food, kind staff and best of all – personal screens for each passenger that show movies, play music and all kinds of wonderful other things.
On our flights from Entebbe to Bangkok (we had two), I took advantage of my magical personal screen and created a playlist from the various albums provided. I found a wealth of Coldplay albums, added a bunch of songs and immediately was taken back to my time in Japan. I saw them in concert in Tokyo and fell in love with them after, listening to them constantly on the trains, walking to and from work and riding my bike past rice fields on my way to church.
There was one song in particular that I left on repeat during the flight: Life in Technicolour ii. I remember the concert started with the shortened version of this song because Coldplay was promoting Viva la Vida at the time. That version doesn’t have any words. I like the version with the words better.
That song has been stuck in my head since we arrived in Thailand and I’ve decided it’s going to be my theme song of the month. Particularly because of this line:
Gravity release me
Oh don’t ever hold me down
Now my feet won’t touch the ground
Sometimes I forget how amazing it is that I’m traveling around the world. I really forgot in Africa. For me, my time in Africa was a bland sepia color scheme of browns, reds, bitterness and frustration. It was muted, it was dirty and it was uninspiring. For three months, I battled against myself and the demons following me around and holding me down. Coming into Thailand, I was tired, frustrated and hurt. Africa had just not lived up to its expectations for all kinds of reasons and honestly, I was pretty ready to board that plane taking us from Uganda off the continent.
And I knew that I could not walk back into Asia with this weight on me. I wanted come back light and excited, buoyant and thankful. I wanted to regain my excitement about being on the Race. I didn’t want the muted brown bitter palette anymore.
Here in Asia, my continent away from home continent, life is brighter. It’s bigger and kinder and warmer. It’s life in Technicolor.
So now, every day in Thailand, I remind myself that this is a gift, an incredible gift, to be here on the Race. That the hard parts suck, it’s true, but they don’t define my experience out here. And hey, when you are on a trip like this for almost a year, there’s bound to be crappy parts. If you think about it, there’s bound to be crappy parts in a year back home.
Recently I finished a book called A Million Miles in a Thousand Years by Donald Miller. He talks all about living a better story. That characters need to go through conflict and hardships to become better people, just like how we see in the movies. He talks about seeking out making great stories in our lives, not because we should be searching for that great story that will be the climax of our lives and everything will be better from there. But because it’s those stories that, when put together, make the big story of a rich life, one filled to the brim with love and laughter and friends. A life that is not without scars and tears and heartache for sure, but through those scars and tears and heartache, the protagonist develops character. He’s not just the character in his story; he’s developing character by not being afraid to live better stories.
My experience in Africa was saturated with a lot of fear. I was afraid of speaking up when people needed to be called out on their crap. I was afraid that I was doing a terrible job as a team leader. I was afraid I wasn’t a strong enough Christian to cast out demons, because I had never done it before and I was still skeptical and maybe I just didn’t have as much faith as I thought I did. I was afraid that I wouldn’t get fully funded, and then when I did, I was afraid because in my personal budget, I was broke. I was afraid I would get to Bangkok and I would be a few hundred dollars short of finally buying my new camera. I was afraid I had missed the memo on Africa, because everyone I knew that had been there absolutely loved it and couldn’t wait to go back.
I had potential to live a life in Technicolor in Africa, one that I had dreamed about since I signed up for the Race, but instead I was afraid. That fear made me bitter, angry and unhappy. And instead of living a life in Technicolor, I lived a life in muted sepia tones.
In that book I was telling you about, Miller writes this:
The most often repeated commandment in the Bible is “Do not fear.” It’s in there over two hundred times. That means a couple of things, if you think about it. It means we are going to be afraid, and it means we shouldn’t let fear boss us around. Before I realized we were supposed to fight fear, I thought of fear as a subtle suggestion in our subconscious designed to keep us safe, or more important, keep us from getting humiliated. And I guess it serves that purpose. But fear isn’t only a guide to keep us safe; it’s also a manipulative emotion that can trick us into living a boring life.
This month and this last leg of the Race in Asia, I don’t want to be afraid anymore. And in thinking about what I’m going to do after the Race (I have a few ideas), I don’t want to be afraid.
I don’t want to be afraid to live a big bold beautiful Technicolor life. Here on the Race or after.
I guess what I’m trying to say is:
Sepia tones are nice for photographs, but not for life. For life, Technicolor is the way to go.
