“Somewhere each day we have to fall in love, with someone, something, some moment, event, phrase. Somehow each day we must allow the softening of the heart. Otherwise our hearts will move inevitably toward hardness. We will move toward cynicism, bitterness, fear and despair. That’s where most of the world is trapped and doesn’t even know it.
The world’s been in love with death so long that it calls death life. It tries to conjure up life by making itself falsely excited, by creating parties where there’s no reason to celebrate.
We have to create and discover the parties of the heart, the place where we know we can enjoy, the place where we can give of ourselves. If you’re not involved in giving your thoughts, your emotions, “for-giving,” you will be involved only in taking. Yet the only way to experience joy is to give yourself to reality. Joy comes after you go that extra mile and offer yourself first-thing every day.
Ask the Lord to give you the grace to fall in love. Then you’ll see rightly, because only when we are in love do we understand. Only when we’ve given ourselves to reality can we in fact receive reality. That is the endless mystery of the Trinity that is expressed in every facet of this world: Perfect giving equals perfect receiving.” Father Richard Rohr
short term missions wooed me to a place of infatuation with the third world. everything was new and my surroundings would bombard my entire being. i would reel at the rollercoaster of it all and continue to seek that thrill in every place that the Lord so shortly led me. but my initial short term flings with the third world turned into a full blown romance that has required long term commitment.
it was easy to fall in love when i first came to kenya in 2008. the people, the food, the sweet babies…it all captivated my heart. it planted seeds in the Spirit to the point where they began to sprout and i had to return to this place for them to grow to their fullness. but the longer i’ve stayed, the more the façade has crumbled around me and i’ve realized that i don’t love this place like i used to.
every time i saw a bright smile, my heart would jump at the thought of a potential friendship and genuine interaction with a brother or sister. now i wince when i see that same smile because it’s usually followed up with a demand for money or resources. i weep at the thought that i can’t trust anyone here because everyone has broken trust at some point or another.
every time i saw someone in need, my hand would immediately reach into my pocket to empty it of its contents. now i curl up my hands into fists at the thought that my money does more harm than good here. i ache when i think of how i’ve fed into the paternalistic mentality that ‘the white man has come to save africa’.
every time i saw a group of children scream, ‘mzungu! mzungu!’, my heart would melt a little and i’d stop and scoop them up. now i continue on my way as my calloused heart aches for just one day of privacy where i’m not a spectacle because of the color of my skin.
i grimace as the puppy love wears off and as i wake up to the reality of what a long term relationship, a lifelong commitment with the third world looks like. surprisingly, it looks like falling in love all over again…
…with the brokenness all around and in me.
…with the God of this universe because He is the only hope that this world has.
…with the Church, no matter how much we have misrepresented the Gospel.
…with the universal Body of Christ, because we our bound together through the covenant of family, of a royal lineage.
covered by Grace, i get the privilege every morning to fall in love again with the deep intricacies of this evolving, intimate relationship. praise Him for that privilege.
much Love.
