Truth, in and of itself, is sometimes not enough to move people to action. At least it wasn’t for me. I am not talking about ‘The Truth’ – or the power of scripture to radical change a person’s life – but, truths in general. For example, it is true that a majority of the world’s population live on less than $1 a day. It is true that women with children are the fastest growing homeless population in the US. We all admit that these facts are true, and they probably even evoke our emotions: compassion, tears, anger, joy, etc. But emotions fade…they drift away as the paper is thrown into the recycling bin and set by the curb to be carried away. After all, these truths are really just in the paper or on the news. We can tune them out…or throw them away. Or am I the only one that soon forgets???
When truth becomes real, the impact ‘hits home’. When I come ‘face to face’ with reality, those faces do not fade. When I am directly assaulted by the sights, smells, sounds and tastes that a truth is built upon, that truth manifests itself into REALITY. It becomes so much more than a true, textbook fact. It becomes real. The truth comes alive. The truth talks to me. The truth smiles at me. The truth holds my hand. The truth says ‘remember me’.
In Indiana (pre-race), “Homelessness” sips coffee and chats with me.
In Nicaragua, “Extreme Poverty” inhabits a treasured piece of fabric in the city dump.
In Guatemala, “the Sick and Abandoned” falls asleep in my arms.
In Peru, “Religion and Tradition” inhabits a tiny village in the heart of the Andes Mountains.
In Mozambique, “Miracles” jump out of Acts and open the eyes of the blind.
In Swaziland, “the Orphan” will not let go.
In South Africa (and swazi), “the AIDS epidemic” lives in the children around us.
In Thailand, “Prostitution” screams in neon lights.
In Burma, “the Injustice” follows me on the streets in a yellow T-shirt.
And most recently, in Cambodia, “ethnic genocide” stares me in the face – both by those who lost there lives during the Khmer Rouge regime and by those who survived (blog to come).
As hard as I may try to run in the opposite direction, try to escape these “assults on my ignorance”, I will be caught forever in the web of faces. With those faces comes responsibility. A responsibility to love an serve. Jesus became real and lived on earth. He is still real and lives today. He is not just in the bible. And when I come face to face with him in the street or in the “chantears“, I am forever changed. Reality is killing my heart and stripping me of selfish desires; Jesus is sewing me back together with threads of his love, mercy, hope and joy.
Truth can stir-up my compassion, but it is reality that ignites the fire in my soul. And it is this fire that lights up passion. Passion produces drive, motivation, perseverance…and change. Change in myself and change in the world.
