The King And I

The driver stopped by the side of the road across from the gate of the palace. Cars zoomed by the stationary tuktuk, so close they would shave my arm off if I put it out the window. He turned around, looking at me with a crooked smile on his bright face.

 

"It ok if I stop to give thanks to my king?"

 

I had seem him bow before, an incline of his head and both hands put together in front of his face before statues of Buddha. It always happened when we were in the middle of driving down busy roads, and in those moments the only thing on my mind was the condition of his sanity. Sometimes he just nodded his head in the direction of the monument and honked his horn.

 

But this time he came to a complete stop. He turned his body to face the gates, and he bowed. Twice. He muttered a sentence that I couldn't understand. Somehow, I knew it was different than all the other times.

 

And I wondered why.

 

He pulled away from the curb and started chatting away in his broken English.

 

"You see big Buddha? There is school. If child from poor familiy, they can go there for education. My king pay for it. He is good king. You see palace? My king have 3 daughters and 1 son. All live there in palace. There is school for king's army. They protect my King. My king 86 year old. Long live my king."

 

See, you can't love a statue. You can't get to know it. It can't teach you about kindness and wisdom and love. You can't crawl into its arms at the end of a long day. It doesn’t cry or laugh with you, share a joke with you, run into the unknown with you. It can't protect you from evil. There is no twinkle in its eye or spring in its step. It can't feel. It is incapable of loving you.

 

But you can love a man. 

I used to be a beggar on the side of the road, but He brought me into his house and made me a daughter, strong and free. I am a warrior now. It is who I knew I would be from the moment I was born. It is my destiny. I used to sit at home and hear of His battles out in the wilds, but now I am grown, and My heart burns for victory. I do not fight the darkness for myself, for it has already been defeated. I fight because my King is perfect. He is strong, and wise, and honourable, and He deserves the throne He has. And I love Him so, more than anything. That is why I fight: that Love Himself would reign.

See, there is a man that I love more than my own life, who I would die to follow. There is a King who I can call mine.

And He's sure as hell ain't a statue.

All my love,

B

 

No Sleep and Sweet Dreams

I can’t sleep. Our flight was delayed nine hours and we didn’t get to bed until 3:30 am. The air conditioning is beautiful, and I have never been more tired. All I want is to rest. But I can’t sleep.

What day is it today? I don’t remember anymore.

I go out and sit on the balcony. The sun is just coming up over the ancient city of Hanoi. The people get up and go to bed with the sun, and the streets are already swarming with people. Horns beep, not angrily, but an intermittent form of communication between lumbering trucks and the hundreds of tiny scooters and motorcycles that clog the intersections and roundabouts. Two beeps if you are passing on the right. Three to warn a pedestrian. A long and angry blast if someone tries to do something stupid. No one ever stops. It is a beautiful creature, flowing in and out of the streets, fluid and effortless.

The women are covered head to toe, though it is a horrific 97 degrees with humidity. They wear stockings under their high-heeled sandals, long pants, jackets, hats, and even scarves to cover their faces completely. Usually there are two people on a scooter, perhaps three. Some girl pulls out her phone to text her boyfriend. A cage full of chickens drives by, looking quite unimpressed strapped on the back of an old Vespa. One woman has at least 100 pounds of fruit in crates stacked around her. I wonder how her bike manages.

The road is dusty and downright dirty. Occasionally the smell of noodles floats across the air, sometimes a putrid combination of waste and too much sweat. There is barley laid out on large tarps, and traffic politely avoids running it over. Bark from cinnamon trees is laid out to dry. Voices are raised in an argument about how much mangos should cost. Barefoot children chase each other in and out of traffic, seemingly oblivious to danger. A shirtless man sits in his little plastic chair and watches the people go by while he eats his noodles.

I faintly remember when my dreams used to look a lot different. I wanted a house on a big piece of land. A car, a fireplace, and coffee every morning with pancakes. Of someone to make dinner with and do laundry for. A degree, an occasional mission trip to the third world. To be put together, to be polished, respected, secure.

But in this moment, those dreams seem so funny now, so far away from this chaos, this messy place.

The season has changed.

I realize that somehow, I want to live in this dirt and love the people who hate me. To gladly give all that I have to people who can never repay me; Not only my money, but my life, my very self. I now dream of no running water and sweat and blood and tears. Of being broken again and again by Jesus, so that I may love the world as He does. To fade slowly from the polished things of the world into the hidden recesses of the poor and broken.

 And I’m not entirely sure when it happened.

Won’t you tell me, Lover of my soul

Where do You feed Your flock?

Where do You lead Your beloved ones

To rest in the heat of the day?

For I wish to be wrapped all around you.

Let your dreams be changed. 

Beth

Thoughts of a Recovering Chronic Planner

This is the story of a little girl.

Life was an endless adventure for her, magical and full of light. Sometimes she wondered what she would do when she grew up to be big. She saw the cows that got sick on the farm and thought maybe she would become an animal doctor to fix them. She danced in Janie's ballet class for 2 years and thought that she could become a dancer. She saw Daddy sang wherever he went, and thought maybe she could sing. And she saw people that hurt, and knew she wanted to help take away their pain so they would smile again. In any case, she knew she was born to change the world.

See, once man was with God,

Before time had been woven together.

Before this present shadow.

And it was then that my destiny

Was whispered into my ear,

Breathed into my little, eager heart.

The Dream is not something I must find, try to obtain, a goal to be reached. Not a degree I can buy, a house I can build, a man I can marry. My destiny is not a fork in the road that I can miss, a path that I must follow step-by-step until I reach my destination. 

My Dream draws me in from far off, pulls me ever closer, entices me forward. It is more than what my mind can think, but not beyond what my heart can desire.

"Jesus, what shall I do to inherit eternal life with you? What is it I am to do to change the world?"

"Heal all the things that are barren in the earth. Dance wildly, that the world may see My joy. Work with your hands, that they may see I am strong. Sing the song I give you with all your strength. Trade your beautiful clothes for plain rags and sit with the poor, that they may know I yearn to listen to them. Wash the feet of murderers and thieves, that they would know they are clean. Give the hungry bread. Give the thirsty water that they may live. Open blind eyes that they can see again, open deaf ears that the people may hear Me, raise the dead that the world may become alive again."

The Great and Awesome Creator, 

Who wrought each cell together of this poor dust I call my flesh, 

Who breathed life into that dust and gave me breath,

Who bridged the gulf that separated my soul from His, 

He has given me my Dream. 

As I am won over with all I find Him to be, as my heart begins to hear again the Voice that sang life into me, my destiny becomes nearer and nearer, though I do not know how. As my heart bends beneath the weight of His promise, I draw nearer, unwittingly, to the dreams I once had in my heart as a child, the dreams He sang over me before time began.

Dream beautiful dreams tonight, Beloved.

All my love,

B

"The work we do is nothing more than a means of transforming our love for Christ into something concrete. I didn't have to find Jesus. Jesus found me and chose me. A strong vocation is based on being possessed by Christ. He is the Life that I want to live. He is the Light that I want to radiate. He is the Love with which I want to love. He is the Joy that I want to share. He is the Peace that I want to show. Jesus is everything to me. Without Him, I can do nothing." 

-Mother Teresa