the rude awakening

as we neared YVR, vancouver was magnified from brown and green specks into an actual city...with the first thump of the wheels, i knew there was no way that the plane would revert its route and go back to philly..

so it's been a month since we came back from our trip to Camden, NJ, working with Urban Promise, and yet if someone asked me to recall events from every single day there, I think I'd still be able to describe and thoroughly express my feelings. A lot can be said about the "missions high" that people experience post-trip, the strangely exhilarating feelings of the need to "change the world" and "live a better life"...and that it is unfortunate when no real change occurs.

I know one week means nothing.
One week cannot determine anything.

But...can't it trigger something?

Complications. We live around them. We live in them. We can't live without them, or so it seems.
One of the greatest ironies of this century is that...for people who have so much...we contribute so little. We are the richest one-sixth of the world...but as many as there are of US, there are as many starving every day, unable to satisfy the simplest of needs. Why the perpetual entropy? Why the constant greed? Why the continuous need for noise?

I am no different. I am a contributor to this ugly mess...this social entropy that eats all of us up, chews it to pieces, and spits us back out. "I pledge allegiance to a country without borders,without politicians, watching for my sky to get torn apart...we are broken, we are bitter, we're the problem, we're the politicians, watching for our sky to get torn apart...."

Camden gave me hope. How strange it is...that a city of such devastation would sow the seeds for real contentment...in debris, in dilapitated buildings, in shards of glass...there is room for love to grow...and that's what really hit me hard. God's grace is so much bigger than you and me...grace can break hearts, and it can heal wounds....and above all, it calls us to discipleship.

I'm getting a little bit tired...so I'll write more a bit later.