Busy signals

It should be painfully obvious by now that I am having some problems keeping up with this blog.  I would like to say it is the crazy pace of life that we live here in America, but that is only part of the problem. (In and of itself, this is quite a statement about the journey that I am currently on as I process the events that led to the creation of this little site.)

To be honest, life has been busy.  I doubt many Americans who are actively engaged in their jobs and social circles have a tremendous amount of free time for ventures on the side.  I am no exception.  Beyond the harried pace, I find that there is something else that has kept me from posting.  I simply don’t know what to say.

It is no secret that trying to live a moderately productive life here in America has an anesthetic affect on the soul and the mind.  To keep either alive, you must constantly seek out stimulating circumstances and people, or be exposed to a great amount of pain.  Perhaps lamentably, most Americans don’t seem to have time for the first, and as humans we all have a natural aversion to the second. 

This is what has happened to me in the last few months.  I feel that the jarring experience of seeing poverty and destitution first hand are now quite distant to me, as though I were on lithium (at least from what I have heard of the experience) and the world is passing by just outside my reach. 

I find myself dealing with the quandary that many evangelical Christians experience spiritually, and many of my generation at large experience emotionally.  I am trying to find out what to do when the bright, hot fire of emotional, engrossing experience that woke me up from the daze of living day to day has dimmed to a small ember in a bed of grey ashes. 

I am honestly at a loss as to what to do about what I have seen.  Perhaps this is the quintessential challenge of my generation.  We are increasingly aware of the suffering and injustice in the world, and yet we are, by and large, incapable of doing anything substantive about it.

For me, the confusing and disheartening part is not the fraud and abuse that plagues international aid agencies or the ignorant, abusive, draconian policies of governments around the world. It isn’t even the seemingly paltry means I have at my disposal to enact change. 

The challenge is not knowing what to do with my own life. 

This blog is evidence of this.  However militantly intent I may have been about this being a mouthpiece for the poor that I met in Ethiopia, it has been dying on the vine for months as I get on with the business of having a wife to love, a job to work and, in general, a life to live.  Even this simple act of attempting to publicize my thoughts about injustice in the world has turned into a commentary on my own place in the ranks of busy, self-focused Americans I am in the habit of decrying.

I do not condemn myself for this.  Rather I lament it.  Perhaps I am coming to discover a little of what Jesus was talking about when he was here on earth.  While He never said it outright, I don’t think He understood that you only have time to live one life.  If you are intent on taking care of yourself and managing your life, you aren’t likely to have much time left over to help other people out.

What is more, when you are busy, you don’t have a lot of time to look around and listen

At any rate, I expect to be posting again more frequently, although the topics and focus of this blog are likely to change a little over the next few posts. 

If you are out there reading, thanks for sticking around, particularly through this uniquely introspective (self-absorbed?) post.

Comments

[B.J. Murrey]

I only "just discovered" your blog. Keep posting when you have time. I really liked this one a lot. Press on.

BJ