First of all, I am sorry that this has taken so long to write. I have taken a little break to travel around and think about my experience in Geneva, and my new adventure in Manila. Here are the reflections from my journal that I have concluded and realized were the most important things I have learned or rediscovered from my three+ months volunteering at the Human Rights Office and also through the literature God placed in my life through this time.
* "Two things I ask of you, deny them not to me before I die: put falsehood and lying far from me, give me neither poverty nor riches; provide me only with the food I need."
- Proverbs 30: 5-9
This verse was read during a mass fairly early in my time in Geneva, but it is the teaching that I will most remember. I have studied this verse several times and thought about what it could mean to me. I believe it means many different things to different people. I think God wants me to thirst for his friendship and to be more fully in love with Him, but at the same time I have been blessed with love, family, and frienship, therefore I cannot be angry at God for any lack of love in my life. I also understand this verse to be a prayer for balance in life, for me this means a balance between individual time alone, which is very precious to me, and the time which I am fully present in loving the other people that I am surrounded by.
"For we more readily turn to God as our inward witness, when men despise us and think no good of us. When a good man is troubled, tempted, or vexed by evil thoughts, he comes more clearly than ever to realize his need of God, without whom he can do nothing good."
- Imitation of Christ, page 39
This reminds me of the previous scripture from Proverbs. It made me think about my own life and where I am on this scale and how God has blessed me with what the Proverb author was praying for, to try to be thankful that we are given opportunities to feel our humanity and our deepest need for God.
*"Only Jesus would be crazy enough to suggest that if you want to become the greatest, you should become the least. Only Jesus would declare God's blessing on the poor rather than on the rich and would insist that it's not enough to just love your friends. I just began to wonder if anybody still believed Jesus meant those things he said."
— Shane Claiborne (The Irresistible Revolution: Living as an Ordinary Radical)
As I read this book that was given to me, I began to realize more about who Jesus was. As I explore the man in the gospels, I came to realize the fact the Jesus was totally a radical. He presented a "crazy" new way of living that was based on having fellowship with sinners and homeless people, turning over tables, opposing authority, and preaching a message of servant-hood that was unheard of.
Another quote from the same book with reference to scripture says, "So if the world hates us, we take courage that it hated Jesus first. If you're wondering whether you'll be safe, just look at what they did to Jesus and those who followed him. There are safer ways to live than by being a Christian." I really have to ask myself if I would be willing to follow a crazy radical. It must have been a very hard decision for the apostles and other followers to completely give their lives and know they will forever be associated with this man. But I think that is exactly the question we have to ask today...Am I willing to be persecuted for my beliefs? Am I willing to be associated with the man whose teachings are against the ways of this world? But I think we need to ask this question and not just live pretending we would die for this cause. God calls us to be strong, not weak in our convictions.
It is not just because of this book (it did get me thinking), but it was accompanied by the fact that I was living in a community with sisters that made me contrast these ideas. I began to imagine this radical Jesus coming into the convent and bringing dirty homeless men into the house in the middle of the night because they were freezing or starving. Or imagining the Jesus on the cross we are praying to at mass every day or during evening prayers is the same Jesus who had heated discussions with well-regarded leaders of the church community about theology. It is an interesting topic to think about.
* "Who has a fiercer struggle than he who strives to conquer himself? Yet this must be our chief concern - to conquer self, and by daily growing stronger than self, to advance in holiness"
- Imitation of Christ, Thomas A. Kempis, page 37
I have discovered this is very true. We ourselves get in the way of God's plan. God teaches us things through our own selves about Him, but we also are a hinderance to the power he can exemplify. In Geneva, I did find God helps us to change to be more like him if we seek him in prayer and in our daily activities. We have to strive to find God despite of ourselves, go through our own faults to change to find His way of living.
I am excited to find out what God teaches me in the Philippines and look forward to sharing those thoughts to you.
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