Tuesday, April 7, 2009

It seems like as our departure draws near we have had the opportunity to tell more and more people about what we are doing in Denver. Just last week, at a high school friend's wedding, both Beth and I had the opportunity to share our plans for Denver with dozens of people. Each time that we tell people about it, we realize how hard it is to explain.

I (mark) spent some time thinking about why it is so difficult to explain. I came up with two reasons. Firstly, what we want to do, and what needs to be done are two totally different things. I can easily tell people what we want to do, but those things are loosely based upon the needs of the community we are moving into. Our knowledge of the needs of the community is limited as long as we are separated from it. We are doing our best to avoid the temptation to have our own plans and expectations, which may be irrelevant, even harmful to the community in which we are serving.

Secondly, my words are limiting. Mother Teresa hardly gave explanations for what she was doing in Calcutta. If you wanted to know about her ministry, she told you to, "come and see." Explaining her ministry did nothing for it, it was the seeing of the sick and poor, and the sight of the touch of those who helped them, which explained it all. We can tell you about sharing financial resources, about eating meals together, and about our urban gardens, but that limits everything to memories or former experiences with such things. We want you to come and see.

I wish it would be fine to say, "We are trusting that G-D is leading us to Denver for some reason," but in our controlling culture, it never seems to be good enough. So for now I guess we will do our best to explain, but would hope that all of you would come and see someday.

With love.

1 comment:

  1. I think another reason it's hard to explain is that it is SO different from the standard paths we are taught are options for our lives. Todd and I have found in our own way how some people just cannot grasp when it when you do things differently. Some people judge/reject and some people seem unable to even understand what you're saying.

    I think your "come and see" ideas have a lot of wisdom in them. What are we doing? This.

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