2 - 28 - 18 Nicaragua Reflection ( 2 minutes )

The following is a reflection I wrote Wednesday night last week, after our second day of work on the site. I plan on having a couple-three more posts about this trip as I unpack everything that happened and everything I learned.
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Why did God send me on this ASB?

I always know the answer. I am well-informed, put together, I've got it figured out. But how much of that is because of where I'm from, who I am in the merely demographic sense?

Is the level of organization in my life a result of valiant efforts to clear through wilderness, or due to the fact that I was born into order and prosperity?

How diligent am I doing homework on a dirt floor? How politically idealistic am I when I've lost cousins, uncles, and grandparents to slogans and ideologies?

How smart am I when I'm ignorant? When I don't know the history, or geography, or the culture. What do I have to say that's worth saying?

What can I say [in Spanish]? Quite little. Little I would consider talking about back home. Chit-chat, silly questions, observations that must seem inanely obvious to the fluent. Nothing I would think was worth saying back home.

What's the value in a sentence? Is it what I'm saying, or that I'm saying something, or that I'm listening?

There have been times I've been forced to listen. It is often so difficult for me to understand another language I can't spend mental energy trying to come up with a response. It is often so difficult for me to understand another person that I can do nothing but listen.

If I have learned one thing from this trip it will have been worth every dollar, every hour, every missed tequila shot. If I've really learned to listen, without interrupting, or suggesting, or correcting, I've gotten far more than I wanted or could have expected.
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I started thinking later that evening about how that question of what's important in a sentence can inform my prayer life. I've been having difficulty lately with a lot of the theological concepts surrounding prayer, why we pray, what it actually does, and so on.

But adopting the model of the value of a sentence being the interaction it creates makes me much more willing to pray. I'm working towards no longer fearing having nothing worth saying, or saying the wrong thing, or bothering God.

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