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Minutes
of Meetings with God |
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Re-entry and Realizations ... |
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A month has passed since we returned home from our trip around the world. In a sense, my wife and I took 106 days to "orbit" the earth once, by sea on an ocean liner. We visited some thirty different countries. "Re-entry" has been a real challenge. Simple things (like catching up on the pile of mail that accumulated while we were away, getting back into the routines of work and ministry, re-connecting with friends and family, or making sure that the yard and gardens are ready for summer) take tons of time and energy. The single hardest thing of all has been being back home and still digesting all the experiences that we had while we were away. It's been difficult to tell people about much of the trip, because we're very much in the process of "making sense of it all." My wife, Susie, has been struggling to finish the travel diary she started on the trip. I've been finding it difficult to complete indexing the last 1,000 of the 4,900 digital photos we took. Since we returned home, too much of the trip has become rather a blur. There are several things that are quite clear; they are realizations that have come as a result of the trip. One is: a person can go all the way around the world and still have not seen anywhere near all of it. Our world, although small in comparison to the solar system, the galaxy and the universe, is vast and is full of wonderful places, people, and creatures. A second realization is: God has given us a great, beautiful and rich world in which to live. Most of us experience very little of that beauty and richness (except by means of television); and the world is so wonderful that it is almost indescribable. It is sad that so few of us even take in the richness just outside our doors. Words, and even photos, fail to capture the magnificence of a sunrise at sea or a sunset at a secluded beach, the energy and gracefulness of a pod of more than 150 porpoises jumping from beneath the waves, the feel of a stingray's caress, the excitement of sighting a whale spouting in the distance, the shivers caused by seeing hundreds of "flying foxes" (huge fruit bats) hanging in trees, the taste of salt on the wind in a gale that is throwing up forty foot waves, the throbbing sounds of "night market" in an Asian metropolis, the smells of the fish market in a town where the houses are built over the water on stilts, the softness of a koala's fur, the antics of a baboon troop, and so much, much more. Thirdly, it's pretty obvious that we human beings are making a total mess of this wonderful world. We visited cities in which the air was almost un-breathe-able because of the pollution. We saw the last living representatives of species which were dying out because of hunting or habitat destruction. The mess we are making of the world hit home when, hundreds of miles out into the Indian Ocean, I looked over the rail of the ship and saw an empty pizza box floating along, followed by two emptycigarette boxes. They were faded from the sun so all had probably been dumped days before, but they continued to just float along. It was a little thing that illustrated to me that our individual, occasional thoughtlessness can even fill the ocean with garbage. Later in the trip, there was a much larger example of how our abuse of God's world is changing it for the worst. Once again, while in the Indian Ocean and off the west coast of Africa, a shipboard lecturer warned us, if you want to see the stars for the last time for almost a week, you had better "star-gaze" tonight. The next day, we sailed under a huge stream of dust caused by erosion from the Sahara Desert. Cutting trees and bad farming have let the desert run wild. During the day, the sky, although cloudless, was dull blue, muted from the desert dust in the jet stream. At night, the light of the stars could not penetrate through the obscuring dust. The same lecturer showed us satellite generated pictures of a lake in Africa that, although 25 years ago was the size of Lake Erie, is now the size of a pond. That is a change, in one life-time, that used to take thousands or tens of thousands of years. Finally, the trip helped us realize that, no matter where we are, there are followers of Jesus. On board ship, there were folk who wanted to see the world, but who also wanted to live their discipleship. And, so we worshiped together. We would find each other to talk, to sort things out, and to make sense of what life was bringing us. Some had terminal illnesses and knew their time was limited; others were involved in intensive ministry at home and were taking much needed time away (one couple had 12 young foster children at home that they were raising and their own adult children were giving them a respite); still others were wondering how to best help their adult, very dysfunctional children or grandchildren. We prayed with and for each other. We were United Methodists, Presbyterians, Baptists, Episcopalians, Pentecostals, Catholics and more. We celebrated Resurrection Day together at sunrise in the middle of the ocean somewhere. We found United Methodist Churches in places we did not expect. There was a huge church on a main street corner in Manila; there was another, rather large church on the edge of the market area in Singapore; and, there was a small neighborhood church on a side street in Bombay. As we did our exploring and sight-seeing, we met people who were "working out their salvation". The most surprising was at the Zulu Cultural Center near Durban, South Africa. We went to the center to learn a bit about tribal culture. The center had a small village and a clan of about 20 people that did a brief presentation about Zulu life and culture. The group announced they would do one last folk dance and a final song in the local Zulu dialect. As the group began to sing, the words were unrecognizable to us, but the tune was clearly, "Pass Me Not O Gentle Savior." We responded with a hardy "Amen!"
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