The Usual Revolution
Thoughts of an Unoriginal AdventurerWhy I’m Vegetarian
You know, at school it was a pretty normal thing. You don’t eat meat, so what? It’s not like the meat in the cafeteria resembles anything edible anyway. You just joined up with that small community of people who chose to abstain for health or ethical reasons. People were used to hearing about it and it wasn’t all that far out of the norm. Perhaps when the most popular philosophy teacher in the school puts forth a logical argument for such a diet people just begin to accept it. Sure, every once and a while someone would jokingly call you a filthy hippie or say “ohhh” in that special kind of way that really means, “oh, so you’re one of them…” but it just was what it was. You were put into the same category as those who were fasting from TV or video games or who got up for breakfast every day, and few people you told gave it a second though.
Now I’m out in the real world. It’s a little different, but I should have expected that. For one, there are proportionately a whole lot less of us out here. I think I know one vegan and two vegetarians in this area, and the vegetarians are my co-workers at EMS. There is also a whole lot more questioning, especially since my social sphere seems to be more or less comprised of conservative Christians, who (and I admit this unaccusingly) seem to align non-meat diets with liberalism. I have had to give a full reasoning for my diet on numerous occasions.
The thing is, this vegetarian thing I do is based not on an “animals are people too, how could we hurt them” reasoning but instead on the biblical calling for us to care for the earth. First, let me put it out there that I don’t have a problem with eating meat and I do not have a problem with using animal hide for clothing. After all, God himself made Adam and Eve’s clothes from skins after the fall. It is not the using of the animals themselves that I find troubling. Instead, it is our modern food production system and the unsustainable and simply unethical practices that are utilized in processing the mass quantities of meat the world indulges in that I find issue with.
Now we can agree (as Christians) that man was sent, by God, to care for His earthly creation in constant worship of Him. In the NIV Genesis 2:15 says that man was put in the garden to “work it and take care of it.” The NASB says “cultivate and keep,” while the Message says to “work… and keep it in order.” “Care,” “cultivate,” “keep in order,” these words carry a sense that the things we do to the earth and everything in it are to be focused around continually making things better. Check out this definition for “cultivate.”
Quite frankly, the mass production of meat products in modern food culture just does not do this. Not only are the modes of production unsustainable in view of the health of the planet (see this article on greenhouse gas emissions from the meat industry), but the methods in which the animals are kept, grown and slaughtered hold no respect whatsoever for the sanctity of God’s beautiful creation (Check this youTube video).
You may say, “animals are just that, animals, we can do whatever we want with them. God put us in this position of authority for a purpose. He doesn’t care whether they live or die.” If so, you might want to look at the last few verses of Jonah. God is not indifferent about the death of his Creation.
Every single facet of our lives as Christians should be directed towards fulfilling our purpose here on earth. That means that our efforts in life should not be just directed towards stopping abortions and finding a cool church with good music. We cannot excuse some of our actions because we feel something else has more importance at the moment. This thing we call our “calling” is not pick and choose. It’s a whole body sort of thing, and I think we’re really screwing it up.
And you know what? I don’t have it perfect either. But I’m working on it, because this is a process. We are working towards complete reconciliation, will you join?
And for another great perspective on Christianity and environmentalism check this out.
Songs and Centuries
I have this question, and although only time will ever be able to answer it, I like to toss it around every now and then.
We all know what songs from history have stood throughout the ages. We know what has remained even though the time they were made in is long gone. The Beatles, The Stones, Dylan. We know the popular songs that have stayed popular more than 40 years after they were recorded.
So what I wonder is this: of the songs that are recorded today, what will remain after 20 years, 40 years, 100 years?
I don’t think we can say that it will just be the popular songs. Todays top 40’s are just too temporary.
Not to mention that, musically, they suck.
Sure, we can all say that Coldplay will be remembered. But what else? Will rap songs be the future classics? Will any “indie” stick around?
Who knows?
Reflecting with Bryant
Still thinking a lot about Rwanda. Bryant and I shared some thoughts, and I thought they were valuable. Here are snippets of our email conversation:
Hey Sam.
I just read your blog posts from Rwanda and now the travels in the EU. Really good stuff man. Thank you for sharing about the time on the wall and your struggles.
When I look at what we did and tell people about it I really do feel like a glorified Christian tourist. I can come up with tuns of excuses in my head of why that is just not true: we were there to love the people, we were just there to see things so we could tell others and get them to donate, we were meeting our brothers and sisters in Christ; but what ultimately matters and why were we prompted to go on this trip and why was Mike prompted to lead the trip?
I am not sure.
Rwanda is in need of dignity, life chances, and basic sanitary and health standards, but possibly more importantly healing. One thing that this trip brought came only in the last night. I am so thankful for Gloria sharing the struggles with mercy and how she could recognize and feel the tension between the tribes instantly. The problems run deep and because of that I do not think that someone from the outside can do much. We can deal with the first three things above but most likely not with the last. For Rwanda to move forward they need to heal. All we can do is pray that God would rise up the next leader in reconciliation to come and open the discussion for reconciliation with wisdom.
What was our purpose in Rwanda? Why did we spend 2,500 dollars in airfare to get there? I have no clue, but I am a changed person because of it. I hurt when I see American culture be so self indulgent and because of that become so devoid of joy and checked out of reality. But I heart also knowing that there are little children and strong adults in Rwanda living on what we consider to be a part time week of pay.
So, I am going to move forward without answers. I went. So what? I now live with that knowledge and those feelings and will take that forward not necessarily looking to make a world shaking change, but being ready if the opportunity presents itself (Dr. Bird said something like that on the trip and I thought it was really wise).
Bryant,
Thanks for your thoughts man, and I would love to talk to you about this more, but it is certainly hard I do on this tiny screen of mine.
And I definitely think you’re right. We have to move on, take what we saw an what we learned and let it influence how we live every part of our lives. If there’s anything that I’ve seen so far that has come from the trip, it is that we are awakening interest in others about the country and about the rest of Africa. Everyone seems to be interested in our experience, and when they hear they only become more interested. That is a result we can rely on.
We should find some way for everyone to get together and talk again, or even share our thoughts on life after the trip. If anything, we need to be encouraging each other not to forget and not to compartmentalize the trip with so many other things in our past. I know it won’t be anywhere near the same, but maybe we can set up some kind of Internet forum where we can all share our thoughts. Or maybe we should all just start emailing back and forth.
I do know that I miss everyone really bad, and I miss Rwanda too.
___
So, what are we to do? How do we not forget? And how do we help bring about the changes that we saw Rwanda needed so badly? Its been almost two weeks and I have no idea still. I don’t really even like thinking about it because it makes me want to return so desperately.
But giving up and moving on are two things that I and the rest of my team cannot do. We just can’t.
How do we stay in Rwanda without being there physically?
Eighth on Travelling
We have gone from Dublin southward, and then worked our way back north, again through Dublin and on to Northern Ireland and Newcastle, Co. Down.
I’ll start in the south, with castles and ghosts, but it’ll be quick, because the good stuff is in Newcastle.
Foulksrath Castle is a 16th century fortified house, like many others that were built across Ireland. Most are in extreme stages of disrepair, although some are lived in and some, like Foulksrath, are both lived in and put before the wide eyes of travelers with a few spare euros. We were those travelers, and I think that in retrospect we consider those euros well spent. Just spending the night in a castle was an experience. The spiral staircase snaked it’s way up from the very medieval dining room (complete with shields an long wooden tables) past rooms for reception, the owner, girls, couples, and finally the boys, sixty or so steps round and round and up and up. We were even able to get on the roof by way of a “secret passage” that led out of the boys room. Sneaky of us.
That night around a bonfire we sat with Austrailians, Spaniards, and Tahitians (from Paris) and listened to the owner, Jack, as he told about Ghosts in his castle. On the parapets, up and down the stairs, seeping through the cracks in the stones, his ghosts sat by, made the castle smell like flowers, watched the countryside from the roof, and gave him an icy touch. They were decorations and we were watching with our ears as he led us on a tour. He would roll a cigarette and push it between his lips, lighting, sucking, and squinting under bushy white eyebrows, telling of his ghosts and asking us about our countries and our travels.
But we left after a night and eventually we ended up in Newcastle, a beautiful town in Northern Ireland. Here mountains meet the sea like a boy meeting a girl for the first time on the playground, sitting side to side while holding dearly to what makes them them. The town of Newcastle has wedged itself calmly between the two, and finding that there us not quite enough room there it has begun to spill out of the natural junction and into the valley.
We met the Millers, Cambell and Kristy, at the bus station and they took us by the Morlough house for a last night bonfire with a team from Cincinatti. It was a good introduction to the town, with the sun setting over water and the fire warming our feet.
We are staying in their guest house, which they made for people just to come and visit. We wake up in the morning and we squint across their neighborhood and down to the town and the water. Sometimes, when it is more clear, you can see Scotland.
We longboarded some, we ate chili and talked with Cambell about Munice Alliance and about ministry and about coffee and about Ireland. We met their friends Mark and Angie and played Guitar Hero. Apparantly Mark was a Foundation PA a few years back when he was a Taylor. It’s weird that I have this connection with four or five stages of leadership from my floor in Samuel Morris.
Today we hiked. It was astounding. Bare, green mountains and clear, clear streams and wild sheep. All played with coldly by a strong wind ripping through the peaks. We’re going back to camp.
I know that I have used the word breathtaking a lot in describing. But do you know what it feels like to wake up in he morning, look outside and realize that you lost a breath somewhere a few seconds back? This place is stealing my air. It can have all it wants.
Travels, seventhly (and father’s day)
Today is father’s day, and since I can’t be home to give my sorely missed father a present or even a hug, this post is dedicated to him. He’ll have to wait for his present and hug until I get home in three weeks.
Whew, that’s a long time. I hope he can hold out. I hope I can hold out.
The past three days have been spent in Ireland, two of them have been in Dublin, and the last one in the historic town of Kilkenny. We have seen cathedrals, castles, and many pubs.
Dublin was a cool little city, but after two days we felt like there wasnb much more to do. We explored quite a bit, seeing almost all we could in downtown, excepting the book of kells and the long room in trinity college, we are going to have to see that on our way back through. After obligatory pints of guiness at a traditional Irish pub, which we took special care to select so that we wouldn’t just find one filled with a lot of forgein tourists, we also discovered the Trevor is not very fond of Guinness.
Apperantly Britney Spears is also a big deal in the emerald isle. While longboarding through Dublin friday night we ran into a mass of people flooding back from one of the areas near the water. By the time we had reached the venue we had figured out, both from tshirts and from the age range and disgustingly smutty attire of the crowd, that the princess of pop herself was here. We didn’t stick around long.
One bus to Kilkenny, and we had a wealth of parks, cathedrals and castles to entertain us. We were going to camp tonight, but upon finding that the castle hostel we came down here for was about 10 miles outside the city, we shacked up at the tourist hostel in town and bought plenty of food, both for breakfast this morning and for lunches the next few days.
More soon,
Dad, I miss you terribly and I love you. I can’t wait to see you when this trip is over. Happy fathers day!
Travels: Reflections
Two nights ago I sat down and journaled for the first time since leaving Rwanda. The time produced some interesting thoughts, which I would like to share. I think they might shed some light on why it appears I didn’t take so fondly to Paris.
And here it is: The Eiffel tower was bigger than I expected. It was really impressive. But still, as I stared up at it I realized how ugly it really is, although it is held as such a fascinating icon of culture. It really doesn’t live up to the hype, despite it’s size. It is an image, projected worldwide, of the unparalleled beauty of Paris and of parisan culture. Yet on closer observation it is nothing butthe jumbled, messy workings that allow tourists unfettered access to it’s crossing iron heights and everything inbetween. Perhaps the tower was beautiful before, when there were no elevators crawling up it’s insides or when there was no green netting strung everywhere so protect suing tourists. But even if you take int account these additions, the ugliness is still there. It is still just huge iron scaffolding with no heart.
Sadly, that seems to reflect how i feel about the city-all of it- the people and he sites and the cafes. There is nothing but an image of beauty. Therein lies the main difference between Paris and Rwanda. Everywhere you went in Rwanda people smiled and loved life. In Paris, I saw hardly any smiles, and none as heartfelt as those I saw in Rwanda. How can a culture that has seen so much pain and poverty have so much more joy at it’s heart than one of the foremost and most influential cities in the world?
Travels (the makeup edition)
So I’m behind in informing this inanimate site, and in turn all of those who are reading this, of all that I am seeing in my far flung adventures. I’ll use some forthcoming downtime to attempt to catch up.
So today was our last day in Paris and tomorrow will be our last day in France. I’m really ok with that. However, today was pretty good. In the process of trying to work out our immenent escape, we were able to visit the Arc De Triumphe (sp?) and the Louvre. Both were highly impressive. The Arch was giant, with a huge French flag swaying with the city wind suspended beneath the main opening. There is a really interesting contrast between the intricately carved gigantic arch and the multi-laned traffic circle that swoops around it. There is so much traffic that underground walkways are provided so that tourists (like myself) can get beneath the arch without risking death in the circle.
The louvre was highly impressive, not so much for the works of art themselves which are housed within, but for the sheer volume of the works. I found myself marvelling more at the amount of paintings lining the walls or at the building itself. It is gigantic, with guilded and painted ceilings. Hall after hall in one wing is lined with baroque, rennasance and classical paintings; and in another, roman, Greek and Egyptian statues. I have never seen so much art concentrated in one place before.
We tired quickly of all these very similar works of art, and making sure we saw the Mona Lisa, Venus de Milo, and the painting that is the album art on Coldplay’s Viva la Vida, we walked back out through the shining glass pyramid into the sunlight. A short walk later we had ducked beneath one of the famous “metropolitan” signs and we were again underground, riding the subway for the second to last time before leaving Paris.
Travels, Fithly
Paris. I have had my first nights in European hostels, and I enjoyed them to their fullest by sleeping from around 9 at night to 7 the next morning. I needed it. The past few days had been really rough on me. After I left Africa, which I am missing terribly, I found myself in belgium, staying with a man named Patrick Gillis, who I knew through some people back home. He was great and showed me a lot of Brussels and the surrounding area, such as a statue of a little boy peeing, located nicely in downtown. We ate Belgian waffles with fruit and chocolate on top and olive bread with gouda cheese. We also drank belgian beer, which, due to its alcohol content being three times higher than most on the other side of the pond, I did not have much of. For those who were interested they were Leffe 9 degrees and Schamberg (I think). They were good.
In paris I found that the place I had hoped to stay had fallen through and I madly rushed to find somewhere to spend the night. Sleeping here costs a lot, about 30€ a night. Even though I was right outside Notre Dame Cathedral for most of the time I found it really had to appreciate what I was seeing in Paris. Even the ornately carved buildings towering over the narrow cobblestone streets and the cafes, shops and bars holding them up did little for me.
The transition from being in Rwanda with a team that I loved to being all alone in Paris was rougher on me than I had expected and I found myself fighting more homesickness than I have ever felt. This was not just for home in the states but also back in Rwanda, and I missed my team, the country, and the people terribly. I am still dealing with a lot of this, but Tbabs is here now and we are having our fill of Paris before moving on to Ireland tomorrow.
Travels the Fourth
Sitting here in the airport, waiting to board my flight out of Africa, I find that I have plenty of time to reflect back on my past two weeks here.
The thing is, I’m still dealing with a bit of denial concerning the fact that I’m actually leaving. So I really dot want to reflect, I want to watch South Africa play Iraq in football on the tv (South Africa almost just scored!) I want to look at my climing magazine with Katelin. I want to listen to music (I’ve had a crazy hankering for some Tv on the Radio). Just because I’m leaving doesn’t mean I have to think about it, right?
And yet I started this post, I threw myself into something that requires at least a little introspection. Damn.
Really, I’m in denial because I feel like I haven’t done enough here to warrant my trip. I was here just long enough to see the rampant problems, to taste the struggles, to fall in love with the country and to start making friends.
And then I get pulled out.
I hate it. I hate the way I spent my time and I hate how I feel like we did so little actual justice work, and just as we seem to be getting to a place where something is actually getting accomplished we have to leave.
Last night I sat on the wall behind the compound and looked out over the city as I lay beneath the stars. Out of all the little nooks and crannies around the ALARM compound, my favorite place was atop that brick and concrete wall, with the lights of the city spread before me. This place seemed to mirror how I felt about most of the trip. Right below the wall, which surrounded our temporary home and allite comforts (and we had many), there is a poor neighborhood. The houses are small and brick covered with mud. They have no electricity, no running water, and the toilets are dirt, smelly, broken down outhouses right beside the main houses. There are lot of kids, some with visible infections and with grossly swollen or mutilated body parts. Almost all of them have hunger-induced pot bellies. All are filthy.
And I would frequently sit on the wall which divided the comfort I knew from their poverty, all of this seen within the much larger picture of the whole city surrounding me, and I would feel completely lost
I still feel completely lost.
I have no idea what to do with what I saw these past two weeks.
And so I wallow in my denial.
