Full Moon of Waso

PrayerReach at the Full Moon of Waso festival in Souheast Asia. This is the beginning of Buddhist Lent. 

21,915

Teach us to number our days carefully...

     -Pslam 90:12

21,915

Temple caves

Praying at rock cairns deep inside a Buddhist temple cave. 

The Work...

The work to which I...dedicate my life...will be in the most out-of-the-way parts of non-Christian countries, so that Jesus will be brought to the places He is least known, and search will be made with Him for His lost and abandoned sheep. 

     -Charles de Foucould 

Any Other Choice?

When we are lead by a guide who takes us to an unknown land, at night, through fields, without a clear path, do we have any other choice than abandonment?

     -Charles de Foucould 

Take My Life...

Take my life and let it be

Consecrated Lord to thee. 

Take my moments and my days,

Let them flow in endless praise. 

     -Frances Havergal 

I'm back in Southeast Asia this morning. 

You must have a room...

You must have a room, or a certain hour or so a day, where you don’t know what was in the newspapers that morning, you don’t know who your friends are, you don’t know what you owe anybody, you don’t know what anybody owes to you. This is a place where you can simply experience and bring forth what you are and what you might be. This is the place of creative incubation. At first you may find that nothing happens there. But if you have a sacred place and use it, something eventually will happen.
--Joseph Campbell

The American War

Stop your fighting and know that I am God,

exalted among the nations, exalted on earth.

                — Psalm 46:10

Day breaks peacefully on the terraced rice fields of Vietnam as this ancient call for peace touches my soul. As an American child of the 60s the very word Vietnam brings back sounds and images of war. Walter Cronkite daily narrating evening news reports. Grainy, black-and-white video displaying our side of the war story. As the saying goes, there’s two sides to every argument, or war in this case. The reasons for that war are way too convoluted for me to comprehend but the two sides of this story can be summed up in the different names it has been given. We know it as the Vietnam War but here it is called the American War. Same conflict — different perspectives. And perhaps we should give more weight to the perspective of those who personally endured the horrors of war rather than our secondhand view from the secure comforts of our living rooms.

War left here decades ago. Vietnamese now enjoy peace and prosperity, graciously welcoming American tourist. We have stopped our fighting, however we haven’t done so well with the second phrase of the Psalm. The one true and living God is still mostly unknown here. He is not yet exalted in this nation.

Squatty Potties on Planes

Maybe its delirium from being awake for over 36 hours and knowing we still have ‘a ways to go before this day is done’ but that’s what just rambled thorough my mind as I made another trip to the ‘nicely appointed’ Cathey Pacific airline toilet.  I’m not (yet) incontinent or suffering from Montezuma’s Revenge (yet).  Just experiencing a little cabin fever.  I need to get up and move around and there’s’ nothing else to do so why not go to the bathroom AGAIN.

On long haul flights to the other side of the world you have plenty of time to ponder the deep, existential questions of life such as, “Why don’t Asian airlines have squatty potties?”  The mental and emotional strain of working through this deep life question must have released a flood of oxytocin into my body causing me to empathize with the Asians.  “What do they think about this?”, seemed the next logical existential question as I, like Alice, followed the rabbit down the hole. It’s their airline so why doesn’t it have their preferred style of toilet? The pre-flight safety briefings are given in their language and the seatback labels are in their script so why not at least have some squatty potties?

As this sign clearly shows I’m not the only one pondering this question.

 

How Can This Be…

How can this be, since I have not been intimate with a man?

                — Mary in Luke 1:34

This morning my heart swells with joy from the Lord for all the blessings he has poured out on me. Faith, salvation, choosing me to be his and the very gift of faith to believe. I rejoice in this incredible calling he placed on my life to know him and make him known among the nations.  I rejoice in how he has and is fulfilling his word to me.

As I read of Mary’s incredulity at her calling my mind resonates with her doubt:

How can this be, since I…

– am such an idiot?

—am so selfish and self-centered?

– am so ignorant and untrained?

– have no resources?

– cannot speak in public?

– am so wishy-washy and unstable?

– am me?

In the very midst of my doubts and fears the Holy Spirit confirms God’s words just as he did with Mary:

                The Holy Spirit will come upon you,

and the power of the most high will overshadow you.

It is not I who do these things God has called me to do but the Holy Spirit working through me. Therefore, with this faith that is itself a gift of God I proclaim with Mary:

Consider me the Lord slave. May it be done to me according to your word.