Somtimes I get the feeling that I'm all alone up here you know? I miss my friends so much, and the time differential means that when it's 10:00 here and I can talk for a bit, it's midnight at home and they are already asleep. It seems wierd to think about my life going by without them you know? I still keep in touch with the ones that matter. I talk to Layne once a week, for example. Sometime, we talk twice a week, but he's in Law School today so we're both a little stretched for time u know? Joy is actually in seminary school in Portland, so she's in my time zone but also uber busy. I talk to my brothers everyday...I love my brothers so much.
Speaking of brother [Jon], it's been hard for me to be away from him. When I went away to ACU the first six weeks were so hard for me. I'd stay up on AIM talking to brother everyday. We talked all the time: we're only 15 months apart and have been at school together since we were babies. The same is true now. It's hard for me to realize that although I left ACU for here, he's not comming. He and Shenah aren't there to watch Cowboy games with anymore, or to sit by at all ACU events. And although I don't miss fighting over the car, I do miss him so much. Talking on AIM every day is good but still doesn't change the fact that he'll probably never again need me to make him some chicken and potatoes or some maccaroni and tuna or some eggs - just the way he likes them. Who's gonna take out my trash? Who's gonna carry my heavy stuff up the stairs? And most importantly, who's gonna get rid of people who are botherin' me? I miss you brother...
They say that the most influential people in your life are your friends. If that's true, than I am on the right track. I have friends who love and miss me. And such great influences. Let me tell you the story of one of them.
I have a friend who's name is Tommy. Tommy was a transfer student, and came to ACU a little late. I met him his senior year and my junior year. The first thing he said to me was: "Are you illegal?" Long story, but who couldn't become one of my dearest friends after that? One year and a few SA service projects later, we were pretty tight. One of the bravest things I've ever seen, was Tommy follow his heart to a far away place. And when I say "followed his heart" I mean God.
The summer before his Senior year, Tommy interned for a Church in California, The Walnut Creek Church of Christ. When he came home, he was so enthralled with those kids. He told us stories about them all the time. As a youth minister, it's good to see Tommy happy like that. The thing was, there wouldn't be a job opening at Walnut Creek for some time, so there would be no way for Tommy to work there. As the end of his last semester was in sight, miraculously a job opened up there. Tommy's whole life went on hold and we all prayed fervently for God to take Tommy where he willed. With solid job offers while others were still squirming he waited and waited on the Lord. And heck yes! The offer came...and without a thought he packed it all up and moved out here.
Don't get me wrong; people move everyday. But Tommy, like all good Texans, missed home. It's hard to be an unmarried youth minister. But he presses on where I'd be lonely. When I came out here this summer, I saw something different about him. This is the guy who taught me to play poker, who never went to bad before 3 am, who played pranks I will mention not. But I saw him teaching and leading and doing things its hard for me to imagine him ever doing. I can't really explain it I guess. I know thought, that he loves those kids with all his heart. Those kids make his heart beat...he's doin' kingdom work. It's God's business really, and he's just keeping up with the spirit. I know he's tired, and lonely, and misses his brother. But somehow, that doesn't seem to change the fact that he knew one day - just knew - that the time to grow up and become a soldier had come. Now maybe that doesn't matter much to you all, but to a homesick Texas Girl who cries at night sometimes when she thinks she hears the ACU Chapel Bells, it does matter. He's an amazing man of God, who pushes himself and me and all his friends to be more for God. His kids love him, his church loves him, and God smiles upon him.
That's the heart of God in man - the heart that does what needs to be done as only that one man could do it, not in spite of pain, or loneliness - but despite. He recognizes it but knows that someday it'll all be ok - in the homeland.
Again, don't get me wrong. There are people all over the world serving God in miraculous ways. I've heard people say that "God is too big not to do big things." But allow me to conjecture, that we put God in a box when we decide that being on fire for God means you have to sell all you own and move to Kenya to be a minister. Or, we decide you have to go and live with the only remaining leper colony or something. But not everyone is meant to cruise Africa by night and play Indiana Jones by day. Someone's gotta teach our kids. And not just anyone: someone has to teach MY kids who feels the same way about doing it that I feel about ending opression. For my money, that person is Tommy.
Passion that inspires man, seriously. That's doing what you do for Him.
Tommy you make me smile and you inspire me to open my books when I really just want to go home. When you call and talk me into buying you a jet ski if I become a Federal Justice, I can't even tell you that according to contract law, it's a non-enforceable conditional-gratuitous promise because I'm laughing. Thank you for telling your bible study group about God's justice, and thank you for blessing me with your kids and church family in Tuba Arizona. Thank you for your friendship.
And as I turn around to go to sleep, I remember what my dear Casey said to me this evening and smile [as he quotes from the popular song]:
"Come back to Texas
Its just not the same since you went away
Before you lose your accent
And forget all about the Lonestar State
Theres a seat for you at the rodeo
And I've got every slow dance saved
Besides the Mexican food sux north of here anyway"
Goodnight Big Purple!
Thursday, September 15, 2005
Wednesday, September 14, 2005
I have the opportunity to tell so many people about justice since I've been here. Here is an email I sent to one of my new friends after a conversation we had. He's in my new group of friends that I talk about on "da blog". I think it speaks for itself, for me, and plenty of others.
Hey friend:
This is what I mean this afternoon in class when I told you about this stuff. Now you know what my "deal" is and why I'm such a justice dork.
Some guy in our class named Eric today, came up to me in the caffeteria while I was sadly and unsucssesfully trying to purchase a coke. After providing the remedy for this problem, asked me if I had worked with the underprivileged before because of the comments in class I make about them and their rights. I used it to tell him the same thing.
This is my passion. You asked how I do it; how do I get it all done. The truth is, I don't. God helps me - this is his business I'm about: I'm just struggling to keep up with the spirit!
Gracias for my apple!
ps. I can't spell
"But again and again we were confronted with two unrelenting facts: First, the children were being horrifically abused before our eyes. Second, we all professed a faith that there was a God who loved these children and called us to do for them what we would want done for our own children. this was not a clever quiz on an ethics exam or a contrived piece of sensationalism for a shocking marketing campaign. This was the world as it really was, right in our faces. This was put up or shut up.. It was time to fasten our chin straps or get out of the uniform."
"How do you deal with all the atrocities against children you've seen?" someone asked him once.
"How do I not deal with it?" Mosier replied. "What am I supposed to do, curl up in the fetal position and surrender when I see cruel abuse? How would that help to get more victims free? What they need is a rescuer. We must be prepared to be that rescuer, regardless of the repulsive situations we find victims in."
"While there are millions of girls and women victimized every day, our work will always be about the one. The one girl deceived. The one girl kidnapped. The one girl raped. The one girl infected with AIDS. The one girl needing a rescuer. To succumb to the enormity of the problem is to fail the one. And more is required of us."
"the work of justice and freedom is the work of God, into which human beings are invited to participate. And in that work, the single most powerful tool we are granted is truth."
Isaiah 1:17: "Learn to do the right! Seek justice, rescue the oppressed. Defend the cause of the fatherless, plead the case of the widow."
Psalm 9: 7-12: " The Lord reigns forever; he has established his throne for judgment. He will judge the world in righteousness; he will govern the peoples with justice. The Lord is a refuge for the oppressed, a strong hold in times of trouble. Those who know your name will trust in you, for you Lord have never forsaken those who seek you. Sing praises to the Lord, enthroned in Zion; proclaim among the nations what he has done. For he who avenges blood remembers; he does not ignore the cry of the afflicted."
Psalm 12:5-6: "'Because of the oppression of the weak and the groaning of the needy, I will now arise,' sayeth the Lord. 'I will protect them from those who malign them.' And the words of the Lord are flawless, like silver refined in a furnace of clay, purified seven times."
Pslam 10:16-18: "The Lord is King for ever and ever; the nations will perish from his land. You hear O Lord, the desire of the afflicted: you encourage them, and you listen to their cry, defending the fatherless and the oppressed, in order that man, who is of the earth, may terrify no more."
"You have to get started somewhere, and once you start, you'd better be prepared to finish."
Elizabeth
President / Master of the Universe [in]
The New Republic of Texas - The Remix
Hey friend:
This is what I mean this afternoon in class when I told you about this stuff. Now you know what my "deal" is and why I'm such a justice dork.
Some guy in our class named Eric today, came up to me in the caffeteria while I was sadly and unsucssesfully trying to purchase a coke. After providing the remedy for this problem, asked me if I had worked with the underprivileged before because of the comments in class I make about them and their rights. I used it to tell him the same thing.
This is my passion. You asked how I do it; how do I get it all done. The truth is, I don't. God helps me - this is his business I'm about: I'm just struggling to keep up with the spirit!
Gracias for my apple!
ps. I can't spell
"But again and again we were confronted with two unrelenting facts: First, the children were being horrifically abused before our eyes. Second, we all professed a faith that there was a God who loved these children and called us to do for them what we would want done for our own children. this was not a clever quiz on an ethics exam or a contrived piece of sensationalism for a shocking marketing campaign. This was the world as it really was, right in our faces. This was put up or shut up.. It was time to fasten our chin straps or get out of the uniform."
"How do you deal with all the atrocities against children you've seen?" someone asked him once.
"How do I not deal with it?" Mosier replied. "What am I supposed to do, curl up in the fetal position and surrender when I see cruel abuse? How would that help to get more victims free? What they need is a rescuer. We must be prepared to be that rescuer, regardless of the repulsive situations we find victims in."
"While there are millions of girls and women victimized every day, our work will always be about the one. The one girl deceived. The one girl kidnapped. The one girl raped. The one girl infected with AIDS. The one girl needing a rescuer. To succumb to the enormity of the problem is to fail the one. And more is required of us."
"the work of justice and freedom is the work of God, into which human beings are invited to participate. And in that work, the single most powerful tool we are granted is truth."
Isaiah 1:17: "Learn to do the right! Seek justice, rescue the oppressed. Defend the cause of the fatherless, plead the case of the widow."
Psalm 9: 7-12: " The Lord reigns forever; he has established his throne for judgment. He will judge the world in righteousness; he will govern the peoples with justice. The Lord is a refuge for the oppressed, a strong hold in times of trouble. Those who know your name will trust in you, for you Lord have never forsaken those who seek you. Sing praises to the Lord, enthroned in Zion; proclaim among the nations what he has done. For he who avenges blood remembers; he does not ignore the cry of the afflicted."
Psalm 12:5-6: "'Because of the oppression of the weak and the groaning of the needy, I will now arise,' sayeth the Lord. 'I will protect them from those who malign them.' And the words of the Lord are flawless, like silver refined in a furnace of clay, purified seven times."
Pslam 10:16-18: "The Lord is King for ever and ever; the nations will perish from his land. You hear O Lord, the desire of the afflicted: you encourage them, and you listen to their cry, defending the fatherless and the oppressed, in order that man, who is of the earth, may terrify no more."
"You have to get started somewhere, and once you start, you'd better be prepared to finish."
Elizabeth
President / Master of the Universe [in]
The New Republic of Texas - The Remix
Tuesday, September 13, 2005
The Way My Life Works For Now
So, small update for everyone who I know is just oh so interested in how things go down over here in my new apartment. Well first of all, I've come up with a new study-habit rule! I must get all studying done by 11:00 and then it's an episode of Family Guy and bed. This keeps me focused: i could totally finish all my homework by 11:00 if I work hard enough at getting it done. Sometimes I extend the rule to midnight if there are extenuating circumstances...but it's just my general rule.
"Oh Peter you are the height of just too muchery!"
It's true y'all, I do have quite a bit of homework, but nothing I can't handle! I sort of think of it like a test of my endurance. I'm running the race that's set out for me alright and this is just like the first few laps around the track before you get your pace set. I remember when I was runnin' cross country [WAYYYYYY BACK IN THE DAY - the skinny day] and when I would come back to the track after having been away for vacation or something, the first few laps always kinda got me back into the groove of things. I'm just finding my pace. I can do it, I know it.
On the brighter side of life, the Cowboys definately won this weekend [on Sunday!] and I put a sign on my window that says "Dallas Cowboys 1 - 0 Heck Yes They Are!" It's great. Our friend Dave who lives below us, he likes Minnesotta and ragged on me about the Cowboys. So I enjoy that the Vikings lost. I also really enjoy that the Houston Texans got the beat down. Tommy was less then pleased about that [and no Tommy, I won't tell any of the kids in your youth group the "Un-Role Model Like" things you said about the loss! eheheheheheheheheh].
Next week's Monday night football appears to be promising. Well, it's tiime to go guys!
Much love :-)
"Oh Peter you are the height of just too muchery!"
It's true y'all, I do have quite a bit of homework, but nothing I can't handle! I sort of think of it like a test of my endurance. I'm running the race that's set out for me alright and this is just like the first few laps around the track before you get your pace set. I remember when I was runnin' cross country [WAYYYYYY BACK IN THE DAY - the skinny day] and when I would come back to the track after having been away for vacation or something, the first few laps always kinda got me back into the groove of things. I'm just finding my pace. I can do it, I know it.
On the brighter side of life, the Cowboys definately won this weekend [on Sunday!] and I put a sign on my window that says "Dallas Cowboys 1 - 0 Heck Yes They Are!" It's great. Our friend Dave who lives below us, he likes Minnesotta and ragged on me about the Cowboys. So I enjoy that the Vikings lost. I also really enjoy that the Houston Texans got the beat down. Tommy was less then pleased about that [and no Tommy, I won't tell any of the kids in your youth group the "Un-Role Model Like" things you said about the loss! eheheheheheheheheh].
Next week's Monday night football appears to be promising. Well, it's tiime to go guys!
Much love :-)
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