I posted this my last day in Santa Rosa but then took it off so I could edit it before I posted it:
There is something I have that everyone wants. It's not blond hair and blue eyes, but a lot of people think I'm beautiful because of those. I know English and that is a very coveted thing. Everyone here in Santa Rosa learns English in school but to about the same level that most people do in U.S. They learn a little bit of book knowledge and never get to practice much. Everywhere I go people are asking what words are in English, and I've even helped several people with their homework at the university. Pronunciation is something they are especially curious about. It is not that they all want to go to the U.S. (although many do), but I think they are hungry for knowledge.
On a very different note, I was thinking about the medical work that several people do here whom I know. Many have different world views and it made me think about the analogy of the elephant and the blind men. The analogy goes that each blind person can only feel one part of the elephant and that is truth for him because there is more than he himself can see alone. It is both the philosophy that everyone must find their own truth and that we can never fully know the full picture. Often Evangelicals will discard this theory by saying that the perspective of looking at the blind men feeling the larger elephant is one separated from the reality, which we do not have the luxury or ability to obtain in our philosophizing.
But instead of discarding, I vote for redeeming this analogy because I think there is some truth to this. What I think is profound is the fact that people do not live as if I have my truth and you have yours, they live as if there is a elephant. They live as if there is purpose to what they are doing that is larger than themselves. The ones who get burned out beyond recovery are those who realize that holding onto "this is truth for me" dies when they die. There is no guarantee that what they live for has any meaning beyond the material. And those who persevere to great things are those who hold to the truth that something they are doing is eternal and possesses lasting impact.
The elephant has been named by our society though. It is the "common good" or "the benefit of humanity," but however it is described or phrased, it has a face. It is a face that is bound in the physical but most recognize that it possesses feet in the spiritual or eternal. I suspect that the discouragement, that often occurs when the relativistic person realizes that their "common good" has hands and a heart that will fail one day or society that will possibly one day change so that it no longer reflects their contributions, begins a search to find something that touches beyond the material--some belief that gives more cohesion to their life and attempts to answer and withstand the weight of their questions of "Why am I here?", "What good is my life even doing?" and "Why should I get up in the morning?"
I think these questions are so weighty (and I think secular people feel the weight of this much more than Christians at times because they have to delve into the questions or their life will collapse, but many Christians, having grown up in the church, have comfort in some kind of childhood faith that has remained unless otherwise challenged to be taken to a deeper level--I Corinthians 13:11). But I think there is a weighty answer and support in what I have seen in redemption, in an orphanage where hope is found and in community where meaningful relationships are forcefully striven after. The truth of redemption is at least that there is healing and hope now and one day; that all we are doing for the physical and spiritual are not for nothing. We are working and what we do has an impact--and this is just part of the gospel that provides motivation and power for humility and confidence, gentleness and strength. I pray that we would use the language of our work, our cultures, our neighbors to convey these truths with words that they can understand. Let us do this with confidence and humility.
Philippians 2:5-11
~Bennett
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