One for the Old Man

Happy Father's Day,
I love you Dad
See you soon

Your Eldest.

A White Flag

This is the resistance and a surrender,
This is my new covenant.
There has to be change, I cannot serve two kings.
I will put my hope in only one.
The one.
In the little things there is hope,
Then, in the little thing I must change.
I will speak new languages,
I will speak of great hope.
I will abandon myself to this and,
To Love my neighbor and enemy.
Let go of all else.
A white flag has been risen, and there will be no compromise.

A nonsensical, most likely boring update from J-bay

To be honest I write this right now, not sure about what I want to say. South Africa has changed the vibe of this trip thus far. It's swung the momentum of a trip that has been, without a better word to define it, intense, to a much slower paced, less dramatic experience. I'm not sure it's a bad thing, it's just different. In certain ways I'd argue it was needed, but I'll talk about that later.

We are in a small coastal town called Jeffery's Bay. It has one traffic light, one main road with a few stores, and a lot of coast line. It's a surfing community, which can easily explain it's laid back attitude. And to be honest for the most part we have bought into it for the time that we are here. We surf, snorkel, go for runs, play basketball or soccer with the locals and people from the bible school that are here. Not much else. A fair amount of our time in the morning is spent reading, which has been a great change of pace. And in the evening we find ourselves cooking fairly elaborate meals, having guests when we can.

So it's been really slow, and we have to be creative to keep ourselves busy. But as I was saying, I do think that while not a whole lot is going on, this is still an integral part of our trip. The first reason, it cleared my head. The first few days here were great for me in that respect. In a way, I kind of just dropped everything important (even my lost bank card) and let myself resolve a little bit. However the past few days, largely with the aid of the book I am reading at the moment, "Jesus for President", and the studying of "Matthew" with Adam, my mind gone right back into constant movement. I find myself staring at the ceiling at night, racing through 100 thoughts at a time. I have started to realize the severity of the things I have seen the past 5 months. The pure absurdity of it all. I have started to realize what it means to me. And wonder what it should mean to me. I wonder where I will be in five years from now, and why I will be there. I've been thinking about how my time will be spent when this is all over. How my money will be spent. The reasons I will do things. The commitments I will make. The ones I hope to make. The people I will invest in. The ones that I might pass by. My motives. My hopes. Dreams. Strengths an weaknesses. Fears. And how much these are all worth.

Could I sound more like a philosopher? I believe that for many of these, I have found answers. They lay in some hidden corner of my faith. But they are there. Some of the answers, aren't the ones I want to hear or find. But some make more sense than I could have imagined.

I really don't expect anyone to still be reading this.

I will leave it at that, I have more than enough to say to many people, but it feels like an overwhelming task writing to whole right now. I'll try and come back with something clearer in the near future.

Blessings from beautiful J-bay, S.A.