today. today, i sinned against God, against myself, against people that i care about. i came back from china two days ago. for 3 weeks in china i woke, i ate, i drank, i conversed, i taught, i played, i read, i worshipped, i slept, and did it all over again. every day for nearly 3 weeks i did what i couldn't do here, in america, in a free country where millions of immigrants including my parents have sacrificed their today for their children's tomorrow. thousands of miles away in an oppressed, communist country i lived life for 3 weeks, i truly lived, i lived with purpose, something i couldn't do here.
and today. today, i sinned. i was scared. i was scared of going back to my old habits, my old self, my faithless living so i fell back into it to get it over with as if eventually i would've fell regardless of what i did in china, how my faith grew, how i loved God and people in china like i couldn't here. i didn't believe that i could move forward with everything i learned. i couldn't believe that things could be as good or better here than there. i lost faith. so i fell.
today i sat shirtless on the fairly new deck that my parents had built while i was away at college reading yesterday's Washington Post Magazine. the magazine featured an series of pictures that a woman had taken of kids in her old neighborhood in the late 80's and compared them to the pictures of the grown up kids taken as recently as last year. 20 years separated those pictures and the subjects of those pictures wrote little paragraphs of how they were and how they are now. they wrote about what is important in their lives now: about how love is the solution, if they are ready for the change that having kids will bring, about seeing past the surface into the inner depths. the sun beat down on my white chest, the same sun that beat down on me in the Tibetan grasslands. every single picture of these kids that have grown up seemed so disatisfying. i found no hope in any of these pictures or in any of these people that have grown up. ever since i came back i have felt empty and alone because i fear that there is no purpose here, no hope.
i have seen the desperation, the hope, and the joy on the other side of the world for something more, something that this life cannot offer. i was there, we were there desiring the same thing for them and for us. and now that we're back, i'm back, i lost that desperation. the same sun beats down on both sides of the world, it rises on the good and the evil, and we are all lost in the sound of separation. but here, in this country, we don't care, we'll find what we need on our own to drown out that sound. but i have seen good people and i have felt that nothing can drown out that sound except the desperation all people share in desiring God. there is nothing else. and i, i sinned today, but there is hope. the hope of glory in the end. Christ in me. and i'm desperate for that.
