Have Cheap Luggage, Will Travel

We live in a culture where we have the opportunity to choose almost anything we want. Job, mate, religion. The list is endless and yet the large majority of the world lives out their lives in choiceless days. So considering this privilege of choice we have, how do we treat it?

A recent conversation with a friend got me thinking about this as she told me her story. After graduating high school young, she jumped into studying psychology right away and the reality of human nature saddened her to the point where she dropped out of school. Her soul has been recovering ever since. Facing the naked truth that humans are disgusting in the very core of us was too much for her. Despite the fact that she is a beautiful, bubbly and extremely intelligent young woman, she has limited her interaction with life as to not be disappointed by human relationships. There is so much evil in the world why try, she would tell you.


My family and I took a trip to the zoo after this conversation and I decided to take the day to field test her theory. We took the DART from Plano to the zoo and my friend’s words clung to my thoughts like a parasite slowly killing the idea that she was wrong. A man sat next us that could have been my grandpa. His nails long and overgrown. His satin red jacket promoted a women’s bingo group and he smelled less than appealing. His life was held beside him in a ratty backpack. The sight of him prompted sadness and yet his eyes held a softness and intelligence that made me curious about his story. How are you here? Why would someone let this happen to you?

The DART train passed several open fields south of downtown Dallas and you could see makeshift tents made out of sheets or pallets of worn blankets tucked into corners of fences. Men and women, just like the man in the bingo jacket, living out their lives ignored and abandoned in trash heaps. Were they somebody’s mom or dad? How could so many people be just forgotten?

When we arrived at the zoo, ridiculous children and their equally misbehaving parents helped reinforce the idea that kindness and the general public has not ever met. Perhaps my friend was right. I listlessly wandered through the zoo becoming more depressed with each step until I reached the elephants and the world softened around me.

I have now idea why I was so enraptured with this elephant but it was like I was discovering it for the first time. The deep wrinkles in its skin, the squishiness of its padded feet, the smallness of the fingers at the end of its trunk. It moved as if time didn’t matter, engaging the world as it felt like it. The beauty of the moment was overwhelming. After that my steps were much lighter.

Here is my point. That elephant didn’t do anything about the homeless problem in Dallas or stomp out any of the kids banging their heads in the glass in the amphibian house, but it showed me that beauty is all around us. I guess what it comes down to, is that we have to choose to see it and carry it with us to the places in the world that need help seeing it.

Read: 1 Thessalonians 5:9-11
Ask: When you think about sadness in the world, how to you think this verse tells us to interact with it?

Read: Hebrews 10:24-25
Ask: How do you think you could encourage someone to find beauty?

Read: Romans 12:1-2
Ask: Do you think your habits bring beauty into other’s lives?

For almost 40 years of her 87 year long life, Mother Teresa struggled secretly with spiritual darkness and only after her death did this come to light via a book of her letters entitled, Come Be My Light.

One passage written in 1979 reads, "The silence is so great that I look and do not see, listen and do not hear. The tongue moves in prayer but does not speak."
When this news came out, there was of course a big uproar. Apparently the world’s most well known Christian had trouble with her faith and every cynic within earshot smelled blood.

There will always be those people trying to poke holes in the validity of our faith by attacking people like Mother Theresa and I just don’t care. In fact, I love that we found out about her secret struggle. It makes me feel normal. And on top of that, who said that becoming a Christian means that you loose the right to question?

Unfortunately, that unspoken but generally understood rule in the church has caused many people to weep in dark corners and face Sunday morning with a plastic smile. It is a lie that sucks the life out believers that just need to hear somebody say, “I understand.”

Doubt should be thrust out into the light of day to be examined, discussed and prodded from every angle. It puts us on a path that helps us own our beliefs and brings us closer as people. Doubt is beautiful.

I in no way want to presume that I have the answer to Mother Teresa’s spiritual uncertainty, but I wonder if the story might have been different if her superiors had encouraged her to share with the world her inner battle.

I pray that we always respectfully question what we do not understand, never shun those that do and find opportunities to say “I understand.”

Read:James 1:6
Ask: The original Greek meaning of the word doubt in this verse means “to be at variance between one’s self”. Do think this verse says not to question at all or to question with a foundation of faith?

Read: Mark 9:24
Ask: Is it possible to believe in something but still need convincing?

Read: Hebrews 3:12-15
Ask: What is the difference between doubt and unbelief?