Pepsi and Poverty

I’ve been stuck reading and re-reading this passage for well over a week now: Encouraged by the conventions, most people have found easy solutions to every problem – the easiest aspects of whatever is easy; and yet it is clear that we were meant to stay with what is hard; all living creatures hold fast to it and everything in nature grows and protects itself in its own manner and stays an entity in its own terms – strives to stay one at whatever cost and against whatever opposition. There is little that we understand, but our conviction that we must stay in touch with what is difficult will not desert us: it is good to be solitary, for solitude is hard, and that something is hard must be just one more reason why we should do it. Bonus marks for those who can identify the author. I steal reading lists from people all the time. Sometimes I stumble upon good things. Sometimes I find others’ selections to be utterly, unfathomably inane. This time, I've encountered sheer brilliance. I stole this particular list a few months ago, and immediately purchased one of the books. I may have re-read it in its entirety five times by now. I can't seem to get through a day without re-reading the section from which the above passage is taken. I haven’t had this experience in a very, very long time. I don’t want to read anything else. There’s something about this tiny assembly of letters and words. This portrait of the author’s soul. The way he explores and communicates his own understanding of existence. There’s something in this selection that speaks so powerfully into my life that I can’t help but return to it. I might be addicted. For months – since September really – I’ve been wrestling with what it is to live out my faith every day. Leaving work to study Theology at Wycliffe has profoundly impacted my life. It was a change I needed. It was a move that has seen so much positive growth. Yeah I’m still messing things up. But God’s doing some crazy things. I think it’s like Jason observed last night – God’s giving me this time to catch up on the things I put aside for so long. A crash course in faithful living. First Seminary. Now India. India where I’ve never been. India that scares me with its throngs of people. A new language. A new culture. A completely different understanding of personal space. I like my space. Sucks to me, I’m not going to have much of that in such a densely overpopulated city. On top of that, I'm blonde-haired, blue-eyed, and clearly very white. Going to India is not an easy solution. If anything, this will put me in touch with the difficult. It’s not a test. It’s not something I need to survive to prove anything to anyone, least of all myself. It may be another classroom – but not one governed by pass or fail. The lessons aren’t set in stone either. I’ll take from them what I need to learn, and leave other things behind. The lessons are different for everyone. The chaos of this reality, of streets teeming with lives and stories and wonders all their own – this is my classroom. And it’s a course that brings me hope. Encountering beauty in this chaotic humanity, in life’s gritty reality, in lives governed by Pepsi and poverty, I pray these lessons won’t be lost on me.