Cambodia

Category: Cambodia

What Really Counts

April 13, 2012 / Seán / 19 Comments

Around the world, and back again…

Part of my heart is still in Southeast Asia.

What remains of me has been completely transformed.

I’m an American. Make no mistake.

But I don’t see the world like the typical American. Not any more…

I cross the threshold back into my office/studio/bedroom at 0300, clap twice. Soft lights around the perimeter of the ceiling surge, illuminate the place. I stop and stare.

Is this my world?

Yes.

No…

Morning light comes. (3 hours later.)

I press the silver button that will bring my MacPro to life. It doesn’t.

I hear the sounds of a failing hard drive.

Thank you Jesus!

No, I’m serious. That’s exactly what I said.

Do you know that stress is a choice?

Do you know that life is about much more than emails, work, school, stuff?

Or shall I say, much less?

Ask my Cambodian friends.

I work in the garden instead of the office. Then I leave home again, after 48 hours. In my flip flops. My dead computer stays. I thank Jesus for [another] Seagate failure all the way to Oklahoma…

Because to eat, to sleep, to pray…

To serve,

this is life.

And my computer, and my email, and my to-do list… These other things that dominate when someone asks me what I’m going to do today?

Those are actually accessories.

On this trip, the accessories stayed home. My iPhone went to Europe in Joshua’s pocket.

And I just loved people.

I’ve never felt so alive.

Oh Let Me Go

March 23, 2012 / Seán / 6 Comments

Let me go and spend my last drop of life and strength in some corner darkness calls home.

Let me sell ease and comfort in exchange for pain and toil, and sweat, and sacrifice.

Let me forsake the insanity of security for the audacity of a miracle-studded existence.

Let me weep. And let my tears water your dreams…

Let me.

Journal 3: These Strange Fetters

March 18, 2012 / Seán / 2 Comments

March 18, 18:52

…So like yours and mine, but not.

Don’t I owe them something? These beautiful people with dark eyes, that look like they could be my cousins? These lives lived out in thatched huts, or wooden shacks on stilts 10 feet up?

These who live with spirit charms over their doors to keep the devils from wreaking havoc on their lives… (Only deep down he really doesn’t care about woven straw, just wants them to live with fear as the default?)

These who planted their fields this year, only to have rain wash away their hopes. These starving for more than rice…
Starving for love?

Don’t I owe them something?
Don’t I?

I who can pray real prayers to the real Power in the shadow of the tree where the second-most-powerful evil spirit in the province lives…
I who understand, by grace, the glory of trust.

I do owe.
I do.

the (in)famous tree (where God is still stronger)

church

friends beloved

the guy with the 5D

Journal 2

March 17, 2012 / Seán / 2 Comments

3/17/12 0520
But of course I want to be a world-changer. Of course I’m ready to see selfish hearts warmed and broken by sympathy and love…

But if I’m ever to take part in such a revolution, my own life must be controlled by sympathy and love – exclusively.

My, but how selfish is the human heart! How eager to move from the difficult to the easy… How bravely we talk, how sheepishly we work.

Mist springs up from the ground and it’s morning again… And I think of beautiful people stirring in their huts. And I think of hunger, and suffering, and hard work. And I think of the “house” that was pointed out to me yesterday… where children are exploited.

And I realize, only the blind can be selfish.
But I am still far too selfish!

So, I must be blind.

We must be blind.
Oh God, open our eyes.

March 16, 2012 / Seán / 8 Comments

The blog still sits silent. And what day is this?

Blame it half on sketchy internet, (usually down when I’m ready to roll) and half on photos and stories coming so fast I can scarce get my pictures dumped before the next thing calls.

I’m resorting to something new. I’ll just journal here real time, and post in as-I-can time. I conceive that will be better than nothing in the end…

March 15

Sometime ask me about the meal extracted directly from the jungle, prepared by hands that loved…

And dirty feet. And taming jungle with Acts 2 in my ears… And a wild (5 hour) taxi ride across the country. Ask me sometime…

March 16, 14:39

Mango and Sticky Rice in the works. (yes!!)

Have a deeper sense of the glory of being climbed as Hs own…

Got it while sitting barefoot and cross legged, listening while the inhabitants of the third Pnong hut in a row insist to Cara that I must be one of them. Or at very least, my grandfather must be Pnong…

Well, no. But I couldn’t love them more if I were.