Sunday, April 20, 2008
A fresh start
I have decided to make this blog about my Pilgrimage through life instead of the grand idea of taking a year off and floating through Asia. So if you've looked at this before it's going to be different and I'm going to start using it. I'm not going to move my posts from my Personal Soapbox, but the personal posts from there you will find here from now on and I will be keeping that blog to simply Religion and Politics:)
Sunday, November 25, 2007
Pondering true Sojourning
As I go through life as if to continue to build my career and my life I find humor in it all. In less than 2 months I'm about to give all of it up. I'm about to quit my job/career, say goodbye to so many new friends and acquaintances, leave it all behind, and go on a real pilgrimage. I'm bringing my cell phone, which I will have to get prepaid simcards for so I can be safe, an mp3 player with worship music and commentaries, a camera to document the experience, and I'm going to trek out and explore the globe. Where am I going you might ask?
I'm starting off by hitching home to Portland and doing the final prep for the journey. Then I'm headed east, and going to North Carolina to take care of a ticket I have out there. Then I'm going up to Boston. I've always wanted to visit the city anyway, and what a better chance than now, from there I will hopefully find a job on a ship's crew bound for Ireland. I plan on working my way across the ocean, and traveling through Ireland, up to N. Ireland then taking a ferry across to Scotland and hiking/hitching down through the rest of the Isle. Go down to Paris, and head East till I get to St Petersburg, then head south through the Balkans, Greece, Turkey, hopefully for the holy lands, and getting to experience Jerusalem first hand. I would like to visit Cairo, Alexandria, and then off to Tunis, and Morocco. From there I would like to visit the European side of the Med, and then maybe I'll head back east through Asia, or maybe I'll shoot for South Africa. Honestly I don't know what will happen, and I don't want to set any limits on the experience.
All I truly know is I don't have anything to hold me back but my fears.
This trip is not about getting to visit amazing sites, or backpacking through the old world. Although those are great perks and incentives to the trip and will make the experience so sweet, the trip is really about getting away from all the things I trust in. To put myself in a place where I can't provide for my own needs and to really learn how much I hold myself back from what God has for me. To spend some time in the wilderness, learning from God, and using those around me to really teach me about God, myself and humanity.
I can only speak for myself on these areas, but I suspect that many people are at the same place in their lives, and live under the same greater paradigms.
I do not trust God. With most things in my life I seek out my own solutions to whatever I need. I seek pleasures based on what I think will bring me happiness, although I intellectually know that my understanding of good and pleasurable is twisted and vapid of joy, I do not seek my joy from the Lord who created the universe, it's laws and order, and make it to bring us perfect pleasure. I know in my reasoning that if I were to fulfill my purpose as a son of the most high, if I was to do everything for the glory of my God, that my joy would be overflowing, because I would be fulfilling my purpose. Like a Formula 1 car that is on the track, I will be doing exactly what I was made to do, and my life if filled with thrill and excitement. Also like a Formula 1 car, if I'm on city streets and common roads, I'll fall apart quickly and become a wreck, as I wasn't made for such a purpose, it's not my design, and I can't hold up in a world as chaotic and damaged as the world outside my track. So it breaks down after that, but it works to that point.
Anyway this blog will be continual rabbit trails, that I will be choosing to share with all of you. I'm not writing to be published in a paper, I'm writing to get my thoughts out and so I can remember the ways the Spirit of God inspires me.
So there we have it, a one page explaining what I'm going to set out and do soon, well kind of anyway.
I'm starting off by hitching home to Portland and doing the final prep for the journey. Then I'm headed east, and going to North Carolina to take care of a ticket I have out there. Then I'm going up to Boston. I've always wanted to visit the city anyway, and what a better chance than now, from there I will hopefully find a job on a ship's crew bound for Ireland. I plan on working my way across the ocean, and traveling through Ireland, up to N. Ireland then taking a ferry across to Scotland and hiking/hitching down through the rest of the Isle. Go down to Paris, and head East till I get to St Petersburg, then head south through the Balkans, Greece, Turkey, hopefully for the holy lands, and getting to experience Jerusalem first hand. I would like to visit Cairo, Alexandria, and then off to Tunis, and Morocco. From there I would like to visit the European side of the Med, and then maybe I'll head back east through Asia, or maybe I'll shoot for South Africa. Honestly I don't know what will happen, and I don't want to set any limits on the experience.
All I truly know is I don't have anything to hold me back but my fears.
This trip is not about getting to visit amazing sites, or backpacking through the old world. Although those are great perks and incentives to the trip and will make the experience so sweet, the trip is really about getting away from all the things I trust in. To put myself in a place where I can't provide for my own needs and to really learn how much I hold myself back from what God has for me. To spend some time in the wilderness, learning from God, and using those around me to really teach me about God, myself and humanity.
I can only speak for myself on these areas, but I suspect that many people are at the same place in their lives, and live under the same greater paradigms.
I do not trust God. With most things in my life I seek out my own solutions to whatever I need. I seek pleasures based on what I think will bring me happiness, although I intellectually know that my understanding of good and pleasurable is twisted and vapid of joy, I do not seek my joy from the Lord who created the universe, it's laws and order, and make it to bring us perfect pleasure. I know in my reasoning that if I were to fulfill my purpose as a son of the most high, if I was to do everything for the glory of my God, that my joy would be overflowing, because I would be fulfilling my purpose. Like a Formula 1 car that is on the track, I will be doing exactly what I was made to do, and my life if filled with thrill and excitement. Also like a Formula 1 car, if I'm on city streets and common roads, I'll fall apart quickly and become a wreck, as I wasn't made for such a purpose, it's not my design, and I can't hold up in a world as chaotic and damaged as the world outside my track. So it breaks down after that, but it works to that point.
Anyway this blog will be continual rabbit trails, that I will be choosing to share with all of you. I'm not writing to be published in a paper, I'm writing to get my thoughts out and so I can remember the ways the Spirit of God inspires me.
So there we have it, a one page explaining what I'm going to set out and do soon, well kind of anyway.
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