I'm reading a really good book, titled What is the What by Dave Eggers.
It's a fiction biography on the life a Sudanese Lost Boy, Valentino Achak Deng. I'm throughly enjoying the book as it accounts for Achak's life in the midst of war in Sudan. I'm learning a lot about the current crisis in Darfur as well as his view, as a displaced Sudanese refugee, on how the crisis started many years ago. The book explains real life situations of displaced Sudanese that many of us American's simply find unfathomable. It's one view point of what 4mil displaced Sudanese people (2mil dead) went through in the 80's and what millions are going through now in Darfur.
As I have been in the prayer movement, I'm finding that it's wisdom to seek to understand what is going on currently in the world. That may seem like a silly common sense statement, but so many of us walk around with our heads in the sand about what is really going on. I walk around with my head in the sand. Thus i don't know how to pray, or what to pray for... I (we) find ourselves concerned only with what strikes our surroundings and in the end we will be confused and troubled that we didn't know before. Our ignorance, my ignorance, is blinding.
Example:
For instance, someone outside of my house is shooting off fireworks. Of course it is November so you may find this a little odd...But I find it EXTREMELY odd beacuse these people probably don't know (or maybe just don't care) that the Southeast (which definitely includes Charlotte) is in the worst drought it's been in over 100 years. Fireworks. Fireworks? Fireworks + drought = FIRE.
So my ranting leaves me to this, I want to know how to pray Lord. I want to know what is on your heart and how to move heaven. I want to understand what days I live in. Give me wisdom not to set off fireworks in a drought. Give me wisdom to see how you see. Give me the wisdom to pursue knowledge (prov 2-3).
3 comments:
seriously what i'm thinking. eerie, really.
I just wanted to suggest another book along the same lines. A Long Way Gone: A Memoir of a Boy Soldier by Ishmael Beah, is also fantastic. Beah travels the country and speaks about his experiences (he came to schools in CO and the kids were fascinated). He is our age and the writing is very accessible.
Love reading your blog by the way, hope you are doing well!
I thought about the same thing recently after watching "Lions for Lambs" the new movie out with Meryl Streep, Robert Redford, and Tom Cruise... it actually was a fairly sucky movie, but the whole premise was about people in our culture not giving a darn about what's going on in the world--- we care more about celebrity gossip and don't think we can ever change anything---
its nice to remember that you're a citizen of the world every once and a while, huh?
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