Torn Worlds Apart
This world traveler is back from the craziness of two weeks abroad that included visits to Italy, Israel and Palestine (with a few hours spent in Prague during a layover). Italy was the first place in Europe I've visited where I could say without hesitation, "I could live here." I could also say that about a geographic region in the Middle East...the more likely place for me to end up...though my love of that place was of a different kind.
As I was sitting at work today, a memo came across my desk announcing the promotion of a certain co-worker. After my moment of excitement on her behalf, the thought sparked in my head that I was pretty much unmoved by the whole thing. Unmoved as in realizing that I simply don't have a desire to "move up the ladder." My "vocational ambitions" are to pour my heart and energy into the work I care most deeply about, but the idea of position and bonus pay really holds no appeal to me. What is enticing? The thought of devoting my life to the places and people who are in most desperate need.
All said and done, I stand alone
Amongst remains of a life I should not own
I suppose you can't really quantify who has the "most desperate need." All needs are real, each has its own effect on life and the world. But I am drawn...no, under compulsion...to visit places that are in the midst of war, after affects of war, or under intense human and civil rights oppression. I realized all this when I started thinking of all the places I still want to visit, when the names Afghanistan, Sudan, Iraq and Vietnam kept resurfacing. I'm told this isn't normal, but hey, I admitted to being abnormal a long time ago.
It takes all I have to believe
In the mercy that covers me
The Palestinian people are a bundle of paradoxes, and truly beautiful. I gained a much deeper understanding of the whole Israeli/Palestinian conflict while spending time in both countries, and I was struck again by how the United States seems to have taken the smallest issues on both sides and made them the greatest points of contention.
And did you really have to die for me?
All I am for all you are?
Cuz what I need and what I believe are worlds apart
I'm not bashing the U.S. government or its people. I love this country, and you only have to spend time in a country under foreign occupation to catch a glimpse of the extraordinary freedom that truly is ours. But freedom has a way of causing its people to become completely inward focused...to make their world only the drama of their own lives...to allow them the ability to abuse freedom and make it into an excuse for ignorance, a freedom that is theirs but does them no favors.
Take my world apart
I am on my knees
Take my world apart
Broken on my knees
Most of the things in life that beg the deepest answers can't be explained with words. Looking at the conflict in the Middle East, I see the struggles of both sides, I see their blindnesses, I see what makes them tick, I see a cycle of violence. And it breaks my heart.
I look beyond the empty cross
Forgetting what my life has cost
And wipe away the crimson stains
And all the nails that still remain
To really live life, I believe you have to embrace the philosophy that there are some things for which you will never have the answers. It doesn't always "work out." You can do everything you're supposed to, and the result might not be the right one.
More and more I need you now
I owe you more each passing hour
The battles between grace and pride
I gave up not so long ago
So the question becomes...what do you do? When faced with a situation where, even if you make every decision wisely and follow through with each needed action, the end could just as easily see no improvement (or be more detrimental) as become better...and what do you do?
So steal my heart, take the pain
Wash my fear, cleanse my pride
Take the selfish, take the weak,
And all the things I cannot hide
What do you do? You move forward. You don't give up. You keep loving. Love doesn't mean being blind to another's faults or putting yourself in a position to be hurt by them, but it's simply the understanding and knowledge that at any moment, you may be betrayed, and you're making the conscientious decision to love anyway. It doesn't mean the relationship won't change...if anything, it ensures it, for love is too easily confused with unhealthy obsession these days...but it guarantees that you will be "wise as serpents, harmless as doves" and that conflict, hatred, and betrayal won't change your character.
Take my beauty, take my tears
My sin and soiled heart, make me yours
Take my world all apart
Take it now, take it now
For you see, beloved, trust isn't a result of having the answers. Trust comes from having seen God's face.
Serve the ones that I despise
Speak the words I can't deny
Watch the world I used to love
Fall to dust and blow away
It saddens me to see so much hopelessness in the world...so much conflict...so much hatred...so much anger...and it kills me to know that most of the world doesn't care. They don't want to care. If they cared, they would have to change.
I look beyond the empty cross
Forgetting what my life has cost
My life is short and it's here for a purpose, and that purpose isn't going to be what most people in this world will admire, consider useful, or stand in line to get an autograph for.
And wipe away the crimson stains
And all the nails that still remain
And that's okay. I don't crave the approval of friends and family.
Take my beauty, take my tears
My sin and soiled heart, make me yours
But I do crave that words like these would make a difference. In the way you act. In what you consider most important in your life. In the way you talk. In what you're willing to let become the obsessions of your life.
And all the things I cannot hide
Take my beauty, take my tears
My greatest prayer in the world is for God to take my world apart. I pray the same for you.
Why? Because it's worth it.
Don't feel like you always have to have the answers. Allow the world to be confusing. Life is tragic. But it's also glorious. You just have to let it be what it is.
Lyrics from "Worlds Apart" by Jars of Clay
