MBT #15: Stars in Pennslyvania

At first I thought that the best part of the road trip was when Kaylyn and I convinced Josh to sing along to "Wonderwall" because I have never heard him sing even though other people tell me he is phenomenal and he probably is and should let us hear him more often.

But sorry, Josh.

The stars in Pennsylvania didn't really have adjectives. I didn't even realize that the stars here were fuzzy blips compared to what they could truly look like. It wasn't until I saw the awesomeness of them in an untainted sky that it hit me how I had mistaken the mediocre for the magnificent, the fake for the authentic. And I still love the sky here. I still think the stars are beautiful, I still think it's incredible how I can make out the dark areas on the moon from here, I still think that the light pollution is eerily pretty. But it's just that whenever I look up now, I can't help but think of what I've seen.

Humor them:
allow the grandeur of the stars
to unsettle You
shrink You
humble You so that You stand
as the speck you are
no spark of blazing plasma
within You
unable to provide light
for Yourself,
let alone anyone else.
Allow the sprawled constellations
fallen star
weary night plains
inspire You
rob You of your breath
with its hemisphere
stratosphere
atmosphere
a reminder so that You never forget
that You are vastly outnumbered
as You stand among the dust of the earth
that cries for water
You are unable to give

And so You sit

And wait

I think I'm gonna need to go back again and just sit. And wait.

MBT #14: Hunger

I don't care much for statistics.
I'm too cynical (73% of them are made up) and too desensitized, especially when they're about people dying.
I hate confronting statistics about people dying because I am completely numb and helpless, and then I get upset at myself for not caring and being complacent or offering a ho-hum, "Man, that sucks, doesn't it?"
Even worse is when I am confronted with a statistic of people dying with a superimposed picture of a young child because I know that face is more than a statistic, but I can't really feel anything. I don't feel a connection; I'm not compassionate enough, I don't desire to "suffer with" people I don't know and will never meet and more often than not, write off as people I can't help.

So I was unmoved again, when I came across this statistic:
Every 3 seconds, a child dies because he or she was hungry.

Just typing that, I feel nothing.

But I'm not satisfied moving on from that.
I'm not ok moving on with my day knowing that in the span of typing this post hundreds of people have died as I much on my nighttime snack.
I'm not ok with living as if I didn't read that.
I want it to unsettle me, to break my heart. Atleast I think I do.

I started thinking of what this would look like in my life, and with a little calculator action, these are the results:

• the population at my state university would be dead in a little over 8 hours
  
• people at my church would die in 50 minutes
• every single one of my facebook friends would die in 26 minutes
  
• my campus fellowship group would die in 3 minutes
• my twenty closest friends would die in a single minute
• my family would be dead in 12 seconds

Consider me unsettled.
Punch in your own numbers.
Be uncomfortable.