Distractions

I seem to have come up against a wall of some sort here in the golden state. I keep wanting to do things and then ending my days feeling like nothing is getting done. The American culture is quite the life to be thrust back into after spending the last year in the laid back life of East Africa. I’ve always said that I love southern California, as opposed to northern California or the East Coast, because of how much more chill life is here. I’ll tell you that it doesn’t even compare to the chillness of Kilimanjaro. Its all flying by and every flashing advertisement, new fancy gadget and have-to-be-there event is only accelerating this precious experience we call life.


I had dinner with my friend Rodrigo the other day and he asked me if I felt American culture has more distractions. I said no at the time, citing that in my experience in Moshi, I was pretty constantly distracted by my loneliness and what not. That makes sense in my personal experience, but I would say that American culture has many distractions that are ingrained into the very fabric of society.


When I was cleaning out my house in Moshi, I came across my planner from 2009. As I flipped through the pages, I saw so many coffee dates, church events, errands to be run and the like all penciled into my full schedule. One might say that a planner could keep your head from spinning, but more accurately its just the thing that keeps your head spinning at a decent speed without falling off the swivel. I bought a 2010 planner before moving to Moshi and didn’t use it once. As soon as I came back though, I knew that I should get one for 2011 and sure enough its filling up and I’m trying to get stuff done without becoming too distracted by all the things vying for my attention.

No Breathe Left

There's a void in this world where the darkness is deep
Where men run with demons and the evil things creep
Where men have chosen sin and Satan obliged
They've put on masks and its darkened their eyes
So they can't see light; they can't hear truth
Injustice rules their world, but the people stay mute
The people stay blind, the people stay deaf
They're trying to get air, but there's no breath left
There's silence, to go with despair
A world without love, a world without care
There's an existence of death and a problem of sin
But I've found the remedy, indeed, I've found Him
In my soul there's hope, in my heart there's love
And the peaceful Spirit that descends like a dove
I know of the beauty that pierces through the blind
And the truth that changes a man's dark mind
And I have heard the music that angels sweetly sing
Crying "Holy, holy, holy, hallelujah to the King!"
I have tasted His goodness and I tell you it is sweet
And I'm in love with His love, I cast my crown at His feet
And now I must go with the light that I've been given
By His blood, to His glory, I am graciously driven
To move into the valley of the shadow of death
Giving all glory to Christ Jesus till there's no breath left.

Brandon Michael

May 3rd, 2008

Stephen Manley Quote

"There isn't such a thing as a lukewarm Christian, they don't exist. That's like talking about dry water." 

-Stephen Manley

"Obsession"

Movement

I had a great opportunity to speak at The Garden on Sunday in Long Beach. It was a great time seeing my friends there and to find myself right back in the community that has been and is so special to me. I really didn’t know how to prepare for what I would say. Darren said that it would be an interview type format and we would be talking about worship and justice and how that plays itself out in my context at Treasures of Africa. As I sat there waiting to go up in the morning service, I was praying and just trying to focus on the Holy Spirit and what He wanted to speak through me. It was a delight to just be used in that way and it went quite well if I do say so myself. 


As I was speaking, something came out that I believe with my whole heart. I’ll have to paraphrase myself because I don’t want to go back and check the pod cast (which you can listen to on iTunes by going to The Garden Church Long Beach in the Religion/Spirituality - Christianity section). I said something to the effect that the Kingdom of God and the Church, as the people of the Kingdom, are beautiful. They are beautiful because it is just this huge movement of people that are fulfilling the unique callings that the Lord has put on their lives. There is nothing on this world like the Church.


The more I think about it, that’s exactly what the Church is supposed to be; a movement. I am one man and by the grace and providence of God, I’ve stepped into a calling. I do indeed find it to be exciting. Not because of all the cool stuff that I’m doing, but because of all the stuff that the Lord is doing just because I’m walking in what He told me to do. It is so encouraging when people affirm, encourage and support me. It makes me that much happier to actually be walking in this small role that the Lord has entrusted to me within His Kingdom. I’m just one man though and nothing would get done if I were acting in isolation.

Familiarly Different

It is Thursday afternoon and I am in Portfolio Coffeehouse in Long Beach. This is a trip. I’m fully expecting at any moment for someone that I vaguely know to walk into the shop, because I definitely feel like I’ve walked into the past.

Its been so weird to be in the states. Its weird because everything here is so… familiar. Any changes to southern California that I’ve come across seem like mere nuances in light of the fact that this coffee shop is still the same coffee shop, my old life group is still my life group, the 55 is still the 55 and Newport Pier is still Newport Pier. True, the place that I’m sitting used to have a computer table in this spot. That’s different. But we’re still at 4^th and Junipero and its tripping me out.

I’m not the same person that sat in this same coffee shop 14 months ago. I’m different. To be honest its hard to reconcile the two things. I’ve spent the last year in Tanzania. I’m not the children’s pastor anymore and this is no longer my home. I’ve spent the last year falling in love in with 26 children in ways that so far surpassed anything that I could have imagined. Those kids, my kids, my sons and my daughters changed me. As did the culture. As did my friends there. The Lord has changed me and I’m not the same person. How could I be?

Poetry Corner: Not In Vain

Image via Wikipedia

Can't go wrong with Emily Dickinson and I love this poem. Its beautifully simple and so profound. Drink deep, friends.

If I can stop one heart from breaking, 
I shall not live in vain:
If I can ease one life the aching
Or cool one pain,
Or help one fainting robin
Unto his nest again,
I shall not live in vain.

Observations in Transit

An airport is one of the most interesting places to me. For those of us that enjoy people watching its hard to beat the incredible array of people across ethnic, cultural and religious lines. I like to people watch and try to guess where people are from by their appearance or what their language/accent sounds like. Religion is too easy or too difficult, so nationality has to suffice. Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, Sikhs, Jews are easy to spot, but the Christians essentially look like they could be Atheist, Agnostic or any of those western philosophies if you only get one glance.

You can learn a lot and prayer as you go is so important. Prayer is important because the people around us need the Lord. Our thoughts can only scratch the surface of the depths of the people’s lives; the same goes for the depth of their pain, sin and brokenness. Could you just imagine taking the time to go into a busy airport lobby in Heathrow or LAX and just get the stories of the people there? It would blow our minds and they’re just people like you and me. Yet their lives are so unique and so precious, yet so under attack from Satan and their own flesh; present company included.

You do get a picture of our depravity across the board and sin is infused in different cultures in myriad ways. I have seen a man of a particular religious tradition with an entourage of what clearly are his four wives. You see how rude, mean and discourteous people are across ethnic and religious fronts. Little things become big things and any small thing can be taken as an attack on self.

Its not only “those people,” unfortunately I see it in my own culture as much, if not more, than any other. Most in America don’t realize the depth of our materialistic idolatry. That drum has been beat undoubtedly, but no matter how many times we in the church call out the materialism, little changes (do you know that this holiday season in the “tough economy,” Americans exceeded previous holiday seasons in regards to purchasing? Will we ever learn?)  So I think the drum can afford to be beat again. Why do we need Duty Free shops? We can make fun of their weird or unnecessary products all we want, but the fact is Duty Free shops exist because people buy from them. How pathetic is that? We are so addicted to entertainment and materialism that we can’t just enjoy traveling thousands of miles in hours, but we in fact must spend that time indulging ourselves in sin.

I was reminded of this again in the plane as I watched a couple movies. I try to beat jet lag by timing when I go to sleep and if I need to be awake, watching movies is a way to pass the time relatively quickly. The first movie that I watched would seem innocuous enough, but it in fact glorified the act of adultery and sex before marriage; two things that as a follower of Christ I am against. Yet I watched most of it. The other one was about some bank robbers and glorified violence, greed and lust; all of which are spoken against in the Bible. Yet I watched most of it. Its bad and inexcusable. Trying to watch something more light, I found myself watching one of my old favorites as a kid, Aladdin. Oh boy, am I about to go there and rob us all of our fond childhood memories? Yep. The movie makes light of poverty, even romanticizes it. Furthermore, some of the elements of the “magic” in that movie come from what most would call ancient Middle Eastern fables. But to look at it from a biblical worldview, we realize that these “fables” have their root in the occult. Of course, I’m a twenty-four year old follower of Christ who can’t help but analyze these things and a six year old wouldn’t pick all that up, but it doesn’t make those things any less true. And I certainly hope that it wouldn’t surprise anyone to hear that Disney, despite the bells and whistles, is not a godly organization, not at all.

I see two things in every person in the airport and on the plane. One, a precious person created in the image of God that I’m called to love. A person that the Father loves more than I can realize. Two, I see sin and bondage. And it is being enacted by and enacted against the beloved of God. I see the way that this sin infiltrates every crack in society from novelty stores to children’s movies to the way people dress to the way people live. An airport is a very easy place to see why the earth needs the Kingdom of God, the Kingdom of Heaven, to come.

Home

I feel like I’ve had a hard time with a seemingly simple question for a number of years now. It is a very common question as well and the answer is assumingly easy. You fill it out when you purchase something online or fill out a job application. It is often one of the first questions asked when you meet a new person and it in so many ways has an important part in the composition of one’s identity… Where’s your home?

When I was in college, I would tip-toe around this question. I transferred to Vanguard in August 2005 only a few months after my parents moved to Wisconsin. I would go visit them for Christmas or during the summer and friends from school would say, “Oh, you’re going home for the break.” I would quickly correct them and say “No, I’m going to my parents house, I’m not from there, I’m from California.” Your home is such an important part of who you are and I didn’t want to be associated with the dairy farmers of the mid-west when I had lived in beautiful and sunny California for essentially my whole life.

I seem to find myself in that same tension this week. When missionaries head to the states for their furlough, they often talk about “going home.” This conflicts me. I’m sitting in a house that I moved into a year ago and often refer to it as home. I often say to myself that TOA is my home, but its not my house. And now people are talking about me going home to the states. I don’t know if I want to be associated with that. This is a tension that I’m not unfamiliar with. As I write this, I remember writing about it just over a year ago as I sat in Portfolio Coffee in Long Beach. My heart was all over the place and that doesn’t bode well for having a single place worthy of the title “home.”

This Child

Do you see this child? He's standing right here
Screaming his lungs out, but you've covered your ears
Injustice rules her life and everyday she's beat down
Thorns are forced upon her head and they call it a crown
His life is consumed by disease, blood, tears,
Loneliness, violence, sadness, fear
But she deserves so much more, every human does
And yet she walks this earth and no one shows her love
Now is that okay with you? Can you just let that go?
Or does something scream inside of you that justice must flow?
'Cause this is real life people, its sad but true
He's screaming out loud, the next action's on you


Oh praise You Lord Jesus, thank you Lord that You hear
That as she walks along, I know that You're near
And his burden is so heavy and its something he can't bear
And yet You reach out to him and let him know that You care
Oh, let us be like You Lord - Holy, Righteous and Just
And speak truth into lives as we give You our trust


And now my precious little children, put your hope in the Lord
Trust that He loves you and blesses with every word
Daughter, know that you're beautiful. Son, know that you're strong.
Bad times may come, but they won't last long
You're such a strong daughter and a beautiful son
Let us find our peace in Jesus, the Holy and Just One.

Brandon Michael

March 28th, 2008

Let It Rain

Let it rain

Replenish the soil and keep the dust dirt

The fire's bane

Reduce destruction and pacify the earth

Let it rain

Let it rain

Enter the bloodstream and cleanse the flow

Every vein

The healing power runs through and all will know

Let it rain

Let it rain

Touch past hurts and then unveil

No more shame

Wash over sins, black hearts turn pale

Let it rain

Let it rain

Flood us with the truth and overflow the brim

Give my name

That I would jump into the goodness and know how to swim

Let it rain

Let it rain

May the heavens open up and the showers come down

Not in vain

But prosper in the thing for which it was sent to the ground

Let it rain

And it rained

On Calvary's hill where my life was saved

By His pain

And it continues to pour since the defeated grave

Let it rain

Brandon Michael

March 3rd, 2010