Two experiences in two days:

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I pulled my computer out of my backpack and onto the small table in front of the large picture windows overlooking the main mall area of the campus. I sat reading my hospital handbook and looking over some emails when a tall guy passed behind me and said hello to another student who was sitting and reading about ten feet from me. They shot the breeze for a few minutes when the new arrival asked the other guy if he went to church.

"Nah. Not really. I'm not into that.... I don't think someone should need to go to church. I'm from LA and Las Vegas where its not super-Christian like here. I'm only here for tennis. I think it's important to be moral, and I live by the Ten Commandments."

In all of my experience with all stripes of people at state schools and on the mission field, I had never actually heard someone give the stereotypical answer that many Christians say "unbelievers" give. But here it was.

But there's more. With an obvious set of good intentions, the "evangelizer" then embarked into a twenty minute long discourse that included statements about the provability of the Bible, his journey to becoming a Christian, and several attempts to show how there are statements made in popular colloquial speech today that are actually demonstrated in the Bible. (?)

What was interesting to me is that after his initial statements, our tennis-playing friend never got a word in edgewise, except for some glances at his watch and a "I need to be at class in five minutes."

As I sat eavesdropping, I silently prayed for both men. I then imagined another scene - one of a girl inviting another into her dorm room after they both had hung paper on a bulletin board. The invited girl began sharing her life with her new friend, who took in every word and wrapped it in the love and interest of Jesus Christ. That invited girl, years later, is now leading her fifth six week mission across the world to share the same love she discovered that day.

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I knocked on the hospital room door and poked my head around. Her name was Deborah, and I introduced myself as a student with the hospital chaplaincy. She was glad to see me and immediately began telling me about herself and the journey of life that had led her to Abilene and eventually to this hospital bed in the skilled nursing unit. The Daily Scriptures book and the Bible next to her bed made it obvious that her faith was strong and fed. The Watchtower magazines prominently displayed all over the room also indicated her particular brand of belief. Her life was a sad series of unfortunate events, though, both medically and relationally. However, her attitude and spirit was strong and I made sure she knew how inspiring that was. We spent half an hour sharing scriptures, imagining the eventual greatness we will have with God, relating to society and the obstacles of life, and expounding on some of the great teachings of Jesus. It was a wonderful visit. It was time for me to go, and I asked if she would like me to pray for her.

Her response: "I'm sorry. We're not the same faith."

The other day I found some of my lost artifacts from Fiji and got a little nostalgic over my experiences there - both with the Fijians and the Alabamians. If you're new around here, check out the Fiji Mission Video. Even that video brings back memories of sitting up late at night with Lee, sifting through hours and hours of video at my office at University Church, getting just the right effects and cut on each shot. Kristy crying her eyes out at its completion made every minute worth it. I'll admit, it still chokes me up too. Perhaps I should wear my sulu to church here someday and weird some people out. It's really a nice sulu too - custom made by a Fijian tailor.

Stephanie is preparing to embark on her fifth LST project, which, I'll admit, makes me more than a little jealous for another overseas adventure. But I realize that I'm in somewhat of a lockdown, waiting mode of life right now while I plow through school. Undoubtedly my romps around the world have only just begun, especially if I end up in leadership of a campus ministry that will accept a mission mindset. I'm really thankful that my initial experiences with Sooners for Christ instilled a mindset of using every opportunity for mission - especially Spring Breaks and summers. And I know that doesn't even touch the level of some others, specifially Aggies for Christ. Nothing pushes you out of your mental box better than having to deal with the challenges of existing in the middle of something completely foreign - and NOT as a tourist surrounded by an American bubble, but as someone who is getting your hands on the gritty realities of the life and people of a place that is completely unfamiliar to you. While we were in Fiji we spend our last few days at a swanky resort on the beach, where I realized that there were tons of people who flew across the world to this place and never actually experienced Fiji or Fijians. That reaffirmed my theory that travel does not equal cultural immersion. Try walking down the dirt path to the wooden shack at the bottom of the hill and drinking some homemade kava out of a nasty tub while shooting the breeze with the local cop and his buddies. THAT will teach you a thing or two about culture! Thanks to Johnny for pushing me to do that. Or following the twelve year-old Indo-Fijian into a cab that weaves you across town and then on foot through a smelly, loud marketplace section into the little hole in the wall Indian Curry diner so that you can get a taste of his heritage. The gastro-intestinal ravages you feel are almost worth it to see the excitement on his face as he knows he is teaching you about something you have never experienced before.

And my meager experiences barely touch the surface of the depth of the experiences of a lot of people I know. But what I like to see is people take the step out of their comfort and security and into the unknowns of things like this. This is one reason campus ministry is such a huge thing to me, because it sets up the opportunities for students to do these types of things at a time in life that really alters and grows their perceptions of the world and themselves. And not only that, they do it with a purpose - carrying the light of God in the midst of another place. It's like an amazing trade - the people who experience you are better for it, and you are better because of them. Everybody wins. Many times its not completely safe. Getting outside the security of our life routines here never is. Sometimes it takes some financial sacrificing and work to make it happen. Jesus didn't check to make sure the checking accounts of the seventy-two were sufficiently padded before he sent them. In fact, he told them to leave the stuff that they did have, and proceed with nothing but the clothes on their backs. I don't think we have a clue about what that kind of faith is like.

The moral of this tale is this: no matter what age you are, but especially if you are a college student, do something that is going to take you into a world that you know nothing about. Do something that will make you the foreigner. I suggest putting your faith to work and learning how you can help others with it. This will necessarily get you involved with the real life and people of a place, not just their tourist destinations. You just might be surprised how God carries you through it and you are transformed as a result.

Some of the best Christian music today can be found here. David Greer's music sets a standard for passion, depth, and quality in what is becoming a sea of Christian music.

He has other music here as well.

Recommended: "Return of the Son" and "You Lead Me On".

His debut album, This Story, will be appearing in February. I'll keep updates here. For those of you who know him, feel free to leave comments for those who haven't yet had the opportunity to experience David.

See Monday, January 3rd, 2005, 10:28 PM.

I'm sad about the total lack of any new pictures here in quite a few months. Unfortunately, my camera is borken (the same kind as Ruth's). I have a few geographically distant friends who maintain very extensive photo sites of their lives and I'm constantly amazed at how well those give me an insight into their continuing world. Tip: when getting out of the canoe, make sure you KNOW how deep the water is so that you are not sinking down to your waist with your precious little Nikon tucked in your pants leg cargo pocket. Doh! Perhaps down the road when I am not a desperately poor graduate student I will actually own another camera. I was sitting by myself out on the dock at Kirby lake the other day and kept reaching for my pocket to get a shot of the sun setting over the water. Alas, I just had to enjoy it like a regular person.

My lack of a camera has reminded me of a series of stories I said I was going to write many months ago. I got one installment in, but let it drop after that. Perhaps I will pack that back up here soon.

On a sad note, I learned that Allen French will be leaving the Memorial Drive Church in Tulsa soon to head to Kansas. Allen was my first contact with that family of believers after I happened upon a website that invited me to "Start Life Over," sitting alone at my house after having packed my stuff across the country after closing the door on a dream world in a dramatic way. He was kind and gracious, even if his understanding of who I was got skewed at first. For some reason he was telling the guys that a new girl from Harding would be showing up. Ha! I guess I'll perpetually be the guy with a girl's name. Allen was one of the people who helped resuscitate my faith at that time of my life by simply being a spiritual leader with a genuine heart and a real love for God. There are no words to describe how important that was. His influence helped set me back on my feet and continue me on God's path. One of his special gifts was a keen insight into scripture. We would sit around on Sunday nights, slowly plowing through the book of Mark, and his guidance in this always gave me something I had never thought of or learned before. Amazing. I'll miss his giant hugs and incredibly loud laugh on my return trips to Tulsa.

Tomorrow morning at 8:00am marks round two of graduate school. We'll start with an appetizer of Biblical Exegesis for a week, then proceed to the main course of Advanced Introduction to New Testament, Leading Transformation in Churches, Healthcare Ministry, and Supervised Practice of Ministry II. This will be followed by a delicious desert of writings for Exegesis, plus a healthy dose of research for NT. Interspersed will be tasty nuggets of Hospital Chaplaincy. Of course, there will be the usual diet of LIFE Group ministry leading, my own small group, campus ministry events, hanging out, bike riding, mentoring group, and who knows what else.

I am particularly anticipating Healthcare Ministry, because this is something that will definitely force me out of my box a little more because I will be perfoming chaplain duties at Hendrick Medical Center for two hours every week. I'm looking forward to adding more tools and experience on relating with random people. Being the introvert that I am, I'm very close to the people I'm close to, but don't generally make a habit of jumping right into the lives of people on first contact. This will be especially challenging because these will be people suffering in many ways that I do not understand. Another selfish benefit to me is that this counts towards the required internship for the graduate program, and I'm glad I won't be under the thumb of the grad school during any of my summers.

Speaking of being under the thumb of the grad school, I'm convincing myself more and more all the time to switch to the MACM degree. I'm going to give myself one more semester under the M.Div, but I'm already preparing a written list in my head of the reasons I should change. Some of them are practical-based, such as money, but many are the result of a continuing examination of what my thoughts and directions really are concerning something like grad school and my chosen direction of campus ministry. But this whole process is under constant prayer, so anything could happen at anytime. God knows the way, I'm just constantly working on the faith to take whatever the right next step is.

Now for the vague confessions. There are some things I am simply confused about right now. Very specific things. Hopefully these things will find some clarity over the next several days and some kind of course will be charted based on whatever comes of them. I'll say this though - God has gotten very good at writing interesting stories with our lives. Take my word - he can change your life in a day. If you don't think you have any interesting stories, then you need to either reexamine your life, or pray and wait. It will come. God is really good at irony. One tip - don't always disregard fortune cookies - they may be a message from God in disguise.

I'm thinking about a pickle diet. I used to buy a lot of these (usually not for myself), but didn't notice until I was in Wal-Mart tonight that an entire dill pickle has only 5 calories. Huzzah!

Why, Cary, you're looking so fit and trim! What's your secret? **huge wink, wipes juice off chin**

Life's timing is strange sometimes. 1) I move to Texas. 2) I move to Texas the year UT gets insanely good in football and OU takes a dive. 3) I move to Texas the year UT gets good, OU gets bad, and I live with a rabid Texas fan. 4) I move to Texas, UT is good, OU is bad, I live with a Texas fan, and they win the national championship. 5) Man, give a guy a break!

I'm convinced now that there is quite a difference between blogging and journaling. Today I was looking through my bookshelves and came upon an old journal I kept for a little while in late 2002. I marveled at some of my entries, and was surprised by my own frankness in some of them. Some were no different than what I would post here, but I am glad to have a short record of writings from this time, some of which I would never share with the world for anything. When I began my first blog way back in the day, many of my entries were of this nature. It's still out there if you can find it. :-) Somebody from Alabama did.

But this practice has evolved for me, especially when I realized that people were actually coming here and reading this. Now I write not only for me, but with some kind of audience in mind. It's a wonderful thing that I will continue to do and enjoy, but I think that we need to be honest with the fact that blogging does not equal journaling. It is not a replacement - it's a similar exercise, to be sure, but not the same. I've been slowly working through the journals of Jim Elliot, and often wonder what they would have been like had he written them as a blog. Would they be so intensely personal? Would his spiritual thrashing about been so evident? It is true that Jim seemed to know that someone might see his someday, so we have to know that even his own writings to himself were pre-edited to a degree. So, all that is to say that perhaps journaling is something I should pick back up at some point. It certainly would give additional perspectives on myself years down the line, perspectives I probably wouldn't have even with a thourough blog.

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Also, to all men: read through Letters to Philip: On How to Treat a Woman. I found this old book at a garage sale and, while being a little old fashioned in places, the wisdom is SOLID and POWERFUL. Men need the kind of insight into the female life that this book provides.