Musings from Graceland

WHAT WE TRULY NEED

Erin Wilson traveled with us to Swaziland back in 2008 and, like us, she returned unwilling to go back to life as she had lived it pre-Africa. She's been making changes, some of them small, some of them radical. But all with the perspective of living the life that God truly created her for. Here's what she had to say at her blog concerning this journey:

Somewhere along the line, we learned what it takes to make a successful life. We learn that we need to marry and have children. We need a well-paying, secure job. Preferably with benefits and a pension. We need a beautiful house. A green lawn. Two cars in the driveway. We need beautiful things. Particularly if we're Christians. We need to have lots of beautiful things to show the world that God is good, and that He loves us. We need to make more to give more. Even in our churches, we need to have beautiful buildings, a slate full of programs, and professional staff to show the world that God is good and that He loves us. In fact, our lives fill up with the busyness it takes to achieve this.

Somewhere along the line we were convinced that a successful life looked one way.

I saw the film King Corn a few weeks ago. One part of the film has stayed close. The film makers describe standing in the middle of corn fields in Iowa. Inedible field corn, grown for manufacturing, grew as far as the eye could see in every direction. The film makers were taken with the irony: they stood in the very heart of farmer's fields and could not find anything to eat, nothing to nourish humanity.

Many of our lives look like this.
Our lives are full.
Maximized for high production and high yield.
But there is nothing to nourish our humanity.
Or we fit that which might nourish into tiny slivers of life we neglected to program.

Most of us weren't created to tend massive swaths of "field corn".
And we don't have to.
We have so many choices and we don't even realize it.

A little while back I woke up to the fact that I have choice.

To read more of Erin's writings, visit her blog at http://biscotti_brain.blogspot.com/ .