July 30^th

It is 5:59 AM on my last day in West Oakland and boy does time seemed to have reached some odd type of paradox out here. While everything seems to have moved far too fast in some ways it has also seemed to drag on like a sloth on Novocain in others. It’s funny, I’m going to be heading out of my site to East Oakland in less than six hours and this is the time I have the most clarity into what I could’ve done better throughout the trip. I also see things I’ve done and learned well far clearer too. For convenience’s sake I will structure it like one of our Friday morning check-ins.

GRIEVANCES

First off, I definitely used sleep as a crutch. There were times where everybody would stay up and enjoy some nice fellowship as I would lumber back to my room and plop down for a hearty eight and a half hour night of rest. Some days that was a beautiful thing, many others it was just an excuse for me to be idle while thinking about MMA and my girlfriend. Sidenote: Fedor Emelianenko fights Dan Henderson tonight and I have NO IDEA who is going in as the favorite or what else is on the card. Also, HI LARISSA!

Secondly, I should have prayed and read my Bible more. A lot more. Something about the structure of the mission trip made me feel like it was okay to rely on their programs to satiate my need for God’s Word. That was silly of me. Praying was difficult because once I was alone in my room I mostly slept or daydreamed about what I was missing on the trip. Not that there isn’t a time or place for that but I didn’t immerse myself in prayer or scripture like I’d have wanted too before I left. I think it’s a stark reminder of just how much attentiveness I have to put into my relationship with Christ back home. I need to force myself to pray and read scripture like I did in Davis. Granted, I would take prolonged trips to the Arboretum by myself and I did have my computer which I journal much better on when I was in Davis. Despite that, I have a desire to learn about and be more like Jesus but I need to be more creative in how I bring that to pass. I could’ve spent quiet times in the back yard, restarted my read through of Isaiah, writing Larissa a letter instead of daydreaming, and much more.

Thirdly, I should have journaled more. I know Catrina and Rachelle will see this and think about maybe saying I told you so but then debrief on the best ways for me to accommodate journaling in my daily walk back home. If that’s not what they do I’d be surprised since every time I mentioned journaling on this trip that came up. To be honest, something about journaling makes me feel like a pussy. I get the image of myself scribbling down foolish little notes about emotions and coming of age experiences like I was trying out for the lead on Clarissa Explains It All. It doesn’t help that I almost always hate reading what I write during important times in my life. All my emotion goes into what I write so it always seems so squishy and vulnerable, which we should be if we look at ourselves through God’s eyes…that doesn’t change that it makes me feel like a punk all the same. The worst part is when people read what I’ve written and start getting emotional because of my written emotion. No I don’t want a long, tender embrace, a strong hug is preferable. I don’t do the whole tear filled confessional thing but an insightful discussion would be just lovely. Basically, just talk about emotions with me like we were talking about how I’m doing in school or the Lakers (preferably the Lakers) and allow me some dignity in the process.

Also, please don’t ask me the typical, “What were you thinking when you wrote ____” question. I was thinking what I was writing…my brain doesn’t have that complex of a filter. There might be something small I thought of while typing that I didn’t share but if that is the case it is reserved for Jimmy and or Larissa to hear exclusively. At this point I’m just venting but it seems like this stuff always happens when people find my journal entries. There are times where I will share a journal entry that displays such an amount of emotion where such reactions I’ve just shunned might be appropriate, but they are few and far between. To be honest, I can only think of one and I was so proud of it I didn’t care who read it. This must be a huge contrast compared to my last blogs and I apologize, but my emotional gas tank gets about three miles to the gallon and I feel that coming home and sharing so much has huge potential to exhaust that tank. However, I might have a remedy to that that would allow you all to be as mushy and emotional as you want! A comprehensive, weekly Sabbath. Sounds like time for the affirmations list!

AFFIRMATIONS

This isn’t really much of an affirmations list, it is basically just affirming what I have learned throughout this last week or so. However, it is still important none the less!

One way this tripped has affirmed me is through my high regard for rest. Though that often translates into laziness, I most certainly hold rest in high regard. My first year at Davis and in InterVarsity however had me wavering on how I felt about my rest. It seemed as if the more you did or were doing, the better you were. The more I did stuff for IV, the better my relationship with God would be. The more classes I packed into my quarter, the better my academic success would be. The more I worked, the more I’d benefit, was generally what everybody was passing on to me. However, it took away my ability to have a breather.

When I still lived at home, worked at Lowe’s and was finishing my last semester before Davis I began taking up the practice of the day of rest. For one day I wouldn’t work, my schoolwork would be done, I wouldn’t hang out with friends outside of maybe watching TV with Larissa and I would just be still and enjoy the simplicity of it all. In Davis I began to think as if that was a sure fire way to bring my school and spiritual life to a screeching halt. My staff talked about how leadership would involve most of my time this coming year and that partnering it with school would be an immense burden. They were proved right by the sheer amount of overactivity I saw all my seemingly wearied study leaders partaking in. My friends encouraged heavier workloads be it in leadership, school or work, and for good reason. A lot of work does reap a lot of benefits. It may be wearisome but you do see results. However, nobody ever talked with me about the Sabbath.

One of our speakers put it this way, “We put ethics over ontology. What we do over who we are.” We set the ethics of our faith on a level out of reach from our identities as God’s creations, creatures with limitations. Working hard is wonderful, I believe in it and its fruitfulness. Resting hard is also wonderful because just like every gas tank reaches E, so will we if we don’t rest. It is true, the sabbath was created for man not man for the sabbath. However, I’ve seen that mindset abused as an excuse not to rest. The fact is, God wants us to rest. He made our bodies to tell us when we should rest! Aches, pains, stress injuries, headaches, all that good stuff, is often our body, the temple of the Holy Spirit, telling us to relax. Even doing things in Jesus’ name isn’t an excuse to forgo rest. God gave all people of God the right to sabbath because without rest we are like planes flying towards the ground; sure, it may be a smooth flight but it’s going to suck when you hit the ground.

I’ve learned that being physically rested allows me to commune better with God. It allows me to think clearer and pray harder. My life is more focused and better prepared for whatever coming hardships may be in store. The fact is, better rest makes a better Matt. A better Matt has a better walk with God. A better walk with God provides an example for others to find God. Looking at it that way rest is pretty important. Which brings me to my next point, my majors. I’m no longer going to try and force my hand on this. I’m going to double major in a major I like, but I’m not going to kill myself. I believe that if I work hard and rest just as hard, God will make my work fruitful whether I single, double or triple major. If I make time to rest and soak in the goodness of all God has put around me then I believe he will bless me for it. So for all you workaholics our there, take a break. If you’re reading this you probably go to church and in that case, what better day to have a sabbath than Sunday? Church already takes up most of the day so you might as well take up the rest enjoying the fullness and joy that a life in Christ brings!

Besides rest, this trip has reignited my love for food. Not eating food mind you but food justice. If you’re reading this then I’m sure you know that I was vegan for quite some time; 16 months in fact, which for a Samoan is equivalent to a lifetime or some 87 years. I’ve had quite the struggle with food this past year. First it was deciding whether or not to stay a vegan during the fall and winter, then it was figuring out why I wasn’t vegan anymore in the spring which transferred directly into cooking for BAyUP this summer! I tried to be a vegan like Adam, an extravagant and resourceful diner like my dad, an appreciatively insightful eater like Jimmy and even an “I don’t give a damn as long as it’s food” eater like some of my friends in college. What I found was that I fit somewhere in between.

I will not be a vegan when I return home, but what I will do is eat a lot of vegan food. Why? Read Genesis, God made us to eat plants originally. That’s why we have an appendix. Read Daniel, the vegan diet is proven as being a great one too! Try it out for 10 days and see if you look more physically fit than the rest of the King’s men or however that’d work nowadays. I will continue to use the resourcefulness my dad taught me alongside the appreciation and thought process Jim puts into his food. What I will not do is not give a damn.

For each hamburger you eat at a fast food joint 1000 cows die, E Coli strains are strengthened, pollution is multiplied and unjust subsidies are passed into the hands of manipulative corporations. God did not intend animals to be lined up, tortured and intoxicated in giant factories. He made cattle to move and graze thus fertilizing the land. He made birds to follow those livestock and spread that fertilizer with their perfectly shaped beaks and claws. He made worms to enrich the soil and grow more grass to feed the cattle, to feed the chicken, to fertilize the ground that the worms are in…Get the picture?

God gave us dominion over animals and a duty to steward the Earth. Some how we have allowed humanity to retranslate dominion as dictatorship and steward as destroy. God made everything intentionally and beautifully. If I go home to Davis and shop at farmers’ markets, buy organic, humanely raised meats, grow my own garden, hunt my own game, and so on, I’m living as God intended. God made us in Genesis to eat vegetables, he later gave the people of Israel instructions on what and how to eat meat, later on Jesus multiplied loaves and fish for those who gathered before him, a little further up the road God gave us the option to “Kill and eat.” Notice how personal God intended food to be. Even the verse people have brought up to me to justify their endorsement of unsustainable and cruel food practices, Acts 10:13, says KILL AND EAT! The same book that talks about none having too many and none too little. I put that together as meaning, if you want to eat it, kill it and don’t take too much of it. For this reason, I’ll probably take up hunting in the coming years. Killing an animal isn’t pleasant but that doesn’t mean I should entrust a factory in Iowa to kill 1000 cows and divvy their scrap meat into a grinder then in between my bun. Yes, the meat we get in hamburgers contains the ground meat of multiple hundreds of cows. If that isn’t excess I don’t know what is, but what I do know is that even if I eat a hamburger from Carl’s Jr. tomorrow, if I begin to eat more organic, sustainable food I can at least help turn the food system back to how God intended it to run. For any of you who find this far fetched just look up Joel Salatin.

Our bodies are the temple of the Holy Spirit so we should guard very carefully what we put inside of it. This is a reminder to myself as well. I don’t put alcohol into this temple because it is dangerous, drugs because they are dangerous, too much medication because it is dangerous. However, I am somehow able to justify inundating it with genetically modified crops (God did not make the tomato a fish for a reason…it’s a vegetable), stuffing it with cows who have never seen grass, eating eggs from chickens who have had their beaks lopped off and vegetables that have had to travel from half way across the world just so I can eat them out of God’s perfectly seasons? To me, that makes me a glutton. I’m sinning the same as the drunkard, the sexually immoral, the liar, and so on. I don’t feel comfortable being a Christian who calls out the sins of my community when the very way I’m eating is a sin. It is the log in my eye.

The food I buy from huge companies and grocery markets comes from businesses that demean God’s creation. It’s an inconvenient thing to think about, it might even seem ridiculous or countercultural. Then again, Jesus’ teachings were all those things weren’t they? I think a lot of Christians stand against topics like this or don’t hear them out because they are too radical. They don’t necessarily align with the way the church thinks at the time being. This stands as a reminder to myself and to anyone reading this, the church was meant to be radical. The things God calls us to do aren’t the things the world calls us to do. We live in a fallen world so we will admittedly have to live with many of these flaws, especially in the realm of food. However, that doesn’t mean we have to be okay with it. That doesn’t mean we cannot help support movements that would change the structure of the systems like the food system. I will eat fast food at some point from here on out, but I will also drastically change my eating habits to be more just and holy. If that means eating less, so be it. If that means not eating meat or buying expensive meat to ensure that the animal lived life as God created it to, so be it. This ties back in to what I said about finances, doing this isn’t easy or cheap but as a member of the highest percentile of wealth in the world I know can do it and so can you. If it helps any, we say what would Jesus do a lot. Well, what would Jesus eat? Granted he was a kosher Jew, but work with me here. There are ethics to the treatment of animals, they are God’s creatures after all, think about that the next time you want a McDouble. I know I will.

Kids’ Club

So after all that, let me give you a run down of our last week in VBS. We talked about forgiveness and it went really well. We had some great review games for the older kids in my groups. I’m going to miss these kids dearly. I think I’ll miss Man Man and Ben the most though. I know you’re not supposed to have favorites…but they’re totally my favorites! There’s so much more to talk about but we’ll be together soon and I”ll have pictures then.

I look forward to seeing you all soon, this trip has been a wonderful one indeed but it can never replace those back home waiting for me. May God bless our reunion as he has blessed this trip. I think I might continue using this whole tumblr thing to blog weekly in the future, it’s quite an asset for my faith. Nothing like an audience to keep you accountable and introspective.

Peace and love be with you always,

Matt