mexican in two weeks or so

I have been absent. This would be the point when I would usually apologize for my lack of a recent update. I will not, however, be making that apology for doing so would make this blog feel more like confession and I, despite my fondness of some of the older Catholic mystic literature, am not a Catholic.

Who knows? Maybe a little confession would be a good thing. A confession could fulfill the duel role of explaining my silence and providing a informative, cathartic rant for you good people to peruse. Where have I been?

I've retreated to my head for a spell. It isn't really all that interesting but it is confusing enough to take up a good bit of my time. Those of you who know me well, know that there are times when I'll just disappear for a while. I'll be quiet. I'll be terrible at returning emails. And it appears that I'll also be a negligent blogger.

In two weeks, I'll step off of a plane and into the Nashville airport. My good friend and outstanding person, Judson Abernathy, is getting married and I was asked to be in the wedding before Moldova was on the radar. I'll be home for a few weeks, eating mexican food and drinking absurd amounts of coffee.

I suppose this is a sort of landmark, a time where I'll see my home and myself in a different light. It has started me down a contemplative road. There are hundreds of questions to ask, and for that matter, to answer. I'll get some of those answers and for some of the others I'll be content to wait. These things have made me quiet, my fingers as well.

We've taken a few days off of work. They have been doing work at the orphanage on the side walks and trees. Raia, the administrator we deal with, didn't want us working with all the things going on.

About the trees, they are cutting them down. It is awful. And since I'm in this solitude, quiet state thing, it seems like it should be profound.

When I asked what was going on, I was told they were being cut down because of the fluff. Evidently the fluff is really bad and makes people sick. This is the word they used: fluff. Fluff is making people sick. Amen.

I think about the title of this blog in light of this. And although it seems a little trite or cliche to work it into a post, I cannot resist. "I see people, they look like trees walking around." and we are choking on our fluff. Why do we spend so much time trying to make our lives seem fuller with things that only make them emptier?

Richard Foster, in Celebration of Discipline (a book I strongly suggest absorbing), says in the first part of the book that this world needs deep people. We, those in Christ, are united with the deepest entity that has ever been. It is by abiding in Him that we will find depth and this world will find what it needs. We have poluted it with fluff, with self help books, with catchy bumber stickers, with judgement (ours that is), and with anything but love. We are supposed to be the aroma of Christ in this world. When I say we, I mean I. I am supposed to be those things. I need God to cut off my branches, to get rid of the fluff. I'm choking on it. It is making me sick. And it is making the world sick.

The thing I have to offer this world is Christ. He is, without comparison or rival, the greatest thing I have found while in this world. I pray that we will know the depth of God and let it transform our lives into the sweet fragrance of Christ.