Pierre

Sometimes, opportunities present themselves and you say to yourself, "This has to be a God thing." And most of the time, you are absolutely correct in that assumption.

Today was one of those times.

After church, I was getting ready to leave. And as I'm walking towards the door, I heard this woman, Kathryn, yell towards me.

"Yo, brother, you in a hurry?" she asks.

"Not really," I tell her.

"Sit here. Watch him and make sure he doesn't drink anymore coffee," she says pointing to a man I know as Pierre. "I have to make a phone call."

So I sit down and truth be told, I'm very nervous and uncomfortable. Pierre is someone I know from church. He's quiet and there is a sense that he might not be there completely, if you know what I mean. I watch him with his eyes closed during the service, and I wonder what he's thinking. I have also been killing myself for not talking to him in the previous weeks. There has always been that urge, but I just don't know how to approach he and Kathryn, who are always together.

Kathryn is loud and tends to talk in a voice that's WAY above a whisper and Pierre is always her silent accomplice, sitting where she sits, standing where she stands. And I've watched them and wondered about who they are, but truth be told, I never did anything about it.

And then this "God thing" happened.

But it wasn't easy. I'm now sitting with Pierre, waiting nervously for Kathryn to return because I don't know what to say. So I'm shuffling in my chair, watching the room from which Kathryn is using the phone. My face is getting red and I'm not sure what to do. I want to bail and later, if confronted by Kathryn for leaving my post, make up some excuse about not understanding why she wanted me to sit with Pierre in the first place. I'm a loser like that sometimes. I'm working on it.

So as I sit there, uncomfortable, I hear this tiny voice coming from somewhere. And I turn, and it's Pierre, this beautiful, intricate man. And he's leaning towards me, and in a voice hovering somewhere between a whisper and a hush, he says to me, "She should have been a cop."

And with that, the ice is broken!!!! I looked at him for a second, and then immediately as if God himself was orchestrating everything (which of course, He was) Pierre and I embark on this incredibly intimate, 10-minute conversation. He tells me that Kathryn had me watch him because he's diabetic and needs to watch his sugar. He tells me about their marriage (7 years), about their walks to church (not too far) and about why his beautiful wife should have been a police officer, since she's so good at keeping him under control.

In those ten minutes, Jesus broke down all these walls, plastered with fear and uncertainty, that I had built up about this man; this quiet man who is not so slow at all, just misunderstood. In those ten minutes, I learned so much about this human being and I wanted to know more.

When Kathryn came back and it was time for me to go, I simply put my hand on Pierre's shoulder and leaned close to his ear.

"I'll see you soon Pierre. It was great to talk to you. Take care of yourself." I told him.

"You too." he replied simply.


God Things. They tend to happen when you least expect them to.

how much difference can you make?...one man in the middle of all this mess...

I was going to write about the election. But in the middle of typing out that post, I got a phone call from my Dad and it changed the entire direction of this entry.

He was calling me from a phone, outside a slum city, somewhere in India. He is there with a group of people for a missions trip. A group of doctors, laborers, journalists, and others who have given of their time, money and safety to travel to the second most populous country in the entire world to make a difference. I got a call from my Dad, a hero.

So I ask myself....how much difference can we really make? Can we, on our own or with the help of a few others, change the world? The pessimist in me says it's only a dream; the kind of sappy, movie-of-the-week sap that doesn't pass intellectual muster. But the optimist in me says, Yes, odds can be defied, lives can be changed, people can be saved, this world can be saved.

I'd like to think that in these trying global times, a spirit of compassion would be seeping from our collective ears. But as the days pass, you can't help but choke on the selfishness that abounds. I'm as guilty as the next person, fawning over the newest CDs or my guitar or any other habit that does nothing to enrich the lives of others. We have this unbelievable and insatiable desire to please ourselves when there are so many around us who hurt.

And this isn't just an international thing. I'm proud of those people in India, but that doesn't have to exlude the hurting who are in our own lives. There's a person you know right now who is hurting; that person may be you, it may be your neighbor. I get up in the morning, and eventually the thought crosses my mind that there are a lot of people in this world who have a hurt that I can't comprehend.

All I can do is listen and be there for them and do my small part to be a shoulder for them. I guess the thought also crosses my mind that I can't be anyone's savior; it's not my job. But I can be a friend, I can be a listener. I can be someone, who in the midst of all the negativity, has the guts to say to someone, "No, I'm not going to judge you or think badly about you. I'm just going to be here for you."

It's doesn't take Superman to save the world....he doesn't exist. It's our job. What will you do to help someone? What will you do when something as simple as an encouragment from your mouth could save someone's life? I hope you, like me, will gather strength for this journey....that together we'll be there for someone who needs us....

That is my hope.

The Palestinian is Dead

Yasser Arafat, hero to some, enemy to others, is dead today.

How does that affect me directly? Well, that remains to be seen. I just thought it was a clever title for the post, so I needed to explain what I meant by the Palestinian is dead.

I had meant to start this blog up last week and really go at it full force. But that didn't quite work out the way I wanted it to.

So with this post, I just want to establish the ground rules by which I will run my blog. You can read them and then make sure I stick to them. And if I deviate from these rules in any fashion, you will simply have to be ok with that and agree that it is, afterall, my blog and not yours.

Here goes.

Rule #1 - Be real. I don't want to be fake. Phoniness is a quality that I don't care for and therefore I will not subject any readers to it. What I write in this blog, unlike other blogs I may have had in the past, will come directly from the heart, making little concession of feelings. I will changes names/dates when necessary, but because my goal is to not hurt anyone while being honest, there will a certain amount of respect given to certain situations. This is not a slander page; in fact, many of the posts will be about me and me alone and the thoughts I'm having at any given time.

Rule #2 - This is an interactive piece of soul-searching. While the posts will be directly related to things that I find interesting, I hope to establish a network of readers who will be willing to offer quality feedback. While that implies that I think someone will care about this blog, I'm willing to be conceited in that regard for the time being. Your thoughts, whether you know me or not (but especially if you know me) are important and will be given a certain amount of weight.

Rule #3 - Exploration is the name of the game. Some of the posts I will enter in this very spot may reek of self-exploration and that is ok with me. In the following posts and pages, I hope to learn something about myself by writing about those things which I find important. This is a journey, and as on any journey, the destination is not as important as the ride. So bear with me for a while.

Rule #4 - I hereby claim the right to change any of the aforementioned rules.

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As you can see, the rules have been established. The only thing left to do is begin writing. I hope that for those of you who peruse this blog, you will buckle up and take this journey with me. I chose the title Battle Scars because that says something about the way life affects us.

We experience these unbelievable life events, whether good or bad, and every single one of them leaves a mark, a battle scar if you will, by which we remember the most important things in life...love, discovery, truth and the search for all three of those things.

Thank you for reading what has become, in essence, a second introductory post.

Let the games begin!

Just the Beginning

Hi. This is just the first of what I hope will be many posts.