Obtuse

Yes, it's obtuse to work on a sermon/message for church about suffering and the different views of it from a Western perspective and a Global South perspective while you are eating dinner at Outback with a more-than-full meal in front of you.

And almost making yourself cry while you read and take notes and highlight and underscore when you are alone in a restaurant booth probably doesn't look all that bright.

But I am starting to embrace the not-so-bright part of me more and more. At least I want to. She is definitely the majority of my makeup, and I am tired of getting frustrated with her and kicking her around for hours or days. I like to think I am a real smarty pants, but when it comes down to it, I am blessed in some moments with a brain and the right words, but I just don't have any game to bring to the table without Him.

And I sure need Him for this Sunday. I need eight minutes of speaking (shared with three other folks with eight minutes each) where He says what He wants, not what I want, and where I am not aiming for people to be happy with me or proud of me, but where His will is accomplished.

And sometimes that requires me looking like an idiot. So I need to be ready and willing for that, too.

I dread speaking. I love being engaged with people and talking, but this speaking in front of groups makes me more and more nervous the older I get. I grew into this dislike; when I was a kid, I couldn't get myself in front of a group of people fast enough.

Now, I know what words can do, good and bad, and I know what my ego can do, which is always bad. Getting myself out of the way for Him to talk is quite the exhausting emptying process leading up to speaking engagements. Me no likey.

But I can tell He wants me to do it, so I show up. And that's one of the themes for 2010: just show up. He doesn't need me to be smart, to be perfect, to be the Swiss Army Knife of all answers and solutions at the ready. He apparently just needs me to show up empty of myself and wait for Him to start moving.

Wow. Just the opposite of my character. Shocker.

So I go to bed with a full belly tonight and I will wake up with Haiti on my mind and more places like it in my heart. Because I live where I read about suffering in restaurants, and I go to places where I visit want and come home to plenty, and I was born into a culture that thinks suffering should never be part of the life equation and thinks we are rich enough and smart enough to eradicate it.

Obtuse.