The Art of Elimination

People have always stated that I am one of those people who's personality is, how do they put it?, "out of the box". I've always thought this as a curious insight, seeing as I know myself and I don't feel as if I'm all that weird, right?

I've always chalked it up to that fact that I am expressive and that as a personal mantra I feel as though "If God is watching the least we can be is entertaining"... This was of course encouraged and supported with my brief stint with the Improv Club in college and the four main elements to a great performance. But recently I've began to think it was something else. Began to question "Why is there even a 'box'?"

cause I haven't ALWAYS been this way.

In the beginning of elementary school I was a more boisterous child, but eventually found that squashed out of me:

"know-it-all" "loud mouth" "annoying" "girly-man" ...to name a few.

You hear things, you start to believe them. So I became the quiet one, the "eternal brooding grump", as my parents used to say, because while you're going through it, it becomes all you see.

Suffering. Death of family, physical pain, emotional torment, you name it, suffering. Your "box", the frame of reference for which you come to understand and see the world, the ways in which you go about your daily life, become shattered. So you have to figure out a new "box". I've began to see that I did.

I think that is what is so intriguing about the cross; it is a symbol. It is God stepping down and screaming with us. God saying

"I know how you feel."

I now know my answer to the question; "Why Peace Corps?" It's the Art of Elimination. My relationship with Christ compels me to eliminate the unnecessary, the trivial, the superficial. I seek to take off the things that are hindering me: wealth, comfort, easy access to food, etc, so that I can see, and eventually talk about, what matters most. So that I can stand by people who have live a life very different than my own and be able to say, "I know how you feel."

Michaelangelo is quoted saying that his david was "in the stone clamouring to be freed." That is how I feel. There is untapped potential in me, it's an unexplainable feeling, something like not feeling whole. There is real courage, desire, passion, loyalty, and love in there, somewhere, just waiting to get out. And I think it's going to take suffering to get it out...

2 Corinthians 6 v. 4-10