Making it up as I go
So I've been absent from the blog for a little while, and while this is obviously a post, I'm not sure I'd consider it a "real" post. It's more of a "I promise I'm not dead" kinda deal.
For starters, for most of the time since my last post, I was not doing anything that made for any spectacular reflections or photos. I was on my own, mainly focused on my continuing Portuguese lessons. Obviously very important stuff for me, but also pretty boring blog fodder, so I've spared you. Now I've hit a different stage, and I promise I'll get to the pictures and more exciting stuff I'm sure you want to hear about (moving out to Pedregal, going to Rio de Janeiro for Carnaval, and starting the school year) but these things are largely in process, so I don't feel at the moment there is time to adequately do them justice. I think of this stage, these things, as part of the Making inherent to my time here.
So, I'm well aware that that phrase sounds weird. I'll explain a bit. There is a book series by one of my favorite authors, Orson Scott Card, that is a historical fiction about a colonial America with an added twist of magic. Now, in this series, there aren't wizards, it's not like Harry Potter magic, and it isn't framed in terms of "good vs evil" (and I attribute some of my personal opinions on the strife of mankind to having read this series at a young age and the resonance I found with this idea). Instead, the books focus on the continuous battle between Making and Unmaking. It follows the story of a very special boy, the first in dozens of generations to be a truly powerful Maker (Christ is labeled a powerful Maker as well, and divinely so as he is the son of the ultimate Maker). The Unmaker acts in the world, using evil, disinterest, self interest, apathy, and decay through time to attempt to unmake all that is. The Maker, and all other human Makers, seek to build and create to halt the inevitable unmaking around them. Sometimes, what is made is a small item or craft, or a building, or town, but Making also includes human connections and community. It is the forming of something from nothing in order to beat back the absence and decay of all things. And the bottom line of the series is that "The Maker is the one who is a part of what he Makes."
So I'm not gonna be going into the theological implications behind all this. You're smart enough to do it for yourself if you want to dive down that rabbit hole. But I'll tell you now why this idea clearly defines this time in my mission for me.
I have on hand a fairly empty house (I certainly have more than I need, but I'm not able to call it a home as of yet), and a semi-equipped classroom that still has a ways left to go before I'm ready to teach in it, and a new community at church and work to learn to integrate with.
So my projects now are, in all three areas, to invest of myself, my time, and my abilities to Make a new and bonding result. In order to Make a truly lasting thing, I must give pieces of myself to each thing, which is hard and sometimes tricky. But when I think of the lasting things I admire in this world--a good family, an enduring legacy of learning or love, a community that supports each other and welcomes the stranger--in all these things are the remnants of a Maker that has come before and left a piece of themselves behind. And it is that piece that helps to sustain each thing through the years against the power of unmaking.
And I'll never be bereft of self for the Making, for each thing I choose to Make, also Makes me in one way or another. In this way the great Maker uses me and others to bind into one the creation that the Unmaker cannot undo.
So here, in a town literally named for the inhospitable rocky soil, where the red dirt permeates almost everywhere, I will follow my Maker to Make beautiful things out of the dust.
For starters, for most of the time since my last post, I was not doing anything that made for any spectacular reflections or photos. I was on my own, mainly focused on my continuing Portuguese lessons. Obviously very important stuff for me, but also pretty boring blog fodder, so I've spared you. Now I've hit a different stage, and I promise I'll get to the pictures and more exciting stuff I'm sure you want to hear about (moving out to Pedregal, going to Rio de Janeiro for Carnaval, and starting the school year) but these things are largely in process, so I don't feel at the moment there is time to adequately do them justice. I think of this stage, these things, as part of the Making inherent to my time here.
So, I'm well aware that that phrase sounds weird. I'll explain a bit. There is a book series by one of my favorite authors, Orson Scott Card, that is a historical fiction about a colonial America with an added twist of magic. Now, in this series, there aren't wizards, it's not like Harry Potter magic, and it isn't framed in terms of "good vs evil" (and I attribute some of my personal opinions on the strife of mankind to having read this series at a young age and the resonance I found with this idea). Instead, the books focus on the continuous battle between Making and Unmaking. It follows the story of a very special boy, the first in dozens of generations to be a truly powerful Maker (Christ is labeled a powerful Maker as well, and divinely so as he is the son of the ultimate Maker). The Unmaker acts in the world, using evil, disinterest, self interest, apathy, and decay through time to attempt to unmake all that is. The Maker, and all other human Makers, seek to build and create to halt the inevitable unmaking around them. Sometimes, what is made is a small item or craft, or a building, or town, but Making also includes human connections and community. It is the forming of something from nothing in order to beat back the absence and decay of all things. And the bottom line of the series is that "The Maker is the one who is a part of what he Makes."
So I'm not gonna be going into the theological implications behind all this. You're smart enough to do it for yourself if you want to dive down that rabbit hole. But I'll tell you now why this idea clearly defines this time in my mission for me.
I have on hand a fairly empty house (I certainly have more than I need, but I'm not able to call it a home as of yet), and a semi-equipped classroom that still has a ways left to go before I'm ready to teach in it, and a new community at church and work to learn to integrate with.
So my projects now are, in all three areas, to invest of myself, my time, and my abilities to Make a new and bonding result. In order to Make a truly lasting thing, I must give pieces of myself to each thing, which is hard and sometimes tricky. But when I think of the lasting things I admire in this world--a good family, an enduring legacy of learning or love, a community that supports each other and welcomes the stranger--in all these things are the remnants of a Maker that has come before and left a piece of themselves behind. And it is that piece that helps to sustain each thing through the years against the power of unmaking.
And I'll never be bereft of self for the Making, for each thing I choose to Make, also Makes me in one way or another. In this way the great Maker uses me and others to bind into one the creation that the Unmaker cannot undo.
So here, in a town literally named for the inhospitable rocky soil, where the red dirt permeates almost everywhere, I will follow my Maker to Make beautiful things out of the dust.
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