Chapter- Conversations, (excerpt from my work in progress)

I am a person that loves conversation. My closest friend, Austin, and I have shared many. We met in 2002 at Arkansas Tech University. Through mutual friends, my admiration of his truck and our common love of the outdoors we began a conversation. Through out the years we have shared many things; vehicles, jobs, homes, dreams, passions, secret fishin’ spots, laughs, tears, road trips, lives. More than once we have been sitting enjoying an evening and begun to talk of life. Sometimes one of us sharing where our life was moving led to the other coming along. I was once sharing plans to move to Colorado and he decided it was a good idea, so he did also, first. He once shared his life and what he was doing in Alabama after I had returned from South Africa and I decided to join him. Conversations can be very dangerous. At one point we decided it would be a good idea to live in tents for a couple months, so we did. Sitting around our fire pit we shared plans, perspectives and fears. Through our conversations we have grown to be more than just friends, but brothers. We have been vulnerable and honest each investing in the other. I was once told that God was separating us for a time to keep us out of trouble. Shortly after I moved to Afghanistan for a few months. While there I realized what was meant in the statement. We trust each other so much that we at times feel invincible. I am looking out for him and he for me so nothing can happen, in Afghanistan this could be dangerous. This trust is built through conversation. We at times would go for late night adventures through the rivers, mountains and forest of Arkansas, Alabama or Colorado looking for varmints to shoot, frogs to gig and grounds to camp. We would wade chest deep through water in which lurked snakes, snapping turtles, alligator gar and leeches, pull logs out of the road with chains only to be blocked by snow and spend hours in unknown territory looking for the perfect place to spend the night. Once, in the high country of Colorado, we awoke to a blizzard headed our way that we narrowly outran. Our lives have been a conversation, a process of questions, listening, trust and easy silence. The flow of our lives has created a path that is intertwined while spanning time and continents.
One of my favorite conversations I have had with Austin was sharing our concepts of home. We have both traveled a fair bit and we once discussed how easily we feel at home anywhere in our country or others. Through the conversation we decided that it was our relationship with God that led to this feeling. If we are continuously in conversation with God he is always with us, like a camper that we live in while traveling where ever he leads. No matter where he takes us we are always at home. In this way the conversation is continuous, centered in a place of familiarity while living in the most remote corners of the world. Through spending time, adventures and lives we discover that we are more than friends of God, but a part of His family. Because of a continuous conversation we become vulnerable, honest, and are invested in. Trust is built to the point that we no longer fear because we know that we are being looked after. Our lives enter into a flow with the Eternal Creator that is intertwined throughout eternity.
Another one of my friends whom I have had many conversations over the years is a Texan named Foster. He and I had bit of a different meeting and development of friendship. We had many mutual friends that kept telling us we would be friends; both of us however, were skeptical. He was a Texan, negative point number one, he drove a big 2-wheel drive truck that was loud, negative point number 2, and he was a Texan, negative point 3. His thoughts of me were much the same. I was from Arkansas, negative point, I drove a motorcycle so I was probably a jerk, negative point, I had a ponytail, negative point, and we both were up to three. However, after 3 months of sharing a room during a university course in Denver, we were close friends. Every night before going to sleep we would have “pillow Talk” yes guys can do it to. As it turned out he and I actually had much in common, we were both chasing girls, we both love to duck hunt, we both wished his truck was 4x4, (he since remedied it with a Toyota 4runner) and we both love motorcycles. Most importantly, we discovered we were very much in the same place in life learning and questioning what life is about and what our relationship with this planet should look like. We discovered all of this through conversation. Not only can conversation allow us to get past the apparent our initial idea of who people are, but also God.
There have been many times in my life that I have had a very difficult time trusting God. One was working in Central Asia. I was confronted for the first time with Muslim, Asian, and war torn culture. Each one of these on it’s own is enough to cause questions, but together, hope was slipping. I saw, commonly, people missing limbs blown off by landmines, women with disfigured faces abused by husbands or they had set themselves on fire to escape. Some would welcome me into their homes and businesses others wanted me gone and at times you could sense death was on their mind. Another instance was when four of my close friends where shot in a senseless act of violence and two of them died. In both situations my question was where was God? If he truly were who he said he was then he wouldn’t let such atrocities occur. I questioned repeatedly and through my conversations with Him, I once again trust. Only in conversation can I be vulnerable with God and then he is able to share aspects of himself that I did not know before. The greatest understanding I have gained is that I serve and trust a God that weeps over the broken, impoverished and starving. The God who is vulnerable with us, giving us the choice to love him and let ourselves be loved, no strings attached. I have made the choice to trust, to love and be loved. Many times I wonder if I am wise in doing so, but if I did not hopelessness would consume me. I must have this conversation with the eternal creator to keep belief that this world can turn out better than it is now. If there is no God, life is pointless. If there is no conversation there is no hope. If there is no hope then I wish to have never been born or that my life would end quickly so as to end the torture of this facade of purposeful existence, but… if there is hope, conversation, God, then life is worth the pain.

Again...

Once again the community I am a part of, this time on the other side of the planet, has been wounded by the unexpected ripping away of one of its members through death at the hands of deceived men. This time my community nor I are intimately connected, but connected closely none the less. This brings up many emotions from recent events in my own life and I am pained with the knowledge and understanding of what her friends and family are now going through. Again, a senseless act of killing has affected my life. Again, death is in my forethought. I do not fear for my own and am not worried about possibilities, but it brings home again the reality of the possibilities and capabilities of life and evil on a broken planet. In considering these thoughts I am challenged, can and do I still love the people capable of and responsible for these types of actions? I know God does. That is the hardest concept in the world for me to grasp. Abuse, death, suffering, poverty all of these enrage me and cause me to question the presence of God, but Him loving the people responsible for such horrific actions and then asking me to do the same seems almost ludicrous in mention. Yet still, in living on this planet having accepted grace and mercy that are completely undeserved I am too, asked to extend the same grace and mercy to all. All the greatest commandments can be summed up into these two, Love God, Love people. Neither is possible with out the other. I struggle with the question of am I even capable of such love? If I am created in God’s image then I must be, but I think it is a feat that will take choosing continually to love over years and years before it is an actual truth in my life. Today, at this moment it is a choice that I make.