Transparency

Best picture I could find. Confused. Happy. Signing. All me.

In some ways, I have learned to dissect my own thoughts. It is as if I have one brain for thinking and another brain to analyze the first brain's motives. Not an essential skill, and it certainly makes me busy in thought (an ongoing process to monitor active processes isn't always efficient). Still, it often keeps me...peaceful.

There is an incredible amount of thought that has been allotted to considering extending my term with MCC. There is a requisite for such a decision, and I somehow am blocking it. I didn't decide to do SALT because of the chance to travel. Or see a new culture. Or be on my own. Or find myself. Or to prove I know what a Christian is supposed to do (which I don't quite have nailed down). The requisite is clear-cut: Be faithful and go where God leads. And here I am.

I like being led. It might appear as apathy, or complacency, or maybe just uncertainty. I prefer to think of it as...trusting. Not look before you leap, but jump before you think. It keeps me from faltering, falling back on the perceived power I have in making my own decisions. And it is good to feel powerful, I won't deny that. But once you realize it is a contrived sense of control, it kind of loses its luster. And now, I have this decision forced upon me. I get to determine my future.

Bwaahaa (that is the cry of the worker at Lon Lon Ranch in Zelda: Ocarina of Time...if you don't get it, move on). Sure, the decision will put me in a place (culture, context, occupation, etc.), but what I do and how I do it are the important things. So, a place determines my future? I think, no. In that respect, this decision feels irrelevant. Jesus seems to be telling me that having family 45 minutes away isn't top on his list. And that having a rec. league basketball team doesn't make the cut. And that the desire to reconnect with college friends is precluded by a love for your neighbor, whoever that might be. I don't think I am called to deny those things indefinitely. I do think I am called to deny them entirely when considering extending my term, though. Just the same as I am called to deny the flattery and encouragement that emboldens me to think I belong in this deaf/deaf-blind, Arabic community.

So, I have come down to a need for transparency. I haven't discussed this decision extensively with...anyone really. If only one thing matters, why discuss all the reasons that my brain is coming up with, or the analytical side to discern motives of those reasons? (If you would like to talk to me about it, I'm game, just because communication is so gosh-darn fun.) So, I am gonna wait, and on the day that I need to make the decision (Saturday) I am cutting it all down to see where I am led (not where I am pulling). I work with deaf-blind students, and every moment they have that kind of trust. To take the hand, and just go. Not because they know what is coming, but because the person leading does. That should be enough. Peace.

P.S.- I don't really have two brains. Additionally, I had an alternative method of making this decision, but it involved factors such as: If my presence in Kansas would increase KU's chances of another national championship in basketball. If I would be entirely bald (not by choice) by the time an extended term were finished. If teleportation would be a viable method of transportation within the next two years, thus nullifying the need to choose between Jordan and the US. If I was planning on being hit by a car, inducing life-threatening head-trauma, which would render my auditory nerves damaged, leaving me deaf (not plausible, but if I was planning it, then staying in this community would make sense). If a Jordanian bride were offered to me within the next few days (not saying I would accept, but the gesture would certainly be appreciated and quite moving). And if the local shops here would carry ice cream year-round (seriously, I like ice cream a lot, and superficially, that holds a lot of clout in my book).