A lost brother




You know that place in the B that says you shouldn't have fship with an brother who has turned away from the fth? I always thought that verse was kind of rude, and not Js' heart. I thought at most that it was an option for us... that it might help that unbeliever if they realized that they were cut off from Xn fship, and they might realize what they had lost and wake up to their sin. But anyway it was a choice that we Xns had to do or not do...

now i am wondering more if you CANT have fellowship with a such brother because it is impossible to. Once you have shared the deepest things in life, how can you go back to have a surface level relationship? that is so unsatisfying. And if you try to have a deep relationship, the Xn can't help but speak and think and share about what Js is doing. I mean we as Xns hide our lives in Chst, if i talk about myself, it will be about chst. And a brother who doesn't want to hear about Chst anymore, well how can they hear about me then? And when they share whats going in their lives, it only hurts more, because you remember how they once too, were walking in fth.

I don't think anymore that this is a choice paul is giving to us, but rahter an observation... once a Xn has turned away and doesn't want anything more to do with fth, well it is almost impossible to have any kind of a friendship with that person.

Janonio Street- Home Sweet Home. Janonio gatve, kur as gyvenu

My apartment building in Klaipeda. Mano namas Klaipedoje!

In my apartment in Klaipeda- its sometimes chilly in there :)

me on new years day 2006! Silvesterabend 2006 am Starnberger See

Me as a camp counselor at Word of Life camp, near Munich. Hier bin ich Gruppenleiter bei Wort des Lebens am starnberger See

So sometimes, especially when I am sitting in airports, I like to make lists. It is a fun way to think back on my life and to pass the time. Occasionally on here I would like to post these lists from my journal.

Today’s list: airports I have flown out of (or into)

United States:
Traverse City, Grand Rapids, Lansing, Detroit, Cincinatti, Cleveland, Dallas, Atlanta, Nashville, Memphis, Miami, NY-JFK, Chicago O'Hare, LAX, San Diego

Europe:
London Stansted, London Heathrow, London Gatwick, Amsterdam Schiphol, Berlin Tegel, Berlin Schoenefeld, Muenchen, Frankfurt am Main, "Frankfurt" Hahn, Nimes, Beauvais, Klagenfurt, Pescara, "Stockholm" Skavsta, Riga, Vilnius, Warsaw Chopin, Prague, Kyyiv Borispil', Keflavik, Istanbul Ataturk, Tallinn Ulemiste, Helsinki Vantaa, Dublin, Tbilisi

Others:
Belize Ladysmith, Corozal, San Pedro (Belize), Monterrey, Brisbane, Sydney Kingford Smith, Townsville, Taipei, Tokyo Narita

As you can see I spend way too much of my life in airports (49 and counting). They are a good place to people watch, and to journal, and to spend way too much money on food of dubious quality. But usually they mean that you are on your way somewhere interesting. I think an airport sums up the stange mix of loneliness and adventure that is travelling.

Favorite airport: Amsterdam Schiphol- the whole word is literally passing before your eyes.

Airport I hate most: "Frankfurt" ghetto- Hahn. Unfortunately this is the airport i am most likely to often see in my near future.

Denied

Well the biggest drama in my life the last two days brought a lot of things to a point for me. I was supposed to go to Ireland, to take a drive around the Ring of Kerry on a date with Gd and to visit a former student of mine who lives there now. it was supposed to be perfect. I had an hour and a half at Frankfurt airport to go through customs pick up my bags and take the nice bus to Frankfurt Hahn airport. Because of a broken seatbelt, the plane was dealyed 40 minutes! I still had plenty of time, until it came to the baggage claim. I was waiting for my bags, and if my bag had come in the first 4/5 of the bags i could have made it to the bus. But no, my bag was the frigging last bag, so i missed my bus by 3 minutes... that's all. I lost the chance to go to ireland becuase my bag was just a little behind other peoples, not to mention the fact that i lost a lot of money in the whole deal- the rent a car, the flight back and forth. I tried everything, but there was no way that i could make it on time to the frankfurt hahn airport... I was so frustrated. I wondered though what god was going to do out of the whole deal, and it turned out he showed me a lot....

Gd brought together several things that I needed to know…. First, was the need for Js himself. You see Xns aren’t saved so that we can become moral. First of all we don’t become moral, as Xns we sin so often, and it is impossible for us to even become moral out of our own power. Jesus didn’t save us to be moral people. Xns aren’t saved so that we can be happy either. Any Chst follower can tell you that there are so many hard days. The B never tells us anywhere that Gd wants us to be happy. The B in fact promises us that life will get even harder for those who follow Chst. No, J saves us to be in a RELATIONSHIP with him. And the enemy of a relationship is self-sufficiency.

To be honest I have gotten very good about going around the world on my own, without seeking much help from J, or spending that much time about it. An event like knowing I might miss my connection, and in fact missing it, just throws me back into reality: I can’t control anything on my own. J, sometimes, who is jealous of our affection, will throw something into our life from time to time to remind us that HE IS. I spent a LOT more time with J because of this event than if everything had been smooth sailing.

The other thing that is easy for me to forget is that Gd values PEOPLE over EXPERIENCES. Not that going to Ireland was going to be entirely void of time with people, but its just that I sometimes grieve more about a lost experience than a lost relationship. Experiences are easier to control, and relationships are always elusive and always difficult. Experiences can become a kind of subtle addiction- a chase for novelty- another hit of interest or beauty or adventure to try to dull the bottomless ache that is in the heart of every human being. We were created for relationships however, and the relationships that we have here on earth are designed to show us ourselves better, and to point us to the great relationship with Gd we were meant to have.

So I still haven’t been to Ireland, and I missed a great experience I am sure. But getting reminded of these things that I so easily forget is worth 30 Euro I guess. And I got to instead spend a great day with my friend Kolja in Gießen, Germany, who took me in on very short notice. I met some great brothers in Chst, got to bicycle around a German university town, explore the heart of evnglcl Xndom in Germany, where the only evnglcl university, the largest evnglcl church, the headquarters for CCC are all located. I just hope that I don’t have to be reminded of these things the hard way in the future.