Thoughts from Mark "Hat" Rackley

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here!

• 2 Corinthians 5:17

Be good to your servant while I live,
    that I may obey your word.
Open my eyes that I may see
    wonderful things in your law.
I am a stranger on earth;
    do not hide your commands from me.
My soul is consumed with longing
    for your laws at all times.

• Psalm 119:17-20

The sons of Zibeon: Aiah and Anah. This is the Anah who discovered the hot springs in the desert while he was grazing the donkeys of his father Zibeon.

• Genesis 36:24

Now Saul heard that David and his men had been discovered. And Saul was seated, spear in hand, under the tamarisk tree on the hill at Gibeah, with all his officials standing at his side.

• 1 Samuel 22:6

We continued our voyage from Tyre and landed at Ptolemais, where we greeted the brothers and sisters and stayed with them for a day.

• Acts 21:7

“The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes.”

• Marcel Proust

Marcel Proust was openly homosexual.  I heard a discussion among pastors recently where they all agreed that homosexual acts were a sin, but if you needed a dentist and they were the best in town, it was not a sin to have them work on your teeth.  We have all sinned, but competence in those who provide a service is important.  Marcel Proust makes a great observation here.

We are all on a voyage of discovery.  They have found babies in the womb that discover their fingers, by putting them in their mouth.  And then, even before the eyes are fully focusing, a baby discovers that they can grab things and put those things in their mouth.  Some things taste better than others.

But if you were to go to India, what would you discover?

Would you discover …

• that the McDonald’s restaurant has no meat on the menu? – Sorry, I only rode past.
• that the country smells bad? – You start smelling something bad as the airplane descends, or was that my imagination?  And by the way, when you smell some really bad body odor on your return flight, it might be you or at least the clothing that you are wearing, washed by the hotel’s laundry service.
• that the people are hard working? – They often avoid many modern inventions that make the work more efficient in order for more people to become employed.  I have seen people making bricks the same way the Israelite slaves made bricks in the time of Moses, hard work, indeed.
• that child labor is common? – At about seven years old, a boy can earn a wage equal to his father.  I have seen a five-year-old string a hammock and place his baby sister into it.  When my grandson was fourteen, his parents did not trust him to babysit his younger siblings.  At sixteen, he does a good job of it.
• that women use a homemade broom, and they sweep the dirt floor of their home that has a thatched roof? – I still ask myself how they know they are finished when the floor is a dirt floor.
• that at the local well early in the morning, the women are laughing and helping one another?  Have you ever thought that indoor plumbing has created a social barrier?  I guess not unless you have seen community in action while women draw water, placing possibly three heavy pots on her head and walking in some cases a half mile or more back to their home.
• that the gypsy women will sew anything that sparkles or looks different into their sari? – We had to post guards at the remote control stations at the steel mill.  The gypsy women would steal the colored control button covers and within a day, they would be displaying their “discovery” on their sari.  We never bothered with an attempt to retrieve the button covers. And although these women made 80% the pay of their husbands, who made one dollar per day, they might carry concrete in a wok on their head possibly a mile away, usually up a few flights of stairs, and tirelessly hurry back for the next load.
• that the empty field outside of town was not empty at all? – The gypsies that worked construction at the steel mill slept under tarps in the field.  With the tarps covered in dust, the field looked empty, no vegetation at all.  But when you came at just the right time, you saw the buzz of activity.  Women gathering firewood and water, long after washing clothing in the dark at the river.  Then the men starting the fire, cooking the rice and packing a small portion in some kind of insulated container for each member of the family, to be eaten a little at a time since this would be their only meal of the day.

They say that beauty is in the eyes of the beholder.  Of the things that I mentioned above, mostly on my first two trips to the subcontinent, you might see other things.  I saw the humanity, the smiles on people who worked hard, had nothing but their clothing and food container, and never held out a hand to beg.

You might go to the same place and never see those people.  You might see the opulent temples, the people driving past in their luxury cars, the elephants in the grand robes being transported for someone’s wedding.  And I saw those things also, at one point following far too closely to an elephant being transported.  Talk about tailgating, we were practically rubbing the bumper of the truck with the elephant’s hind quarters hanging past the back of the truck. The temple of the elephants was nearby.  I turned to my associate in the SUV and said, “I hope the elephant does not have diarrhea.”  He laughed and said he was thinking the same thing. How do you explain why your vehicle was disabled and someone had to rescue you?

But we really see what our preconceptions tell us to see.  We often only see what we want to see.

But Proust takes that step toward the unknown here.  To really have a real voyage of discovery, we must see with new eyes.

Let us be like the psalmist of Psalm 119.  Let us see God and His laws as we obtain that new creation.  Let us jettison the old, preconceived notions and discover everything around us from God’s perspective.  Let us see the humanity, not just the people.

Soli Deo Gloria.  Only to God be the Glory.