Oh pals. I am f-ing up on my training schedule by being too dang tired to do stuff. Last night I didn't run (but I did this morning), and tonight I was supposed to bike for 45 minutes but I got home from work at 8 (work's busy right now, plus all the extra teaching hours) to walk Lois for a while and skipped the workout in favor of making dinner and crashing for a couple hours in front of the fan.
I do bike everywhere for work/errands, and tomorrow I'll do a workout for sure (even though it's a day off), but it's just not cool to keep missing stuff on my plan. I'm learning that one of the biggest challenges of the triathlon is adjusting your life to fit in the number of workouts necessary for a 3-sport event.
I got e-letters today from my cousin J's two oldest children, asking for money to sponsor them in a mission trip through their church to work on houses in a very poor Native American town in South Dakota. Here is what I wrote back to them (and cced their mom):
Hi X and Y,
I am so proud of both of you for going on a trip to help people in ---! What a great idea to give of your spirit, your skills, and your time for others. (And I hope it will be fun, too!) I am 100% in support of that kind of work, and I know you two will be wonderful on any project you put your hands and minds to.
Since you asked for my support, I wanted to share with you about my beliefs regarding mission work. I believe that Christ showed those of us who believe in his wisdom a way to serve and a way or route toward being good human beings, but there are other individuals and groups of people who have their own belief systems about God and what route takes us most directly toward being good loving people on and to the earth. For hundreds of years, Christians have worked on converting Native American (and other) people to their beliefs, sometimes while serving the people by helping with other parts of their lives, and sometimes not.
That history and premise of mission work—working to convince others that an outside way of thinking is better than theirs (which happens all around the world and has throughout the ages)—presents a moral dilemma to me. I want to support your trip and your convictions, but while doing so, I also want to respect the beliefs that the people in Mission already have.
So, I'll give each of you $20 toward the trip (sorry I can't afford to give more!), but I hope that you will understand that it's because I believe in YOU, not because I believe in the idea of religion-based mission work.
Thanks for asking, and I can't wait to see you very very soon!
Much love,
Cousin Poptart
2 comments:
That was a really cool letter. I'm glad you took the time to explain your beliefs to you.
Rereading it, it is a little dense and annoying, but it does the job. I'd hate for them to do some prayer meeting for the poor people. That kind of thing sucks.
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