Amy's Adventures

I believe wholeheartedly that nothing is impossible. Sometimes it just hurts. I do this thing called Walk4Water and I want to change the world. stLight.options({ publisher:'12345' }); Peace, Love, Rock and Roll

[amillionfalsestarts]

I am blessed.

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[adventureswithamy-blog]

Love trumps all

Love has the capacity to change the world.

Now for me personally, I believe that GOD is love, and that love is from God, and therefore my faith is very connected to my personal ethic of love.

Although for me, my ethic stems from my faith, there are others with the same ethic and not the same faith.

So be it.

But I still think that LOVE it what trumps all. It's the top hand of cards, its the only winning strategy, it SHOULD be what we always strive to HAVE and DO.

Love. 

Unconditional love.

It took me a long time to get to a point in my life where I could even start to comprehend unconditional love. I'm still working on it, because unconditional love means loving your enemies, and that is a personal battle I fight every day.

But we have a limited time here on earth.

So very small.

And our brains, although I consider myself a relatively intelligent person, our brains only have the capacity to understand so much. 

But yet sometimes we let our understanding of things, our interpretation of people, their actions, their actions based on OUR ethics, get in the way of OUR love.

Why do we do that?

Love is the trump card.

If our understanding, our interpretations on life, their actions that we don't understand get in the way of our love, WE FAIL. 

We fail at the most basic commandment of Jesus, we fail at the most basic rule of life.

If we lose LOVE, we have nothing. 

NOTHING.

So stop thinking too hard.

Stop trying to analyze the world and have the perfect solution.

Stop trying to solve people.

Just love them.

Love each other. 

LOVE. LOVE. LOVE. 

And maybe if you LOVE. the rest will follow. 

But it starts with unconditional love.

Stop skipping ahead.

Let yourself take a lifetime of learning to love people.

You will be better for it, the world will be better for it.

And don't just SAY it, DO it. 

Love is BOTH. Affirm your love with your words and PROVE it with your actions. 

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Source

[adventureswithamy-blog]

Does this mean I should wear an epic costume when I walk across Africa? 

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Palestinian children stand to form Pablo Picasso’s Dove of Peace as part of a project by British aerial artist John Quigley and the United Nations Relief Works Agency (UNRWA), at the foot of the Mount of Temptation in the West Bank city of Jericho November 25, 2011. It took some 1000 children from United Nations schools to create the project produced as part of the “Peace on Earth” project, a global musical prayer for peace which will be broadcast globally from Bethlehem’s Manger Square on Christmas day, a U.N. press release said. (Reuters/Getty Images)

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Thought of the week

So often we are quick to see a problem and think we have an answer. But we have limited experience. We have limited perspective. 

REAL solutions come from understanding, and understanding comes from relationship.

Relationships create better solutions.

[adventureswithamy-blog]

So I'll stand, with arms high and heart abandoned

Hillsong United

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[adventureswithamy-blog]

Specks unite!

Just wanted to share a comment made in the small group at youth that I was in tonight.

We were talking about "your purpose in life" and about how when we think about the great expanse of time and space, that we are really all just specks of dust within it.

So I asked, "How do you find your purpose knowing that you are just a speck of dust in the universe?"

And the answer I got was awesome.

"Well, I think our purpose as Christians is to serve and help people. And, if our speck reaches out and touches other specks, then together our specks unite and create something greater"

..well, at least it was something like that. 

Amen. 

[adventureswithamy-blog]

To be honest...

I woke up today discouraged. I don't know why. These next three months until I get to Africa are going to take a lot of fighting and faith. Some days, I don't cut it. Some days, I don't believe its possible. Some days I really want to quit and run away from it all. 

I also didn't feel very good. 

I slept a lot. 

And then, I don't know why, but tonight I watched:

- Anderson Cooper's special on bullying.

- Diane Sawyer's special on Native American teenagers. 

I sat, and cried. If you knew me three years ago, I would say I never cried. My best of friends could maybe say they saw me cry once in my life. I didn't do it. 

I think its that I have allowed my heart to soften. Which is great and painful all at the same time. I pray today that my heart will stay soft. But it does mean I cry more. I think I'm okay with it.

But it always reconfirms, like today, that I just want to love people. That compassion is what drives me, and that I'm not sure I could function if I was not consistently striving to find ways to love people more.

For today, I'm calling it quits, and going to bed early so that I can wake up tomorrow, be productive and try to run forward and not give up. 

This was all probably way too brutally honest for tumblr. I used to believe that leadership meant you hid your weaknesses. Leadership to me now means that you are honest about your weaknesses, but always striving to improve. At the risk of being transparent, if you read this, pray for me that I can have wisdom and walk forward to love people well. 

[adventureswithamy-blog]

The world and all that is in it

I'm glad that I can really say I believe there a God out there.

Otherwise I don't think I would have hope for the madness of this world. 

I know for me sometimes, when I really start to comprehend all that is going on in the world, it is SUPER overwhelming. On my mind at the moment, #occupywallstreet, presidential elections, famine in Somalia, violence in Egypt, those who suffer from depression, and the list goes on...

I heard a great sermon today about our roots as Christ-followers, as those who are supposed to represent God to the WORLD. Sometimes "Christians" suck at this, historically, and still today, we oppress and judge people every day. 

When I was in California, I met a bunch of people from different religious traditions, it was super interesting. My favorites were the Buddhists. Wherever we went, Buddhists were the most welcoming, the most peaceful, and well represented non-violence and revolution. I think at least those that I met, represent Christ better than Christians as a whole. I want to hang out with them more.

Even Ghandi (not Buddhist, but Hindu) said, "I like your Christ, but not your Christians" 

Makes you wonder.

Why do we do such a bad job? I don't know. Representing God is kind of a BIG task. Maybe we should take it more seriously. 

I often check out Tony Campolo's blog (www.redletterchristians.org) and today he said, "Vision shapes our lives. And in Jesus we have seen not only seen a vision of God’s fullness, we have seen God’s vision for our lives and our world."

I believe the world can be greater than it is, I believe that we as people can be greater than we are. I know people are capable of love, compassion, and equality.

I believe that if God's people took a hold of Jesus' vision for the world, they could be the most powerful force for good this world has ever seen.

Lately, one of the questions I am trying to answer for myself, is how I can make the biggest impact on the world. Although I think God would answer that question, "Through my people" that is a scary thought because "His people" are not always the people I want to associate myself with. Sometimes people that say they are "His" represent hate, malice, greed, and corruption. And I don't know how to deal with that. I'm not perfect either, but as a whole these days, we're doing a pretty shoddy job. 

One day I said to my friend, "I'm glad I'm not Catholic, because I'd have to do Hail Mary's the rest of my life just to make up for all the evil we create communally as Christians". Kind of funny, haha, but true. 

I need to believe in God because I need to cling to the hope and vision I see through Him. And because I believe in him, my job is to work for the "weller" version of the world that is possible. 

Maybe one day when people look at us they will see love instead of hate. 

If you just followed that crazy line of thought, congratulations. 

[adventureswithamy-blog]

The story that should only be shared here...

since everywhere else is too public. I'll post more family-friendly stories on public blogs. I wrote this half way through our California trip, where we walked from San Francisco to LA. I think its interesting, but probably the negative side of what mis-perceptions can do, because the truth is...

Perception is not reality.

One of the funniest things on this California trip has been watching people’s perception of us as we travel.

We generally look “out of place” in larger towns or cities. Sometimes that’s a good thing – people will see our signs and ask when we’re doing. As we became familiar faces, sometimes we would get an encouraging honk or shout-out. But even early on in the trip, our slightly disheveled appearance caused people to literally walk on the other side of the sidewalk sometimes.

Within the second day, we passed through a small suburban town. That’s where our trouble with the cops began. As “outsiders” we were immediately targeted. The first cop stopped us because I had my feet in the gutter of the street. She was “worried for my safety” she said after checking our ID’s and asking if there were any warrants out for our arrest. My thoughts; a sarcastic, “Yeah, okay”. The next day (in the same town – we should have left after the first cop), Aaron climbed an orange tree in front of a church. (It was obvious they weren’t collecting them, so we thought we might as well eat one or two – common occurrence in NorCal; there are fruit trees EVERYwhere!) Subsequently, within 5 minutes of walking that day we were stopped for over an hour because a neighbor recognized us as the kids who got pulled over by the cops the day before; saw Aaron climbing the tree; and thought we were up to no good. Within 15 minutes of talking chatting with the officers, they felt pretty guilty and realized we weren’t doing anything wrong, but the process was already in place – we had to wait for the pastor to drive to the church to make sure we hadn’t stolen anything. He didn’t actually meet us, but decided he wanted to give us “warning” tickets – basically we are now banned from that church; and if we go back, we’ll be arrested – which, as I sit here writing this, now is very comical to me.

Once we got into the mountains, the cops pretty much stopped bothering us - we looked like we fit in better there among the plethora of bikers and vacationers. So again, the perception changed, but was still askew.

You see, Aaron has dreads. Why is that significant? Apparently, having dreads mean that there is a high probability that you are also a pot head. Aaron is not. But we have been offered marijuana more times in the past week than I’d care to admit. One lady actually got out of her RV and yelled across the busy street to see if we wanted to buy some 'marijuana cookies'. But, on the plus side, looking like hippies/alternative kids, the hippies love us, which is great. We’ve gotten watermelon, oranges, plums, mangos, tons of offers for rides, great conversations, and everything else.

Entertaining, but still, perception, not quite reality.

Today is our day off and I have put on make-up, jeans and a real shirt, and am blending in well to my coffee shop personality. Someone actually just even asked me a question as if I worked here. We’re halfway through our 500 mile California walk now, I’m excited to see the different people we meet along the way and perceptions we are greeted with.

When you see people, think through how you interact with them. Your perception might not be the reality. 

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[adventureswithamy-blog]

If you want peace, work for justice.

Pope Paul VI

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[adventureswithamy-blog]

Hard reality. How would our lives change if we were actually conscious of this in our everyday life?