"Act, but seek not the fruit of your actions."

One difficult thing about living in a small, fishing village in the Dominican is not having access to good music. I love good music or complete silence, both of those things bring me peace. One thing that I struggle to live with is bad music. The Dominicans are never silent and consistently listen to bad music, thus the eternal, Dominican catch-22. The one thing I miss from the states is the easy access to good music. Ok, two things; music and good oatmeal. Ok, three things; music, good oatmeal, and twizzlers. But seriously, good music and oatmeal, how I miss thee. Well, to appease the family and friends, I guess I miss you guys as well. No seriously, I do. I am looking forward to seeing you all and spending some quality time together. That’s what life is all about, right; service to others and building relationships along the way. Everything else seems trivial in comparison.

I just finished up a book given to me by an old friend called “A Simple Path” by Mother Teresa. If the stories from mamma t and her fellow Missionaries of Charity don’t inspire you to serve the poor of this world, I am convinced you are cold blooded. The Sisterhood did nothing extraordinary but become poor themselves and serve the world through fervent prayer and action. “How can you truly know the poor unless you live like them? If they complain about the food, we can say that we eat the same. The more we have the less we can give. Poverty is a wonderful gift because it gives us freedom--it means we have fewer obstacles to God.” She also said that, “By becoming poor ourselves, by loving until it hurts, we became capable of loving more deeply, more beautifully, more wholly.“ Mother Teresa knows physical poverty because she chose that lifestyle; it was the simple path of and to her savior.
In Western society, we may not always see physical poverty running rapid, but we do see the loneliness and spiritual poverty pandemic spreading like a Californian wildfire. I don’t have the solutions, but I know our reliance on “noise” is not the vaccine we need. I believe we all should have the faith of the Mother Teresa’s of the world, to ignore modern society and step out in faith and serve the poor, but I also understand that Americans have been brainwashed into this lifestyle of comfort and compliancy that goes against every ounce of human nature.

The fruit of silence is
prayer.
The fruit of prayer is
faith.
The fruit of faith is
love.
The fruit of love is
service.
The fruit of service is
peace.

Other than the bout of Dominican poison ivy that is beginning to ravage my entire body, life is good. This summer has been excellent for me. My eyes have been peeled open to the reality of the world outside the United States. On another note, it is a beautiful sight to my blue eyes to see that Coach Beason, I mean "GAC" is still out and about in this world. I sleep better at night knowing that he is there, roaming facebook, myspace, and probably all of cyberspace defending the lowliest of low ones like myself and Lee Kee. God bless you GAC and may hell be easy on your soul Mr. Wright.