On a flight to Seattle

They're not ice floes. They were just clouds. All that ice floating around the northeastern Pacific wouldn't make sense. I guess it's just constantly cloudy in Alaska.

The sun is setting behind me; when I touch down it'll be night and not the hazy waning morning that greets me every winter I've returned home.

I'm traveling home but I don't want to. Except for my family, nothing awaits me there. I have no more close and loyal friends, I have no work, I have no life. 

Haven't I been waiting to be done and home for nearly four years? 

It's like I don't know how to be home. 

I've been a stranger in a strange land for so long. I was comfortable living as a foreigner, as an outsider.

Ryan

Flying Over the North Pacific

Paraphrase: Psalm 107 -- a song of the sea

The seamen go down to the sea in their great ships, 

following the shipping lines through the transient waters

Business they call it, but it is actually adventure to exotic lands

Tarshish, Sardinia, Tora Bora, Vancouver

And they find God there in the vastness, 
in the mysteries of the depths of the ocean

They find God in the broad night sky and 
the silent breezes of the noonday

He may blow the wind and cast the waves 

as high as heaven: he is king over the flood

The ships ride up with them, and fall into the trenches

Their hearts melt in fear, their vessels reeling to and fro

Staggering like a boy from a pub

They are pushed to the ends of faith

So they cry out to God, Save us Lord

else we perish -- and he hears their fears

He commands the storm, Peace! be still 

The waves settle down

And they are glad 

because they have found stillness

The signal is lowered, 

the ship is secure, 

And he brings them home again.

Do not be afraid

Christmas is proof of the 'already but not yet.' 

Jesus comes among us now but he will come to us again.

Ryan

Manila, Philippines

Memento mori

I do not think I am afraid of death. I am afraid of the life of me that will remain, when or if I pass that is, and the legacy I leave and the words spoken of me freely because I am no more. Did I live well? Was my character kind and honest? Did I love and was I loved? Will be a remembered as a sinner or a saint, or even more honorable to me: both?

So there it is: I fear what people think of me more than my own end. I am not necessarily driven to live more or to live greater in order to leave a better legacy. I have lived a good life. I have traveled. I have read. I have learned. I have seen beautiful things. I have seen sorrow and joy. I have asked hard questions. I have loved someone and I have felt love. I have sought to make my world better, although I haven't always succeeded. I have searched for the kingdom of heaven and I thought I had found it.

Perhaps one thing remains, and that is I have not wrestled with God as Jacob. Do I really want that? Do I seek a true cathartic experience with God? Do I fear leaving bruised and worn, having lost all I love as did Job? Do I really fear death, or do I fear the dying before death, or the living after it?

Ryan

Southern Luzon, Philippines

We try to live in such a way that no man may find fault in us

It is my wish to live in such a way that I do not cause offense to anyone, except in situations of blatant immoral injustice, so that no one may blame God for unkindness. That is all I want -- I want to live simply, quietly I don't want to be recognized or famous. I want to do good in the world and be forgotten except by those whom I love and love me. I used to not care about this: I'd try to live my own way ignoring the sensitivities of others. But as I have become more sensitive to others' unkindness, I now recognize my need to be sensitive to the concerns of others.

Ryan

Manila, Philippines