I'm Not Sure What This Will Look Like...So Bear WIth Me

There are two huge reasons that I joined on to Glenwood Community Church's team of Youth Interns this summer.

One, adventure. To push myself, stay out of Vancouver as much as possible, and to keep busy. Because when I'm by myself, I think too much.

Two, I love Jesus, and as a result, I love growing spiritually. It hurts sometimes, but when you see an aspect of your life change that you don't like, it's awesome.

Oh. Can't forget about people. I really love people. And I'm relying on my extraverted-ness to help my through it.

So anyway. With regards to spiritual growth, I may as well start with a desire I've recently been given, mainly within the last few months of Spring Quarter.

As I sat in room 116 of Bond Hall Monday's, Wednesdays and Fridays from 10-11:30 AM for my Soviet History class, I began to realize my intense interest in folks like Lenin, Trotskii, Stalin and revolution in general. Unlike Marx, who merely spoke of the revolution and predicted it's coming, Lenin and others actively sought the days that it would come to pass and worked to instigate it. They saw a system that was headed by a dictator at a complete disconnect with the rest of society. French was the main language among the Russian elite, not Russian, because everyone involved in the government was required to speak it for communication with foreign diplomats and such. The rich got richer, while the poor suffered the most from famine and disease. While much of Western Europe was industrialized and continued to develop, Russia was 80% agrarian, with hardly any industry of which to speak except the railroads between St Petersburg and Moscow. To add to all of this, the Tsarist government was engaged in a World War taking millions of Russian lives.

And yet while Lenin, Trotskii, and Stalin actively sought revolution, they were not it's makers, but those who picked up the pieces when it was drawing to a close.

The real instigators of the revolution were mothers who could not feed their children. Crowds of people that had had enough stormed the streets of St Petersburg as the policemen refused an order by their commanding officer to shoot.

The point of this story is not what Russia became in the years proceeding the revolutions of 1917, but how it came about. Russian citizens, many of them 18-25, as well as older "revolutionaries," were so riled up by the injustice of the system and society itself that they took action. Not content with mere political theory and sitting on the sidelines as observers, they wanted to be revolutionaries.

I want to be a revolutionary.

I must say that while I am sick of the government, the rich getting richer while the poor get poorer, I am not thinking on that level. I may scream when I read the news, I may go off on a Bush-bashing tangent, I may talk about tearing down the system, but I'm not to that point yet. I recognize that I have neither the means nor the know-how to accomplish such a feat.

So perhaps I want the mindset of a revolutionary. I want genuine, unrelenting courage. I want my cause to take precedence over my earthly desires because while they don't last, the effects I have on this world will, at past my lifetime. I almost want people to be scared of my passion at moments.

And I genuinely want change.

And I'm serious.

My problem is that I don't know what I want to change, nor do I know what I want to change it to. But I know that I need an outlet for this desire, because the mindset is somewhat there, but the courage isn't and if I don't let it out, it's going to explode.

So maybe I need courage...