Color-Man, 21 June, the Adriatic Sea

"But now in Christ Jesus you who were once far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. For He Himself is our peace...abolishing the law of commandments and ordinances, that he might create in himself one new man...and might reconcile us both to God in one body through the cross." Paul wrote these words to the church at Ephesus as a call to unity in Christ. I needed that call this morning.

Earlier in the chapter Paul says that we were "dead in our trespasses and sins...following the course of this world." Sin is in the air that we breathe. If we examine ourselves, we see that our thoughts are hostile towards God, and in a sense we willfully separate ouselves from Him every day.

That is the very definition of Hell. Yet we thrust it upon ourselves by clinging to what we know is wrong. My sins abound--pride (from which the rest spring), lust, anger, perfectionism. If you truly got to know me, you wouldn't like what you'd see. I know, though, that I'm not alone. On a train two days ago we spoke with an American guy who was trying to get back to the church, but couldn't understand "what it means to truly follow Jesus." To him, the church is full of hypocrites who condemn others and justify themselves. Will they enter heaven? What about drunks like himself who don't have it all figured out?

My friends at home struggle through addictions and fears, battling every day. This is the state of our world. But Jesus stands in the gap, reconciling us sinners with God and with each other.

It is fun to adventure far from home. But what is an even greater thought to me is that even now, as I sit at the prow of a ship sailing to Greece, I have a family at home. More than that, I have the family of God at home, and we are one. I could be running right now, running from house and home, trying to separate sin by the seas. I could fear that my family would break with me because I have not kept "the law of commandments and ordinances." I could be utterly estranged.

But I'm not. I was sent out from my doorstep with blessing. Here even, on the Adriatic Sea, I have been "brought near by the blood of Christ." We are all brought near by that one man, no longer strangers and aliens, but "members of the household of God."

Drew

Action-Man, 21 June, the Adriatic Sea

It would be super indeed to have a blanket! The room inside where we are sleeping is very cold. I'm sure that Blue Star Ferries has big closets full of thick, folded blankets. But I don't get one, the receptionist said, because I didn't rent a cabin.

Out on the deck, the air is balmy. We crossed the bottom of the Adriatic Sea to the port of Igounemitsou in northern Greece. We are over halfway to Patras, and I suppose will touch the Ionian Sea with our unwieldy prow.

Last night, Drew and I raced ahead of the crowd of last-minute passengers. We were the first in a host of backpackers to get our tickets. We boarded the ferry and at the top of each escalator, there stood a man in a blue waistcoat. Each of the stewards has black pants and a white shirt and a blue waistcoat. They are swarthy men with black hair and Greek names. One man behind the counter looked like Jon Schimpf.

Drew and I are both excited about Greece. I don't think of modern Greece as prosperous or internationally involved. But they did build the Acropolis and invent democracy. We are hungry, but so glad to be on the road again. Our trip should have ended in Italy, but it didn't. Now I feel that each hour is borrowed time. Are we not always debtors to God?

Sam

Color-Man, 20 June, the Adriatic Sea

LACK. Sam and I have spoken the word to each other countless times on this trip. Just now as I wrote it my stomach growled. This trip began on a tight budget, and it is even tighter now after yesterday's loss. We spent nearly two euros on food today: half a loaf of bread and an apple. They are delicasies. The bread has lasted us all day. We relish it now in small bits with honey, saved in packets from a free hostel breakfast in Rome.

After two days that began with terror and have settled into lack, we are finally on board the long-awaited ferry to Greece. As I watch the World Cup projected on the ship deck's wall, two sun-weathered Greeks feast on skewered meat, big gulps of beer, and settle back with their cigars. Yet somehow they're not happy. The food no longer excites. They are coldly content.

I am content. We are on the road again. We've counted our losses and moved on. What is left from our debacle is a better understanding of lack and a greater hope in God's providence. Psalm 126 says that "when the Lord restored the fortunes of Zion, we were like those who dream." I've dreamed of this trip for years, and for two days it seemed to be falling apart. But my hope was restored, and I can tell you that dreams are even better on this side. I know now that misfortune has made us taste our fortunes in a fresh, new way.

In Orwell's 1984, Winston Smith tastes nothing but gray soup, oily gin, and crumbling cigarettes for years. Finally, he escapes the metallic world and brews his first, real, coffee-bean coffee: "The smell was so powerful and exciting...What was even better than the taste of the coffee was the silky texture given to it but the sugar." Winston wasn't numb to those tastes; he was starving for them and to him, it was beautiful.

At home, I could stick my hands into the pantry at any hour, and fill my belly. And meals are a real event in our house. I don't think that many Americans have ever experienced true want. My needs have always been met bountifully.

But each experience of lack reminds me how good is a choice meal. Each growl in my young stomach makes me cherich the bread and honey all the more. I've fasted before, and I will fast again. It does the heart and soul tremendous good to need something.

Drew

Color-Man, 20 June, Southern Italy

Again we are on Trenitalia, Italy's national train, between Rome and Bari. This is our third trip between Rome and Bari. The trip is five to six hours long, but this time it is a final goodbye to Rome. Drew has my new passport and his passport and our train tickets and our dollars and cards girt around his waste. I must act wisely.

I lost my white waist pouch, in which was my passport with a $70 Indian visa, my drivers' license, my debit card, (which the thief used a little), $200, 200 Euro, and my vaccination recordS. Drew did some bookwork in the station and my total monetary loss is $638, not including the visa and the extra debit card charges. Attention, travelers! Check, double check, and triple check the location of your passport. Wear it your body; don't put in your bag. Separate your money, keeping some with you and putting some in different pockets of your bag. Don't put it all in one place. Keep also your forms of identification separate, not together.

"But that was to make us rely not on ourselves, but on God who raises the dead. He delivered us from such a deadly peril and he will deliver us. On him we have set our hope that he will deliver us again. You also must help us by prayer, so that many will give thanks on our behalf for the blessing granted us through the prayers of many" (II Corinthians 1:9-11).

I delight to see beloved Latin in modern Italian and French and the other Romance languages, six in all. Each of them has its own earmarks. And Rome is an untidy city and full of beggars.

Finally, Italy is to Europe, what southeast America is to the United States. Italy is a hot-climate culture in cold-climate culture Europe. In the front cabs of trucks, three men sit side by side, like Georgia, unlike Iowa. Italians are loud and relational and group-oriented. Like Africans, they don't mind crowded buses and trains. In fact, they prefer rubbing shoulders. But I am sure the old folks would say that it is not the same. "People now are so much more reserved and private than they used to be," they might say. I do think that's the way it goes. Prosperity brings division, and with poverty comes unity.

Sam

Color-Man, 19 June, Bari, Italy

What crushing moments are these--empty and nervous and lonely. Is it true that earth's inhabitants are like grasshoppers before Him?

And truly here is no hope of recovery. Like David, I pray and wait until it is no longer called today. And when his sick baby died, he ceased and said, "Who knows whether the Lord will be gracious to me, that the child may live?" But my human eyes can't see any way that we wouldn't have to go back to Rome. My passport and money could be on any street in Rome or Lecce or Bari.

And it usually goes this way! I pray very hopefully, even that the Lord would mircaulously thrust my white wallet into my lap at this moment. He's able, but he never does things like that for me. When I succeed, it is through natural, predictable means. Yet, He is able.

Who took my passport? Lord, why did it have to be this way? Yet I trust in you, and hope for some immeasurable grace. Yes, Lord--a miracle between now and 15:47.

Sam

Color-Man, 19 June, Bari, Italy

Just now I felt not at all like writing. We've just lost over $500 and Sam's passport. That's a blow. We think it was stolen last night as we slept on the train. There are a number of things we did wrong that led to this mess, all of which we've turned over and over in our heads.

We're both in a severe funk. At first I thought this was the end of our magnificent trip, that without a passport we couldn't go on. Thank God for American embassies. Sam should have a new one in the morning, if all goes well. For now we are looking forward.

I felt like not writing because I feel so deflated by our circumstances. We've been bouncing all over Europe with little trouble, and someone just kicked the air out of us.

But what good is a writer who can't write of struggle or heartbreak. Tolkien said no story was complete without them. What if Solzhenitsyn or Dostoevsky or others, who bore up under tremendous struggle and pain, had simply felt too poor to write? What if they'd simply disappeared with their troubles into the forgotten ground? It would be to their loss, and ours.

Our struggle is light in comparison to prison camps and death, but it is important for me to realize this fact: I must write it! Harboring up troubles or simply forgetting them is death to any soul. Pouring words onto a page is a catharsis. It opens floodgates that could prove deadly if dammed up. It teaches you lessons as the writer. For me, it has been an exercise in forgiveness. I've also seen a new dimension of the providence of God. I must trust in it at all times. Can you believe in providence in a lightless tunnel? I must keep asking myself this question, because it brings me back to God.

The trains beside me screech to a hault like the Nazgul in flight. We've been in Bari Centrale for hours now. Sam and I look like broken men. We are, but I think we needed to be.

Drew

Color-Man, 18 June, Rome, Italy

On the eighteenth day of the sixth month, as I sit on a rocky ledge, I lift up my eyes, and behold, the Colosseum. It is colossal. The high north-east wall is made of blocks of stone, with three floors of arches beneath, arches like Busch stadium. The sun is setting and Drew has his camera on to catch the fullness of night.

Here on this dusty ground stood a Roman sentry or centurion. And there inside the Colosseum, men became judges of life and at the turn of a thumb, gladiators would die. Beast tore beast, man slew man. From Rome, there went out commands to all the world: Capture Jerusalem, Attack the tribes in the north, Send the fleet to Carthage. Roman soldiers crucified Jesus and a Roman spear pierced his side. The world was subdued before them.

And Rome was also home to another great empire, the Roman Catholic Church. It held sway over the hearts of countless men and moved kings and countries. Truly, Rome was highly exalted! But it was brought down. The bows of its mighty men are broken.

I see two homeless men. I feel more sympathetic to them now, after a week of traveling and lack. The excitement at a good find, the boredom and the reproach, the seeing and not having, eating, but never filled, people staring. But these men live like that every day. That is far beyond me.

Sam