new and improved...

TaB, as I remember it, was the diet drink of my parents. It was somewhere in the late 60’s that I first remember my father holding a bottle of this “grown up drink” with the little pink and mauve logo. I remember I did not appreciate the taste of it when I would be granted a coveted swig from time to time. Strangely enough, this past week I have rediscovered TaB! In a can this time. Still sporting the pink and mauve, but new and improved to my own “grown up” taste buds.

I am on a hospital ship right now, sailing off the coast of Angola toward Monrovia, Liberia. We left Cape Town a couple of days ago. But fortunately TaB was discovered before the mooring lines were loosened!

Sitting in my cozy 6’ x 10’ cabin, I can hear the ocean swish by through my open porthole. The sky is cloudy today. I have been taking some Port Hole Cam views from my starboard cabin since arriving on the ship a couple of weeks ago. I want to record the changes of view as time passes until we arrive in Liberia. The Cape Town Victoria & Albert Waterfront, Table Mountain, the first swells of the open sea as we headed north, the orange moon rising just over the eastern horizon, and the bright shimmer of the waves in the first morning sunlight. I feel like I am witnessing God’s goodness in a new porthole snapshot every day.

It is nice to “feel” or “re-feel” a deep appreciation for something bigger than myself. What I mean is that it isn’t until I look at something else, that I finally stop looking at myself.

“You can’t get the church to jump from total selfishness, where they want all the sermons about ‘How do I avoid stress,’ to caring about Angola.” (Rick Warren, on the present lack of "world-class Christians," from Purpose Driven in Rwanda, an article about Warren's sweeping plan to defeat poverty)

Here I am, sailing to Liberia, where poverty and true human suffering is as real as the sea salt collecting on the rim of my porthole. Yet it still takes a paradigm shift in my mind and heart to get me to stop thinking about myself so much. It takes a beautiful moonrise to make me look UP at this big God who actually has some things on the agenda besides my comfort and happiness.

Even now, I am very comfortable, fairly happy, feeling the sea breeze and drinking my TaB as I write this. But it is well with my soul to gaze somewhere else besides inward.

I needed to taste something “new and improved…”

perhaps what we need...

"Be who you are and say what you feel,

because those who mind don't matter

and those who matter don't mind."

~Dr. Seuss