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The small boy walks through the tiny mobile home and stands at the edge of a door to no where. It’s a four-foot drop to the ground. His bare toes curl around the edge of the threshold. Spring meanders through the grass. The breeze pushes his wispy hair into dancing. He leans forward, falling, through the air and the years and into the arms of his grandfather.

Some time in the future the small boy will stand behind a recliner, combing his grandfather’s hair on a cold Sunday afternoon in exchange for a quarter.

Some time after that his grandfather will take him to the farmer’s market in the morning. The boy will sit on the console between the two front seats. The van will smell of hot coffee.

Some time after that the boy will walk barefoot with his cousins as they cover the long distance from his grandfather’s graveside to the house where his grandmother will live alone.

These years are moments. They are the subtle leaning, the sharp pushing off into air saturated with the future.

* * * * *

Sometimes courage comes down to us through the generations, embedded in DNA, a predisposed affinity for risk. At other times it springs up on us unawares, like the memory of a small boy diving into the arms of his grandfather.

But courage always comes in the face of fear.

What are you afraid of today?

* * * * *

Jump.

Too often these days I don’t understand.

Three months ago I sat on a folding chair outside of a mud hut just north of Colombo, Sri Lanka. A small child played on a straw mat, and, inside, the family’s cupboards were empty, save a few cups of rice.

The day before that we ate lunch with the community. We used our hands to scoop up the curried potatoes from plates balanced precariously on our legs. Later we drove past thatched huts housing people who have to walk far for water and hope the rain will be sufficient for their crops.

We met people who live from this day to the next. As in, How will I eat today?

Then, this past Thursday, my family and I joined hands in a circle around a table, a feast. My father-in-law asked me to pray over the food, and it was an honor, to give thanks, to voice my gratefulness.

Turkey and stuffing and potatoes topped with pecans and marshmallows. Thick slices of ham beside cranberry sauce. Sodas that serve my body no earthly good but as pleasure. Desserts that provide nothing but a sugar rush.

I don’t remember feeling so torn. Seeing poverty in Sri Lanka changed me, but not in ways that I expected. Standing around that table with my family on Thursday, I felt full to the brim with both satisfaction and something like desperate disappointment.

* * * * *

The news shows people lined up to buy more stuff, and people protesting the idea of working on a holiday, and people lined up outside a homeless shelter. And I’m not sure what to do in the face of that kind of excess, that kind of lack.

I know enough to be thankful for what I have. For what we have. And I feel a new weight of responsibility, not to shout out in protest against it (I wrote that post already and then deleted it because it didn’t seem quite right). I don’t want to lay heavy burdens of guilt on my friends for being so blessed. So I simply shout as loud as I can:

Remember.

Remember that not everyone has a job to walk away from.

Not everyone has the luxury of protest-via-buying-or-not-buying-chicken-sandwiches.

Remember that not everyone has what we have.

Remember to share some of what you have with someone else.

Remember.

May your Thanksgiving culinary activities be less exciting than this:

A few excerpts from blog posts that got my attention this week:

* * * * *

Because this is the church.

And it is, we are, I am broken.

But God, God, God is beautiful.

* * * * *

If you’ve got something to say, say it. Slowly. With effect. The audience isn’t going anywhere. At least not the people you care about.

* * * * *

There are few things more subversive in this world than someone who sees grace in every corner, who chuckles easy and loves easy and has both whimsy and mirth mixed in with even their honest assessments of the way things truly are.

Brennan Manning has a way of hitting me where it hurts.

“The conversation of most middle-class Americans, we are told, revolves around consumption: what to buy, what was just bought, where to eat, what to eat, the price of the neighbor’s house, what’s on sale this week, our clothes or someone else’s, the best car on the market this year, where to spend a vacation. Apparently we can’t stop eating, shopping, or consuming. Success is measured not in terms of love, wisdom, and maturity but by the size of one’s pile of possessions.” (Brennan Manning, The Signature of Jesus)

But what if we would begin a new conversation? And what does a conversation of love, wisdom and maturity look like?

One thing of which I am certain: if we began a new conversation, one that didn’t revolve around eating or shopping or consuming, it would be the kind of thing that could not be ignored or overlooked. It would be as radical as loving your enemy, or helping your neighbor, or not seeking revenge.

That kind of a conversation would change people. That kind of a conversation would change us.

Saturday night we drove to North Carolina to spend Thanksgiving with Maile’s family. The sun was setting and the kids were watching a movie on my computer and the miles just kept sliding behind us. We passed a truck stop on Route 81 north of Winchester.

“Do you remember that?” I asked Maile.

At first she didn’t know what I was talking about.

“That’s the first place we stopped to fill up the bus with gas on our trip,” I said, watching the exit sign recede in the rear view.

“Nine months ago,” Maile said. “Do you remember how anxious we were about it?”

And so much happened in the few months after that. Nine thousand miles worth of stuff. The craziest part is that when we stopped there, we didn’t have any idea what we were in for. We had no idea what the next four months would bring our way. We couldn’t have imagined the bus overheating in Nevada or losing our brakes on the Teton Pass or not having any power the first night in Yellowstone.

It was the adventure of a lifetime, and in some ways it all kind of started right there in that truck stop on Route 81. Just north of Winchester.

And it got me thinking about how life is like that, how we do the best with what we have in that moment. How we’re so uncertain at times. How difficult beginnings can be. The importance of community. The necessity of adventure.

* * * * *

On December 10th the book that Maile and I have written about our trip will be ready for release in paperback and digital formats. We’ve titled it, How to Use a Runaway Truck Ramp. In it we share many of the best stories from our trip, but it also serves as a kind of follow up to my earlier book, Building a Life Out of Words.

If you are a blogger and would like to review How to Use a Runaway Truck Ramp at your blog during the week of December 10th, I’d love to send you a free, advance PDF copy. Just shoot me an email.

Finally, if you’d like to be kept in the loop about the book’s release, as well as receive notification of some giveaways I’ll be doing along with the book, sign up for my email newsletter (in the left sidebar).