Faith in Mankind (Nha Trang, Vietnam)

I've had many coaches in my life. One of my favorites was Ron Link, my little league baseball coach when I was ten. (By day, Link was a highly successful high school basketball coach in Snellville, Georgia. His son, Chad, and I were on the same little league team).

Link was a great storyteller and a clever wit, among other things. One concept he repeated often, which I've noodled over consistently for the past couple of years, was his sarcastic derision of a person's imprudent "faith in mankind" (Link was a religious man). As in, if you see someone doing something especially dangerous or stupid, you could say that person has a lot of faith in mankind. Coach Link drove the point home better verbally than I can from a keyboard, but hopefully you get the idea.

(Coach Link also had a funny--though racist--way of describing how I ran the bases. The analogy, I admit, applied throughout my playing days; I was the second slowest player on my college team).

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My point is this: I held an imprudent level of faith in mankind--myself specifically--for much of my life. Human events and my growing spiritual maturity as a Christian, on the other hand, have caused me to adopt a new outlook: Today, I gladly acknowledge that there is yet freedom, and ultimately peace, in knowing that planning is best left to God. No one, not even the greatest among us, is immune from the possibility of being humbled by external factors. Nor do any designs matter besides God's. A study of Israel's history in the Old Testament, for example, not to mention any modern newspaper, ought to convince my readers that this is true.

It turns out that the direction in which I felt God was steering me--graduate school in divinity studies--is not to be, at least not right now. When I return to New York in a couple of weeks, I'll have to rely on God--in combination, of course, with the abilities and opportunities He's given me--to send me to the proper place. Perhaps I'll remain in New York, perhaps not. Perhaps I'll remain in finance, perhaps not. Acting without prayer and petition, at any rate, is indeed a dark and lonely road for a mere human in a fallen world.

But I am optimistic! Doors open sooner or later. I've not gone a day on this earth without a place to lay my head at night--something you're forced to consider while traveling abroad--and there is no reason to anticipate otherwise. (Besides, I know for a fact that if nothing else, I could teach English or French here and live like a king, though probably not a queen, for a paltry amount of money).

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By the way, in the past five days I have: drunk cobra blood (with vodka), driven a motorcycle, dived among exotic coral and fishes in the South China Sea, and gotten in several hours of beach time. I still haven't shaved.

I am exploring buying a motorcycle once I'm back in the States. (I acknowledge the irony of that statement, in light of the title of this post. Incidentally, I also invest in the stock market; one who rides a motorcycle is probably equally risk averse, which is to say not much).

Staying here past the 16th is tempting, but actual responsibilities will eventually triumph over my vagabond lifestyle in Southeast Asia. Of course, if swine flu renders traveling to North America too risky by that time, I'll be happy to take in more of this amazing part of the world.