Do you ever get inspired to do something you think is crazy?
I am about to encourage you to pledge $ to support me doing something I don't particularly enjoy in order to do good in the world on a trip or trips that I have not yet planned nor know anything about. Let me explain...
Summer starts tomorrow and I wake up today at 5 am-ish (unheard of for lo these 6+ months of unemployment) with lots of thoughts. I journal them out. I think about my running habits. I think about my relationship with my boyfriend Tommy. I come to the following conclusions:
a) I have gotten really lazy. My runs are more of run/walks. I can't even remember the last time I ran more than 10 min. continuously. That might even be an overstatement. (oh wait! I did 30 min. in January on a treadmill simply because I would not be outdone by my then 18 yr old cousin Jaclyn) For some years I was so hardcore I would layer up and run through the winter...this winter after moving back to MN I chickened out and stayed indoors basically all of it. I did workout dance videos inside at times. At times I just let it all slide. Now that it is warm I am tempted to make the heat my excuse.
b) I don't yet feel called to any of the trips that Tommy is so excited about. It's not that I don't want to make the world a better place. I just don't know specifically in which way I should be doing so. His plans for this upcoming year include some or all of the above:
1) A month in Aberdeen, South Dakota helping the folks at the Fallout Creative Community in conjunction with the Red Rooster Coffee House make a movie by and starring folks with mental disabilities who are a part of their community. They do this yearly I think? - and it has made a huge difference in these folks lives, allowing them to scale back their medications and become higher functioning people as a whole. I guess when they make these movies, the whole town comes out to watch it. It sounds totally out of the box, and wonderful.
2) A trip to an orphanage in Honduras with his mentor who owns/runs it.
3) A trip to garbage dumps in India with Joy Revolution who are awesome musicians who happen to also spend time hugging lepers, playing with kids, and providing food and other necessary items to persons who live in dumps in some of the poorest places on earth. That trip is $1500 due Aug. 1 & $1450 due Sept. 1.
4) A trip to Wales to do music ministry there with friends who are asking him to come.
Now, he would like me to join with him in some or all of the above. I am not against that specifically, but neither do I feel a direct pull to any of the above as yet. And I've kind of always been the kind of person that needs that. I don't follow a guy somewhere because he's going, but I will go if I feel God is putting it on my heart. I have no desire to waste my or anyone else's money, so if I go somewhere, I want to know it's somewhere I ought to be.
Because of this kind of mindset, and because I have waited many years to be dating someone who was also a traveler-type who felt led where I felt led to go and visa versa, it has been pretty meaningful and crazy that the road trips I am in the middle of taking (May to the Eastern US, June to the Western US) 'coincidentally' lined up so well with his band's tour dates - same parts of the US, same time line. My trip to visit old friends and his tour with Farewell Continental were planned out well before we started dating, and we like to think that it's not a coincidence after all. By the end of his tour I will have attended not one but 8 different shows in 8 different cities. You can see my blog Leaving Brixton if you'd like to know more about the trips from my point of view and there's one post about a midnight meeting we had at a truck stop in Boston, WI you should read if you really want to be blown away by the insanity of it all.
Tommy is starting to fundraise toward his own travels, and I - this morning - had this crazy idea that I could do one of those things I used to do as a kid, when I'd raise money for some good cause or other, by having people pledge $ per mile walked or run or per book read or whatever, on the off chance I am led to join him for one or more of the above opportunities (or perhaps for something else I - or we - have not envisioned yet). Only I don't have one of those things that counts miles, so I was thinking perhaps I could receive pledges per hour of running. Not to say that I will run an hour all at once, but I will have a summer goal of running of say, 20 hours (that would be the equivalent of 1/2 an hour 3x/week) which I might go over or under. And if someone pledged, say, $1 an hour, and I only ran 18 hours and 30 minutes, they'd owe me $18.50, or if I ran 25 hours and 15 minutes, they'd owe me $25.25 - it'd be pro-rated that way. The number in my head to raise is $2000. I don't know why, but it's what's sticking in my mind as what to aim for. So, I guess, to make it easy, if 100 people pledged $1/hour and I ran consistently all summer, I could make the $2000.
The reasons this is a stupid idea are:
#1 - I obviously do not like running that much anymore or I would be doing it! and,
#2 - people like to give $ for good causes, but how many people are willing to lay down $ for a good cause that has not yet been identified? "ladies and gents, please lay your $ down for Christy to go love and serve the mentally disabled in South Dakota, or the orphans in Honduras, or the people who are lepers and/or live in dumps in India, or some other as-yet-undefined people group, or the...Welsh?"
I guess this is why they call it faith. At some point in the Bible, Abraham "went out, not knowing where he was going", responding to the voice of God he recognized, even though it didn't make sense. So I am going to raise this money for a future ministry trip or trips that I don't know about yet, and you, dear reader, are going to have to pledge your money (if you do) based on faith that I will use said money wisely for a purpose that brings good in the world, based on your knowledge of me up 'til now.
You may send your pledges to me at hey@christymerry.com with any contact info I need to let you know the final amount on August 31st. How about you include an email address and a phone #? Also, I will need to look into this, but I'm sure that once the 'where and what' of this trip is figured out, these gifts will be tax deductible.
Thank you for reading this far! & yes, I will be posting about the runs & progress of everything. Just short 'diary entries' on the runs I think.
