it's not the end again

12.29.14

Well here we are again at the end.

It’s not the end if you’re from Nepal or Sri Lanka or China or even the Arab states.  They follow lunar calendars.  I got seven moons left here.

And you’ll know by the seventh moon which road you’ll take on this crazy adventure of yours?

I hope so but there is always the possibility I won’t but that’ll be a different road, right? The road of uncertainty.

The road to stress, the avenue to cardiac arrest.  I know you tire of constantly moving, what hopes do you have that this move will be the last?

If the road to becoming a student again closes then Salalah is the first choice. The beaches and the mountains are a pretty special combination.  I can live there until all my teeth fall out.

That could be sooner than later.

I know a good dentist there. 

So, the highlights of 2014?

I went to Sarangkot three times.  I like to go where I don’t need reservations. 

Sarangkot is changing, isn’t it?

They are having a growth spurt, everyone is building, the temple at the top is going up fast.  The village combined its Village Development Committee with Pokhara and folks will have to pay taxes soon, the hope of course is improvements in water, electricity, and garbage pick up.

So it’s no longer the quiet little hamlet you stumbled on five years ago.

The views of the Himalayas are still pristine, it’s just a little noisier. 

Any other highlights?

I bought a new camera and it is a complicated little bugger, but so far it’s done alright.  There’s a lot to learn.

I am also blessed to have had so much time to read and I almost forgot, this computer.  Imagine my first year here with no computer.  I read more I guess.

You got a new computer, you have internet (!) a new camera…

And I bought a car!

Sounds like you’re settling in.  Why the hell leave?

Well I can take everything with me.  Almost. 

What were the lowlights of 2014?

I hate what the media does to information, making every event a breaking story where they dissect, regurgitate and worst, speculate, creating opinions they call news. Second, there’s just too much information and now we have to wade through billions of opinions.  I think people (I know, an opinion) were generally better off when they didn’t know of the atrocities going on around them every hour of the day. 

And you think we are more accountable because we know now how bad the world is?

In his Christmas address Pope Francis said the war in Syria had gone on too long.  There was, is, just too much suffering and I think there is too much suffering because we now know there is too much suffering. And what can we do about it?  Practice charity at home, pick a cause, meanwhile a child freezes in a refugee camp. We can help one, maybe two but there will always be 1000 we can't. Someone ought to be accountable.  
 

We suffer, to some extent, from a great paradox.

I agree.  When I trek in the Himalayas or when I greet a glorious sunrise I cannot doubt the Creator who gave us such majestic moments and places.  But when children suffer through no fault of their own, I lose faith.  I don’t know how to believe. 

But you do, you continue to believe.

I guess nature is a great restorer of hope and faith. 

You had some curious ideas in the past year; creating a new testament with Paul’s letters placed after the book of Revelation, your recent suggestion that ‘salvation history’ could be adopted by all major faiths.  Anything more on these?

If I go back to school, pursuing these ideas without a support system and working full time, well, what I have is what I put in this blog.   I am only skimming the surface in an endless pursuit of truth.