What Africa Taught Me

It's been much too long since I've written on here... around a month and a half, I think? I should have written sooner after returning from Malawi, but life is hectic as always. It's funny because last year I became a Christian on the trip after years of atheism/agnosticism, and this year it completely went the opposite way. I didn't become a non-believer on the trip, but it definitely solidified all of the doubts I had been formulating over the last few months. I wrote something down in my Philosophy of Religion class last week, and I thought it did a nice job of summarizing what I ended up getting out of this years trip.


My philosophy teacher said, "The glory of God is the human person fully alive," so this is what I wrote:


The human person fully alive shows off God's incredible handiwork. The glory of God shouldn't be bound to a set of rules in a book of stories. We shouldn't settle or be contented to limited lives, nor should we let others control how we experience this life. You will not be punished for doing something a certain way, or not doing something a certain way. This is YOUR life. Do not live in fear of something that cannot be known. Be contented that you are free. You are free to love who you want to love, go where you want to go, do what you wish to do, think what you want to think, believe in whatever you want to believe, and very simply: be as you desire to be. Do not live for the sake of how others believe you should live. YOU are the one living your life every second of every day, they are not.