It’s all about perspective.  Sometimes, adventure spells fear and uncertainty, not because we lack courage, but because the very nature of adventure is grounded in ‘not knowing’ … stepping into unfamiliar territory with very little ability to control outcomes through advance planning.  At other times, adventure seems exciting and fun, not because we have suddenly become brave, but because the very nature of adventure will take us away from what is familiar (and perhaps, too routine).  The adventure is the same in both cases.  It is still an unknown, something that we cannot plan or control, and it has no clear outcome.  It’s not adventure that has changed, but our perspective.

This seems to happen to me daily when I am in Hong Kong. For example, one day this week we had two men who came into the tailoring shop to pick up the shirts they had ordered.  They were from Kenya, and one was a member of the Kenyan Parliament.  And, they were very keen to talk with me about the current political situation in America. The following day, a family from Canada came in wearing Hawaiian shirts and leis, obviously enjoying a holiday – though leis aren’t the usual garb in Hong Kong!

Then, on my birthday, January 20, I was invited to attend a dinner to celebrate the birthday of one of the tailors’ children.  Shayan Ahmed Anonnor was turning 1 year old. The celebration was held at the Pakistani Club in Hong Kong, and the entire Bangladeshi Muslim community was invited.  Even the Ambassador of the Bangladesh Consulate attended.  It was an honor for me to be asked to come, and to be escorted there with three of my tailors on a bus. (see picture above).  As the beautiful Muslim women came in, and the children ran around screaming and playing, and the men raced after kids and talked of important events, I thought a bit about adventure and perspective.  As the inauguration of the new President of the United States, Donald J. Trump, (who has been quite vocal about the Muslim community), was gearing up, I realized that there I was --  the only Christian, Caucasian woman (and priest, at that!) having dinner with over 500 Muslims.  I thought about how fear causes separation and a desire to exclude others, while building relationships creates a desire to include others. We can resist the adventure of entering into relationships with those who seem different, unfamiliar, perhaps even frightening.  Or, we can see those different and unfamiliar relationships as an opportunity to expand the scope of our lives.

To be sure, not all adventures are worth taking, but to avoid adventure because of fear, will always leave us smaller than we could otherwise be.  Our literary mentor, Bilbo Baggins, from J.R.R.  Tolkien’s The Hobbit, was taught about just such a perspective by his mentor, the wizard, Gandalf who said to him, “Some believe it is only great power that can hold evil in check, but that is not what I have found. It is the small everyday deeds of ordinary folk that keep the darkness at bay. Small acts of kindness and love…”

When we are afraid of adventure, we think we can hold evil in check by our own power.  But, the only way to keep the darkness at bay is to change our perspective from fear to curiosity, and from curiosity to kindness and love.

A dear friend of mine who spent a number of years in prison once said to me, “Everything is a sentence.”  What he meant was that everything has a ‘season’ – a time of beginning, the living through, and a time of ending. We often get ourselves distorted because we want to control those ‘seasons.’  If what we are experiencing is delightful, we do everything we can to keep it from ending.  If what we are experiencing is difficult or unpleasant, we do everything we can to jump to the end to get it over with quickly.  Consequently, we sometimes miss the middle bit – the bit about the ‘living through.’ Just as there is a ‘season’ to everything, there is also a journey involved in that season – and that is where our good friend Bilbo Baggins comes in!

Bilbo Baggins, (from J.R.R.Tolkien’s The Hobbit) was like many people in the Bible, and like many of us.  He was going along with life day in and day out – eating, drinking, socializing with friends, and maybe even getting a little fatter with all the food and drink he had! Life may not have been perfect, but it was okay.  It was routine and relatively predictable. When Gandalf, the wizard, came and told him he was needed for a dangerous and likely unsuccessful adventure, Bilbo was immediately dismissive.  “We don’t want any adventures here, thank you!  You might try over The Hill or across The Water.” But, Gandalf was as insistent as Bilbo was dismissive.  “I will go so far as to send you on this adventure.  Very amusing for me, very good for you – and profitable too, very likely, if you ever get over it,” said Gandalf.  Bilbo, quick on the draw, cried out, “Sorry!  I don’t want any adventures, thank you.  Not today…but please come to tea – any time you like!”

Sounds a bit like Moses at the burning bush when God suggested he take on the adventure of leading the Israelites out of Egypt.  He had similar excuses – I can’t talk in front of people… I don’t know what I’d say to people who asked who sent me…Can’t you choose someone else?  In short, he was saying, “Try over The Hill or across The Water.  I’m not your man.” But God was as persuasive with Moses as Gandalf was with Bilbo.  And each ended up embarking on an amazing adventure – an adventure that was good for them and good for others. 

Countless people in Scripture went through this exact process – being asked by God to get on board with an adventure, finding every excuse to stay in their current, comfortable, cozy life, and finally accepting the adventure offered and finding themselves and others transformed as a result. The adventures that come across our path may not be the same as those of Bilbo Baggins or Moses, but we can blurt out the same kinds of denials and excuses, especially if we’re in a ‘season’ that we’re enjoying.  We don’t want things disrupted, after all! We might find life a little easier, even if a bit more edgy, if we simply expected one ‘season’ to end and another to begin.  If we simply saw the possibility of the next ‘season’ as an adventure worthy of the taking.

Many of you have responded that you are ‘in’ with the challenge to see 2017 as a year of adventure.  Using the Comment section below, I hope we can share some of the adventures we embark on – how they turn out, and how we turn out as a result!

This morning, I was up before dawn, and watched the dark turn to light.  It was stunning. I snapped this incredible photo of the desert sky on January 10, 2017 with my inferior iPhone 5S camera.  Still, it seems like the sun was flirting with adventure…

I will be going back to Hong Kong next week to work in the tailoring shop for my little business The Hong Kong Connection.  Travel is always an adventure, and my travels to Hong Kong always top the list.  Every one of them, like the desert sky, is different every time.  I meet new people, I enjoy the friends I already have there, I encounter and measure people from all over the world for shirts and suits.  I eat Bangladesh food with my tailors who are Muslims from Bangladesh.  I cover for them at the shop when they go to the mosque to pray.  I eat Chinese dim sum with my Chinese friends, and take yoga at my favorite yoga studio – Pure Yoga.

Every day can be an adventure, if we make it so.  God has provided us with a dynamic, ever flowing universe peopled with diversity and wonder.  Sometimes we are abundantly surprised.  Sometimes we are driven to sadness and despair.  Light and dark.  Sunrise and sunset. And, all of it is the walk of Bilbo Baggins (The Hobbit, by J.R.R. Tolkien) to the mountain… or for us, the mountain of God.

My sister always has a prognostication about the New Year.  Members of the family routinely contact her toward the end of the year to find out what has ‘come to her’ about the coming year.  Sometimes she will say, “The New Year is going to be a year of change,” or “a year of balance,” or a “year of new possibilities.” This year, I have my own prognostication – I believe this is to be a year of adventure.  I don’t exactly know why I think that.  I just noticed that I was ending my email messages telling people I prayed that they would have a New Year filled with adventure.  And, I didn’t contrive to write it – it just seemed to come unbidden from the plastic computer keys beneath my fingers.

Today is the Feast of the Epiphany – the great celebration of light and remembering the trek of the wise men and their generous gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh.  I love Epiphany, because it is for me, a feast filled with wonder.  I live in a desert, not unlike the desert the wise men trounced through on their way to Bethlehem, and surely they were on an adventure!  They believed in what they could not yet see, and because they believed, they set out.  The terrain was unfamiliar, the destination unclear, the darkness of the night fierce. 

They were like Bilbo Baggins in The Hobbit, by J.R.R. Tolkien. Bilbo was asked to engage in an adventure.  He was not the adventurous sort. He really preferred staying in his warm comfortable home with a nice cup of tea.  There was no longing for a climb up the Andes for him.  Yet, adventure was the very thing that saved him from his complacent, routine, life-without-drama existence, and helped him to live with verve and enthusiasm.  The wise men and old Bilbo Baggins are beacons of light to me this Epiphany, and for the year 2017.

This is a year to step out, try something new, experience something different, show courage, tiptoe into territory that is unknown and may even carry danger.  Sure, playing with our smartphones is familiar, turning on our favorite show is comforting, eating the same foods feels safe.  But, might we not give a little care for the edginess of passion and pathos?  When we put down the smartphone, do an activity we’ve never done before, change our pattern of comfort, we might be surprised to find that we really begin to live. 

I say, let’s make this a year of adventure!  Let’s be wise women and men, and believe in what we can’t see and set out because we believe. I think we’ll be amazed at what we find…