I’m not much of an outdoor person – no fishing, limited hiking, etc.  Living in Minnesota, I went to the Mall of America quite a bit.  Pretty fun actually.  A fun fact – during the winter, the mall has to pump in cold air from the outside to counter the body heat generated by the people inside.

I hurt my foot playing ball that summer.  You don’t know pain until you’ve injured your heel.  While it did prevent me from being scolded by church leaders for fouling hard, I had to walk around with a walking stick most of the time.

So I drove.  One of the most beautiful drives in the country, around Lake Superior after Duluth and beyond to the Canadian border.  Steel blue waters to the east, evergreen forests to the west.

I would play a combination of John Denver and Tupac Shakur on these drives. My roommate at the time would scoff.  I’m sorry – what is it with Asian Christians at times?  Get out of your bubble.

Tupac’s song “Only God Can Judge Me” stood out.  I used to dismiss it as bravado or defiance, but now it makes more sense.  Sometimes when I describe what I’ve experienced, I get utterly inappropriate replies.  One time even, when I tried to describe my casework to a pastor, he just turns his back and walks away.  I think that was actually the last time I bothered trying to tell anyone about my work.

Only God can judge me is spot on.  No human words can adequately describe the joy, pain, sins, contributions, games people played.  Much less weigh them all out.

I’ll be going to Minnesota in the spring to attend my mentor’s wife’s memorial service.  

I think I’ll make that drive again.  With Messrs. Denver and Shakur.