Matt W Cook

I was wandering around in the bowels of my hard drive and I found this neat little document I made when I was still living in Pakistan. It’s worth a few chuckles, at least.

Things I’ve learned from living in Pakistan:
• Traveler’s diarrhea is a temporary affliction.
• Urdu language books and Urdu speakers do not necessarily agree.
• Gvaar, tinday and bindi are not cities in Asia, but vegetables.
• Malaria is a perfect weight-loss system.
• America is a bad, bad place.
• ‘Original DVD Version’ means some guy with a video camera filmed the movie while sitting in front of his buddy’s TV.
• Ceiling fans are your best friend.
• Water filters are your best friend.
• Goat is one of the tastiest meats on the market.
• Buffalo milk is ten times better and ten times cheaper than cow.
• 25 people can easily fit in a 10-person van.
• The skim that comes to the top of milk when you boil it is actually rather tasty.
• The words ‘Only to be sold with a prescription’ is more like a guideline than an actual rule.
• Everyone in the world is exactly the same, they just do different things.

I also want to add something that may not have been obvious to me when I first wrote this. Pakistan is a good place. It really is a good, nice place.

“But wait, Matt, isn’t it full of dirt and crap and violence and Tatooine-level heat?” Yeah, it is.

“And doesn’t it have a slew of horrible problems like poverty, terrorism and rampant ignorance?” Yep, sure does.

“What about the high crime rate and social injustices and political corruption?” Yes, Pakistan has more than it’s fair share of all that.

But it’s a good place. And I love it. I love it so much that I get angry when I see the problems it is forced to endure. I love it so much that I’d be willing to rock the boat to see those problems solved. So I’m going to move back there and do my part, whatever that part may be. Because I love it.

Do you love anything so much that you’d be willing to hurt it to make it better?

Be angry and do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger.

We’ve all heard this verse. I usually hear it when people are talking about relationships. The idea is that you should never let your anger settle overnight. That you ought to deal with whatever relational problem you have before you say goodnight. Good advice, eh?

But, wait. Read the verse again. Be angry.

Let’s pretend I’m a writer for a moment. And let’s say that I am writing a love letter or something and I say:

Let not the sun set on your love.

What will you take that to mean? Will you assume that I’m saying that you should make sure you deal with your feelings of love before the sun sets and not harbor any feelings of love overnight?

No. You’ll assume (rightly) that I mean you should never let your love fade away. That you should keep it high in the sky like the sun. That it should be an obvious thing to everyone and it should, at least in some measure, guide you.

Hold that thought.

This verse is in Ephesians 4. What does that chapter talk about? It talks about how the Gentiles are blinded by the shadow. How they are hard in their hearts and how the shadow darkens them and (possibly) us.

Be angry and do not sin.

I don’t think Paul is telling us to be careful not to sin when we happen to get angry. I think he’s telling us to get angry! To get seriously angry about the shadow and the effects the shadow has over us and our fellow man! Be angry! And as you feed that anger, stay away from the sin that ought to be the object of the anger! And never let that anger go!

Now, you will point me to James 1:20 and say that the anger of man does not produce the righteousness of God. And you’d be right to do that. Man’s anger is generally a pretty shallow, spiteful thing. Which is why the only anger we should be looking at here is godly anger. Spirit-led anger. Anger that has sin and its effects as its only object. Not anger directed toward people.

No revolution can be successful without anger. There is no such thing as a passive rebellion. No tyrant lost his crown to an indifferent crowd. And unless we are angry at the homicidal taint on our hearts we’ll never throw it off.

Are you angry at sin? Are you angry at how sin is poisoning your friends and neighbors? Are you angry at the scores of injustices in the world? Don’t let the sun set on that anger! Hold on to it! Stoke it! Made it burn and use its energy to watch out for the snares of the flesh and the devil. Use it to fight against sin in the world and in your heart. Be angry and stop sinning!

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A co-worker was asking me about Pakistan the other day. She was very excited as I talked about the country, which was nice because most people just get weirded out when I explain how much fun it is to ride on top of buses and drink questionable water. She visited us and Ruth and I showed her some of the wild videos of Pakistan that my buddy Cuthill has posted on the internet.

It was a little difficult to watch them.

I had no idea how much I missed that country. As I saw scenes of my old apartment and of travelling on the roofs of buses and drinking tea in dirty chai shops, I felt something reach out inside.

Have you ever longed for something without really knowing why you wanted it? I mean, seriously, what is so attractive about Pakistan? It’s dirty, insanely hot and full of all sorts of inconveniences. I could never get coffee, bacon or donuts. It was hard to find friends with similar interests. And it was so hot that I could have boiled a full goat in the sweat I produced in a day. Why do I miss Pakistan so much?

In Pakistan people would often ask me why I liked Pakistan so much. Urdu has a very nice phrase that captures how I feel: dil lagya. The heart has stuck.

My relationship with Pakistan smacks of a bollywood romance. I can give few reasons for my love, but it’s there anyway. My heart has stuck, and I doubt I’ll be able to instick it. Even as I sit here in my comfortable apartment, with my decent job, drinking a wonderful coffee while chatting with like-minded friends, there is still a pull. Like a call from a distant lover.

Am I bring melodramatic? Maybe.

Watch these videos and feel the melodrama with me:

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Among pokémon trainers there are really two kinds of pokémon that you can come across. Those you respect and those you mock. Those that trainers are are generally willing to work with and those that they are not.

Everyone is willing to sweat and pull for a Zapdos or Dragonair. Everyone is willing to put in the time to raise and nurture a young Charmander or Mew. Of course they’re willing to do that. I mean it’s a Mew for heaven’s sake! Do you have any idea how much potential a Mew has? Most would gladly trade a level 50 Grimer for a level 5 Mew. Because the Mew has potential. It qualifies itself. It pulls its own weight.

But there are few who would put serious effort into raising a Ratatta or Zubat or (shudder) Paras. Why not? Because it seems that these pokémon have very little potential. They are the products of poor lineage. They have nothing special about them. Just common, base, trash, really. A trained level 15 Mew could drop a level 20 Paras. Maybe even level 25.

Which is why I’m glad that God is not a pokémon trainer.

God isn’t searching the world for special people. He’s not trying to find the Mewtwo of the world and side with it. He’s looking for the base, lowly, stupid Ratatta to empower!

I’m a Ratatta. Small, unspecial and not welcome in many homes. But with a trainer like the one I have I could rock the world. I could stand before kings and rulers defiantly. I could take on all the legendary pokémon of the world. Bring on your Articuno and your Moltres! I may be a lowly Ratatta, but I am being trained by the greatest Master out there. Nay, I am trained by the one who made all other trainers and pokémon!

Yay for God and his team of ragamuffin pokémon!

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Where I work there are sometimes extended periods of time where there is nothing to do. So the staff relaxes on the couches and flips on the TV. At this point the following scene plays out: one staff grabs the controller and begins to flip through the channels. After about ten minutes of futile scanning another staff will comment on how there is nothing good on TV these days. The others will grunt in ageement. Eventually the flipping will stop and they’ll settle on TLC where they will watch three straight episodes of ‘Say Yes to the Dress’ (why a show like this is on the LEARNING channel, I’ll never know).

Now, no one on staff actually cares about these people and their dress choices. But we all watch anyway. Conversation dies and we are drawn in. Entertainment.

Is it shallow? It seems like it. We all agree that there is hardly anything worth watching on TV. Yet we watch it anyway. We all seems to agree that entertainment has become a shallow thing. But we chase it, still.

As I sit and watch these girls fight and cry over their dresses I find myself dumbed (if that is a word). I am pacified, but not stimulated. Amused (in its truest sense), but not enriched.

Is it not possible that entertainment be deep? I think it is. And I think that this kind of entertainment is even more beneficial and more fun than popular entertainment. It just seems to take a bit more effort to enjoy.

I sometimes think that the difference between shallow entertainment and deep entertainment is a lot like the differences between a cigarette and a pipe. The cigarette is easy to use, gives an more powerful feeling than the pipe and is easier to get a hold of. But it also destroys you. The pipe is kinda difficult to smoke properly, doesn’t give such a powerful initial pleasure and it’s kinds rare. But (since you don’t inhale the smoke) its damage to the body is (compared to cigarettes) negligible.

I don’t want to kill my mind with cigarette shows, sites and stories. But it’s hard to quit smoking, eh?

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The deer pants for water. I think David’s analogy is pretty profound. The deer pants. It doesn’t just want. It doesn’t just agree that water is a fitting thing to pursue. It doesn’t even have faith that water will be a satisfying thing, once obtained. It just pants. It couldn’t even really tell you why it panted. It only knows that there is something deep within it that screams out for water. An insatiable urge that it cannot control, manufacture or deny. It simply pants.

What a picture!

When I first realized that David was simply expressing his own desires for God, it worried me. It worried me because of how little it is like the way I desire God. I know that God is all-satisfying. I know that tasting him proves his goodness. I know that I will be restless until I find rest in him. But do I pant?

I was worried.

But then I had a realization: the Christian life is better compared to a treatment plan than a quick cure. Sin is more like a resilent cancer than appendicitis. It’s not something that is simply cut out. It takes years of vigilent fighting.

I have soul-cancer. It poisons my mind and emotions so much that I pant for gasoline and shun water. But the cancer is being cured. David’s was cured so much that he panted for the right things. I pant to pant. I desire to desire. I’m on the right track. I’m taking chemotherapy. I’m still sick but the cure is on the way.

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The deer pants for water. I think David’s analogy is pretty profound. The deer pants. It doesn’t just want. It doesn’t just agree that water is a fitting thing to pursue. It doesn’t even have faith that water will be a satisfying thing, once obtained. It just pants. It couldn’t even really tell you why it panted. It only knows that there is something deep within it that screams out for water. An insatiable urge that it cannot control, manufacture or deny. It simply pants.

What a picture!

When I first realized that David was simply expressing his own desires for God, it worried me. It worried me because of how little it is like the way I desire God. I know that God is all-satisfying. I know that tasting him proves his goodness. I know that I will be restless until I find rest in him. But do I pant?

I was worried.

But then I had a realization: the Christian life is better compared to a treatment plan than a quick cure. Sin is more like a resilent cancer than appendicitis. It’s not something that is simply cut out. It takes years of vigilent fighting.

I have soul-cancer. It poisons my mind and emotions so much that I pant for gasoline and shun water. But the cancer is being cured. David’s was cured so much that he panted for the right things. I pant to pant. I desire to desire. I’m on the right track. I’m taking chemotherapy. I’m still sick but the cure is on the way.

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Do you have a pen near you? Grab it. And a piece of paper. We’re going to do an exercise together.

Write a list of the things you want to do. Not just normal stuff like ‘I want to eat KFC (mmmmm….KFC…)’ but serious, deep, heart-felt desires. Don’t just think about it in your head. Seriously write it down. I’ll do it too.

Okay got your list? If not, stop reading until you do.

Go it now? Good. So look at it and ask yourself, are you on your way to accomplishing these things? Any of them? Why not?

Let’s do a case study. I’ll pick a random thing from my list: ‘I want to learn Urdu to such an extent that I speak, read and write like a native.’
My Urdu is rusty. I really realized that yesterday night. I mean really, rusty. But not just because I”m out of practice. Because I stopped progressing. Why? The desire to master the Urdu language is deep on my heart. So why don’t I take the steps to get it? Why don’t I take the steps to fulfill all those other things on my list? Why don’t you?

Frankly, because we don’t feel like it.

I don’t feel like practicing Urdu. I don’t feel like reaching out to my community. I don’t feel like writing. I don’t feel like praying. I just don’t feel like it.

I look at some of the famous people who lived 100 years ago. Doesn’t it look like they were more productive than we are? Why? Was it because they felt like it? I don’t think so. I think that they were more in control of their feelings. Or, if not, they were in control of how they responded to their feelings. Do you think Edwards felt like locking himself in his study for 13 hours a day? I really doubt it. But he believed in his tasks and in his dreams so much that his desire to complete them overcame his desire to sit on his duff and watch TV.

So I sit here and look at my list, not feeling like doing any of them yet desiring them all. What will I do? I think I’ll try to want them more, and tell my feelings off and just do them.

On we go.

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It started with an innocent remark. Of course, the case could be made that most evils are born out of an innocent remark. An off-handed comment, not designed to actually mean anything.

“Let’s go to the India Bazaar!” Matt jumped out of his seat, carried by his own excitement. The girls looked at him as he wandered around the living room looking for his satchel.
“Now?” Hillary asked.
“Of course! Let’s go! What else are we doing today?”
Ruth shrugged. “We should finish cleaning up this mess.” She pointed at Matt’s entire library lying on the bed and the piles of ornaments and papers on the kitchen floor, casualties in the war to re-arrange the apartment.
“Oh,” Matt said with a wave of the hand. “We’ll only be there for an hour or two. We need to try that Pani Puri Hilsy keeps talking about. Go go go!”

Ten minutes later and Matt, Ruth, Hillary and the two kid were jammed into the Plymouth Neon. They parked near the western end of the India Bazaar on Gerrard Street, right under a parking sign.
It was a good outing. The Pani Puri was excellent. As was the Lahori Chaat. Ruth picked up a pretty dress and Hillary bought some wooden spoons. Matt considered buying incense named after the venerable Sai Baba, but eventually decided to go with Sandal wood instead.

An hour or two later, and they were ready to go home. HIllary had a meeting with a friend scheduled and Matt and Ruth were supposed to see Shawn. So they walked back to where the car was.
“Dude, where’s my car?” Matt later wished he had said. In truth, he said nothing as he stared at the parking spot.
“Isn’t that where you parked?” Hillary asked. Matt still said nothing. Twiched a little.

After grilling a few shopkeepers and making a few phone calls they found out where the car was and even copied down the directions form Google. It looked fun:

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