Hope you didn't mind that I included the prologue in the title. That was a writing first for me.
Five weeks in. My favorite thing about living here remains the MRT, Taipei's subway system. I beep through the automatic gate with my convenient MRT card, head down the escalator, put my headphones in and choose one of my many newly downloaded....what--what's that? oh, yeah--Taiwan has no download laws. But uhhh...then again, what do I know? I jay walk, I stare at strangers, even smile at some. I don't know the laws or the culture, I'm an American! A lot of Americans here get around riding "ghost scooters." They'll buy a scratched-up $500 Vespa with no license plate, no riding license, no nothing. Often the police will pull over a scooter-er for the absence of plates, but once they flash their U.S. driver's license, and kindly say "I don't speak Chinese, I'm an English teacher here," the policeman will usually smile back and let them go no probrem. I've considered getting a Vespa.Whether the Ghost Scooters will accept me after our top secret meeting this weekend is still in question. OH! Back to legal transportation, the MRT. So then I'll put on some good music, sit back, and let the sight of hundreds of Taiwanese people just getting off of work or going to visit their grandfather soothe me. I'm so inspired by this new-found medium of people-watching. Suddenly my journal pages are filling up with people poems, written in my illegible quick cursive.
Most people I know love to people watch. I know where this awe comes from. Out of everything that God created, people are the only thing, or beings, created in his image. And since God is the most beautiful sight, or being--whatever, well, that puts you and me in a very close 2nd, my friend. I heard somewhere that for every male-female human combo (...how's that for Christian high school birds and bees lingo, eh?) there are six billion different ways for their DNA to combine to make up that of their offspring. Six billion. We are "fearfully and wonderfully made." It must take God a long time to decide on which combination of genes would be best for every baby that is born. And we girls think making decisions at DSW is hard.
I haven't sent any postcards yet. But riding on the MRT while my Taipei 101 postcards sit in my desk drawer waiting for me to care about someone back home has caused me to realize something. When the thought occurred to me, it was a WWJD moment--and probably the first moment since 1999 that I've classified a realization as such: If the Lord went to a foreign place and sent you a post card, there wouldn't be a photo of snow-capped cliffs or a white sand coastline, or even an orangey-purplish sunset (although those get me every time, don't they you?) on the front of it. The post card photo would be a snapshot of someone from that country. Of anyone. Not even a pretty person, per-se. Just someone. Because they're created in his image. And they are his most precious possession, his most time-consuming masterpiece. So while we eat Snyder's of Hanover and "ooo" and "wooow" over the Travel Channel's "World's Top 10 Beaches," God is "ooo"ing and "wow"ing over you, and over the short, plump, gray haired lady dozing off on her way home, or to who knows where, on my MRT.
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