Okay, I feel better now.  I can be honest with you and you can be honest with me.  Thanks for hearing me out…

The differences between the book and the movie were pretty substantial.  I realized, after finishing the book today, that the movie just took the basic idea of the book and borrowed bits and pieces of the stories told in Q&A to tell a pretty different story.  The book (and movie, for that mater) is a bout an orphan boy who has an opportunity to be on a Quiz show in India called Who Wants to Win a Billion (aka W3B).  The show is the India version of Who Wants to be a Millionaire complete with lifelines, dramatic music and manufactured suspense.  The boy, Ram Muhammad Thomas (Jamaal in the movie) is arrested on suspicion of cheating when he gets all the way to the final question of the game.  In the book, he is taken to a holding cell where he is tortured by police officers who are trying to get him to admit how he is cheating when all of the sudden, in walks a female lawyer who insists that Ram is her client and that he has rights.  She tells Ram that the only way she can defend him is if he tells her the truth about cheating and she is in disbelief when he holds fast to his story of knowing the answers.  Each remaining chapter of the book tells a story from Ram’s past and always finishes with a question from the Quiz Show that he is only able to ask because of his experiences.  Because the questions are random, the book tells stories of his life out of chronological order yet it is still easy to follow along the whole story of his 18 years.

The movie follows the same premises but most of the stories are different, the love interest plays a much larger role (surprise, surprise) and setting of his interrogation is quite different.  That being said, it’s not that the movie was not as good as the book (when is it ever really better anyway) but it was just different.  The author, Vikas Swarup, who is an Indian diplomat, gives the rest of the world a peek into the reality of living in the worlds most populated and one of the most poverty stricken countries in the world.

Though India was one of the last places on earth I ever wanted to visit, I was fortunate enough to go in 2006 to see my mom and step dad who were living there while contracting with Coke.  Some of the things I was exposed to shocked me and saddened me.  For example, one of the things that was hardest to get used to was anytime you were stopped at a traffic light, children and mothers would come to the window of your car and start tapping on the window, bringing their hands to their mouth asking for food (but really asking for money).  They would often times be deformed or carry deformed babies and looked as though they were hollow and hopeless.  Mom told me that they didn’t give money to these beggars because they were sent out on the street by gangs who had purposely deformed them in order to cause people to have greater compassion and in turn give them more money.  But the more money they received, the more these gangs made and the more children and women were stolen and forced into being panhandlers.  This was presented in both the book and the movie and reminded me of the feeling I got when I first learned about this horrid practice.  I’m glad that this book was turned into a movie and that the movie won Best Picture and that people were going in droves to see it.  I only hope that Vikas’ novel will bring greater awareness to the poverty, corruption and prejudice that exists in India.

I would definitely recommend this book to everyone, whether you have seen the movie or not.  If you have already seen the movie, don’t worry, it doesn’t ruin the book for you.  You will read more stories of Ram/Jamaal’s life and learn more about how things are in India.  If you’ve read it or seen the movie and want to discuss it, let me know!

You might ask, why RobbieHarris.org instead of .com? Well, .com is taken by an exotic bird breeder and I didn’t want to go through the hassles of trying to workout a deal to buy it off of her (yes, that Robbie Harris is a female). Instead, I’ll stick with .org until the fortunate day that the “other Robbie Harris” forgets to renew and I stake my claim!

As of now, I’m not 100 percent sure what kind of content will be on this site, but to begin with, I’ve imported a handful of my old blogs from my blogger account. It’s been fun looking back at the old posts and remembering where I was when I wrote them. I can only hope that this site will be one of substance and that I can use it to clearly articulate my thoughts, visions, desires and opinions as well as use it to be an open forum for others to react to those thoughts, visions, desires and opinions.

So here we go, RobbieHarris.org is officially “out there.” I hope you enjoy…

Before she was left, Katie was warned by folks who had lived in Portland that, “She’ll (Portland) be hard on you at first.” She quickly learned the truth of that statement but through tears and frustration began to gain the approval of this magnificent city. Over and over again I would hear Katie go on about how she walks everywhere, about how amazing her neighborhood is and that, “it really doesn’t rain here ALL the time.” I know her pretty well and I could hear in her voice that she was falling in love with her new city and that she had no plans of going anywhere for quite some time.

With that in mind, I knew it was time for me to go for a visit. It had been over a year since we’d been able to hang out and we often joked that the whole reason she wanted me to come visit this time was so that I’d fall in love with Portland and eventually move there myself. I love to travel, and it didn’t take much convincing on her part to get me to go visit a place, or even a region of the country, that I had never been.

The intention of this blog is not to give a moment by moment recap of all of the things I did while in Oregon or to show pictures or tell funny stories… instead, it’s to help me process some of things I learned while taking this short trip. I didn’t have any wild expectations or an agenda, honestly, I was just looking forward to spending some time in a new city with an amazing friend.

Whenever I get out of my day to day routine and go someplace I’ve never been I always process where I am in life and where I’m going. I rethink plans and goals and begin to imagine a life different from the life that I’m currently living. I allow myself to play with the idea of not having everything planned out and starting over and doing something completely different. This trip was no different in that respect but seems to have left a little more of an impact than usual. It’s not necessarily any one particular thing that I experienced on the trip that has allowed me to think outside of my current situation but I believe it’s the timing of the trip and how it corresponds with where I am. I’m a few short months away from being debt free which has been an almost 3 year journey to financial freedom. The next step is to build up a fairly large savings for emergencies and from there, who knows. But today, I find myself thinking, “what if I decided to do something different.” Then I start to get that feeling of excitement in the pit of my stomach… the one that occurs when you remember that you can do anything you want to and that you don’t have to always stick to one plan. It comes when I allow myself to ask God, “What’s next?” instead of telling him, “here’s what’s next.”

Don’t get me wrong, I haven’t completely abandoned the course I’ve been on for the last three years and, currently, I’m still on the same track. But what has changed is that I’m remembering that there is more out there than my plan. That God is far bigger than an emergency fund or the right steps to starting a new church. Traveling to the opposite corner of the country has reminded me how big this world is and how much there is to do and how little time there is to do it. It’s helped me to put in perspective working a day job in order to meet a certain goal. It’s helped me to even look at the things I’m doing now with my life with a broader view. I’m starting to see the small group that I lead at my place on Wednesday’s for some of the Decatur city teens as more than just a part of the church that I’m planting. Instead it’s about pouring as much as I can into them so that maybe, just maybe, they will see God in a way that makes sense in their world and will desire to entertain the idea that He exists outside of religion and genuinely loves them. It’s my chance to genuinely love them and to give them what little wisdom I’ve collected over my short adult life.

Things are bigger now. I think part of this realization came as we drove out of a city with towering buildings and intricate bridges through mountains that were lined with moss covered trees and interwoven with creeks and rivers, and then through farmland and rural towns until, as if land just dropped away, we came over a hill and were faced with the vastness of the pacific ocean lined by rocky cliffs and sandy beaches. Upon this view my stomach dropped and I was filled with a kind of adrenaline that is hard to explain. I think it came from the fact that Katie and I had just driven through some of God’s most beautiful creation only to be greeted with an infinite mass of water as if He was saying, “you have no idea what I can do.” You can’t help but feel so incredibly small and yet so incredibly loved upon a sight like this. The fact is, God created beauty in such huge proportions and yet loves me more than any of it and that I am more beautiful to him than any of the scenery that I had just experienced.

Even if I continue on the same track that I was on before I made this trip, I still see things differently now… I see them more in context of the bigger things that God is doing. I see them outside of new jeans, new boots and new travels. Portland is an amazing city surrounded by mountains, farmland, vineyards and if you drive far enough, the Pacific Ocean. But more importantly, Portland to me was a reminder of how big God is and how I’m not ever stuck in any one circumstance. I can only pray now that God will remind me of this freedom daily and that I’ll constantly have my eyes and ears open to all that God has for me and that I’ll never sacrifice a new adventure for an old plan.

We live in a country where we are free to practice whatever religion we choose and I know that most of the time I take this for granted. All five of these people were out to serve God and lost their lives while doing so.

This incident reminds me of the underground church that is thriving in many parts of the world. The very real danger of losing their life is something that Christians in many parts of the world think about on a daily basis whenever they sneak off to church to worship Jesus or open their Bible in a dark closet. We hear stories of martyrs on the other side of the word and I know that I often times feel so far removed from their persecution and struggles because of the very freedoms that I’ve taken for granted.

Those that were killed yesterday serve as a reminder to me, and hopefully to you as well, that while we are free in Christ, we still live in a fallen world where there is a very real enemy who wants to stop the worship of the One True God. Let us bring glory to God out of such horrible circumstances to show the enemy that he will not silence us!

My prayers are with the families of those who lost loved ones yesterday.

That would be fantastic!

Not long after I set that goal I began to long to get back into the Old Testament. I started reading it from the beginning awhile ago and over time started getting back more into the gospels so that my attention was better held while reading. I had only a few more chapters of Numbers to go and looked ahead to see that Deuteronomy was another book of laws and commands so I wasn’t super excited to start back. Something happened though. As I began to read Deuteronomy my eyes began to see way past a list of commands and rules. God’s character and love began to shine through the stone tablets to the point where I found myself not being able to put the Bible down. I couldn’t wait to read the next set of commands that he had for His people that He loved so incredibly much. Over and over again he would tell them that the reason he was giving them these laws was so that he could prosper them in the land that he was about to give them. He warned them over and over again that not following him would result in death and destruction but that if they would follow, he would give them everything.

God began to speak to me about my goal. Very gently and with words of affirmation God said, “no… I want you to fall in love with me.” I would say, “but God, I do love you.” Again I would hear, “I want you to fall in love with me.” As a man, that is hard for me to hear. I’ve always loved God but have had a bit of a hard time seeing myself as a bride falling in love with a being that we so often think of as “Him” and “Father.” It was almost as though I couldn’t see through the masculinity of it all and that was keeping me from falling.

I’m falling for him though. I know this because I’m incredibly vulnerable to Him. I hang on his every word, I don’t sleep but stay up late at night reading His Word. He’s the first thing on my mind when I wake up and the last thing on my mind when I go to bed. My whole world seems upside down. Things that used to not matter to me now bring me to tears. I blush at the thought that he loves me and that I am capable of pleasing him. Never have I truly fallen in love with Him like I am now and it’s scarier than I ever imagined. In this relationship I have something to lose and have even more to gain. I have to think about everything I do and how it would impact my relationship with Him. I have to put Him first in all things.

Through all of this God is showing me what it’s going to be like to be a husband and to be honest I, at times, feel like I don’t have what it takes. I fail God, and he always takes me back because He is perfect love. If I fail a wife, will she stick around? Back to the vulnerability thing I guess. I know that you can’t truly be in love if you don’t allow yourself to be vulnerable and I don’t know that I’ve ever allowed myself to be in any relationship. God is teaching me what that means through this new found romance with Him. And here’s the thing, for the first time ever I’m not using my relationship with God to get something that I want. It’s not about that. I truly just want Him. If that means I’m always single, so be it. I love God and am so excited about our life together. I know there will be tears and pain but I also know that I will never have anything better than what he as to offer me. If you ask me, the only real definition of a soul mate is God. He’s the only one that we have been created to be in love with. We are our best when we are truly devoted to him. A wife will never be able to offer me that and thank God I’m figuring that out before I’m ever married. What a horrible burden to put on the woman you love. Talk about setting impossible expectations.

So I’ve let you in on probably one of the most personal things I’ve ever felt. But you know what? It’s all about being vulnerable to God. I’m safe inside my relationship with Him to be who He created me to be.

Hopefully I can change that!

Later that night we met up and the games began. We read and re-read the verses and started talking about it and what it might mean. We talked about how it related to God’s character and whether or not our interpretations were in line with that. Ryan came up with a great interpretation so we went to some commentaries and found that the majority of them agreed with what he had been saying.

So anyway, the point is that everyone needs a friend that they can call to discuss what they are learning about God. These conversations have helped me to grow in my understanding of the Word and have also strengthened my friendship with Ryan. Like I said… everyone needs a Ryan!

Thanks Ryan!

I started running about three months ago and began with a 3.2 mile route. It was difficult but I was able to do it and felt good about it. Over the past three months I had only added about a mile to that run and knew that I really needed to up my distance if I was going to run the Peachtree on July 4th. I ran my first 5K race this past weekend and felt excellent at the end which was encouraging to me.

All of that to say that today I decided that I would add another mile to run which would bring me to 5.2 miles. Well, after I ran the first 3.2 I was feeling good and decided to run it again and go for the 6+ mile run.

I did it! I actually ran an extra tenth of a mile in order to get me to the 6.5 mile mark just for the fun of it. I won’t lie, I was pretty worn out afterwards and towards the end I was really pushing my body. It wasn’t so much that I was so tired and couldn’t breathe, it was just that my legs were starting to get sore which makes me realize I really need to strengthen them so I can keep adding miles to the run. I did the 6.5 miles in under 1 hour and 2 minutes. Not bad for me!

So this was a good day. I accomplished something I never thought I would be able to and will keep working at it to get better and better. I never would have thought that I would enjoy running as much as I do!