The last post I wrote about silence in Heaven. Perhaps you are wondering – or not – why I have been silent. I have been traveling! My creativity does not travel well and my focus is on the task at hand.

And to be honest I have not yet figured out to use my technological gadgets to write and post while away from home. I do not have a laptop…writing in a hotel business office on a PC makes me crazy. I have an iMac at home which talks a different language – not altogther but different enough. It leaves me in a quandry.

Anyway…

What did you think about Dennis Rodman? In my wildest dreams I never would have expected him to show up in North Korea. Or be allowed to with all his tattoos and piercings – sign of the decadence the North Korean eschew. (But in which their leader indulges.)

Makes me wonder how the channel of communication was opened in the first place. Did the President of North Korea, Kim Jung-un, happen to pick up his phone, introduce himself and say, “Dennis, come on over and see me next week?” I don’t think it is that simple. But I sure would like to know how it began – through basketball, no doubt. Did Dennis just have a hankering to go to North Korea? It was an odd picture to see big, tall Dennis standing beside the less than tall North Korean President.

Did Dennis see anything but what he was shown by the propagandists? Did he see the poverty? Did he see the starvation with the resulting chronic malnutrition? (3.5 million have starved to death since 1995) The devastated country side of drought and famine? Did he talk to one of the thousands of political prisoners in the prison camps? Was Dennis aware that the country is the most militarized country in the world with a nuclear and space program which is used to threaten the world’s stability while it’s citizens have NOTHING? Was he aware that North Korea ranks as the lowest nation in the world when it comes to human rights?

Why did Dennis want to go to North Korea? Not for the weather! Certainly not as a good-will ambassador. Certainly not as a human rights advocate. My bet is that it was purely a self-serving caper. When folks are used to fame and they slowly are edged out by the next “hot thing” they become desperate for attention. And have been told he is near bankruptcy so maybe he is hoping to cash in on this escapade. Maybe he is a front for some legitimate cause – maybe a back room diplomacy effort… I have been reading too many “who-done-its”.

In my heart, I wish Dennis had gone to maybe make a positive difference. I wish that he had used his celebrity and his access with this opportunity to make a difference. But he hasn’t in this country so I why he would in North Korea?

As someone once said, “Do not deny the sinner his earthly pleasures. It is all they will have in this world or the next.” While I do not like his lifestyle or the hedonism he represents, I can pray for him.

Am I , are we,  to using every opportunity to make a difference in our corner of the world?