Friends,
I think this meditation deserves a repeat-performance. It's a lovely story about Lilly and how her mom taught her a bit about malaria, and compassion. I was with Lilly and her folks recently and brought her an actual malaria net, like we use in Africa. She's a busy 7-year-old now and couldn't remember the entire incident, so I promised to find what I'd written and send it to her. Re-reading it blessed me and I thought you might enjoy it too...
----
A Little Child Shall Lead Them
This year, we all agreed to forgo the typical presents for our adult extended family members and instead choose gifts from the World Vision Gift Catalog. We'd given some similar "gifts" previously, but this year there was a special abandon to it, a desire to really make these "thoughtful" gifts for each receiver, a criteria very close to Janet's heart.
It's about time we did this--several donor friends had "made the switch" already and told me wonderful stories of how even their grandchildren "get into it" and draw pictures of the goats and ducks and school uniforms that are being given in Grandma and Grandpa's name. For young and old, these "gifts" can really bring to life our help for those in need, and at the same time they move our gift exchange focus off of ourselves. I read a quote by a woman this week who said that she gives her grandchildren only gifts from the Gift Catalog, as a way to change the theme of Christmas "from getting to giving." When I read this, I was convicted that we'd missed it a little, that we'd somewhat excluded our grandchildren from this new gift theme and thereby cheated them out of this shift in focus so as not to let them down in the "getting" department.
Everyone needs to negotiate these waters in their own way, and this actually isn't a commercial for World Vision's Gift Catalog, nor anyone else's.
It's a contrast between two events that happened for me last Monday, at the end of a lovely visit to Chico, CA where I stayed with my brother and his sweet young daughters as we celebrated our Mom's 75th birthday. We also celebrated Christmas early, and afterwards five-year-old Maya and I were in the kitchen, where I showed her the picture in the Gift Catalog of the ducks and chickens we bought her parents. Her dad asked her jokingly if they should keep the poultry in her bedroom, and I was trying without much success to explain to her who actually receives these animals. She was a good sport, but I'm not sure she really understood me. I think she'd rather have enjoyed keeping ducks in her bedroom.
We said goodbye a few hours later and were on the plane home that evening when I read the following email from a young couple who give to World Vision and whom I'd visited the prior week, along with their four-year-old, Lilly. The mom wrote: "On Friday, Lilly wanted to make believe we were in the desert. She then started to say, 'Look out for the mosquitoes; they'll bite you.' I told her sometimes mosquito bites make people sick. I asked her how we could help the pretend people not get bit. She thought about it and said, 'a cover?' I explained that, yes, they can use nets to cover themselves. I then told her that we could help real people, by buying them nets for Christmas. She asked where we could buy the nets, and I replied that we could buy them through World Vision. She sat for a second, then gasped and whispered 'Mr. Cory!' It was priceless... She is paying attention;-) I truly believe this will be a family affair in no time at all. So this year for the family we are buying mosquito nets, per Lilly's request."
The hero in this story without question is Lilly's mom. It's her worldview, her "world vision", which seamlessly transforms playtimes like this into teachable moments. In the process, Lilly is transformed in her own understanding. And somewhere along the line, a child's world becomes bigger, more inclusive, more expansive. "Neighbor" begins to mean to her something of what it means to God.
And in the transformation, another Christmas prophecy becomes real: A little child shall lead them.
Isaiah chapter 11 prophecies of the "shoot of Jesse", one coming from David's lineage. And the Spirit of the Lord will rest upon him. With justice he will give decisions for the poor of the earth. (There it is again--God's special concern for the least and the last.)
The wolf will live with the lamb,
the leopard will lie down with the goat,
the calf and the lion and the yearling together;
and a little child will lead them.
The Peaceable Kingdom; led by a child. A very special Child. A child raised up in the way he should go. A child who grew in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and men.
Christmas is about a Child. Children can be immensely self-centered. And children can put us to shame in their unabashed generosity. Which tendency will we feed?
This Christmas, may our children and our grandchildren grow in wisdom and stature, and may their world get a little bigger, like Lilly's did. I think the Child of Christmas would be pleased. And maybe they'll even lead us somewhere where treasure lies.
Christmas blessings,
Cory
2011 Update: Janet and I are trying a new idea for our family this year... we picked out a gift from the WV catalog for each person, and then bought or made a little 'matching' remembrance for the person which would represent and remind them of the gift that was being in their honor. It's been fun to do the "pairing" and we recruited our oldest grandchild to help us pick out the matching items...and we've all really enjoyed it.
About Me
- Cory Trenda
- I've spent over 30 years with one foot firmly planted among the world’s poorest and the other firmly planted among the world’s richest. I chronicle some of my struggles to live as a Jesus-follower, integrating my global experiences into my understanding of Jesus’ example and teaching. This site is an ongoing extension of the book "Reflections From Afar", "an invitation to glimpse the world through the eyes of the poor and oppressed, and to incorporate those perspectives into our daily lives…"
Friday, December 16, 2011
Wednesday, November 23, 2011
The Rest of the Story
Last night Janet and I watched a recording of a recent World Vision weekly chapel service. It started with a faded documentary-style video, circa 1979, chronicling a dramatic moment when World Vision’s ship Seasweep rescued a floundering vessel crammed with Vietnamese boat people. One four-year-old boy who was on that boat that day …then stood up and spoke to the chapel crowd! Now in his mid-30’s, Vinh is a graduate of Harvard Medical School and a skin cancer surgeon in Colorado. He said, “Without a doubt, if it had it not been for World Vision, the story of my life would have ended anonymously at the age of 4 in the South China Sea.”
Vinh’s parents had 11 children (he has only three of his own, thank you very much), and of the 11, five have Masters’ degrees and five have doctorates. The youngest recently graduated from Stanford and is on his way to medical school at Penn. Dad worked every hour he could as a laborer for a company that manufactures air conditioners, though the plant was not air conditioned and he stood all day on the assembly line through Arkansas summers. As Vinh told the audience, thanks to his father’s commitment, today he and his siblings all sit in offices, make their living based on their minds, and work in air conditioned facilities.
All in one generation. It’s a great illustration of the incredible opportunity possible in America—with sufficient parental sacrifice, a strong work ethic cascading down to the children, (yes, let’s acknowledge serious IQs and study habits!) …and the kindness of others, especially the amazing church which sponsored them from the refugee camp, helped them into an apartment, likely found the father a job, and told them all about Jesus.
World Vision played but one tiny, yet also decisive, role…saving the lives of 93 people that fateful day caught on film, including this entire family. What an amazing privilege for our staff to hear “the rest of the story” from Vinh and to have played a small yet critical role in it.
Somewhere in here is a lesson on gratitude. Vinh was thanking “people I will never meet”: not only the World Vision staff, but also the donors who supported this risky, reckless and costly venture. WV put a ship on the South China Sea to resupply Vietnamese refugee boats at a time when no governments wanted to get involved. Then the crew superseded the rules of the ship’s registration by following the law of their conscience, dramatically hoisting these 93 people aboard the Seasweep when their refugee boat was irreparable and had been floundering helplessly for six days, now out of food. Vinh’s mother was so beside herself at being unable to meet her children’s needs that “she would have given her blood” to nourish them; she has since admitted that she considered drowning the youngest ones to save them an agonizingly slow death. Such was the desperation of their situation when Seasweep found them.
How do we—you and I—get the privilege of being part of stories like this, and of literally millions more we’ll never hear this side of eternity? Rich Stearns went up to the podium to close chapel after Vinh sat down, and he became emotional. He wondered if maybe this is what the entertainment will be in heaven, hearing such testimonies.
In the meantime, it’s a huge blessing to savor the representative gratitude of one young father, husband, doctor, and son. He was on his way to becoming a statistic, simply a rounding error to add to the estimated three hundred thousand souls who had by then already been lost at sea as Vietnamese boat people.
Often, this is what life is like. We do our one part, we respond to an inner prompting of the heart and provide a helping hand—a touch, a word, a gift, and we have no idea how the story of that life ends. We never learn the rest of the story. Granted, the story isn’t usually as dramatic as Vinh’s—certainly my own story is not, though someone I’ll never meet provided the scholarship which allowed me to finish college summa cum laude and land a great corporate job that fed my young family and gave me skills and clarity of purpose which I employ every day.
This Thanksgiving, it’s worth taking time to go beyond the more obvious and visible objects of my gratitude—family, friends, my life today—and remember those unknown people who helped me along my way, maybe even without knowing me, to have the life I enjoy now.
And perhaps I’ll even take a moment to thank God for those people like Vinh, those I’ve personally or vicariously been able to somehow touch, bless, and strengthen on their journey, often without even knowing them. The apostle Paul encourages us, “Let us not grow weary in doing good, for at the proper time we shall reap a harvest if we do not give up.” (Gal 6:9)
Giving thanks isn’t just a way to honor God by recalling our own life’s blessings, but also an opportunity to encourage ourselves by recalling the privilege God has given us of helping others in our own outpourings of time, talent and treasure. And what a great way to not grow weary in doing good!
Who knows—maybe a long ago passerby or someone you or I haven’t even met, like Vinh, will be thanking God this week for a decisive impact in their life in which we had a hand.
Understanding that, Vinh’s story is a Thanksgiving gift to us all.
Cory
Thanksgiving, 2011
Vinh’s parents had 11 children (he has only three of his own, thank you very much), and of the 11, five have Masters’ degrees and five have doctorates. The youngest recently graduated from Stanford and is on his way to medical school at Penn. Dad worked every hour he could as a laborer for a company that manufactures air conditioners, though the plant was not air conditioned and he stood all day on the assembly line through Arkansas summers. As Vinh told the audience, thanks to his father’s commitment, today he and his siblings all sit in offices, make their living based on their minds, and work in air conditioned facilities.
All in one generation. It’s a great illustration of the incredible opportunity possible in America—with sufficient parental sacrifice, a strong work ethic cascading down to the children, (yes, let’s acknowledge serious IQs and study habits!) …and the kindness of others, especially the amazing church which sponsored them from the refugee camp, helped them into an apartment, likely found the father a job, and told them all about Jesus.
World Vision played but one tiny, yet also decisive, role…saving the lives of 93 people that fateful day caught on film, including this entire family. What an amazing privilege for our staff to hear “the rest of the story” from Vinh and to have played a small yet critical role in it.
Somewhere in here is a lesson on gratitude. Vinh was thanking “people I will never meet”: not only the World Vision staff, but also the donors who supported this risky, reckless and costly venture. WV put a ship on the South China Sea to resupply Vietnamese refugee boats at a time when no governments wanted to get involved. Then the crew superseded the rules of the ship’s registration by following the law of their conscience, dramatically hoisting these 93 people aboard the Seasweep when their refugee boat was irreparable and had been floundering helplessly for six days, now out of food. Vinh’s mother was so beside herself at being unable to meet her children’s needs that “she would have given her blood” to nourish them; she has since admitted that she considered drowning the youngest ones to save them an agonizingly slow death. Such was the desperation of their situation when Seasweep found them.
How do we—you and I—get the privilege of being part of stories like this, and of literally millions more we’ll never hear this side of eternity? Rich Stearns went up to the podium to close chapel after Vinh sat down, and he became emotional. He wondered if maybe this is what the entertainment will be in heaven, hearing such testimonies.
In the meantime, it’s a huge blessing to savor the representative gratitude of one young father, husband, doctor, and son. He was on his way to becoming a statistic, simply a rounding error to add to the estimated three hundred thousand souls who had by then already been lost at sea as Vietnamese boat people.
Often, this is what life is like. We do our one part, we respond to an inner prompting of the heart and provide a helping hand—a touch, a word, a gift, and we have no idea how the story of that life ends. We never learn the rest of the story. Granted, the story isn’t usually as dramatic as Vinh’s—certainly my own story is not, though someone I’ll never meet provided the scholarship which allowed me to finish college summa cum laude and land a great corporate job that fed my young family and gave me skills and clarity of purpose which I employ every day.
This Thanksgiving, it’s worth taking time to go beyond the more obvious and visible objects of my gratitude—family, friends, my life today—and remember those unknown people who helped me along my way, maybe even without knowing me, to have the life I enjoy now.
And perhaps I’ll even take a moment to thank God for those people like Vinh, those I’ve personally or vicariously been able to somehow touch, bless, and strengthen on their journey, often without even knowing them. The apostle Paul encourages us, “Let us not grow weary in doing good, for at the proper time we shall reap a harvest if we do not give up.” (Gal 6:9)
Giving thanks isn’t just a way to honor God by recalling our own life’s blessings, but also an opportunity to encourage ourselves by recalling the privilege God has given us of helping others in our own outpourings of time, talent and treasure. And what a great way to not grow weary in doing good!
Who knows—maybe a long ago passerby or someone you or I haven’t even met, like Vinh, will be thanking God this week for a decisive impact in their life in which we had a hand.
Understanding that, Vinh’s story is a Thanksgiving gift to us all.
Cory
Thanksgiving, 2011
Thursday, November 3, 2011
Deeper Than Beauty
Deeper Than Beauty
I recently presented one of our supporters with a piece of original artwork, World Vision style. It was a lovely depiction of what appeared to be a peaceful village scene from rural Bangladesh, drawn by a Bangladeshi child…
Jim and I admired it together, wondering about the couple sitting on the ground in marriage attire in front of a tiny home, a child near another small hut, and what was clearly a church right smack in the center, replete with a cross on the peak of the roof beams. We both really liked the piece.
Then he asked, "I wonder what the wording on the signs say?" I told him I'd try to find out and get back to him, then took a photo of the piece with my trusty mobile phone to send on to my Bangladesh colleague. The reply I received sent my mind spinning for several days, until I remembered a moving experience.
A few years ago Janet and I had the privilege of decompressing for a few precious days at a friend's beach house, perched on a cliff right over the ocean. It was our final morning there, wispy clouds laying a blanket of quiet over the calm grey water, and hundreds of gulls and other seabirds were circling the sky half a mile out to sea. There was a telescope by the picture window, so I used it to see the birds more closely. After awhile, I discovered the magic of following just one bird in flight. The telescope pivoted back and forth, lilting up and down as it went, tracking a singular bird along its circular journey. There was tremendous visual beauty in this, an airborne ballet of white feathers against the distant outline of Catalina Island... everything simply backdrop as I momentarily entered the reality for the one chosen flier.
In the sanctuary of that living room, watching the sky ballet outside, I noticed my eyes moistening from the stunning beauty on the other side of the picture window.
I was indoors because of the cool, cloudy weather, spying the birds from the warmth and peace of the comfortable home, a CD of soft piano music playing in the background. Then Janet opened the door and a cacophony of their distant squawking blew in on the bracing breeze, waking me to the realization that, in all likelihood, barring this gull being a direct descendant of Jonathan Livingstone Seagull, my bird was probably flying not to create beauty in the eye of my beholding, but simply continuing its never-ending search for its daily bread, for sustenance to stay alive. These gulls hold no savings accounts, have no bigger barns to build for storing their bounties. Their stomachs ask every day, "What have you done for me lately?" The scene became a complicated mix of the mundane, the beautiful, and possibly the desperate all at the same time. Clearly, there was a deeper reality than simply the beauty I was enjoying, although beauty was definitely in it, as real in my mind’s eye today as on the day I witnessed it.
I remembered this experience when I re-read the translation sent by my Bangladeshi colleague of the child's artwork...
Dear Brother,
Greetings from Bangladesh. I am so much excited to know that the gift you chose to give was an art work of a child of Bangladesh. I am very happy and honored to illustrate the artwork. Please, find it as follows:
1. We see a man is exploiting a woman in the drawing (from left)...This is one of the social issues by which the life of the children is affected much. The wording says, " Stop repression on women..or stop exploitation of women...The first word is pronounced as "Nari" which means 'women'...the second one is as 'Nirjaton' that means 'repression' and the last wording as 'Bhondaya kor' which means 'to stop'...or stop it.
2. Now let's point to the corner where a boy and a girl are in bride and bridegroom dress. This is another social issue in Bangladesh that affects the lives of children....Early marriage/child marriage is very common in rural areas, especially in poor families who consider their daughters merely burdens...Where there is ministry involvement through our ADPs or special projects, we have programs to empower the children in most vulnerable situations to combat the issues...They are working to stop early marriage through Child Forums. The little child with a play card represents the child forum's participation in community development activities. The wording means...'Stop Child Marriage' The words reads as 'Ballu' that means 'child'...Bibaha..which means 'marriage'...and the last word is again 'Bhondaya kor' which means 'to stop'...or just stop it.
Yes, there is a church in the middle of the village...We have church in a Christian village...I think the child wants to say about his/her dream for the future....he/she wants to tell us about a society where there will be no 'repression on women'...where there will be no 'early marriage'...Finally, maybe it finds its expression in Kingdom of God values where there will be fullness of life...love and dignity.
To be honest, I struggled whether to share this translation with Jim. He and I had shared such a nice, idealized interpretation of the artwork, very pastoral, very peaceful, very pleasant… very nice to glance at and remember fondly one’s involvement with World Vision!
But in the midst of what appeared to be only a pleasant scene there was also drama, especially when one remembers this drawing was made by a child… a child who has had to learn about these social issues, a child growing up surrounded by very real dangers from those issues. I imagine this as something similar to a child living in the inner-city, creating art that depicts neighborhood violence: Only the uninitiated would see it only as beautiful, no matter how stunning the skill of the artist.
After a few days, I realized that’s exactly why I must share the translation of the scene with this supporter—because clearly we are uninitiated, because we are not aware. Because we need to walk a mile in this child’s shoes, and now Jim has both a lovely and a disturbing reminder on his wall of that child’s reality… as well as perhaps a glimpse of the artist’s childlike hopes for the Peaceable Kingdom.
Just like those gulls circling the grey waters, here drama and beauty are intermingled. The presence of one does not cancel out the other. There is beauty in every culture, and there is drama in every one. The presence of beauty does not negate our responsibility to understand the trauma. And the reality of trauma does not negate the invitation to appreciate the beauty.
Cory
I recently presented one of our supporters with a piece of original artwork, World Vision style. It was a lovely depiction of what appeared to be a peaceful village scene from rural Bangladesh, drawn by a Bangladeshi child…
Jim and I admired it together, wondering about the couple sitting on the ground in marriage attire in front of a tiny home, a child near another small hut, and what was clearly a church right smack in the center, replete with a cross on the peak of the roof beams. We both really liked the piece.
Then he asked, "I wonder what the wording on the signs say?" I told him I'd try to find out and get back to him, then took a photo of the piece with my trusty mobile phone to send on to my Bangladesh colleague. The reply I received sent my mind spinning for several days, until I remembered a moving experience.
A few years ago Janet and I had the privilege of decompressing for a few precious days at a friend's beach house, perched on a cliff right over the ocean. It was our final morning there, wispy clouds laying a blanket of quiet over the calm grey water, and hundreds of gulls and other seabirds were circling the sky half a mile out to sea. There was a telescope by the picture window, so I used it to see the birds more closely. After awhile, I discovered the magic of following just one bird in flight. The telescope pivoted back and forth, lilting up and down as it went, tracking a singular bird along its circular journey. There was tremendous visual beauty in this, an airborne ballet of white feathers against the distant outline of Catalina Island... everything simply backdrop as I momentarily entered the reality for the one chosen flier.
In the sanctuary of that living room, watching the sky ballet outside, I noticed my eyes moistening from the stunning beauty on the other side of the picture window.
I was indoors because of the cool, cloudy weather, spying the birds from the warmth and peace of the comfortable home, a CD of soft piano music playing in the background. Then Janet opened the door and a cacophony of their distant squawking blew in on the bracing breeze, waking me to the realization that, in all likelihood, barring this gull being a direct descendant of Jonathan Livingstone Seagull, my bird was probably flying not to create beauty in the eye of my beholding, but simply continuing its never-ending search for its daily bread, for sustenance to stay alive. These gulls hold no savings accounts, have no bigger barns to build for storing their bounties. Their stomachs ask every day, "What have you done for me lately?" The scene became a complicated mix of the mundane, the beautiful, and possibly the desperate all at the same time. Clearly, there was a deeper reality than simply the beauty I was enjoying, although beauty was definitely in it, as real in my mind’s eye today as on the day I witnessed it.
I remembered this experience when I re-read the translation sent by my Bangladeshi colleague of the child's artwork...
Dear Brother,
Greetings from Bangladesh. I am so much excited to know that the gift you chose to give was an art work of a child of Bangladesh. I am very happy and honored to illustrate the artwork. Please, find it as follows:
1. We see a man is exploiting a woman in the drawing (from left)...This is one of the social issues by which the life of the children is affected much. The wording says, " Stop repression on women..or stop exploitation of women...The first word is pronounced as "Nari" which means 'women'...the second one is as 'Nirjaton' that means 'repression' and the last wording as 'Bhondaya kor' which means 'to stop'...or stop it.
2. Now let's point to the corner where a boy and a girl are in bride and bridegroom dress. This is another social issue in Bangladesh that affects the lives of children....Early marriage/child marriage is very common in rural areas, especially in poor families who consider their daughters merely burdens...Where there is ministry involvement through our ADPs or special projects, we have programs to empower the children in most vulnerable situations to combat the issues...They are working to stop early marriage through Child Forums. The little child with a play card represents the child forum's participation in community development activities. The wording means...'Stop Child Marriage' The words reads as 'Ballu' that means 'child'...Bibaha..which means 'marriage'...and the last word is again 'Bhondaya kor' which means 'to stop'...or just stop it.
Yes, there is a church in the middle of the village...We have church in a Christian village...I think the child wants to say about his/her dream for the future....he/she wants to tell us about a society where there will be no 'repression on women'...where there will be no 'early marriage'...Finally, maybe it finds its expression in Kingdom of God values where there will be fullness of life...love and dignity.
To be honest, I struggled whether to share this translation with Jim. He and I had shared such a nice, idealized interpretation of the artwork, very pastoral, very peaceful, very pleasant… very nice to glance at and remember fondly one’s involvement with World Vision!
But in the midst of what appeared to be only a pleasant scene there was also drama, especially when one remembers this drawing was made by a child… a child who has had to learn about these social issues, a child growing up surrounded by very real dangers from those issues. I imagine this as something similar to a child living in the inner-city, creating art that depicts neighborhood violence: Only the uninitiated would see it only as beautiful, no matter how stunning the skill of the artist.
After a few days, I realized that’s exactly why I must share the translation of the scene with this supporter—because clearly we are uninitiated, because we are not aware. Because we need to walk a mile in this child’s shoes, and now Jim has both a lovely and a disturbing reminder on his wall of that child’s reality… as well as perhaps a glimpse of the artist’s childlike hopes for the Peaceable Kingdom.
Just like those gulls circling the grey waters, here drama and beauty are intermingled. The presence of one does not cancel out the other. There is beauty in every culture, and there is drama in every one. The presence of beauty does not negate our responsibility to understand the trauma. And the reality of trauma does not negate the invitation to appreciate the beauty.
Cory
Wednesday, October 12, 2011
Looking Up From Down Below
Janet and I adore being grandparents. Six months ago we were blessed with our fifth grandchild, and the first in 12 years. What a delight it is to celebrate each new adventure, each new wonder, each new victory for Laith. (His name rhymes with "faith" and is Arabic for "lion"—so of course Grandma feels compelled to buy every piece of baby clothing she finds sporting an embroidered lion.) Seeing him discover how to use his hands as tools the past few months, grimacing when he nearly turned over but then rolled back...then finally made it. Everyone in the family loves these little triumphs and new frontiers.
Why is that? Somehow we put ourselves in a baby's shoes. We accept infants "as they are", and if we have eyes to see it we can appreciate each infinitesimal new step, celebrating its newness, not depreciating its smallness.
I just had that same experience, sitting on an airplane heading up the California coast while reading a report from West Africa. What a joy it was to "appreciate the newness" of their progress. Yet I also sighed, wondering how many others would miss it, "depreciating its smallness?"
The report was about a fascinating innovation with the anything-but-fascinating name "Farmer-Managed Natural Regeneration". An Australian missionary who now works for World Vision discovered it 25+ years ago. The idea simply is that areas experiencing terrible deforestation can be reforested without planting new trees! It turns out that the stumps of harvested trees still have roots which send out new shoots, from the trunk and through the ground, maybe 20-30 shoots. If properly cared for, these shoots can become large trees far quicker than new seedlings because of their pre-existing root system.
Today half the farmed land in Niger, West Africa is using FMNR, and countries all throughout that region are adopting the practice. Even better: it requires almost no money or outside help beyond a little technical coaching, and farmers adopt it on their own from seeing its impact for their neighbors.
The report I read was full of quotes from local villagers, chiefs and FMNR volunteer trainers, and I realized that if you and I went to visit there, these are the kinds of things we'd hear...or we might miss, due to their profound "smallness":
* “They used to tell us to plant trees [seedlings]. They would bring them out; we would plant them and the trees would die. These (shoots) are coming up themselves! It’s cooler already and the winds are not as strong and the soil remains moist for longer. We are already beginning to see changes such as improved crop growth.”
* “Grasses have also returned and so now there is fodder for our livestock. The animals used to have to walk so far and risk being stolen. Now there is plenty of grass nearby and they do not wander. Also, it used to be that if we took our animals to the market, they were so skinny that buyers didn’t even want to look at them. Now, they bring good prices.”
* “A wide range of non-timber forest products can now be found after almost becoming locally extinct. Talensi region has a rich diversity of edible and medicinal plants. Children are eating wild fruits and selling some, and they buy text books with the proceeds. The children used to walk long distances in order to collect this fruit and this was a big concern to parents. Now the fruit can be found close to home.”
* One day a fire broke out and the chief saw it from his bath. His only thought was to save the trees, so he ran to the fire wrapped in his towel to put it out. Seeing their chief doing this the whole community was compelled to run to his aid. After just 1-2 years we are already seeing differences. Bare spaces are hard to find. Attitudes have changed, especially towards fire. Today the community members are very keen to prevent and stop fire. We envisage that within just a few years we’ll have a forest and all its benefits.”
* “The arrival of FMNR in my village has enabled me to fulfil the meaning of my ceremonial name, which is ‘Tintuug Lebge Tii’, meaning ‘the small shrub becomes a tree’.”
When at our best, we celebrate others’ small victories. We recognize that in our offspring these small victories will lead one day to major changes. Lord willing, Laith will eventually learn to walk, to talk, to learn, to invent, to provide, to love God and his fellow neighbor.
In the same way, even though we can almost hear our naysayer instinct cry out, "These people are still absurdly poor by my standards" while reading each quote above, these seemingly small victories can lead to major changes. For instance, in Niger, over five million people have doubled their family income, just by growing these tree shoots! Last year, World Vision won an Innovation Award for FMNR from Interaction, a US-based consortium of international NGOs that seeks to affirm and disseminate best practices.
I met a couple last month who helped finance the powerful documentary "Born into Brothels." The storyline is simple: cameras were given to children whose mothers work in brothels in India. Through the camera lens, we get to see the world from their viewpoint, looking up from down below. If we as viewers can see life as those children see it, the directors understood, we can more truly understand their challenges, the deficits they face, and their enormous victories in what we might otherwise call the smallest things.
Laith is almost always looking up from down below. Yet I love to get inside his head, to empathize, and to celebrate what for him is massive progress. Without question, anything and everything we ever "accomplish for God" must look the same to him as our grandchildren's progress looks from our adult perspective. Yet, I don't believe God scoffs at our human attempts, though to him they are infinitesimally small baby steps. No, God instead rejoices: he knows what we can become.
He looks up from down below with us. Through our camera lens. And he calls us to do likewise.
And, as the very first psalm reminds us, it's alot more fun to rejoice with those who rejoice than to sit in the seat of scoffers.
Why is that? Somehow we put ourselves in a baby's shoes. We accept infants "as they are", and if we have eyes to see it we can appreciate each infinitesimal new step, celebrating its newness, not depreciating its smallness.
I just had that same experience, sitting on an airplane heading up the California coast while reading a report from West Africa. What a joy it was to "appreciate the newness" of their progress. Yet I also sighed, wondering how many others would miss it, "depreciating its smallness?"
The report was about a fascinating innovation with the anything-but-fascinating name "Farmer-Managed Natural Regeneration". An Australian missionary who now works for World Vision discovered it 25+ years ago. The idea simply is that areas experiencing terrible deforestation can be reforested without planting new trees! It turns out that the stumps of harvested trees still have roots which send out new shoots, from the trunk and through the ground, maybe 20-30 shoots. If properly cared for, these shoots can become large trees far quicker than new seedlings because of their pre-existing root system.
Today half the farmed land in Niger, West Africa is using FMNR, and countries all throughout that region are adopting the practice. Even better: it requires almost no money or outside help beyond a little technical coaching, and farmers adopt it on their own from seeing its impact for their neighbors.
The report I read was full of quotes from local villagers, chiefs and FMNR volunteer trainers, and I realized that if you and I went to visit there, these are the kinds of things we'd hear...or we might miss, due to their profound "smallness":
* “They used to tell us to plant trees [seedlings]. They would bring them out; we would plant them and the trees would die. These (shoots) are coming up themselves! It’s cooler already and the winds are not as strong and the soil remains moist for longer. We are already beginning to see changes such as improved crop growth.”
* “Grasses have also returned and so now there is fodder for our livestock. The animals used to have to walk so far and risk being stolen. Now there is plenty of grass nearby and they do not wander. Also, it used to be that if we took our animals to the market, they were so skinny that buyers didn’t even want to look at them. Now, they bring good prices.”
* “A wide range of non-timber forest products can now be found after almost becoming locally extinct. Talensi region has a rich diversity of edible and medicinal plants. Children are eating wild fruits and selling some, and they buy text books with the proceeds. The children used to walk long distances in order to collect this fruit and this was a big concern to parents. Now the fruit can be found close to home.”
* One day a fire broke out and the chief saw it from his bath. His only thought was to save the trees, so he ran to the fire wrapped in his towel to put it out. Seeing their chief doing this the whole community was compelled to run to his aid. After just 1-2 years we are already seeing differences. Bare spaces are hard to find. Attitudes have changed, especially towards fire. Today the community members are very keen to prevent and stop fire. We envisage that within just a few years we’ll have a forest and all its benefits.”
* “The arrival of FMNR in my village has enabled me to fulfil the meaning of my ceremonial name, which is ‘Tintuug Lebge Tii’, meaning ‘the small shrub becomes a tree’.”
When at our best, we celebrate others’ small victories. We recognize that in our offspring these small victories will lead one day to major changes. Lord willing, Laith will eventually learn to walk, to talk, to learn, to invent, to provide, to love God and his fellow neighbor.
In the same way, even though we can almost hear our naysayer instinct cry out, "These people are still absurdly poor by my standards" while reading each quote above, these seemingly small victories can lead to major changes. For instance, in Niger, over five million people have doubled their family income, just by growing these tree shoots! Last year, World Vision won an Innovation Award for FMNR from Interaction, a US-based consortium of international NGOs that seeks to affirm and disseminate best practices.
I met a couple last month who helped finance the powerful documentary "Born into Brothels." The storyline is simple: cameras were given to children whose mothers work in brothels in India. Through the camera lens, we get to see the world from their viewpoint, looking up from down below. If we as viewers can see life as those children see it, the directors understood, we can more truly understand their challenges, the deficits they face, and their enormous victories in what we might otherwise call the smallest things.
Laith is almost always looking up from down below. Yet I love to get inside his head, to empathize, and to celebrate what for him is massive progress. Without question, anything and everything we ever "accomplish for God" must look the same to him as our grandchildren's progress looks from our adult perspective. Yet, I don't believe God scoffs at our human attempts, though to him they are infinitesimally small baby steps. No, God instead rejoices: he knows what we can become.
He looks up from down below with us. Through our camera lens. And he calls us to do likewise.
And, as the very first psalm reminds us, it's alot more fun to rejoice with those who rejoice than to sit in the seat of scoffers.
Saturday, September 17, 2011
Making Friends
This weekend, the futon in our guest room celebrates its tenth birthday with us. I don’t usually remember when we bought furniture, but this was one of those high-charged experiences when a confusing parable suddenly becomes clear—and you suddenly know what you need to do to obey it.
It was the Saturday after the September 11 attacks in 2001. Our daughter had just gotten married on September 1, and her bed became the marriage bed in their matchbox rental unit. We knew we needed to find a replacement bed for our now-empty second bedroom and thought perhaps we’d try a futon. Then 9/11 happened, and like everyone else, we became glued to the TV day and night, asking why, asking who. Within a couple days, our collective national finger was pointed at Afghanistan. Soon reports were surfacing of harassment and even violence against Middle-Eastern looking people living here. And still the incessant 24-hour news reports went on and on. Everyone seemed to be frustrated.
That Saturday afternoon, Janet and I realized we needed to get out of the house and just do something “normal”. There was already a reported slump in consumer purchasing, and we needed to start shopping for a futon, so off we went to check out a few stores and begin the process of doing our homework.
At the very first store, we were helped by a nicely-dressed man in his 40’s, wearing a solid blue dress shirt with a tie. He showed us their merchandise, and we focused on one futon. Between his features and his accent, it was easy to tell he was a native of the Middle East. In light of the charged atmosphere in our nation toward people who looked like him, we simply wanted to interact normally. But as we continued to talk, I noticed that the top of his dress shirt began to get dark and realized that sweat was soaking right down his collar.
Finally I told him that our daughter and her new husband had served in Jordan and asked if he was originally from that region. He said yes. Oh, what part? “I’ve lived here for 20 years, paid my taxes, had a family here… but I’m from Kabul” he blurted out, perhaps hoping I didn’t know where that was.
Our interactions alternated between touching furniture and this touchy subtext. At some point, I eased us into a discussion of the past few days and asked if he had personally experienced any of the harassment mentioned in the press. He warily recited several incidences of name-calling and gestures made from passing car windows, and then said, “Finally, the pressure was so much that last night I told my family we should go out and eat at Burger King, just to get out of the house and do something normal.” I could relate. “But as we were sitting there, a man at the next table began to speak louder and louder to his own family about how all Middle-Easterners should leave America or be thrown out…or worse. The man wouldn’t look at us, but it was clear what he was doing. I wanted to blurt out to him, ‘I’m an American citizen! My children were born here!’ But by that point he was swearing and I didn’t think it would do any good. I tried to distract my kids from hearing him, but it was impossible. We finally got up and left. I felt so ashamed in front of my children; ashamed of America.”
By now, the dark stains of perspiration were covering more than half his collar and working down even farther. I empathized and apologized, reminding him that America wasn’t founded on such xenophobic principles. But it sounded a bit hollow from my safe Anglo perch.
While he was checking on some futon covers or such, Janet and I looked at each other and knew we both wanted to buy a futon from him, today. Forget the shopping around, forget the waiting a few weeks. Our actions just might speak acceptance to him, only in some little way, but in a way that our 'cheap' words never could.
And suddenly I understood that peculiar parable of the “unrighteous steward” (Luke 16:1-9), where Jesus tells of the crooked manager of a rich man’s businesses who is about to be fired, so he makes secret deals with each debtor to lower their debt to his master … abusing the owner’s resources so as to make friends who might give him a job after he loses this one.
The kicker is the ending, where the rich man--and Jesus--actually applaud the crooked steward (v8-9). "The master commended the dishonest manager because he had acted shrewdly. For the people of this world are more shrewd in dealing with their own kind than are the people of the light. I tell you, use worldly wealth to gain friends for yourselves, so that when it is gone, you will be welcomed into eternal dwellings.”
I believe that I’m to be a “steward” of all of the time, talent and treasure with which God entrusts me, not just the portion I donate. And that day we learned something new about "good stewardship"... as important as it is to spend judiciously, there is ultimately a much more important function for money: using it to make friends for Kingdom purposes. If the owner in Jesus' parable apparently doesn’t suffer from this seemingly major fraud committed against him, how much less will the Lord of the universe, the owner of everything, suffer if we use the resources he entrusts to us in order to gain friends?
For us, purchasing a piece of furniture like this was not a trivial exercise, especially coming on the heels of our daughter's wedding expenses. But that day, we were given a very clear opportunity to dispense with our normal caution and see how God was inviting us to be used in a small way in this man’s life, provided we were willing to abandon our plans and accept the invitation.
It turned out to be a great purchase. After all, we’ve had ten years of reminders from that faithful futon of how things work in God’s economy.
Cory
September 2011
It was the Saturday after the September 11 attacks in 2001. Our daughter had just gotten married on September 1, and her bed became the marriage bed in their matchbox rental unit. We knew we needed to find a replacement bed for our now-empty second bedroom and thought perhaps we’d try a futon. Then 9/11 happened, and like everyone else, we became glued to the TV day and night, asking why, asking who. Within a couple days, our collective national finger was pointed at Afghanistan. Soon reports were surfacing of harassment and even violence against Middle-Eastern looking people living here. And still the incessant 24-hour news reports went on and on. Everyone seemed to be frustrated.
That Saturday afternoon, Janet and I realized we needed to get out of the house and just do something “normal”. There was already a reported slump in consumer purchasing, and we needed to start shopping for a futon, so off we went to check out a few stores and begin the process of doing our homework.
At the very first store, we were helped by a nicely-dressed man in his 40’s, wearing a solid blue dress shirt with a tie. He showed us their merchandise, and we focused on one futon. Between his features and his accent, it was easy to tell he was a native of the Middle East. In light of the charged atmosphere in our nation toward people who looked like him, we simply wanted to interact normally. But as we continued to talk, I noticed that the top of his dress shirt began to get dark and realized that sweat was soaking right down his collar.
Finally I told him that our daughter and her new husband had served in Jordan and asked if he was originally from that region. He said yes. Oh, what part? “I’ve lived here for 20 years, paid my taxes, had a family here… but I’m from Kabul” he blurted out, perhaps hoping I didn’t know where that was.
Our interactions alternated between touching furniture and this touchy subtext. At some point, I eased us into a discussion of the past few days and asked if he had personally experienced any of the harassment mentioned in the press. He warily recited several incidences of name-calling and gestures made from passing car windows, and then said, “Finally, the pressure was so much that last night I told my family we should go out and eat at Burger King, just to get out of the house and do something normal.” I could relate. “But as we were sitting there, a man at the next table began to speak louder and louder to his own family about how all Middle-Easterners should leave America or be thrown out…or worse. The man wouldn’t look at us, but it was clear what he was doing. I wanted to blurt out to him, ‘I’m an American citizen! My children were born here!’ But by that point he was swearing and I didn’t think it would do any good. I tried to distract my kids from hearing him, but it was impossible. We finally got up and left. I felt so ashamed in front of my children; ashamed of America.”
By now, the dark stains of perspiration were covering more than half his collar and working down even farther. I empathized and apologized, reminding him that America wasn’t founded on such xenophobic principles. But it sounded a bit hollow from my safe Anglo perch.
While he was checking on some futon covers or such, Janet and I looked at each other and knew we both wanted to buy a futon from him, today. Forget the shopping around, forget the waiting a few weeks. Our actions just might speak acceptance to him, only in some little way, but in a way that our 'cheap' words never could.
And suddenly I understood that peculiar parable of the “unrighteous steward” (Luke 16:1-9), where Jesus tells of the crooked manager of a rich man’s businesses who is about to be fired, so he makes secret deals with each debtor to lower their debt to his master … abusing the owner’s resources so as to make friends who might give him a job after he loses this one.
The kicker is the ending, where the rich man--and Jesus--actually applaud the crooked steward (v8-9). "The master commended the dishonest manager because he had acted shrewdly. For the people of this world are more shrewd in dealing with their own kind than are the people of the light. I tell you, use worldly wealth to gain friends for yourselves, so that when it is gone, you will be welcomed into eternal dwellings.”
I believe that I’m to be a “steward” of all of the time, talent and treasure with which God entrusts me, not just the portion I donate. And that day we learned something new about "good stewardship"... as important as it is to spend judiciously, there is ultimately a much more important function for money: using it to make friends for Kingdom purposes. If the owner in Jesus' parable apparently doesn’t suffer from this seemingly major fraud committed against him, how much less will the Lord of the universe, the owner of everything, suffer if we use the resources he entrusts to us in order to gain friends?
For us, purchasing a piece of furniture like this was not a trivial exercise, especially coming on the heels of our daughter's wedding expenses. But that day, we were given a very clear opportunity to dispense with our normal caution and see how God was inviting us to be used in a small way in this man’s life, provided we were willing to abandon our plans and accept the invitation.
It turned out to be a great purchase. After all, we’ve had ten years of reminders from that faithful futon of how things work in God’s economy.
Cory
September 2011
Clues in the Rubble -- Reflection on 9/11/11
I was privileged to be at Ground Zero in New York City on the first anniversary of 9/11. I looked down on that empty place where the Twin Towers had last stood so proudly one year earlier. And now as I looked at the bare hole, that ground truly was zero, nothing but a gaping cavity caused by a knockdown punch to the lower jaw of Manhattan.
But maybe in the rubble of that tragedy there were some clues of learning for us, evidence, as it were, that was inadvertently carted off.
It’s a vast oversimplification to compare death tolls as the measure of 9/11’s impact. For instance, some 2750 people died at the Twin Towers, while approximately ten times* that many innocent children die needlessly every day in developing nations due to poverty. We might be tempted to wonder why so much trauma (not to mention maybe trillions in increased military spending) was created by the deaths of 2750 when the deaths of 27,500 today and 27,500 tomorrow and 27,500 every new day barely evokes a yawn, not to mention recent calls to cut our national aid for those in poverty.
But clearly this ignores the deeper meaning behind 9/11... and the trauma we felt that day and will feel again as we see the reruns today, in our memories if not on our TV screens, of the planes hitting those towers.
First of all, its impact on us: our initial cluelessness as we watched hour after frustrating hour, trying desperately to piece together who did this, why they did it, and how did they get away with it... the visceral, personal helplessness we each felt wherever we were as we watched the unfolding drama of those buildings burning and then, suddenly and impossibly, collapsing in slow motion into a graveyard heap of twisted, burning metal and glass. Helplessness is a terrible feeling that we adults have spent a lifetime attempting to escape.
Second, a simplistic casualty comparison perhaps misses the power in the messages and meaning communicated by the event itself:
- the incendiary political act that it was
- the underlying religious passions that could evoke an act such as this
- the declaration of war between worldviews that the act represented
In America, we have spent a great deal of time and energy since 9/11 defending our worldview against that onslaught of underlying messages and meanings. So much so that maybe we've forgotten to ask: What was it about our nation that was so hate-provoking? And what part do I play personally in what was so hateful?
Maybe up ‘til now we've missed a real opportunity for soul-searching and learning. Had we done more of that, perhaps we might have addressed earlier some of the rampant speculation and plain old greed in our commodities markets and in the financial sector which first led to the global food crisis of a few years ago [we didn't feel that one so much, but it drove an additional 100 million people below the poverty line worldwide], and then led us to the global financial crisis -- where America was again Ground Zero.
Maybe. While it's normal to defend oneself when feeling judged by others, in that defensive response little is learned. An opportunity can be missed; perhaps it has been.
And perhaps we're at risk of missing some lessons and meanings behind the daily horror of 27,500 children dying, as well...
- What political priorities are evidenced in the level of our collective response, and non-response?
- What does our tolerance of those deaths show about our own religious commitments and understanding?
- And here too there's a clash of worldviews which is brought home every day in that staccato drumroll of deaths: The worldview which is evident in my actions, versus the one evident in Jesus' actions. He lived out what has always been God's worldview, because long before Jesus came on the scene, the God of Israel was making it very clear with his words that he sided with the poor, the orphan, the widow, the powerless. Then, in Jesus, his very words became Flesh.
Maybe we struggle with those same feelings of helplessness contemplating these daily deaths, too. And we find it simpler to throw up our hands than put them to the plow to furrow our one measly row against that onslaught.
Truly, 2750 deaths by terrible violence is a tragedy worthy of our solemn remembrance, today and on every 9/11. Although I'm not sure yet that future historians will be able to say that it seriously "changed" America in substantive ways, certainly it deeply impacted all of us Americans old enough to remember it, and there may yet be lessons we will glean from it.
And if the tragedy also reminds us that God mourns every new day with its fresh body count, and if that reminder causes us to ask for more of the heart of God -- and to be the hands of Jesus in response, then maybe there still are valuable treasures we can find in the rubble.
Cory
September 2011
* The latest estimate is that globally about 21,000 children die of preventable, poverty-related causes each day (the number is gradually shrinking!), but this only includes children up to age five.
But maybe in the rubble of that tragedy there were some clues of learning for us, evidence, as it were, that was inadvertently carted off.
It’s a vast oversimplification to compare death tolls as the measure of 9/11’s impact. For instance, some 2750 people died at the Twin Towers, while approximately ten times* that many innocent children die needlessly every day in developing nations due to poverty. We might be tempted to wonder why so much trauma (not to mention maybe trillions in increased military spending) was created by the deaths of 2750 when the deaths of 27,500 today and 27,500 tomorrow and 27,500 every new day barely evokes a yawn, not to mention recent calls to cut our national aid for those in poverty.
But clearly this ignores the deeper meaning behind 9/11... and the trauma we felt that day and will feel again as we see the reruns today, in our memories if not on our TV screens, of the planes hitting those towers.
First of all, its impact on us: our initial cluelessness as we watched hour after frustrating hour, trying desperately to piece together who did this, why they did it, and how did they get away with it... the visceral, personal helplessness we each felt wherever we were as we watched the unfolding drama of those buildings burning and then, suddenly and impossibly, collapsing in slow motion into a graveyard heap of twisted, burning metal and glass. Helplessness is a terrible feeling that we adults have spent a lifetime attempting to escape.
Second, a simplistic casualty comparison perhaps misses the power in the messages and meaning communicated by the event itself:
- the incendiary political act that it was
- the underlying religious passions that could evoke an act such as this
- the declaration of war between worldviews that the act represented
In America, we have spent a great deal of time and energy since 9/11 defending our worldview against that onslaught of underlying messages and meanings. So much so that maybe we've forgotten to ask: What was it about our nation that was so hate-provoking? And what part do I play personally in what was so hateful?
Maybe up ‘til now we've missed a real opportunity for soul-searching and learning. Had we done more of that, perhaps we might have addressed earlier some of the rampant speculation and plain old greed in our commodities markets and in the financial sector which first led to the global food crisis of a few years ago [we didn't feel that one so much, but it drove an additional 100 million people below the poverty line worldwide], and then led us to the global financial crisis -- where America was again Ground Zero.
Maybe. While it's normal to defend oneself when feeling judged by others, in that defensive response little is learned. An opportunity can be missed; perhaps it has been.
And perhaps we're at risk of missing some lessons and meanings behind the daily horror of 27,500 children dying, as well...
- What political priorities are evidenced in the level of our collective response, and non-response?
- What does our tolerance of those deaths show about our own religious commitments and understanding?
- And here too there's a clash of worldviews which is brought home every day in that staccato drumroll of deaths: The worldview which is evident in my actions, versus the one evident in Jesus' actions. He lived out what has always been God's worldview, because long before Jesus came on the scene, the God of Israel was making it very clear with his words that he sided with the poor, the orphan, the widow, the powerless. Then, in Jesus, his very words became Flesh.
Maybe we struggle with those same feelings of helplessness contemplating these daily deaths, too. And we find it simpler to throw up our hands than put them to the plow to furrow our one measly row against that onslaught.
Truly, 2750 deaths by terrible violence is a tragedy worthy of our solemn remembrance, today and on every 9/11. Although I'm not sure yet that future historians will be able to say that it seriously "changed" America in substantive ways, certainly it deeply impacted all of us Americans old enough to remember it, and there may yet be lessons we will glean from it.
And if the tragedy also reminds us that God mourns every new day with its fresh body count, and if that reminder causes us to ask for more of the heart of God -- and to be the hands of Jesus in response, then maybe there still are valuable treasures we can find in the rubble.
Cory
September 2011
* The latest estimate is that globally about 21,000 children die of preventable, poverty-related causes each day (the number is gradually shrinking!), but this only includes children up to age five.
Monday, August 29, 2011
First, an apology
Early in 2010, my focus shifted somewhat toward compiling meditations for a book (Reflections from Afar--info on ordering it is below).
Because of this, I quit or forgot to post the subsequent meditations on this blogsite for well over a year. Some of them are in "Reflections", but the best of the other ones were missing. So I've belatedly posted them below. Generally, I date these so you'll be able to tell when they were originally written (if it matters).
If you'd like to order my book, you can do so here. And, if you put in the discount code "Cory", you'll get 20% off. Consider it my penance for the oversight in blogging... http://www.worldvisionresources.com/reflections-from-afar-p-509.html
Because of this, I quit or forgot to post the subsequent meditations on this blogsite for well over a year. Some of them are in "Reflections", but the best of the other ones were missing. So I've belatedly posted them below. Generally, I date these so you'll be able to tell when they were originally written (if it matters).
If you'd like to order my book, you can do so here. And, if you put in the discount code "Cory", you'll get 20% off. Consider it my penance for the oversight in blogging... http://www.worldvisionresources.com/reflections-from-afar-p-509.html
A Million Little Judgments
My pastor, Fr. John Taylor, was our speaker for the church men’s breakfast this month. He talked about his prior career serving then-disgraced former president, Richard Nixon, and discussed the recent public release of more Watergate tapes showing once again Nixon's latent, and sometimes blatant, racism... but also showing perhaps how Nixon was an adherent to "scientific racism", the idea that different races are uniquely (and categorically) gifted and limited, and thus easily classified and compartmentalized. It was a popular 20th Century belief, a thread easily seen weaving through figures from Adolf Hitler to Howard Cosell.
John, who spent thousands of hours in Nixon's presence, mentioned that Nixon would say “the black man is simply not ready" for this or that responsibility (and freedom). Possibly he even said it kindly, intending the spirit of a father about his children.
And I immediately thought of the amazing week of events in Egypt and the demise of President Mubarak only the day before this breakfast. A mere 24 hours before his own abdication, Mubarak had espoused again his "simply not ready" judgment regarding the Egyptian people and their cry for democracy. "I speak to you as a father to his children", he pathetically tried -- and failed.
But the truth strikes closer to home. I’m a white, American male. To possess all three of those adjectives means you are near the top of the world's food chain. To possess even one puts you in an elite, and dangerously elitist, position. Just like Nixon, just like Mubarak, in our own little fiefdoms we are lords of the manor. And just like them, it becomes very easy for us to pass judgments from on high.
As a minor example of the insidious potential for this, an odd thought passed my mind earlier in the week: that of all the classical music written during the Renaissance almost until today, I could not think of a single female composer. “Perhaps women don't have the wiring to compose classical music” was my first unguarded thought, I admit. Why not? The issue doesn't affect me personally, and this explanation allows me to quickly dismiss such an obscure topic. It's an easy and fast categorization to construct; one which countless men have constructed with the speed of lean-to's being erected in a makeshift relief camp.
But my better nature wouldn't allow such an easy dismissal of the inequity. No women had that wiring? Not one? Is there no other explanation, no more precise delimiter than male- or female-wiring? Nothing about whether a gifted woman was even allowed to be trained, about cultural mores and societal expectations which backhandedly disqualified females?
Decades ago I read a haunting quote, that atheism is a million little truths in defense of a great lie, while Christianity is a million little lies in defense of a great truth. It's a quote that doesn't sit well at first reading, but one that I’ve never forgotten. That quote came to my mind while hearing about Richard Nixon and thinking about Hosni Mubarak in our roomful of top-of-the-heap sitters. It's so easy to declare our own million little “truths” and judgments which justify our pole position. We dip each one like strips of newsprint in the gluey soup of our sloppy thinking—the sloppiness we can exercise because we are the ones with the power, the resources, the influence—and construct our hollow paper mache landscapes which explain the world in lovely contours and scenes which justify our overlording of it.
That is, until the winds of history sweep us into the Red Sea of exile, too.
Jesus called each of us to live by the Golden Rule. And those of us who have more—more power, more influence, more resources—would do well to recognize our own easy tendency to highjack Christ’s beautiful paradigm of mutuality and equality into a cold, careless calculation that justifies our own position in the world. As they say, he who has the gold makes the rules.
Cory
February, 2011
John, who spent thousands of hours in Nixon's presence, mentioned that Nixon would say “the black man is simply not ready" for this or that responsibility (and freedom). Possibly he even said it kindly, intending the spirit of a father about his children.
And I immediately thought of the amazing week of events in Egypt and the demise of President Mubarak only the day before this breakfast. A mere 24 hours before his own abdication, Mubarak had espoused again his "simply not ready" judgment regarding the Egyptian people and their cry for democracy. "I speak to you as a father to his children", he pathetically tried -- and failed.
But the truth strikes closer to home. I’m a white, American male. To possess all three of those adjectives means you are near the top of the world's food chain. To possess even one puts you in an elite, and dangerously elitist, position. Just like Nixon, just like Mubarak, in our own little fiefdoms we are lords of the manor. And just like them, it becomes very easy for us to pass judgments from on high.
As a minor example of the insidious potential for this, an odd thought passed my mind earlier in the week: that of all the classical music written during the Renaissance almost until today, I could not think of a single female composer. “Perhaps women don't have the wiring to compose classical music” was my first unguarded thought, I admit. Why not? The issue doesn't affect me personally, and this explanation allows me to quickly dismiss such an obscure topic. It's an easy and fast categorization to construct; one which countless men have constructed with the speed of lean-to's being erected in a makeshift relief camp.
But my better nature wouldn't allow such an easy dismissal of the inequity. No women had that wiring? Not one? Is there no other explanation, no more precise delimiter than male- or female-wiring? Nothing about whether a gifted woman was even allowed to be trained, about cultural mores and societal expectations which backhandedly disqualified females?
Decades ago I read a haunting quote, that atheism is a million little truths in defense of a great lie, while Christianity is a million little lies in defense of a great truth. It's a quote that doesn't sit well at first reading, but one that I’ve never forgotten. That quote came to my mind while hearing about Richard Nixon and thinking about Hosni Mubarak in our roomful of top-of-the-heap sitters. It's so easy to declare our own million little “truths” and judgments which justify our pole position. We dip each one like strips of newsprint in the gluey soup of our sloppy thinking—the sloppiness we can exercise because we are the ones with the power, the resources, the influence—and construct our hollow paper mache landscapes which explain the world in lovely contours and scenes which justify our overlording of it.
That is, until the winds of history sweep us into the Red Sea of exile, too.
Jesus called each of us to live by the Golden Rule. And those of us who have more—more power, more influence, more resources—would do well to recognize our own easy tendency to highjack Christ’s beautiful paradigm of mutuality and equality into a cold, careless calculation that justifies our own position in the world. As they say, he who has the gold makes the rules.
Cory
February, 2011
Of Butterflies and Caterpillars
Cosmos. It's the cheery flower that Janet loves but could never grow. It's been a running joke in our home for 20 years. Each Spring, she'd muster her courage and buy it again, plant it next to all the other flowers and shrubs that were healthy and growing, and the cosmos would shrivel and die. "She loves to kill cosmos", I'd joke, rather unkindly.
Though Janet had finally given up even trying several years ago, I stumbled upon a cheap sale on cosmos and bought her some as a surprise to pot on our patio. She was delighted and created a big pot for a very conspicuous spot near the back door. I promised I wouldn't mock her but instead be her cheerleader. And amazingly, the pot has been showing off lovely flowers for months now. Janet has been very proud of herself, and we are ready to announce that the curse has been broken!
Yet today, mid-season, the plant suddenly looks like it hangs between life and death. The leaves are shriveled, half the flowers are gone or looking terribly arthritic, and there are limp, brown patches.
And a plump green caterpillar is lounging nearby.
In the past, Janet would feel robbed by these pillaging creatures. We'd dutifully bring out the caterpillar spray and douse the plant with a vengeance.
But last year we experienced a butterfly aviary. Thousands of multi-colored butterflies of numerous exotic designs flitted about, landing on us, showing off and otherwise fascinating everyone there. Janet was filled with wonder, and the entire scene was a delight to behold.
The butterflies often rested on plants as well, plants which the docent told us are favorite foods for caterpillars.
We looked at each other. All these caterpillars we'd killed to protect lovely flowers meant we were snuffing out the opportunity to have beautiful butterflies on our patio. So this year, our Million Bells doesn't look as nice, but we both feel good about that, and the caterpillar spray stays in the garage.
So today, looking at the plump green caterpillar and then at her beloved, wilting cosmos, Janet said, "Well, if it turns out that cosmos is a favorite food of butterflies, we'll have to move the plant off into the corner for them to eat."
Did you catch it—“favorite food of butterflies”? If you get a caterpillar on your arm, the tendency is to quickly brush it off, with a bit of a start. But when a butterfly lands on you, it's a fascination and a blessing.
Janet’s comment blessed me… not only that she was willing to even abandon her decades-long dream to successfully grow and enjoy cosmos in exchange for some greater good, but also that she was able to see into the future, to see the potential of these green things that eat our flowers and to instead call them by what they will become. There were no butterflies on our plants, yet Janet "saw" future butterflies in their rather disgusting precedents.
How often do I only see what's presently in front of me? The street urchin, the dilapidated housing, the impoverished community. I often see bellies in the dirt instead of future beauties in the heavens.
My mind jumped to the before-and-after photos in the paperback edition of Rich Stearns "The Hole in Our Gospel", which I thumbed through last evening. In the first photo, Rich kneels next to a little girl with brown skin, dressed in brown rags. Four years later, Rich is shown visiting her again, this time a proud student in her bright school uniform. What a privilege it is to have an experience like Rich had there.
Yet how much better to be able to "see" it without photos, to picture the potential in the mind's eye, as Janet did. To have her eyes fixed on the caterpillar and yet her mind, her imagination, fixed on a butterfly. To recognize that "better nature" and respond to it, not to the "presenting symptom".
Jesus told him [Thomas], "You believe because you have seen me. Blessed are those who believe without seeing." (John 20:29)
I guess believing without seeing is always an act of faith… and, according to Jesus, a cause of blessing.
Cory
7/24/10
Though Janet had finally given up even trying several years ago, I stumbled upon a cheap sale on cosmos and bought her some as a surprise to pot on our patio. She was delighted and created a big pot for a very conspicuous spot near the back door. I promised I wouldn't mock her but instead be her cheerleader. And amazingly, the pot has been showing off lovely flowers for months now. Janet has been very proud of herself, and we are ready to announce that the curse has been broken!
Yet today, mid-season, the plant suddenly looks like it hangs between life and death. The leaves are shriveled, half the flowers are gone or looking terribly arthritic, and there are limp, brown patches.
And a plump green caterpillar is lounging nearby.
In the past, Janet would feel robbed by these pillaging creatures. We'd dutifully bring out the caterpillar spray and douse the plant with a vengeance.
But last year we experienced a butterfly aviary. Thousands of multi-colored butterflies of numerous exotic designs flitted about, landing on us, showing off and otherwise fascinating everyone there. Janet was filled with wonder, and the entire scene was a delight to behold.
The butterflies often rested on plants as well, plants which the docent told us are favorite foods for caterpillars.
We looked at each other. All these caterpillars we'd killed to protect lovely flowers meant we were snuffing out the opportunity to have beautiful butterflies on our patio. So this year, our Million Bells doesn't look as nice, but we both feel good about that, and the caterpillar spray stays in the garage.
So today, looking at the plump green caterpillar and then at her beloved, wilting cosmos, Janet said, "Well, if it turns out that cosmos is a favorite food of butterflies, we'll have to move the plant off into the corner for them to eat."
Did you catch it—“favorite food of butterflies”? If you get a caterpillar on your arm, the tendency is to quickly brush it off, with a bit of a start. But when a butterfly lands on you, it's a fascination and a blessing.
Janet’s comment blessed me… not only that she was willing to even abandon her decades-long dream to successfully grow and enjoy cosmos in exchange for some greater good, but also that she was able to see into the future, to see the potential of these green things that eat our flowers and to instead call them by what they will become. There were no butterflies on our plants, yet Janet "saw" future butterflies in their rather disgusting precedents.
How often do I only see what's presently in front of me? The street urchin, the dilapidated housing, the impoverished community. I often see bellies in the dirt instead of future beauties in the heavens.
My mind jumped to the before-and-after photos in the paperback edition of Rich Stearns "The Hole in Our Gospel", which I thumbed through last evening. In the first photo, Rich kneels next to a little girl with brown skin, dressed in brown rags. Four years later, Rich is shown visiting her again, this time a proud student in her bright school uniform. What a privilege it is to have an experience like Rich had there.
Yet how much better to be able to "see" it without photos, to picture the potential in the mind's eye, as Janet did. To have her eyes fixed on the caterpillar and yet her mind, her imagination, fixed on a butterfly. To recognize that "better nature" and respond to it, not to the "presenting symptom".
Jesus told him [Thomas], "You believe because you have seen me. Blessed are those who believe without seeing." (John 20:29)
I guess believing without seeing is always an act of faith… and, according to Jesus, a cause of blessing.
Cory
7/24/10
Who’s Wicked
For decades, my brother Tomaj positioned himself as something of the black sheep in our family, the third of us four boys, and the wildest among us. We stayed overnight in his Bay Area home on our way to Oregon, where I hope to write some final entries for a book of reflections. Somewhere during the evening he understated, “I haven’t exactly led a sheltered life.”
But the last time I stayed with Tomaj, he had introduced me to some fabulous Leonard Cohen songs, including “If It Be Your Will” and “Another Hallelujah”. Both songs feature the angst of a man who knows there is a God in heaven who is worthy of praise but who also isn’t certain how completely we humans can really understand that God. The older I get, the more I see such sentiment as intimately honest, a recognition that God is the ultimate Other, that even the seeker who finds God can’t control God. We played and sang the songs together, at the top of our lungs, both visits.
Tomaj mentioned that he’d just seen the musical Wicked in San Francisco last week. It’s the theatre production that vamps off The Wizard of Oz tale, except that in this “rest of the story” version we learn about the woundedness and good-hearted nature of the Wicked Witch and the general meanness and silver-spoon shallowness of the Good Witch. Bad is good and good is bad. Sounds like just the kind of thing we God-fearing people should reject out of hand, boycott as a matter of principle… and in the process miss out on some truths that will challenge our certainties on quickly judging things by the way they appear.
Because we had much to talk about in a few hours together, we simply agreed that we’d both loved Wicked when we saw it, and we went on to some other topic. But now I’m sorry I didn’t talk to him more about it, and then in the process told him about an experience I’d had earlier this month that he would have appreciated…
I attended a training conference in Denver along with a few other colleagues. As I walked down the hallway of the conference hotel, I walked past someone whose passing caught my eye. When I turned my head around, I discovered that he wore a tail. A big, fuzzy 3-4 foot long tail bobbed up and down behind him. Then another person walked past on his way somewhere, with a striped tail. Then a person fully dressed as a chipmunk went by, eyes straight ahead almost as though she were late, late, for a very important date. Later, a group of five or six people dressed as various animals stood in a circle, all hugging each other and gesturing mutely.
I asked the “normal” looking person standing next to them what was happening, and he said it was a sort of “mascot convention.” His explanation didn’t make much sense though, so I asked at the front desk and learned that this was FurCon, a Furries Convention. They are people who like to dress up like animals. The national Furries conference has 4000 attendees, and this Mountain States chapter conference would have 400-500 participants. I learned later that it’s known—to them anyway—as anthropomorphic art: portraying animals with human characteristics.
Over the next couple of days, each time they’d walk past us, my colleagues and I would steal a furtive glance at each other, sharing an unspoken humor. Perhaps the strangest glance came after I watched a guy dressed like a typical techie nerd go through the breakfast buffet while a raccoon tail protruded from his backside.
I noticed that these people acted very kindly toward each other. A few were dressed in black with spiked hair, but generally they had the gentle nature of characters from Disneyland or Chuck E. Cheese. Mostly they kept to themselves and to their end of the hotel, though a few seemed to engage with the children of other guests.
We’d walk past their conference rooms and chuckle, wondering in whispered tones: what do they possibly talk about in their breakout sessions? I was interested, so I looked for the opportunity to get some answers from a participant.
But the answers I needed came from an unexpected source. The evening that our course ended, a few of us were invited to dinner in a small banquet room down the hallway with the course leader. We talked about many things, including how his training business had grown, thanks in no small part to an invaluable colleague who was not able to be with us. He told us that she is unusually transparent and joyful, and if she were here she’d be the first to tell you her story… of how she’d been molested by all the males in her family since age five, of having grown up with suicidal tendencies and no self-esteem.
Later she was introduced to community theatre and discovered that she could come alive by portraying other people. Over time she began to admire the personality traits of some of the characters she was playing and discovered that she could retain their strengths into herself to fill in some of her own deficits. She started to seek out characters with the strengths she wanted to have in her own life, and in the studying and portraying of those characters onstage, she learned that she could choose to redefine and strengthen herself offstage, beyond her abuse, beyond her victimhood.
Just as our host was saying “She would tell you that playing those characters saved her life,” it hit me, because right outside our room the Furries were walking to their evening sessions. I blurted out, “And God is showing us this right now because I think that’s precisely the understanding he wants us to have toward those people in costumes out there. We don’t know their stories and the meaning this event has for them.” No one felt more convicted than me, and the next morning is when I sought out and learned most of the above information from attendees.
Everybody has a story. It may not be a story of tragedy, though every story includes some mixture of pain as well as joy. But that evening, like my evening seeing Wicked, and my evening with my brother, was a reminder that it’s almost always too early to judge who is “good or “bad”, or who lives inside the black sheep’s costume.
Cory
August, 2010
But the last time I stayed with Tomaj, he had introduced me to some fabulous Leonard Cohen songs, including “If It Be Your Will” and “Another Hallelujah”. Both songs feature the angst of a man who knows there is a God in heaven who is worthy of praise but who also isn’t certain how completely we humans can really understand that God. The older I get, the more I see such sentiment as intimately honest, a recognition that God is the ultimate Other, that even the seeker who finds God can’t control God. We played and sang the songs together, at the top of our lungs, both visits.
Tomaj mentioned that he’d just seen the musical Wicked in San Francisco last week. It’s the theatre production that vamps off The Wizard of Oz tale, except that in this “rest of the story” version we learn about the woundedness and good-hearted nature of the Wicked Witch and the general meanness and silver-spoon shallowness of the Good Witch. Bad is good and good is bad. Sounds like just the kind of thing we God-fearing people should reject out of hand, boycott as a matter of principle… and in the process miss out on some truths that will challenge our certainties on quickly judging things by the way they appear.
Because we had much to talk about in a few hours together, we simply agreed that we’d both loved Wicked when we saw it, and we went on to some other topic. But now I’m sorry I didn’t talk to him more about it, and then in the process told him about an experience I’d had earlier this month that he would have appreciated…
I attended a training conference in Denver along with a few other colleagues. As I walked down the hallway of the conference hotel, I walked past someone whose passing caught my eye. When I turned my head around, I discovered that he wore a tail. A big, fuzzy 3-4 foot long tail bobbed up and down behind him. Then another person walked past on his way somewhere, with a striped tail. Then a person fully dressed as a chipmunk went by, eyes straight ahead almost as though she were late, late, for a very important date. Later, a group of five or six people dressed as various animals stood in a circle, all hugging each other and gesturing mutely.
I asked the “normal” looking person standing next to them what was happening, and he said it was a sort of “mascot convention.” His explanation didn’t make much sense though, so I asked at the front desk and learned that this was FurCon, a Furries Convention. They are people who like to dress up like animals. The national Furries conference has 4000 attendees, and this Mountain States chapter conference would have 400-500 participants. I learned later that it’s known—to them anyway—as anthropomorphic art: portraying animals with human characteristics.
Over the next couple of days, each time they’d walk past us, my colleagues and I would steal a furtive glance at each other, sharing an unspoken humor. Perhaps the strangest glance came after I watched a guy dressed like a typical techie nerd go through the breakfast buffet while a raccoon tail protruded from his backside.
I noticed that these people acted very kindly toward each other. A few were dressed in black with spiked hair, but generally they had the gentle nature of characters from Disneyland or Chuck E. Cheese. Mostly they kept to themselves and to their end of the hotel, though a few seemed to engage with the children of other guests.
We’d walk past their conference rooms and chuckle, wondering in whispered tones: what do they possibly talk about in their breakout sessions? I was interested, so I looked for the opportunity to get some answers from a participant.
But the answers I needed came from an unexpected source. The evening that our course ended, a few of us were invited to dinner in a small banquet room down the hallway with the course leader. We talked about many things, including how his training business had grown, thanks in no small part to an invaluable colleague who was not able to be with us. He told us that she is unusually transparent and joyful, and if she were here she’d be the first to tell you her story… of how she’d been molested by all the males in her family since age five, of having grown up with suicidal tendencies and no self-esteem.
Later she was introduced to community theatre and discovered that she could come alive by portraying other people. Over time she began to admire the personality traits of some of the characters she was playing and discovered that she could retain their strengths into herself to fill in some of her own deficits. She started to seek out characters with the strengths she wanted to have in her own life, and in the studying and portraying of those characters onstage, she learned that she could choose to redefine and strengthen herself offstage, beyond her abuse, beyond her victimhood.
Just as our host was saying “She would tell you that playing those characters saved her life,” it hit me, because right outside our room the Furries were walking to their evening sessions. I blurted out, “And God is showing us this right now because I think that’s precisely the understanding he wants us to have toward those people in costumes out there. We don’t know their stories and the meaning this event has for them.” No one felt more convicted than me, and the next morning is when I sought out and learned most of the above information from attendees.
Everybody has a story. It may not be a story of tragedy, though every story includes some mixture of pain as well as joy. But that evening, like my evening seeing Wicked, and my evening with my brother, was a reminder that it’s almost always too early to judge who is “good or “bad”, or who lives inside the black sheep’s costume.
Cory
August, 2010
Eyes of Understanding
Two days ago, we spent a night at one of the humbler rural lodges in which I've ever stayed. The small town in southeastern Kenya where it's located has no electricity after midnight, so when jetlag woke me at about 4am, I had plenty of time to lay in the dark, and my mind quickly reflected back on a moving encounter from the previous day. Then, when I remembered I could read my daily devotions on my backlit Blackberry, the pieces all came to light with the dawn.
The day before, we'd had several wonderful encounters with the poor. Bouncing for miles down dirt roads, we came to the end of the trail, to a village named "California!" Ladies in colorful dresses danced and sang for us, and I joined the dance with them as the comic relief. When the festivities gave way to speeches, we of course told them that we'd come from the “other” California and asked how they'd chosen the name. They explained they'd changed the village name a few years ago to "California" because that name represents the furthest place on earth for them (our equivalent is "Timbuktu"!), and they feel far away from anyone caring or paying attention to them. So our visit was a special grace to them, and they told as much to God when they prayed to start and end our brief visit, as so often happens here.
The new pride of their remote hamlet was a hand-pump well which they proudly displayed. Thanks to the well, girls can now attend school instead of fetching water all morning, women can be more productive, and children get sick --and die-- less frequently. When the village elder greeted us, he said that thanks to the well they now feel that they are legitimately "part of the world."
Our group tried out the handpump and then we all adjourned for warm soda under a tree, where they told us more about the impact which the well has had. That's when things got personal.
One woman reported happily that now her children are clean, because she has enough water to bathe them. My mind flashed to a recent recounting of a woman who said that her top personal “dream” is to be able to take a bath at home.
Just then, a very brave women chimed in, and we heard the translation amid muffled snickers and giggles from others in the crowd. "Before the well, when a man and a woman would come together as a couple, they were not able to wash afterwards."
Her words were shocking in their obvious meaning and profoundly human practicality, yet without any salacious subtext. I felt extremely honored that she would make such an intimate comment to seeming strangers... though World Vision is no stranger here, of course.
After more praying, singing and dancing we bounced off to our next stop. But that night over dinner we each spoke of our most powerful image or memory from the day, and I found myself bringing up this woman's comment. Lucy, a Kenyan woman on our staff who'd also grown up "in the bush", commented, "Yes, it was very brave of her to speak so frankly. But what she didn’t say, yet was really implying behind the words, was that if the woman can't be clean, then her husband is likely to lose interest and go into town to find 'girls'."
My heart sank. I began to think of the helplessness these women must have felt. A woman is very conscious of personal hygiene anyway and would be the first to sense any personal unclean-ness. Then for her husband to go consort with prostitutes would only compound her own inner condemnations and feelings of shame and worthlessness. The women there looked old and weathered before their years anyway, and then to feel unclean, and to be rejected as unclean, must have led to great despair.
I remember a trip somewhere where we visited a girls' latrine at a school and learned that once they reached puberty, perhaps three-fourths of the girls had previously been dropping out of school because of their personal hygiene needs and the lack of gender-specific school toilets, a luxury previously beyond their means. This ridiculously simple girls’ latrine had hugely increased female enrollment and reduced dropouts. It was one of those moments where a dumb male like me can very tangibly understand the vulnerability and sensitivity of females.
Another moment for me recently was reading the fabulous book, "Half the Sky" by Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn. The book is a compendium of riveting women's challenges and inspirational stories of modern heroines who are overcoming their barriers and the sins visited against them by men (and at times by other women, whether those who perform genital cutting or those who hold them down so the male soldiers can gang rape them). When I closed the book, I declared myself a feminist before God.
Now enter the shamelessly honest woman from "California" as my latest ah-ha.
I was again contemplating her with increasing empathy in the pre-dawn dark of the next morning when I grabbed my Blackberry to read my daily email devotion. (Ah, the marvels of technology!) I read that two mystics from the 1100's (Hugh of St. Victor and Richard of St. Victor) wrote that God gave humanity three sets of eyes, each building on the previous one. The first are the eyes of the body, the second are the eyes of mind, and the third, the eyes of true understanding and compassion, perhaps the eyes of the heart...
Suddenly it became clear that God has indeed given me three sets of eyes. My physical eyes saw the water well, even saw the dancing and singing. The eyes of my mind saw the brave woman explain an intimate aspect of the blessings of clean, sufficient water which I might not have considered. And finally, thanks to my colleague Lucy, the eyes of my heart broke with compassion as she explained the painful, unfair truth behind the woman’s words... unfair because women once more have the disadvantage, have special needs, have less power in relationships, and yet are the most self-aware in issues such as personal hygiene. Those who already judge themselves are further judged by their husbands’ spurning, further confirmed in their self-deprecating personal appraisal.
I told our group that morning about my devotional, about our three sets of eyes and how it perfectly fit our prior day’s experience. Because ultimately, these trips are exactly about moving from seeing to knowing to feeling. It is God’s invitation in every one of these visits with the poor.
Why? Because from the eyes of the heart comes not only heart-rending compassion but compassion-fired motivation; motivation to be the change which might just change the world, might change it into something that could be recognizable as the Kingdom of God.
Open the eyes of my heart, Lord. Open the eyes of my heart.
Cory
October 28, 2010
Lukenya, Kenya
The day before, we'd had several wonderful encounters with the poor. Bouncing for miles down dirt roads, we came to the end of the trail, to a village named "California!" Ladies in colorful dresses danced and sang for us, and I joined the dance with them as the comic relief. When the festivities gave way to speeches, we of course told them that we'd come from the “other” California and asked how they'd chosen the name. They explained they'd changed the village name a few years ago to "California" because that name represents the furthest place on earth for them (our equivalent is "Timbuktu"!), and they feel far away from anyone caring or paying attention to them. So our visit was a special grace to them, and they told as much to God when they prayed to start and end our brief visit, as so often happens here.
The new pride of their remote hamlet was a hand-pump well which they proudly displayed. Thanks to the well, girls can now attend school instead of fetching water all morning, women can be more productive, and children get sick --and die-- less frequently. When the village elder greeted us, he said that thanks to the well they now feel that they are legitimately "part of the world."
Our group tried out the handpump and then we all adjourned for warm soda under a tree, where they told us more about the impact which the well has had. That's when things got personal.
One woman reported happily that now her children are clean, because she has enough water to bathe them. My mind flashed to a recent recounting of a woman who said that her top personal “dream” is to be able to take a bath at home.
Just then, a very brave women chimed in, and we heard the translation amid muffled snickers and giggles from others in the crowd. "Before the well, when a man and a woman would come together as a couple, they were not able to wash afterwards."
Her words were shocking in their obvious meaning and profoundly human practicality, yet without any salacious subtext. I felt extremely honored that she would make such an intimate comment to seeming strangers... though World Vision is no stranger here, of course.
After more praying, singing and dancing we bounced off to our next stop. But that night over dinner we each spoke of our most powerful image or memory from the day, and I found myself bringing up this woman's comment. Lucy, a Kenyan woman on our staff who'd also grown up "in the bush", commented, "Yes, it was very brave of her to speak so frankly. But what she didn’t say, yet was really implying behind the words, was that if the woman can't be clean, then her husband is likely to lose interest and go into town to find 'girls'."
My heart sank. I began to think of the helplessness these women must have felt. A woman is very conscious of personal hygiene anyway and would be the first to sense any personal unclean-ness. Then for her husband to go consort with prostitutes would only compound her own inner condemnations and feelings of shame and worthlessness. The women there looked old and weathered before their years anyway, and then to feel unclean, and to be rejected as unclean, must have led to great despair.
I remember a trip somewhere where we visited a girls' latrine at a school and learned that once they reached puberty, perhaps three-fourths of the girls had previously been dropping out of school because of their personal hygiene needs and the lack of gender-specific school toilets, a luxury previously beyond their means. This ridiculously simple girls’ latrine had hugely increased female enrollment and reduced dropouts. It was one of those moments where a dumb male like me can very tangibly understand the vulnerability and sensitivity of females.
Another moment for me recently was reading the fabulous book, "Half the Sky" by Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn. The book is a compendium of riveting women's challenges and inspirational stories of modern heroines who are overcoming their barriers and the sins visited against them by men (and at times by other women, whether those who perform genital cutting or those who hold them down so the male soldiers can gang rape them). When I closed the book, I declared myself a feminist before God.
Now enter the shamelessly honest woman from "California" as my latest ah-ha.
I was again contemplating her with increasing empathy in the pre-dawn dark of the next morning when I grabbed my Blackberry to read my daily email devotion. (Ah, the marvels of technology!) I read that two mystics from the 1100's (Hugh of St. Victor and Richard of St. Victor) wrote that God gave humanity three sets of eyes, each building on the previous one. The first are the eyes of the body, the second are the eyes of mind, and the third, the eyes of true understanding and compassion, perhaps the eyes of the heart...
Suddenly it became clear that God has indeed given me three sets of eyes. My physical eyes saw the water well, even saw the dancing and singing. The eyes of my mind saw the brave woman explain an intimate aspect of the blessings of clean, sufficient water which I might not have considered. And finally, thanks to my colleague Lucy, the eyes of my heart broke with compassion as she explained the painful, unfair truth behind the woman’s words... unfair because women once more have the disadvantage, have special needs, have less power in relationships, and yet are the most self-aware in issues such as personal hygiene. Those who already judge themselves are further judged by their husbands’ spurning, further confirmed in their self-deprecating personal appraisal.
I told our group that morning about my devotional, about our three sets of eyes and how it perfectly fit our prior day’s experience. Because ultimately, these trips are exactly about moving from seeing to knowing to feeling. It is God’s invitation in every one of these visits with the poor.
Why? Because from the eyes of the heart comes not only heart-rending compassion but compassion-fired motivation; motivation to be the change which might just change the world, might change it into something that could be recognizable as the Kingdom of God.
Open the eyes of my heart, Lord. Open the eyes of my heart.
Cory
October 28, 2010
Lukenya, Kenya
Tuesday, August 23, 2011
So Long, John Stott
John Stott died last week, at age 90. When I read it, I almost felt like crying... http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/28/world/europe/28stott.html?ref=sunday
John Stott was a spiritual grandfather figure for me in my faith journey. He was the first “light” for my understanding of Christian/evangelical social responsibility, and he put into words what was already stirring in my heart. I was a fairly new Jesus follower, and new to World Vision, when nearly 30 years ago someone recommended his books to me, especially his series on evangelical social responsibility published by InterVarsity Press. I led an adult Sunday School class through several volumes, stretching all of us and re-envisioning my own understanding of the day’s issues through this new lens of Jesus’ paradigm. What did it mean to follow Jesus footsteps in a world not just of economic disparity but also of nuclear weapons, of birth control, of the death penalty, and increasing divorce in the church? Stott gently unpacked each issue with non-judgmental understanding for differing opinions, yet with a consistent call to compassionately engage in a world in need. Thirty years later, the Protestant Church has moved, albeit fitfully and protestingly, toward where John was inviting us, following an engaged and compassionate Jesus.
It’s a very hard road, this stepping out of oneself, seeking to truly understand the other, and laying down the cultural assumptions which define so much of what we think of as Christianity. Patriotism/nationalism, party politics, upbringing… all these and more color our reading of the gospels and become cultural blinders which we spend a lifetime trying to overcome in attempting to follow the Shepherd more nearly. Or, as the famous Godspell refrain says it—and which I pray after communion each week: to see Thee more clearly, love Thee more dearly, and follow Thee more nearly.
I had a conversation recently with a conservative friend of mine. He now attends perhaps the most notoriously activist, vocally “liberal” church in southern California, whose pastor I’ve read about in the papers at least since the 1980’s, when this church was taking in refugees from Central American nations whose dictators were supported by the U.S. government. “America, right or wrong” has definitely not been their rallying cry. They’ve probably declared themselves a “nuclear-free church,” for all I know. I would often shake my head reading these stories, but also ponder what compass they were using which gave them the boldness to undertake such unpopular actions. Which means that every once in a while I’d have this fleeting question as to whether this was just a difference in our political overlays or if their reading of scripture had fewer cultural blinders than mine. Could they be right?
So, remembering this pastor’s notoriety, I asked my friend how in the world he came to that church a decade ago from his conservative church background, and how did he feel about this pastor. His answer continues to haunt me. “Cory, I never cease to be challenged by him to care more about people. I’ve never encountered anyone who so consistently leads with love.”
Leading with love, with compassion. That sounds a lot like Jesus to me. Jesus had an amazing lack of need to “hold the line” on so-called moral issues. He loved the woman caught in adultery, he loved the woman at the well who’d had 5 husbands and was cohabiting with another man, he even loved the rich young ruler before inviting him to give away everything which he possessed and which possessed him if he really wanted to follow a new Master. (Mark 10:21)
We on the other hand seem to have a great need to “hold the line” on Jesus’ behalf, and to the outside world, it appears that our judgment triumphs over mercy. Fifty years ago, the church held the line on divorce, removing divorced persons from church leadership and sometimes from the church rolls. We judged those with AIDS. We held the line on women in the pulpit, sometimes barring women in any church leadership position “over men.” Women’s ordination was the impetus for many painful church splits and denominational splinter groups.
We see these hard-line stands as forgivable miscalculations, forgetting the hordes we’ve left shunned and rejected, perhaps permanently, by our principled positions.
When it’s so easy to find examples from as little as a few decades ago where passionate principles were rigorously defended, yet which now seem shamefully backwards to us today, what haunts me is this: In view of that history—and my own history of getting it wrong—what are the issues facing the church today where we are busy “holding the line” yet which in 50-100 years will seem equally absurd? When will our intransigence on Jesus’ behalf once again prove ultimately to be a blemish on Jesus’ reputation?
New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof wrote an editorial this past weekend about John Stott’s life and his huge, positive impact on Christian thinking and engagement in the world, how he commended Jesus to a skeptical world by challenging believers to lead with love. Kristof also contrasted Stott with some well-known “blowhards”, as he refers to them. To my point, he wonders, “When the Rev. Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson discussed on television whether the 9/11 attacks were God’s punishment on feminists, gays and secularists, God should have sued them for defamation.” (http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/31/opinion/sunday/kristof-evangelicals-without-blowhards.html?_r=3)
So what nags me is this: Will God accuse me too of defamation of character? And how will Christ-followers in future generations judge how I stewarded his reputation during my “watch”?
I know a doctor who was sued by a homosexual patient and the ACLU over his refusal to provide a medical service on religious grounds. Millions of dollars, numerous news articles and nearly a decade of court battles later, he lamented with what seemed like disillusionment, “Looking back, as a Christian I’m not sure how good it is to be known for what I’m against.”
Looking back, I too lament for being known for what I’m against. My position has changed over the past 30 years (thank goodness!) on some issues, like women in the pulpit for instance. If I got that wrong then, what am I getting wrong now? And how do I avoid the same hard-line mistakes over today’s issues? I honestly don’t know where I stand on some of today’s hot-button “morality” issues, but my new starting point is to lead with love, to seek first to understand.
Each generation desperately needs gracious yet prophetic voices such as dear John Stott who can help us see beyond our day’s culture wars, beyond our culture, and be confronted once again with the example of Jesus, who is not just savior but also, as Stott himself may have put it, the Lord of Love.
So long, John Stott. I feel as if one of my anchors has just broken off, but my rudder is more firmly set on course because of your life and witness.
Cory
August 2011
John Stott was a spiritual grandfather figure for me in my faith journey. He was the first “light” for my understanding of Christian/evangelical social responsibility, and he put into words what was already stirring in my heart. I was a fairly new Jesus follower, and new to World Vision, when nearly 30 years ago someone recommended his books to me, especially his series on evangelical social responsibility published by InterVarsity Press. I led an adult Sunday School class through several volumes, stretching all of us and re-envisioning my own understanding of the day’s issues through this new lens of Jesus’ paradigm. What did it mean to follow Jesus footsteps in a world not just of economic disparity but also of nuclear weapons, of birth control, of the death penalty, and increasing divorce in the church? Stott gently unpacked each issue with non-judgmental understanding for differing opinions, yet with a consistent call to compassionately engage in a world in need. Thirty years later, the Protestant Church has moved, albeit fitfully and protestingly, toward where John was inviting us, following an engaged and compassionate Jesus.
It’s a very hard road, this stepping out of oneself, seeking to truly understand the other, and laying down the cultural assumptions which define so much of what we think of as Christianity. Patriotism/nationalism, party politics, upbringing… all these and more color our reading of the gospels and become cultural blinders which we spend a lifetime trying to overcome in attempting to follow the Shepherd more nearly. Or, as the famous Godspell refrain says it—and which I pray after communion each week: to see Thee more clearly, love Thee more dearly, and follow Thee more nearly.
I had a conversation recently with a conservative friend of mine. He now attends perhaps the most notoriously activist, vocally “liberal” church in southern California, whose pastor I’ve read about in the papers at least since the 1980’s, when this church was taking in refugees from Central American nations whose dictators were supported by the U.S. government. “America, right or wrong” has definitely not been their rallying cry. They’ve probably declared themselves a “nuclear-free church,” for all I know. I would often shake my head reading these stories, but also ponder what compass they were using which gave them the boldness to undertake such unpopular actions. Which means that every once in a while I’d have this fleeting question as to whether this was just a difference in our political overlays or if their reading of scripture had fewer cultural blinders than mine. Could they be right?
So, remembering this pastor’s notoriety, I asked my friend how in the world he came to that church a decade ago from his conservative church background, and how did he feel about this pastor. His answer continues to haunt me. “Cory, I never cease to be challenged by him to care more about people. I’ve never encountered anyone who so consistently leads with love.”
Leading with love, with compassion. That sounds a lot like Jesus to me. Jesus had an amazing lack of need to “hold the line” on so-called moral issues. He loved the woman caught in adultery, he loved the woman at the well who’d had 5 husbands and was cohabiting with another man, he even loved the rich young ruler before inviting him to give away everything which he possessed and which possessed him if he really wanted to follow a new Master. (Mark 10:21)
We on the other hand seem to have a great need to “hold the line” on Jesus’ behalf, and to the outside world, it appears that our judgment triumphs over mercy. Fifty years ago, the church held the line on divorce, removing divorced persons from church leadership and sometimes from the church rolls. We judged those with AIDS. We held the line on women in the pulpit, sometimes barring women in any church leadership position “over men.” Women’s ordination was the impetus for many painful church splits and denominational splinter groups.
We see these hard-line stands as forgivable miscalculations, forgetting the hordes we’ve left shunned and rejected, perhaps permanently, by our principled positions.
When it’s so easy to find examples from as little as a few decades ago where passionate principles were rigorously defended, yet which now seem shamefully backwards to us today, what haunts me is this: In view of that history—and my own history of getting it wrong—what are the issues facing the church today where we are busy “holding the line” yet which in 50-100 years will seem equally absurd? When will our intransigence on Jesus’ behalf once again prove ultimately to be a blemish on Jesus’ reputation?
New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof wrote an editorial this past weekend about John Stott’s life and his huge, positive impact on Christian thinking and engagement in the world, how he commended Jesus to a skeptical world by challenging believers to lead with love. Kristof also contrasted Stott with some well-known “blowhards”, as he refers to them. To my point, he wonders, “When the Rev. Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson discussed on television whether the 9/11 attacks were God’s punishment on feminists, gays and secularists, God should have sued them for defamation.” (http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/31/opinion/sunday/kristof-evangelicals-without-blowhards.html?_r=3)
So what nags me is this: Will God accuse me too of defamation of character? And how will Christ-followers in future generations judge how I stewarded his reputation during my “watch”?
I know a doctor who was sued by a homosexual patient and the ACLU over his refusal to provide a medical service on religious grounds. Millions of dollars, numerous news articles and nearly a decade of court battles later, he lamented with what seemed like disillusionment, “Looking back, as a Christian I’m not sure how good it is to be known for what I’m against.”
Looking back, I too lament for being known for what I’m against. My position has changed over the past 30 years (thank goodness!) on some issues, like women in the pulpit for instance. If I got that wrong then, what am I getting wrong now? And how do I avoid the same hard-line mistakes over today’s issues? I honestly don’t know where I stand on some of today’s hot-button “morality” issues, but my new starting point is to lead with love, to seek first to understand.
Each generation desperately needs gracious yet prophetic voices such as dear John Stott who can help us see beyond our day’s culture wars, beyond our culture, and be confronted once again with the example of Jesus, who is not just savior but also, as Stott himself may have put it, the Lord of Love.
So long, John Stott. I feel as if one of my anchors has just broken off, but my rudder is more firmly set on course because of your life and witness.
Cory
August 2011
Eating an Elephant
I'm watching an elephant being eaten, one bite at a time.
That's one of the real takeaways from my trip to Kenya a week ago. The “elephant” is the AIDS pandemic which was overwhelming much of sub-Saharan Africa a decade ago.
On this latest trip, we were primarily visiting water-related programs, but along the way we also visited a group of PLWHAs or “PLEW-ahs”, People Living With HIV and AIDS. The group was formed both for support and to provide a way for these outcasts to make a living. They were banding together for an income-generating activity—grinding corn (maize), thanks to a grant from World Vision which provided the grinder. This group has 66 members who take turns working at the grinding mill, and 142 children are benefitting as a result. Not only that, but these people with the virus are now providing a service to their community and generating resources instead of draining their community’s resources.
We talked with them about the stigma they experience (“sometimes other kids aren’t allowed to play with our children”), about the availability of anti-retroviral (ARV) drugs, about their business… and we prayed together. It was yet another special experience with precious people, loved by God, yet suffering from HIV/AIDS.
But what was most notable was what we didn't experience. I saw it, but those with me couldn’t.
So I had to explain to my fellow travelers what it was like to visit PLWHAs just 8 or 9 years ago, before ARVs, before sensitization training against stigma, before testing for the virus was generally accessible, before President Bush’s AIDS Initiative. Back then, I said, we often were visiting AIDS patients "on bed", which usually meant they were lying on the ground, if not under a tree outside the house. Their tears came so easily as these sallow victims told of being cast out of their own homes by spouses and children, or as they begged siblings or parents to care for their too-soon-to-be orphaned children. It was such a terrible scourge, with terrible suffering and terrible stigma and shame. It's hard now even to imagine that this was happening in the 21st century, under our watch, and that these were things I had personally witnessed in multiple countries and settings.
I had to explain all these dynamics to first-time visitors who had never experienced them. It was astounding to realize that, in my last three trips visiting those with HIV and AIDS, the experience was much more related to "living positively" than to dying with some dignity. This is truly an amazing improvement in less than a decade. There is still some stigma, fear and a lack of understanding. But the level of rejection is measurably diminishing, to the point that customers were willing to let the group’s members grind the corn their families would cook and consume. The PLWHAs were thin and dull-eyed, but they were all standing, walking and attending our gathering. There are still doors closed to them and rejection in the workplace, but they've embraced a new way to generate income as a group, to keep working and to provide for their families with the sweat of their brows. They may need transportation help to access medications, but those are generally available for most who need and want them. I expect these PLWHAs will still die of complications from the virus, but now they are living for years and are able to raise their children toward the safety of adulthood in the meantime.
It's stunning, really, to think of the overwhelming mountain that loomed in front of us ten years ago, and how these improvements are gradually but steadily showing themselves in numerous ways and countries. I'm experiencing it incrementally but clearly each time in my own travels, not just reading statistics about it.
It's also surreal in a way. I could hardly believe the stories I was sharing with my fellow travelers about the situations I experienced in the early years of the last decade. So recent and yet so ancient as to sound like I'd lived during the Black Plague. In fact, I suppose in some ways we did. I read recently that during the Plague, some regions actually lost over half of their inhabitants. One man wrote during that no one cried anymore over individual deaths—they were all themselves just waiting to die. I couldn't even imagine the sense of hopelessness, despair and doom. And I wasn't at all surprised to read that there was a widespread belief during that era that the world itself was about to end.
Despair tinged with hopelessness was bleeding through the strong social fabric of African communities a decade ago too, and plenty of us bystanders were ready to finally give up on Africa rather than deal with this overwhelming crisis. It's completely shameful that we "rich nation" peoples would allow something like this to go on. Of course, a small Gideon’s Army of people like Rich Stearns, Kay Warren and Lynne Hybels sounded the alarm and helped change our tolerance into intolerance. And from a Kingdom perspective, President Bush's tripling of funding to combat the global AIDS pandemic may have been his greatest foreign policy achievement, as he brought tremendous resources to bear in fighting this battle.
Finally, it was a bit shocking to have to explain these things to my first-time fellow travelers, to be reminded of how few people even ten years later really understand what happened—and is still happening, albeit to a lesser degree. The facts were painful to conjure up; the feelings, impossible. Like soldiers returned from the front who can't begin to adequately explain to the folks back home what it was actually like to experience the decisive battle which saved their city. Yet all the same, what a privilege to be able to say "Yes, I served; I was a foot soldier in that battle."
Of course, the battle isn't over, but I can report from my last few visits to the frontlines that the battle is turning, the tide is shifting, the dawn is coming.
If you ask me, the glass is half full. The elephant is half eaten.
Cory
August 2011
That's one of the real takeaways from my trip to Kenya a week ago. The “elephant” is the AIDS pandemic which was overwhelming much of sub-Saharan Africa a decade ago.
On this latest trip, we were primarily visiting water-related programs, but along the way we also visited a group of PLWHAs or “PLEW-ahs”, People Living With HIV and AIDS. The group was formed both for support and to provide a way for these outcasts to make a living. They were banding together for an income-generating activity—grinding corn (maize), thanks to a grant from World Vision which provided the grinder. This group has 66 members who take turns working at the grinding mill, and 142 children are benefitting as a result. Not only that, but these people with the virus are now providing a service to their community and generating resources instead of draining their community’s resources.
We talked with them about the stigma they experience (“sometimes other kids aren’t allowed to play with our children”), about the availability of anti-retroviral (ARV) drugs, about their business… and we prayed together. It was yet another special experience with precious people, loved by God, yet suffering from HIV/AIDS.
But what was most notable was what we didn't experience. I saw it, but those with me couldn’t.
So I had to explain to my fellow travelers what it was like to visit PLWHAs just 8 or 9 years ago, before ARVs, before sensitization training against stigma, before testing for the virus was generally accessible, before President Bush’s AIDS Initiative. Back then, I said, we often were visiting AIDS patients "on bed", which usually meant they were lying on the ground, if not under a tree outside the house. Their tears came so easily as these sallow victims told of being cast out of their own homes by spouses and children, or as they begged siblings or parents to care for their too-soon-to-be orphaned children. It was such a terrible scourge, with terrible suffering and terrible stigma and shame. It's hard now even to imagine that this was happening in the 21st century, under our watch, and that these were things I had personally witnessed in multiple countries and settings.
I had to explain all these dynamics to first-time visitors who had never experienced them. It was astounding to realize that, in my last three trips visiting those with HIV and AIDS, the experience was much more related to "living positively" than to dying with some dignity. This is truly an amazing improvement in less than a decade. There is still some stigma, fear and a lack of understanding. But the level of rejection is measurably diminishing, to the point that customers were willing to let the group’s members grind the corn their families would cook and consume. The PLWHAs were thin and dull-eyed, but they were all standing, walking and attending our gathering. There are still doors closed to them and rejection in the workplace, but they've embraced a new way to generate income as a group, to keep working and to provide for their families with the sweat of their brows. They may need transportation help to access medications, but those are generally available for most who need and want them. I expect these PLWHAs will still die of complications from the virus, but now they are living for years and are able to raise their children toward the safety of adulthood in the meantime.
It's stunning, really, to think of the overwhelming mountain that loomed in front of us ten years ago, and how these improvements are gradually but steadily showing themselves in numerous ways and countries. I'm experiencing it incrementally but clearly each time in my own travels, not just reading statistics about it.
It's also surreal in a way. I could hardly believe the stories I was sharing with my fellow travelers about the situations I experienced in the early years of the last decade. So recent and yet so ancient as to sound like I'd lived during the Black Plague. In fact, I suppose in some ways we did. I read recently that during the Plague, some regions actually lost over half of their inhabitants. One man wrote during that no one cried anymore over individual deaths—they were all themselves just waiting to die. I couldn't even imagine the sense of hopelessness, despair and doom. And I wasn't at all surprised to read that there was a widespread belief during that era that the world itself was about to end.
Despair tinged with hopelessness was bleeding through the strong social fabric of African communities a decade ago too, and plenty of us bystanders were ready to finally give up on Africa rather than deal with this overwhelming crisis. It's completely shameful that we "rich nation" peoples would allow something like this to go on. Of course, a small Gideon’s Army of people like Rich Stearns, Kay Warren and Lynne Hybels sounded the alarm and helped change our tolerance into intolerance. And from a Kingdom perspective, President Bush's tripling of funding to combat the global AIDS pandemic may have been his greatest foreign policy achievement, as he brought tremendous resources to bear in fighting this battle.
Finally, it was a bit shocking to have to explain these things to my first-time fellow travelers, to be reminded of how few people even ten years later really understand what happened—and is still happening, albeit to a lesser degree. The facts were painful to conjure up; the feelings, impossible. Like soldiers returned from the front who can't begin to adequately explain to the folks back home what it was actually like to experience the decisive battle which saved their city. Yet all the same, what a privilege to be able to say "Yes, I served; I was a foot soldier in that battle."
Of course, the battle isn't over, but I can report from my last few visits to the frontlines that the battle is turning, the tide is shifting, the dawn is coming.
If you ask me, the glass is half full. The elephant is half eaten.
Cory
August 2011
Saturday, May 14, 2011
Brief Good Friday reflection 2011: Just Another Face in the Crowd
In "The Three Crosses," Rembrandt famously painted himself as a face in the crowd at Jesus' crucifixion. See the attachment of the full piece, and then the 'close-up' where in the center of this bottom left section you'll find a bald, bearded, European-looking man staring straight ahead, with almost a glazed look on him. Apathy? Stupor? Penitence? He seems to be looking the other way. Or... maybe that's his point.
Mel Gibson makes the slightest 'cameo' appearance in his movie "The Passion of the Christ"... his left hand is seen holding one of the nails that is hammered into Jesus' hand. According to Gibson, he did this to symbolize (and remind himself) that he too crucified Christ.
Love for Jesus, blended with an understanding of their own sinfulness and culpability for his execution, motivated these men to 'not leave themselves out' when portraying the hostile or apathetic crowd gathered at the crucifixion. While admirable and even touching artistic gestures, these were deeply personal acts, and to be honest, some of their power is lost on me as simply the viewer. I'm only an uncomfortable bystander at their confession.... until I draw my own face in the same picture.
The power comes when I see the invitation in their actions. Then the question, for each of us, becomes: If I were making this drawing, where would I put myself and what would I be doing? Or perhaps, What kind of artwork would I create in its place?
Being just another face in the crowd can be a powerful act, after all. May we all find ourselves as just another face in the throng eternally singing praise before the Throne of Grace. Because, in words I heard at church last night, infused with theology of the meaning of Good Friday, "Jesus decided he would rather go to hell for you than go to heaven without you."
Cory
Mel Gibson makes the slightest 'cameo' appearance in his movie "The Passion of the Christ"... his left hand is seen holding one of the nails that is hammered into Jesus' hand. According to Gibson, he did this to symbolize (and remind himself) that he too crucified Christ.
Love for Jesus, blended with an understanding of their own sinfulness and culpability for his execution, motivated these men to 'not leave themselves out' when portraying the hostile or apathetic crowd gathered at the crucifixion. While admirable and even touching artistic gestures, these were deeply personal acts, and to be honest, some of their power is lost on me as simply the viewer. I'm only an uncomfortable bystander at their confession.... until I draw my own face in the same picture.
The power comes when I see the invitation in their actions. Then the question, for each of us, becomes: If I were making this drawing, where would I put myself and what would I be doing? Or perhaps, What kind of artwork would I create in its place?
Being just another face in the crowd can be a powerful act, after all. May we all find ourselves as just another face in the throng eternally singing praise before the Throne of Grace. Because, in words I heard at church last night, infused with theology of the meaning of Good Friday, "Jesus decided he would rather go to hell for you than go to heaven without you."
Cory
Brief Meditation for Maundy Thursday 2011: Tonight's the Night!
Last year on Maundy Thursday, I waited at a traffic light behind a florist delivery truck. On the back of the truck was wording that reminded readers:
Why send flowers?
- To say I love you.
- Get well soon.
- Tonight's the night!
"Tonight's the night"? Wow--that can mean all sorts of things.
Yet it was the perfect sentiment for Maundy Thursday. We reserve the term "Night of Nights" for Christmas Eve, yet tonight was the night of Jesus' passion,
Of his voluntary death on our behalf,
The night when he sealed his pact of ultimate obedience with the Father,
The night he instituted the Eucharistic feast,
The night of his final and fatal spurning by the religious authorities...
a night without sleep
a night without Light
...it was the "Night to End the Night."
So send flowers. At least send prayers of solicitous thanks and humility.
Tonight's the Night!
Cory
Why send flowers?
- To say I love you.
- Get well soon.
- Tonight's the night!
"Tonight's the night"? Wow--that can mean all sorts of things.
Yet it was the perfect sentiment for Maundy Thursday. We reserve the term "Night of Nights" for Christmas Eve, yet tonight was the night of Jesus' passion,
Of his voluntary death on our behalf,
The night when he sealed his pact of ultimate obedience with the Father,
The night he instituted the Eucharistic feast,
The night of his final and fatal spurning by the religious authorities...
a night without sleep
a night without Light
...it was the "Night to End the Night."
So send flowers. At least send prayers of solicitous thanks and humility.
Tonight's the Night!
Cory
Monday, March 28, 2011
Involuntary Sacrifices
I've finally figured out something to give up for Lent -- the use of my right wrist... and the right to complain about it.
Last week I went to my doctor for a few nagging ailments, including a thumb which still was experiencing pain three weeks after falling off a paddleboard into 18 inches of water on a rocky coastline one Saturday afternoon. As I fell backwards, I twisted around and used my right arm to catch myself, possibly preventing serious injury but also jamming my wrist and hand pretty hard. I bought a drugstore brace and quickly put it on, then went to urgent care the next day to get x-rays. When those came back negative I became more lax about the brace, and I gradually felt the wrist was healing. But I wasn't sure about my thumb.
My doctor agreed and sent me for more x-rays, and then his office called saying there was in fact a fracture and I needed a cast! I dutifully, if grudgingly, went back in yesterday and made peace with the idea of a cast on my thumb. My doctor came in, and to my great surprise, began to wrap my palm, skip my thumb altogether and go all the way up my forearm with a stiff fiberglass cast! When I expressed shock, he told me that the thumb was fine but that I'd broken my wrist after all. Oh joy. Now I know what a "distal radius" is, though.
The next morning I was still discovering new frustrations in trying to go about my normal routine with this unhuman prosthetic device from which my captive fingers protrude. It was a struggle to not be frustrated. It was even more a struggle to concentrate on my Lenten devotion time, and when I finished I melodramatically thought of the tragic passage from Jeremiah, "The summer is ended, the harvest is past, and we are not saved." My quiet time was over, it was time to get ready for work, and nothing had altered my faltered state.
That's when the revelation hit me: this minor (and temporary) infirmity could be embraced, not fought, and with Lent upon us, this handicap might be a form of sacrifice, albeit involuntary. Though I’d been struck by how very many references there were in last Sunday's liturgy and Lenten hymns about fasting and sacrifice being the normal Christian response during this season—like it used to be for me—I hadn't yet had the bandwidth to voluntarily sacrifice something this Lenten season. I'd felt convicted on Sunday, both by my own fading commitment, and in realizing how little fasting and sacrifice are talked about, much less practiced, in “modern” Christendom.
The least I can do—and I do admit it's the least—is to not chafe under the bridle when an involuntary "fast" is visited upon me. Keeping my eyes open to seeing these hindrances and obstacles as my “appointed” sacrifices, and responding appropriately, is a spiritual discipline I should probably learn, too. Peacefully enduring these "light and momentary troubles" will no doubt take energy and discipline, and require me to bring not only my body but also my mind and spirit under submission to the Holy Spirit.
The payoff could be exactly what I've craved this morning and throughout this Lenten season: not only remembering in some intellectual or theoretical way, but also experientially participating in the sufferings of Christ in some small measure. Isn't the purpose of Lent to find meaningful vehicles for contemplating Christ’s sacrifice and suffering for us? I could do better at proactively choosing the tools I employ for this, but sometimes God puts a tool right in my palm—if I’m willing to grasp it.
Cory
March 2011
Postscript: In the week since I first wrote this, I’ve had a transformed attitude and at times almost joy (almost) about my formerly unwelcome appendage.
Last week I went to my doctor for a few nagging ailments, including a thumb which still was experiencing pain three weeks after falling off a paddleboard into 18 inches of water on a rocky coastline one Saturday afternoon. As I fell backwards, I twisted around and used my right arm to catch myself, possibly preventing serious injury but also jamming my wrist and hand pretty hard. I bought a drugstore brace and quickly put it on, then went to urgent care the next day to get x-rays. When those came back negative I became more lax about the brace, and I gradually felt the wrist was healing. But I wasn't sure about my thumb.
My doctor agreed and sent me for more x-rays, and then his office called saying there was in fact a fracture and I needed a cast! I dutifully, if grudgingly, went back in yesterday and made peace with the idea of a cast on my thumb. My doctor came in, and to my great surprise, began to wrap my palm, skip my thumb altogether and go all the way up my forearm with a stiff fiberglass cast! When I expressed shock, he told me that the thumb was fine but that I'd broken my wrist after all. Oh joy. Now I know what a "distal radius" is, though.
The next morning I was still discovering new frustrations in trying to go about my normal routine with this unhuman prosthetic device from which my captive fingers protrude. It was a struggle to not be frustrated. It was even more a struggle to concentrate on my Lenten devotion time, and when I finished I melodramatically thought of the tragic passage from Jeremiah, "The summer is ended, the harvest is past, and we are not saved." My quiet time was over, it was time to get ready for work, and nothing had altered my faltered state.
That's when the revelation hit me: this minor (and temporary) infirmity could be embraced, not fought, and with Lent upon us, this handicap might be a form of sacrifice, albeit involuntary. Though I’d been struck by how very many references there were in last Sunday's liturgy and Lenten hymns about fasting and sacrifice being the normal Christian response during this season—like it used to be for me—I hadn't yet had the bandwidth to voluntarily sacrifice something this Lenten season. I'd felt convicted on Sunday, both by my own fading commitment, and in realizing how little fasting and sacrifice are talked about, much less practiced, in “modern” Christendom.
The least I can do—and I do admit it's the least—is to not chafe under the bridle when an involuntary "fast" is visited upon me. Keeping my eyes open to seeing these hindrances and obstacles as my “appointed” sacrifices, and responding appropriately, is a spiritual discipline I should probably learn, too. Peacefully enduring these "light and momentary troubles" will no doubt take energy and discipline, and require me to bring not only my body but also my mind and spirit under submission to the Holy Spirit.
The payoff could be exactly what I've craved this morning and throughout this Lenten season: not only remembering in some intellectual or theoretical way, but also experientially participating in the sufferings of Christ in some small measure. Isn't the purpose of Lent to find meaningful vehicles for contemplating Christ’s sacrifice and suffering for us? I could do better at proactively choosing the tools I employ for this, but sometimes God puts a tool right in my palm—if I’m willing to grasp it.
Cory
March 2011
Postscript: In the week since I first wrote this, I’ve had a transformed attitude and at times almost joy (almost) about my formerly unwelcome appendage.
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