Away, In a Manger

It was our team’s final weekly prayer call of 2015, just a couple of days before Christmas Eve.  I dialed in a few minutes late, expecting to hear a cheery devotional, or the infancy narratives from Matthew’s or Luke’s gospels being read. Instead, in seeming rapid fire were a succession of three scripture-plus-reflection-plus-prayer meditations concerning some of the world’s toughest places, reflections on the Prince of Peace juxtaposed against conflict and war and refugee migrations… Syria, South Sudan, the Central African Republic.

I’ve had a couple of very busy weeks, and frankly I wasn’t terribly excited to get morose at the start of my day… And at this point you’re probably weighing whether or not to keep reading this, for the same reason. But there is something very right about taking off our cheery veneer of the idealized Christmas, nothing allowed that’s not merry and bright.

That’s the Christmas where everything is magical and perfectly ordered for our children, or else we consider ourselves to have failed them.  Last week, a colleague who is also a mom said that she’s been thinking about the mothers living in Syrian refugee camps, especially the Christian moms there who might also be feeling this pressure to “produce” Christmas for their own children amidst the insecurity and discomfort of life in a relief tent. She said, “I look at my nativity scene at home, and the roof over the manger reminds me of a tent. So I’ve decided this year to remember those refugee moms whenever I look at the scene, and I pray for them that they might get beyond their surroundings and all that they are not able to provide for their children, to find the comfort and joy in the Christmas story despite their circumstances.”

We were with a World Vision supporter at the time, and in the holy silence afterward, all he and I could say was “Thank you.”

I extended a similar thank-you today to the colleague who led our somber devotion time.  Thank you for reminding me again that it’s not about tossing a plastic Baby Jesus on top of the pile of Christmas gifts and raising a glass in thanksgiving to our comfort.  I cringe inside every time someone says, “When I look at all the problems around the world, all I can think is how thankful I am to live here.”

The Incarnation is the exact antithesis, a complete repudiation, of that sentiment… Jesus proactively giving up all power, comfort, and fellowship with the Father in order to come live with us, to be where we are. And not just to ‘we the privileged’—probably least to we the privileged. Perhaps most to those living in tents and constant insecurity. After all, he chose a poor teenage girl living in occupied Palestine as his mother. If the Incarnation tells us anything, as those who claim to be followers of Jesus, it tells us the proper way to respond to suffering: “When I look at all the problems around the world, I have to ask myself: What am I really doing to be in solidarity with those who are hurting—like Jesus was?”

---

The mystical night approaches quickly now, full of mystery and wonder. And so it is that a boy, a young Palestinian Christian boy, prays to Jesus that Santa will be able to cross the border checkpoints this year and come to visit even them.

There's something very special about children's prayers--their immediacy, practically, innocence...faith. 

I invite you to read this short prayer slowly, perhaps at the pace it would have been written, as it would have been felt. I could imagine it being prayed by candlelight, after darkness falls on Christmas Eve, this Night of Nights.  May we pray it in our hearts this Christmas for all God's children…

   O Lord Jesus, protect us from danger, and distance the bombs away from our homes, because they have been destroyed and we are forced to leave our homes for the street.

   O Jesus, distance the evil from us and the missiles and the rockets so that we can go back to living peacefully and so that Santa Claus can come to us. Our teacher told us that at the military checkpoint, the soldier did not allow Santa Claus to enter Bethlehem. We want Christmas to come and want to decorate the tree like the rest of the children in the world.

   O Jesus, give us courage and strength to overcome fear and to live in peace and tranquility and freedom in our beloved land and precious Palestine.
Amen.  

Peace and tranquility and freedom on earth; goodwill toward all.

Cory

Christmas Eve 2015

Prayer written by Bisan Mousa, aged 7 from Talitha Kumi Lutheran School in the West Bank

Treasuring Our Debts

“Forgive us our debts,” we pray. But may we never forget them.  There is one type of debt I hold tightly in my mind and heart: my debt to others along my journey.  The past few years, I've had some amazing opportunities to honor some debts (I can't possibly repay them), and the other day I suddenly became overwhelmed with gratitude for the reward of doing so…

I've never forgotten Ned, my manager at IBM in 1980, who looked me in the eye one day and said, "I'm not sure this is really where your passions are." I was young and insecure, so I took his words as a challenge and a character deficit, and I worked extra hard to prove him wrong.  But over the ensuing weeks and months, I also lowered my guard in quieter moments and pondered his comment.  Eighteen months later, I walked into his office and told him I was leaving IBM to join World Vision and serve the poor.  Ned was gracious and understanding, and he even arranged a modest severance to ease my transition into a nonprofit salary.

Ned has been in the “supporting cast” of my life’s story for over three decades now, though we never spoke again; we moved from Kansas City to Chicago for WV, and he left IBM a few years later. But about 5 years ago, I realized that maybe I could find him through social media. Sure enough, I tracked him down: retired and living on Puget Sound near Seattle.  I was thrilled to connect and thank him via email, but a few months later on a trip to Seattle I rode a ferry out to take Ned to dinner.  I told him what had transpired in the quarter-century since his challenge, and how much meaning I've found in following my passion. We talked about former colleagues, our families, computers... and I made sure to tell him how transformational his honest-but-difficult words had been for me.  I rode the ferry back that evening and stood out on the deck, gazing at the Seattle skyline, feeling unusually full of gratitude and satisfaction.

During that 18 months between Ned's stinging honesty and my resignation, one career coaching book played a major role for me: What Color is Your Parachute? by Richard Bolles. The book exudes a gentle spirituality in reminding readers we are designed by a Creator with certain gifts and passions which we need to discover. I credit that (and World Vision magazine—we were already donors) with helping me realize that living for the Designer and embracing my unique design were critical to finding true meaning and satisfaction.  I recall sitting in a church pew one day, asking God once again for direction and guidance, and suddenly being overwhelmed with the possibility that God might actually tell me--what would I do then!  I realized right there that, if I wanted God to guide me, I had to commit to God beforehand to actually obey the guidance. For me, true commitment to God's Kingdom agenda started then and there.

Parachute has a wonderful exercise for readers: Write your life's story, and highlight what you’ve done well or really enjoyed. Then re-read it and look for common threads to discover your gifts, skills and passions based on your actual past choices, not just hopeful thinking. (I can't do the exercise justice here: buy the book or find the exercise online before trying it.)  As I re-read mine, I realized that even before my teen years I consistently chose jobs in business and sales, yet I was often involved in meeting human need, from UNICEF to hunger walks to volunteering with autistic children. Could those two threads have anything in common? I suddenly had an epiphany: Might organizations that do what I care about deeply use someone with my gifts and skills? I started exploring that question with humanitarian organizations and eventually found myself walking into Ned's office to resign.

Fast-forward 33 years: In 2014, I attended a very energetic conference on social innovation, and a friend introduced me to Gary, who turned out to be Parachute author Richard Bolles’ son! I gushed how much the book had meant to me, how I'd wanted to thank his dad for 30-plus years. "My dad's still alive and living here in the Bay Area. He'd love to hear from you!"

I wrote a long email to Dick, thanking him for his book and the impact of my career change.  Would he ever let me take him to lunch? Just a few months ago, I had that distinct pleasure.  Dick is a colorful character and still working actively on new projects into his 80's. He and his wife were delightful, and I was able to expunge the debt of gratitude I've had in my heart for so many years. 

A year after joining World Vision and moving to Chicago, I became lifelong friends with Mark, who died of cancer three years ago. We were both young and intense in our faith, and we fell in love with singer-songwriter Bob Bennett.  Over the decades and miles, Bob's music formed the soundtrack of our affection for one another.  I never met Bob, but I signed up for his email updates at some point, and as I was planning my final Chicago trip to see Mark before his passing, I read that Bob was now offering "house concerts." I found myself phoning Bob: Is there any chance he’d be in Chicago soon? No, but he had an extra day during an East Coast trip that actually overlapped with my trip to see Mark. For no charge but his plane ticket and a hotel room, Bob flew over to Chicago and gave Mark one of the surprises of his life, Bob sitting five feet from Mark and playing for two hours.  Mark alternated freely between shock, tears, worship and singing along with Bob. None of us witnesses will ever forget that evening, nor Bob's kindness.

Some months later, I invited Bob to lunch to tell him what he already knew: he'd given an incredible gift to my dear friend, and to me.  I couldn't possibly repay it, except that I knew how blessed Bob had been to freely exercise his own gifts for two life-long fans he never knew.

Some "debts" are not burdens to us at all. They are causes for great thanksgiving. They mark a life. To have been able to thank, bless, encourage (why would I ever try to repay?) four men who have played—willfully or unwittingly—such important roles in my life… Priceless.

With gratitude for you,

Cory

November 2015

Empathique

"Choose a word, no more than two syllables."

That was our instruction for doing a session of Centering Prayer.

It’s the perfect day for this retreat, in light of last night's horrific attacks in Paris and the beautiful weather.  Plus, it doesn’t seem right to be cheery or chatty or ‘productive’ this morning. I've never visited Paris, but who is not broken-hearted this morning at their tragedy, which in many ways is our shared tragedy.  

At this hosting church, a conglomeration of small buildings is interleaved with humble gardens and walking spaces. I'm writing while sitting around a small prayer garden with a single rose plant, a small statue and a circle of seasonal plants that apparently, given the "past their prime" condition, will never be rescued from the plastic pots in which they were purchased to be properly planted into the ground. But the informality and nearby freeway traffic don't seem to bother the busy bees and flitting butterflies.

Earlier, in our opening session before the silence began, we were instructed to experience Centering Prayer. One word would become your personal touchstone for the next 20 minutes, “a sacred word as the symbol of your intention to consent to God’s presence and action within.”  Whenever the mind wanders, return it gently to the word.  Words were suggested, such as God, Love, Abba, Peace. All seemed useful, but I wasn't happy with all of them. What's stirring in my heart? Empathy. Empathie. With a word that cuts so close to the nerve of my feelings, my wandering mind was easily returned to its reflection.

Empathy... envisioning the Bataclan concert hall and the other sites in Paris, where so many innocents were mowed down. Young people, couples, lovers, families out for a final balmy autumn evening.  It's hard to imagine a more idyllic setting, akin to Mozart saying that ‘it is in the evening after a good dinner, riding home in a lovely carriage that I am at my most creative’... when all seems well with the world and our guard is most down. A hospital leader was interviewed...'We tried to save as many of the injured as possible.' Meaning, more deaths in the hours that followed. And some survivors will no doubt offer lifelong disability. Les misérables.

Empathy... for parents, spouses, children, friends mourning such tragic losses.  Today, the day after, trying impossibly to make sense of all of it.  Politician and pundits having the unenviable task of both comforting and assuring the world's citizenry; pretending to have answers, fighting against rash decisions, the beginning of sleepless nights of worry to come, pushing to clarify their thoughts and accelerate their actions and reactions. US presidential candidates hoping for advantage by how they position themselves between toughness and wisdom, balancing between playing to the public mood and saying something meaningful.

Like the proverbial pebble cast into a pond, the ripples of empathie continue to expand as I “consent to God’s presence and action within.”

Empathy... for the Syrian refugees, already caught in such an intractable military and political crossfire, who will undoubtedly now have fewer options, be more distrusted for events not of their making, and who are surely destined to now become bit background characters in this drama.

Empathy... for the huge majority of Muslims worldwide who find the attacks abhorrent, personally and religiously. The West largely bifurcates Islam into two monolithic but equally incomprehensible camps: Sunni and Shite. It's much like thinking all of Christianity can be understood by focusing on the Catholics and Protestant factions of Northern Ireland. Muslims, including those who are our neighbors in the West, will not find life easy in the coming days, because of these actions of a radical fringe. I fear that many of the post-9/11 animosities will return.

Empathy??... for eight young men with automatic rifles and explosive belts who sprayed death, judgement and hateful destruction down on the City of Love last evening? God, does empathy extend that far? Isn't my 20 minutes up yet? What did they hate so much? Is it hate? One of the hostage takers at the Bataclan "explained" to a hostage that the attack was happening because of French involvement in Syria.  Why bother explaining anything? Was he suddenly struggling with the deaths he had caused, trying desperately to justify his actions now?

I don't know how far my empathy can extend. I do know that God's extends further. And I'm compelled to be like Jesus, who was trying to reflect who God is. 

The world could quickly return to its footing in the aftermath of 9/11, and whatever else is true or false, I know that things didn't turn out all that well after 9/11. The world doesn't seem a lot safer, because the underlying animosities and inability to truly understand are not resolved. Any peace we currently have seems simply the momentary absence of war, a near-illusion exploded in spasms such as last night’s.

I do remember back then, in my own rush to "respond decisively," feeling this nagging nudge that perhaps there is another way, a middle way, a via media that we collectively did not find, whether we tried or not. I for one, do not want to repeat those days and those decisions reflexively.

The prayer session ended, and we each wandered the campus silently. I went into the sanctuary at one point, sat and contemplated. Then I saw the stand of candles near the front and went up to light one for Paris.  Words flooded in: “A light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.” Amen.

Whether we’ve been there or not, we all need Paris, the City of Light. Oh, that we might have light. And oh that we might seek ‘God’s presence and action within’ to truly know how to properly be empathique.

Vive la France.

Cory

November 2015

Getting MADD

"It's great that you are helping children recover after they have been trafficked. But what will you do to keep it from happening in the first place?"  

I was having lunch this week with a supporter who is very passionate to address the huge issue of child trafficking in India, and we had just started discussing World Vision's strategy for a project to address this issue.

I'm actually thrilled when someone asks this question, moving the focus "upstream" from the high-profile programs that provide recovery, healing and restoration for girls sold into sex slavery and children forced into bonded servitude. Those are great efforts, but tremendous damage has already been done, and the per-person cost is very high, as well; truly a penny toward prevention is worth a dollar of cure.

Yet it's easy for most people to envision and be touched by the stories and hidden-face photos of children in these recovery programs. Donors can give toward a halfway home, they can visit the facility, maybe even have it named for them with some organizations. This is vital work, and it is part of any holistic solution, but it's the part you want to drive out of existence by shutting off the valve that produces such damage to children in the first place.

But the stuff of prevention, of community empowerment, of “systems strengthening”; ahh, that’s the critical piece, yet it sounds so theoretical and process-oriented. So it can be very hard to raise the funds to do the very things that need most to be done. 

So instead, I answered his good question by showing him some photos from my recent trip to Uganda, where we visited a child protection project to fight "child sacrifice", that hideous witch-doctor practice of using the blood and vital organs of young children for good luck, incantations and healings. [See my earlier meditation for more on this.]

Because of our prevention project there, the number of children killed has dropped by an astounding 84% in less than two years.  What catalyzed this change? An intolerant and empowered populace!

Almost everyone believed that child sacrifice was a terrible tragedy, and they had prayed fervently that their own children would never be snatched.  But they also felt there was nothing they could really do about it—the problem was embedded in their society, it was bigger than them.

How this changed is a story that has direct parallels to our own communities, in our own lifetimes.  Remember when there was no such thing as a “Designated Driver?” When you first heard the term and thought, "Oh, how nice... and completely unrealistic!" Yet today, having a Designated Driver is almost a given with many young people, and the idea of taking your turn by not drinking for an evening for the safety of your friends is something not only accepted, but expected.  It’s an amazing social change in one generation!

What changed? A group of mothers got mad at the wasted deaths of young people from drunk driving and formed MADD (Mothers Against Drunk Drivers). Over time, their tireless efforts completely changed the landscape. Prior to MADD, we all shook our heads and shrugged our shoulders at the tragedy of drunk driving deaths... and assumed there was almost nothing we could personally do about it.  MADD gave us the will, and the tools.

My first day home from Uganda, my phone vibrated with an AMBER Alert text message.  A child had been abducted within 100 miles, and I now was being made personally responsible to be on the watch for a black sedan with a specific license number. What?! How did that happen? I didn't ask for these texts (or did I?). Either way, as of 2013, every U.S. warning-enabled phone is automatically enrolled!

Twenty years ago this was impossible, not only technologically, but societally. We would all read about abductions in the newspaper the next day or even later; we'd frown, maybe pray for the child and her parents; and we would hope the authorities (those people we pay to do all the good things we wish we could do ourselves) could find the child before it was too late. 

Once again, tragedy was the mother of invention and intolerance. The family and community of Amber Hagerman, a 9-year-old abducted and murdered in Arlington, Texas in 1996, decided that more could be done if everyone, not just the authorities, were quickly informed and deputized in the search for a missing child in the critical first hours, which could be the difference between life and death.

World Vision has implemented an urban AMBER Alert program in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, and in Uganda we now have this successful rural version, complete with drums, cellphones, megaphones, and motorcycle taxi drivers who block the roads.  As a result of quick action by everyone in those first few hours, abductors get scared and often run away before the child is harmed.  

I'm preparing to lead a panel discussion on scalable innovation within large humanitarian organizations next month in San Francisco, and a colleague created a flier.  On the front, she included a photo of a loving mother and son. But they were dressed nicely, smiling, with him sitting peacefully on his mother's lap, and the photo didn't "speak" to me.  I asked Perri why she used it. 

"That little boy was saved from child sacrifice as part of the Innovation Fund project in Uganda," she emailed back. "His name is Junior. They were able to use drums and megaphones to sound the alarm after Junior was taken to be sacrificed." Perri sent me the story, which explained the photo completely: "Junior’s mother was ecstatic when she was reunited with her son.  'It was the happiest moment of my life,' she says."

There is a value in getting mad, and there’s a type of intolerance that can lead to great good. In every society, there are issues which we too once felt were completely beyond our control.  It turns out, we often simply need the right tools. And equipped with those tools, we find the courage to get MADD.

Or, as in the case of my lunch companion: After he reviewed the India child protection project plan, he looked up and said with quiet determination, "Let's get this done."

Cory

September 2015

Zumba!

It was the ragtag collection of broken and discarded mirrors leaning on the walls surrounding us that first captured my heart and imagination. 

Last Thursday, I had the privilege of spending a half-day visit to World Vision's program in Tijuana. It's been a few years since my last visit, so I was very glad to be back.  

The program has grown in numerous ways: It has continued to expand, from the original 2 communities to 18 today! Some 7-8 years ago, a total of $300,000 had been donated into the microcredit program there. Today that portfolio is more than $1.2 million. And 3185 active borrowers are actively involved, more than double the micro-entrepreneurs they served on my last visit.

Numbers like this are nice, because they represent the people served; numbers provide a way to empirically measure progress. But the fun is in meeting the actual people who are involved and benefiting from the program. And Thursday was no exception.

We met a group of women running their own businesses who were attending their weekly loan repayment meeting. These meetings also provide their opportunity to learn from each other, wrestle through business challenges, and be inspired by their fellow members.  

Marisol is the president of this “Community Bank" group.  She explained that she personally now owns and operates three separate businesses. We were impressed; but she shrugged it off. "All Mexicans work hard," she volleyed back with a wry smile. "That's why you hire us up North." 

These women joked and parried with us toe-to-toe, eye-to-eye. We didn't need to see any other proof of the loan program's impact. This in itself was major progress. These were not women who averted their faces, who were afraid that they'd be deemed uneducated. They were business owners. And they were empowered.

We asked if we could visit one of their businesses, and Tere raised her hand.

The first thing that surprised me about Tere is that she jumped into her car. Her car? This was the first time in all my trips I'd seen a borrower in a car.  We followed her and parked on the precarious hillside by her home. Across the ravine was a wooden home made from plywood and old American garage doors. But neighboring homes had cinder-block sides or bricks stacked next to them--signs of major progress and commitment.

During the short drive, we'd noticed a cardboard sign nailed to a pole: " Zumba con Tere." Yup, Tere had used her loan to open a ZUMBA! studio. The front door opened onto a smooth concrete floor surrounded by a potpourri of has-been mirrors: detached dresser mirrors, broken wall mirrors, used closet-door mirrors... all of them leaning tightly against three of the walls: voila!, instant dance studio.  It was entrepreneurial and scrappy, and I loved it. 

A few second-hand workout clothes hung on display for sale in one corner, each neatly on its own hanger. On the other side, a couple of steps led down to a counter with a few refreshments and nutritional supplements for sale. Beyond that was tucked a cozy nursery and children’s play area.

All the "elements" were there, and her entrepreneurial spirit brought it together with flair, on a shoestring. And Tere told us that, while her husband’s income helps, her business provides for most of their family’s needs.

It was also quite encouraging to realize that there were some people in this community who could spare the disposable income for Zumba classes!  

On our way back to the border, we made a surprise visit to Marta, a single mom who operates a tiny beauty salon. But we squeezed in, and she made a quick apology to her customer (whose hair was right then chock full of something sudsy and gooey) to talk briefly with us. 

“I live for hair!” she announced. “Today, I own this whole shop. I had three small daughters when I divorced my husband 10 years ago because he was a drug addict. Then I had to support my kids with only my income.  I was asking God to help me get a place like this. For 15 years I’ve wanted a shop like this. Now that I have this shop, I don't need any more.  I’m content.”  

I commented that we might call that a “dream come true,” but that for her it was more “a prayer come true.” She replied, “Yes, that’s true. I started believing in Christ 25 years ago. I'm very happy. I love life!”  And she proudly introduced her youngest daughter, who now plans to attend college and study Criminal Justice… surely the first ever in their family.

If I hadn't had a walking cast on my leg last Thursday, and using my elders' cane from Kenya for balance, I would have begged Tere to give us all a 5-minute Zumba! lesson. Then again, maybe I should have simply thrown off the cane the way these women are throwing off their shackles.

They are learning to dance; making progress far beyond what numbers could measure.

Cory

August 2015

The Famine Plot

Our day began in the small town of Kenmare in County Cork, Ireland. Janet and I were traveling through the region and wanted to make a short visit to an ancient cemetery plot, which had grown up like wild clover around the site of an early monastic settlement dating from the 7th century.

It was a grey morning, the heavens spitting bits of rain. We wandered the cemetery, past the church ruins, past the stone wall which led to the Holy Well down by the river, and back up the hill. The place was empty of living souls, save for an old man who was sipping something hot in his truck when we'd walked to the entrance. Hoping he was not there surreptitiously, we now sought him out.

"Can you tell us where to find the Famine Plot?" we inquired. "We've looked all over, even on the directory map."

He stepped out of his truck.  His coat was open, revealing a large belly with a grey woolen sweater stretched over it, the front stained in various shades of brown deepening toward the center.  He appeared to be missing all of his top teeth, until he smiled and some outliers mischievously peeked out the corners of his mouth.  But his eyes shone, and his melodious and energetic voice told us what we couldn't decipher from his thick Gaelic accent.  

"Just look for the circle of chain down the hill there. Would you like me to take you down?" We still couldn't see it, so Mr. Harrington graciously ambled down with us. I tried to give him a tip as we went, in case he was a luckless tour guide. "No, I don't need no money," he sing-songed. "I'm the proper caretaker here."

We’d read there was a “famine plot” here, but what would that look like? Years ago, we’d visited the huge, mounded mass graves from the siege of Leningrad in WWII, but we saw nothing resembling this anywhere.

But soon, there it was in front of us, hidden in plain sight by its sheer simplicity. Nothing but a small Celtic cross and a lonely sign, with a flimsy chain encircling a 20-foot diameter. Somehow, between 1000 - 5000 people were buried here during the dark years of the Irish potato famine. The simple grave-marker read, "In memory of all those laid to rest in this FAMINE PLOT during the terrible years 1846-'49. May they rest in peace."

Mr. Harrington turned to amble back up the hill and let us pay our respects. But as he did, over his shoulder he cast his pearl before us: "May there never be a need for another Famine Plot."  

His wish became my prayer.

To our surprise, many buried here died not of hunger, but of disease. The British had set up a feeding program in town, but the hungry who came soon overwhelmed and overcrowded the facility. As a result, many who arrived hungry but otherwise healthy fell sick while there. Acute dysentery ("the dreaded cholera disease") broke out in 1849 and so many died that they had to be burned, not buried. Ultimately, no one could keep track of the bodies and ashes interred here.

We stayed awhile; breathed in the solemn wet air, breathed out our silent thoughts and prayers. Then we walked back up to thank Mr. Harrington and compliment him on his fine caretaking, drove away and headed out onto the rugged Ring of Kerry. 

After a few bends in the road, my mind bent back to the Famine Plot, and to the human side of mass epidemics, which are simply the suffering of the unique individual multiplied many times over. Yet that multiplication of deaths doesn’t kill the desire to honor our own deceased loved ones, even in times of massive illness. There is still love in the time of cholera.

I've read a couple books this year about specific episodes of the Bubonic ("Black") Plague. I was amazed that even in the 1600s, known cases were monitored, homes were quarantined, and deceased bodies were removed quickly for mass burial to avoid infecting others. I was stunned by the discipline, competence and rigor of the efforts to contain these outbreaks even centuries ago!  But, there’s a private human impact to these public health policies. What must it feel like to have a beloved grandparent or mother dumped onto a "dead cart," or a virginal daughter thrown into a mass grave alongside every sort of rough, sodden old man? What an offense that must be, piled atop the heart’s grief of losing that loved one.

Because of the unceremonious treatment of the dying and deceased by public health workers, families would hide them from the authorities. In moments so critical for disease containment, public health officials become despised and mistrusted by the very people they are trying to protect; the body-collectors and grave-diggers become the adversary, more than the disease.

With our 'modern' minds, we can barely comprehend the dynamics: Why would a family hide their sick or dead loved one from the authorities? After all, when this happens, sometimes whole families contract the very same disease... six, seven, eight members of a family may tragically all die by caring for their sick loved one in secrecy from the villainized health officials. 

This choice seems so incredibly foreign to us, and yet it was perhaps the very predicament facing your own Irish forebears in the 1840's. Wives compassionately caring for dying husbands, children privately burying their parents... and as a result often getting sick and dying themselves. But families do not care only about controlling mass epidemics; they care about giving respect to their own dearly beloved—the deceased family members who gave them life, who nursed them to health, who gave so much in order that their children and grandchildren could have a better life.

Even now, the very same dynamics and terrible choices are realities in West Africa, in countries dealing with Ebola. Mothers and fathers, daughters and sons cannot abide the insensitive treatment given to their dead loved ones; and so they hide the sick and the deceased from the authorities. Some no doubt feel accountable to God to properly honor their family members. So they choose what they see as the path of honor and respect, and hide their sick loved ones from the authorities in order to given them a proper burial, while praying to not contract the same deadly disease.

How little we’ve progressed in 400 years!  Can we do no better than set up this terrible choice for families in times of crisis and grief?  Couldn’t there be some better approach: some way to both protect the public and also affirm the human realities of enduring love and family honor? 

Perhaps the current Ebola outbreak may have a silver lining: World Vision is a lead organization in providing "Safe and Dignified Burials” in Sierra Leone. Instead of unceremoniously dumping bodies into a mass grave or burning them under cover of darkness, caring teams of burial workers safely prepare each body for burial in a culturally-sensitive manner. Then they allow for a religious leader to conduct a burial service. As families become aware that these humane services are available if needed for their own sick loved ones, they are increasingly telling the public health authorities of the sick or deceased family members in their home.

Janet and I reflected on all this as we drove through the "Terrible Beauty" that is Ireland, its green, treeless mountains carved through with dark waters. And as we talked, the thick blanket of sky above seemed to open up and weep. Yes, miserly tears from old sorrows, but old sorrows which still elicit new tears.  It seemed a tired sadness, weary from too much weeping already; like the Irish soul... gaily Gaelic, yet never far removed from pains of the past, from wrongs forgiven but not forgotten.

Sometimes it's good not to forget. In remembering, we may conceive of new ideas and new approaches, and do better next time... for the dead, and therefore for the living.

And our remembering may elicit a prayer worth praying over the whole world: May there never be the need for another Famine Plot.

Cory

July 2015

Stamps or Stories

I read a report from UNICEF that "More women and children have been used as suicide bombers in Northeast Nigeria in the first five months of this year than during the whole of last year" and that one-third of all attacks so far this year have been conducted by children--specifically girls--aged 7-17. UNICEF believes most of these girls are unaccompanied and are being used intentionally by cold and calculating adults, not instigating these attacks themselves.

As I was telling this to my wife Janet tonight, she asked me what I meant by the term "unaccompanied." She wondered if I was saying these girls carried out the suicide attacks without an accomplice.  Rather, I explained, "unaccompanied" is shorthand to designate that children have been separated from their parents or other guardians. They are unsupervised, unprotected... unaccompanied on the road of life by a caring adult.

In this situation, of course, they are far more vulnerable to many forms of abuse, particularly female children. Who knows, who can imagine, the crushingly personal story that leads an individual to the tragic act of self-annihilation and terrorism?

I find it quite frustrating that in humanitarian work there are many terms like "unaccompanied" which are technically precise, and yet which are completely devoid of the real human drama behind them. I've been hearing terms such as "unaccompanied children" a lot lately in relation to the recent earthquake in Nepal and the children left without parents or separated from adult family members. For these children, the tragedy, destruction and disorientation felt by everyone around them is compounded by the additional loss of those who protected and watched over them.  "Unaccompanied minor" captures none of the pathos of a child who lacks a caring and compassionate guardian as they navigate the confusing and sometimes dangerous world around them.

I understand the value of creating categories and monitoring statistics. Yet I've come to spurn these terms that are technically accurate yet prophylactic and clinical. My grandfather owned an auto dealership in North Dakota, where I grew up. When I’d visit Trenda Motors, sometimes I'd take a big rubber stamp and ink dauber out of his desk.  I'd roll the stamp in the spongy dauber and plaster some blue/black word or phrase on a piece of paper...something generally meaningless to me, and yet the act of stamping an indelible label on a piece of paper seemed magically declarative, authoritative and permanent.

Unaccompanied!

"Internally Displaced Persons" is another of those stamps.  An IDP is a refugee still located in their home country, but living away from home, often in a crowded encampment. 

In Uganda recently, we drove past an area which had housed an IDP camp during the 20-year reign of terror which the Lord’s Resistance Army visited on the northern Ugandan countryside. Hundreds of thousands of families fled their homes and villages to flee the violence of the LRA. 

On this trip, Janet and I had the pleasure of meeting a little girl who is one of the children we sponsor.  Her dear father Pius is a kind and soft-spoken farmer who in his spare time serves as a sponsorship volunteer, overseeing 306 children, and also as chairman of the local Child Protection network. Protecting children is close to his heart.

Pius himself was the youngest of 12 children, only six of whom survive today. I sought him out away from our group to hear more about his story privately. Two of his siblings died of AIDS; another was killed by Idi Amin’s army in the 1970's. Then in 1995, his brother’s son was abducted by the LRA and has never been never found. And in 1997, their home was ransacked by an LRA raiding party while he was away. At that point, he and his family finally fled to an IDP camp for protection, living there for four long years before returning home.

Other than proximity to home, life in the IDP camps is much like any other refugee camp, with relief rations, crowded and unsanitary conditions, and the unsettled disorientation that comes from not having a safe and secure home.  Pius’ 7-year-old daughter was born after those years and has no more experience of life as an IDP than I do. But this makes the experience no less real, frustrating and emasculating to her father. He has worn the IDP stamp, and I expect some of the markings are indelible.

One of the stamps I most loath is "Child-Headed Household." The rubber-stamped acronym “CHH” became very common during the worst years of the AIDS pandemic. But visiting the shabby hovel occupied by Rosy, Lamiri, and Lomiani in rural Tanzania was anything but common. Their faces and ragged clothes are etched in my mind, along with the face of Evelyn, their Home Visitor volunteer. Evelyn is not some neighborhood Avon Lady knocking on the door to sell something. She's an angry mom, angry that there was ever need for such a term as "child-headed household," angry that any children should have to fend for themselves and run a household on their own... especially a household of girls orphaned by the ravages of AIDS.  As long as she could help it, kids without parents living in Evelyn’s community would navigate the life with someone they could trust and count on… to listen, to pray, to provide whatever resources she could make available, to care, to let her heart be broken... again. She would make sure they were accompanied.

For Evelyn, there was no such thing as a CHH. There were only kids like Rosie and her sisters, living alone, just trying to survive, the older ones often forgoing any chance of schooling in order to grow or scrounge or exchange sex for food for their younger siblings.  Evelyn understood that a technical term like Child-Headed Household might serve some statistical purpose, but it would never take the place of compassion and love for the children living in one.

These are the invitations I feel nowadays, to move from the stats and the stamps to the stories, from my head to my heart.

"Just the facts, Ma'am." Maybe that worked for Joe Friday on the old "Dragnet" TV show, but terms that allow the statisticians to check various boxes do little to explain the exigencies, the unique stories and personal traumas of individual lives. 

I take comfort that God knows each person inside the numbers, not merely as a statistic, but in the personal and unique realities of each singular life, those uniquenesses that don't fit neatly onto a rubber stamp... those whose very lives are in fact the polar opposite of "neat."

Cory

June 2015

And On the Sixth Day, They Played

Tonight, I watched a moving video. It was less than two minutes long, but in that short glimpse my “practical” side, my hard head, grasped an aspect of "soft-ware" that I hadn't paid much attention to in the past. 

In World Vision, we talk a lot these days about "software." Having worked in IBM's computer mainframe division, I like this term, because it evokes something we all understand: that the best hardware in the world can't accomplish anything without good internal software.

In humanitarian work, the software refers to the human element that makes the "hardware" actually work. One example among many: World Vision borehole wells last far longer than the norm because we organize community members into trained Water Committees who collect user fees so they have funds available for repairs when the pump inevitably has a breakdown. It's probably an overstatement to say that Africa is "littered with abandoned handpumps" by well-meaning groups who only focus on the hardware pipes and pumps, but I've seen enough of those myself (including one earlier this month in Malawi) to know the frustration which leads to such sweeping statements.  Without the software, the hardware is soon useless.

Tonight the software I witnessed was very different, closely related to the terrible earthquake which rocked Nepal just six days ago.  It's a simple video report showing a Child Friendly Space which World Vision has already launched in Kathmandu, with several more to follow in hard-hit rural areas. So, even as water, food, tents and other basic necessities are just now being distributed by World Vision and other helping groups, on this sixth day after the quake, a Child Friendly Space had already sprung into being.

A "Child Friendly Space?" The term sounds so benign, maybe even evoking a slightly paternalistic smile and a mental "Gee, isn't that nice." I remember when I first heard the term, after the Haiti quake five years ago. What did it even mean? I've always liked the concept of a safe place for children to hang out, yet it seemed very high up on Maslow's hierarchy of human needs in an emergency situation, to the point of being something nice-to-have, maybe 6-12 months after the basic needs are met.

But this video changed all that for me. Maybe it was because the Innovation Fund just made a grant for our health programs which are starting to incorporate Early Childhood Development into their goal of "child wellbeing", recognizing that mental and emotional development are also critical to a child having a healthy future.

Watching, I realized that for these kids in Nepal traumatized by the earthquake--perhaps having lost a home, a parent, friends... for them, even five days of complete disorientation and insecurity in a makeshift relief camp is an eternity. Seeing these children engage, smile, play and process grief in a safe and supportive place, I realized what a huge part of their emotional and mental recovery these things represent, practically as important as physical healing. 

Enjoy this short glimpse from today's "grand opening" session... and notice the energy and engagement of the children, and how they behave at the end of just the first day. If you didn't already know their situation, their traumatic context, you'd think you were simply watching an energetic after-school program.  But in a context where there is no school, no playground--maybe no house or even family--it's a remarkable sign of hope, of life...  http://www.wvi.org/nepal-earthquake/video/safe-place-children-affected-nepal-quake

At IBM, I was never much good at writing computer programs; but I'm a huge believer in the power of software.

Cory

April 2015

Looking Beyond the Fence

I’m flying home from an encouraging, albeit hectic, trip to Malawi to see World Vision water projects there.  We ended the trip in a lovely setting for some decompression and debriefing along the coastline of Lake Malawi, a ribbon of water that snakes along most of the length of that small nation.  My grandson Sam came along, and he and I had another 24 hours there after the other travelers left.

Unlike some carefully insulated resorts in developing nations, walks along this hotel’s beachfront ended rather abruptly at a thin, spare wooden fence. Peeking through it, we could observe community members from the neighboring fishing village.  Small children were getting their morning bucket bath from moms who were also washing clothing and watching a boatful of husbands work hard to dig their oars against a stiff wind, slowly traveling past "our" shoreline to bring in their fishing nets and the morning catch.

Later I discovered that from the raised landing of our tidy veranda, I could simply glance to the right and be quickly transported from our gated cloister to an existence far more similar to that of the impoverished villagers we'd just been visiting a hundred miles away than the one we were now experiencing on our flowered and manicured side of that rickety fence.

This is not a new experience for me on these trips, and I more easily work through the mental dissonance of these moments than I did in years past.

But I'm reading now an email from another supporter who was recently with me in Uganda, in which she writes and writhes about her own dissonance with returning home, and the anxious reaction of women in her Bible study group who had asked about her trip. She comments, "One lady said that she really needs to hear the positive of how WV is helping, because she couldn’t get her head around and dwell on the negativity and difficulties of these people’s lives, because she doesn’t understand 'how God could allow this'?”

How could God allow this?  In some sense, it's a critical question we must all confront.  It also needs to eventually call into question the askers’ comfortable understanding of God. The velocity and ferocity of the facts on the ground about poverty and inhumanity can peel the plaster right off our tidy first-world understanding of God, leaving it exposed and ashamed, as flimsy and gaping as that beachside barrier between us. 

Our theology is often just one more gated community that shuts out anything unpleasant that we wish to not deal with, and my friend's heart-wrenching trip report forced her study partner to confront reality that wouldn’t fit inside her well-constructed view of God.

As those who choose to believe in a loving God, this is a question we must all confront, because otherwise as modern Bible translator J.B. Phillips titled a book, "Your God Is Too Small." If we are unable to look squarely at the inconvenient truths beyond the fence yet still have an answer to this question, our "god" is either powerless, uncaring, or cruel... a simpleton tribal deity who simply keeps 'us and ours' comfortable inside the friendly confines of our midweek Bible studies and amplified praise music.

Many have given up trying... I've just finished watching the in-flight movie "The Imitation Game" about the British mathematician who broke the Nazi Enigma code that helped win the war. He says in one of the closing scenes, "But God didn't win the war. We did." 

Though the words took me aback a bit, there's some ring of authenticity in it for me. It puts the onus upon us: to act, to put our own gifts and skills into active service for humankind and causes beyond ourselves. And as the hot-and-bothered writer of James' epistle points out so emphatically, there is no such thing as "faith" without action.

Which brings us back to the frightening question, "How could God allow this?" and turns it on its head. Because the only meaningful response for me is another question: How could we allow this? And more importantly: What are we going to do about it?

Maybe the Bible doesn't promise that “God helps those that helps themselves” [sic], but it certainly purports that God helps those who help others.

The donors I took to Malawi had doubled their giving through a wonderful matching gift. But I’m still holding out for the 30-, 60-, 100-fold ROI that Jesus talks about, and I am content to come home and once more put my hand to that plow.

Cory

Holy Saturday

April 2015

Where We Hang Up Our Lives

I went to weekday mass this morning, for the first time in a few years. I'm getting over jetlag from a World Vision trip to Uganda last week, and as I lay in bed in the dark this morning my mind could not help but cling to the darkest portion of our many projects visits.  While we saw plenty of positive programs, met communities engaged in their own transformation, and celebrated compelling signs of hope, the week was bookended by two riveting experiences that seem to overshadow the others, at least at this point in my recovery.

I had cringed when I saw our planned agenda a few weeks earlier, knowing the impact of these visits but also aware that the logistics of our travel would require that these be at the beginning and end of the trip. Knowing this in advance probably shielded me from some of the initial "blast" of the experiences, but even that could not protect me from the stinging and clinging residue.

On Monday morning, we visited a project designed to combat a hideous practice called "child sacrifice" for lack of a more accurate term.  Children are abducted in order to harvest their blood and body parts for superstitious practices carried out by witch doctors. This happens in only one quadrant of Uganda, so I hesitate to even tell about it for fear of perpetuating old stereotypes of "deepest, darkest Africa."  But without a doubt, this is a very, very dark practice.

We saw all sides of it: First we met Robert, a lovely young boy with a fun-loving smile who was found and rescued in the midst of getting his throat cut. Today he is in a wheelchair, his spinal column mostly severed but hopefully healing. Nothing can keep this seven-year-old down, and he showed us how he can now walk again while hanging onto his chair or his grandmother.

Next we met an energetic committee of community members who have implemented an Amber Alert-type system activated with drums, loudspeakers, cellphones, and motorcycle taxis, with all the government and community leaders involved.  Because of this project, which was underwritten by the Innovation Fund, there has been an 85% reduction in the incidence of child abduction and sacrifice!

The World Vision project leader, Obed, risks his life to come up against an unholy alliance of witch doctors, superstitious customers and kidnapper/body-snatchers, all powered by the money that the ongoing demand creates.   The project is empowering the community to stand up against this evil practice, change hearts, immediately send out search parties, and prosecute the perpetrators.  

About 80% of the 500-plus traditional healers have now taken a pledge rejecting this practice, and our next visit was to one of those. We all entered his compound, but only half the group ventured into his lair. At one point, Obed said, "You see these rocks in the bowl between us? That's where in the past he would sprinkle human blood." Obed had comforted some of the reluctant ones in our group when we arrived there, "You have nothing to fear. You're covered with the blood of Jesus."  So I went into his hovel, to affirm the commitment this witch doctor made... but I can't say I'm glad that I did.

Our last visit of the day took our breath away. Jimmy was 18 months old when he was abducted last year, his heart, genitals and blood 'harvested', and his body dumped back on his family's land to be found by his six-year-old sibling. We met his grandmother, father and uncle. Mom has been sent away to recover, and Jimmy's siblings are clearly traumatized. They clung to Jaaja (Grandma) until the conversation got so graphic that we sent them out to play. Wise or unwise, the adults wanted to show us the spot where Jimmy was found, and then the family plot where he is buried. But the young father couldn't do it. He hung behind by a tree ten steps away and wept silently, breaking everyone's heart.  We witnessed the depth of trauma that this hideous act has wrought on three generations of this extended family, a broken, motherless home that will forever be scarred, and a killer who is still on the loose.

Mercifully, the next few days were encouraging ones of visits to other projects underwritten by the Innovation Fund, projects which include radio and cellphone training of saintly Volunteer Health Teams who are the first-line of defense in the health system; mobilizing faith leaders to advocate for sanitation and hygiene to their congregations; and a low-cost way to manually drill for water which is sometimes inexpensive enough for community members to pay for a pump-well themselves! Along the way, we visited a health center where a woman was just then giving birth and were invited to see the suckling 8-minute-old baby, we learned a lot about defecation in the Bible(!), and we passed through a national park complete with safari animals and a ferry ride across the Victoria (White) Nile River.

Then on Friday, before we flew home, we had the opportunity to visit the recently-closed Children of War center.  World Vision's regional office is now housed in this compound, and I'd heard about this program and advocated and prayed for it for so many years that I was very eager to see the place firsthand, even as an 'historical' site.  

The center was created because of the 20-year reign of terror of the marauding bands of the so-called Lord's Resistance Army, an abhorrent and aberrant-Christian version of ISIS.  Among their despicable practices was abducting children between 10-16 years old, the boys to become trained killers and the girls to be given to LRA commanders as "wives."  The Children of War center was the primary facility for healing and repatriating abducted former child soldiers and child brides, and we were told that some 15,000 former abductees had come through this program since 1995.  

We were hosted in our visit not by the World Vision staff, but by two former child "wives" (often one of 20 or more "wives" of an LRA commander) who had escaped with their children born while in captivity.  Angela and Janet have now started an organization called We Have Hope, not so much to support former child brides, but primarily to help the fatherless children of these women, who face great stigma and behavioral issues, and who were sometimes brainwashed by the LRA before their mothers escaped with them. 

Hearing about the ongoing, multi-generational damage from this evil and violence--after our Monday experience with the child abduction project and Jimmy's family--became a very heavy weight.  Lying in bed today, I realized I must take care of my soul to avoid hitting a wall, sinking into an abyss of unbalanced despair by allowing these searing dark memories to overly-shadow the bright light of the others.

That's when I felt motivated to go to Mass.

I arrived late, and there were lots of distractions.  But as the service was concluding, I gazed up at the cross. There Christ still hung, in proper Catholic tradition.

And as I gazed up, a song began to run through my mind from the musical Godspell. It's a rendering of Psalm 137:1-4, with a lamenting melody that perfectly fits the lyric:

On the willows there we hung up our lives

For our captors there required of us songs 

And our tormentors mirth, saying, 

"Sing us one of the songs of Zion"

"Sing us one of the songs of Zion"

But how can we sing, sing the Lord's song, in a foreign land?

On the willows there we hung up our lives

Captivity. Torment. Joylessness. Despair... Reverence. 

That's when I realized the solace so many have found over the centuries: by hanging their overwhelming burdens up there on the cross with Him who is crucified. He who bore the sins of the world stretches wide his arms to also welcome and bear our burdens.

I accepted the invitation.

The cross is a story of utter defeat, of no one coming to save the day. 

But it was not the final day. Nor did death have the final say.

On that willow there, we too can hang up our lives.

Cory 

March 2015