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It's Not the Right Time for a Crisis

It's not the right time to be bringing up another humanitarian crisis. I can't be seen as the constant bearer of bad news. People won't want to open my emails or take my calls.

And frankly, I'm tired and overwhelmed myself. Maybe the rest of the world can deal with this new famine in East Africa; my little corner would like to please sit this one out.

But then I found myself editing a colleague's email alert which she's faithfully sending to her constituents, that she could end on a hopeful note such as … 

As you’ll read in the LINK, “Famine is a silent killer, but it’s not unstoppable.” The reason one-million people died in the Ethiopia famine of 1984-85 was our lack of ability to provide help in time. The world has proven since then that we can save lives—save children’s lives—by raising the alarm far and wide, and by our compassionate response.

Deborah is letting her donors know—she is raising the alarm far and wide. So far, I have not. By my actions—or in this case, inaction—I am deciding that the lives of those on the edges of life don't matter as much as not annoying my readers or distracting or discouraging those faithfully involved in other poverty issues.

And truthfully, I don't want to expend the emotional energy to take on another crisis. I don't feel I have it to give. But here's the deal: I don't get to decide when a crisis happens. I only get to choose if I am still called to be a voice for those in need who are without a voice.

"How can famine even happen in this day and age?!"  That was the frustrated exclamation of Deborah's father when she told him about the situation. Aren't we past starving children? Didn't we solve this after the Ethiopia Famine of 1984-85? We did our 'bit' back then. Didn't we rid the world of that spectre?

The conscience and awareness of the world was changed through that catastrophe. We learned that drought does not have to lead to food shortages, and food shortages don't have to lead to famine. Actually, nowadays it’s fairly rare. But, when it does happen, we also learned we could do something about it.

As Rich Stearns wrote: “Hunger, even lots of it, isn’t enough to earn a famine declaration. People need to be dying on a daily basis, at a rate of more than two in 10,000. That’s like 1,600 people dying every day in New York City— of starvation. Famine only sets off an alarm when a serious situation has already turned tragic.” (With over 20 million people now at risk in four countries, that is an apt analogy.)

That alarm has already been set off by the UN’s official declaration of famine in two of the countries.  We simply haven't heard about it or, like me, we've conveniently tuned out the early reports. I suppose I was hoping the situation would resolve itself without my attention. Who enjoys photos of emaciated children?

Deborah, who also lives in California, expressed her own frustration: "We've just come out of six years of drought in California, but my kids never missed a meal! The grocery store was always fully stocked."

Why the heartbreaking disparity of consequences? Why are the causes (drought) so similar and yet the effects so tragically different? We Americans might live paycheck-to paycheck, but their vulnerability might be meal-to-meal.  We benefit from at least 150 years of infrastructure investment (albeit sporadic) to reduce our vulnerability from wide fluctuations in annual rainfall. Thus, we are well insulated from feeling its impacts. 

But in most places where starvation is still possible, such systems are not even available--though this is changing through low-cost catchment systems such as "water pans" and low-cost micro-drip irrigation. This is the "development imperative"—to invest in sustainable solutions that reduce vulnerability long-term and avoid such dire consequences in the future. 

It works! World Vision labored in an area of northern Ethiopia called the Antsokia valley. I visited a famine camp there in early 1986, where people had been dying every day just months previously, and the huge valley had been stripped of anything that could be eaten or burned for firewood. Now the rains had returned and new projects were creating water catchments off the mountainsides, creating irrigation systems, planting fruit trees, demonstrating new farming methods. Antsokia became the learning lab that birthed World Vision's Area Development Program (ADP) model, now used around the world.

A major drought tore across northern Ethiopia culminating in 2002 while I was visiting another part of the country. I asked one of our leaders if Antsokia too was suffering. "No," came his answer. "Antsokia has more than enough food--in fact they are exporting it to other areas." Antsokia had gone from being a basket-case to being the bread-basket of northern Ethiopia. 

We must always ‘build back better,’ to not be satisfied solely with temporary relief measures. This time, World Vision decided that rather than only truck-in drinking water to drought areas in Ethiopia for those at risk, we would quickly shift our well-drilling operations to these areas wherever feasible—doubling the number of people we were able to reach last year with long-lasting water solutions to over 1 million people in that nation alone.

The Chinese are correct: every “crisis” is both a danger and an opportunity—an opportunity to creatively find solutions to the crisis which will not only mitigate its most tragic effects, but also reduce the vulnerability to such a crisis in the future. 

There will always be droughts.  But there need not always be famines. In the world’s last famine, 2011, only 25% as many people perished as in 1984 (obviously, 250,000 deaths is still tragic). By faith, I believe the world is moving, albeit haltingly, toward a time "when no child will live but a few days" as the Biblical promise puts it, foretelling God's kingdom come fully to earth.

And meantime, especially for those of faith, danger is always opportunity. There is always hope. We who agree with World Vision founder Bob Pierce's prayer, "Let my heart be broken with the things that break the heart of God," must actually allow our hearts to be broken—not once, but when called upon by the events of our time, by the ever-stretching question, "Who is my neighbor?" 

We don't get to pick the timing of disasters and tragedies, our own or others'. We only get to choose how to respond. Janet and I just went online and made a meaningful donation for the famine response. This was not a guilt-tax or a burden, but a small act of solidarity with the suffering. And—in my optimistic moments—an act of faith in the One who holds the future and is making all things new. 

Cory

April 2017

Into Your Courts I Come

Good Friday is for me the most meaningful “holy day” of the year. Solemnity, quietude, even an appreciation for beauty are all mixed together. It’s easy to be afraid of the day, thinking it’s intended to be morbid or self-mortifying. And I suppose some prefer it that way. Certainly, I make it a point to slowly walk the Stations of the Cross somewhere meaningful. “For us and for our sake he was crucified, died and was buried,” according to the Apostle’s Creed recited weekly in the Anglican tradition. Good Friday is intended to be the great Memorial Day for time immemorial. 


But I don’t dwell a great deal on blood and nails and thorns.  In Jesus’ “It is finished,” I sense an invitation to rest, and to appreciate the beauty of a world worth redeeming... in nature, music, art that speaks to the soul. So it’s a day for resting and quietly pondering, not for mortifying myself. I try to be exactly where my soul wants to be, where it finds rest and reflection. May you find that rest this Good Friday.

Into Your Courts I Come

It's Good Friday.

I appreciate dreary weather on Good Friday: it fits the solemnity of the day. But this year it's a Chamber of Commerce day for So Cal, and I'm in warm sun at St. Michael's Abbey in Silverado, 5 miles from my home. I attended a short midday service chanted by the monks and then walked around the church to enjoy the day and the beauty of the abbey setting.

Above a statue of St. Michael slaying a demon, above the bursting calla lilies, I heard odd guttural bird sounds, almost like the grinding of teeth. I looked up to see an entire complex of swallow's nests, the mythical swallows you can only read about now at my beloved San Juan Capistrano Mission nearby. I'd never seen this, so close-up and intimate, so I watched the show 'til my neck hurt. Then I grabbed a chair nearby and now I am sitting in the sun, in calm 70-degree perfect weather, just enjoying the show. At times, my jaw drops open spontaneously.

Right now, it's quiet. The dark faces of momma birds peer from each hole in these trademark mud igloos built on top of one another, plastered under the eaves of the church. Busy white beaks glance this way and that against the dark peephole opening, while papa swallows zoom back and forth with more supplies of mud or food.

A few minutes ago, a church attendant opened the nearby sanctuary windows, and most of these bird-apartment dwellers flew off, returning a few moments later in a tornado of swirling, chirping activity.

Amazing. And beautiful.

There's something else that strikes me, something I have in common with these feathered friends: we both want to hang around the Lord's house today. This is Good Friday, and it’s a good day to be here.

Now a lone human voice is added to the sound of birds and fountain, and Latin chants with a holy reverberation come wafting out those open windows to mingle with the chirp-and-grind from above. And I suddenly remember a song we used to sing at church, taken from Psalm 84, one of the "songs of ascent" that pilgrims would recite as they climbed toward the temple in Jerusalem, "City of Peace". The psalm starts with “How lovely is your dwelling place, O Lord Almighty” and is filled with love-lines worth reading about the Lord’s house. The song was inspired by verses 3-4:

Even the swallow has found a nest

   A place to lay her young near your altar

And we are longing to find that rest

   So into your courts we come

Into your courts we come.

Guess I'm not unique. The psalmist found the same connection between swallows, rest, and a holy place. And maybe it's no coincidence that swallows seem to hang out (literally) at churches, missions, temples. And why churches are also called sanctuaries.

And I am longing to find that same rest. So into your courts I come. Into your courts I come.

One other group tends to be found worldwide around churches and other “holy sites”: the begging poor. Seems they understand the connection between faith and compassion.  Sometimes, while visiting a religious site somewhere like Ethiopia, India or even the former Soviet Union, I feel I’m “running the gauntlet” through those in need and I cringe inside. Yet another part of me is grateful: Grateful to realize that “everyone knows” that commitment to God and compassion for the poor are supposed to go hand-in-hand.  And grateful to be found in the same place; all of us together, beggars in need of bread.

Cory

3/22/08

Funny epilogue: I dawdled so long that the big afternoon service started. The parking lot had become so overfull that one participant apparently double-parked and hemmed me in. That service lasted nearly three more hours. So, I ‘accidently’ got my wish... five solid hours of rest at the Abbey. :)

Involuntary Sacrifices

Don’t you hate it when you run across something you’ve written and realize you still need to learn the lesson all over again?  That was exactly my experience yesterday. For Holy Week leading to Easter, I intended to send a past meditation each day—perhaps as penance for my dearth of new entries. What thwarted my best intentions was also the bridle I was chafing against...

Last week, I learned I have a detached retina, which is considered a “medical emergency” because of the potential of losing one’s sight in the impacted eye. Frankly, I used to think that a detached retina meant your eyeball fell out of the socket; but Janet always reminds me I was a Business major in college. I know now the retina is like a movie screen stuck to the back wall of the eye, and it sometimes pulls away due to age (Wait, WHAT?!!). I’ll spare you the pain and details (which involved needles and clamps and bright-hot lasers and cryotherapy) but I now have several spot-welds designed to tack the retina back on the wall, and a gas bubble in my eye to press out any fluid behind it so it can reattach itself. The gas bubble means that I feel like I’m constantly looking through swim goggles and one is half-filled with water, which is surprisingly disorienting and mentally exhausting. In addition, I’m supposed to sleep sitting up for 12 days, which does not induce a sense of well-being… not quite as bad as a flight in coach class lasting 12 nights, but that’s the idea.

After nearly a week of increased exhaustion and a less-than-peaceful attitude, I was convicted yesterday that none of this was a surprise to God, and I could trust that even my limited abilities could be used by God during this time. So I recommitted to reviewing some past meditations that might be pertinent for sending out during Holy Week, and the first one I read (below) hit me between the eyes (figuratively speaking), about the attitude of sacrifice and empathic solidarity appropriate to the Lenten season, especially as we move toward Good Friday.  Sometimes our sacrifices are involuntary, but accepted and embraced, they can be an offering just the same…

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.

Three weeks ago, I fell off a paddleboard into 18 inches of water on a rocky coastline near me, jamming my wrist and hand.  Initial x-rays were negative, but last week my thumb was still aching, so new x-rays were ordered and my doctor’s office called saying there was in fact a fracture and I needed a cast…around my palm and all the way up my forearm, for a broken wrist!

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 lack of 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 need to learn. 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 to experientially participate in the sufferings of Christ in some small measure.  Isn't the purpose of Lent to find meaningful methods for contemplating Christ’s sacrifice?  I could do better at proactively choosing how to do 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.

Turning Our Thanks into Giving

Last week, I spoke with a long-time supporter who has been faithfully giving to Kingdom causes for many years. As she told me about a major outreach effort in her area, I sensed a real joy in her.

The conversation reminded me of something I’ve been thinking about lately as I work on a book I’m writing, designed to help readers integrate their cross-cultural encounters into their ongoing lives --

Gratitude.

After a Vision Trip to Africa earlier this year, I met for a reflective lunch with one of the travelers. "It's strange," she confided. "Before our trip, I thought I'd feel guilty for all that I have when I got home.  But I didn't feel guilty.  Instead, I felt grateful!"

Often, when someone says that their primary response after returning from an encounter with the extreme poor is gratitude for what they have, I cringe inside.  My mind immediately thinks of the old saw, "There, but by for grace of God, go I."  In other words, I have shoes. I have health-care.  I have air conditioning. I'm so very grateful I don't have to live like those poor suckers we just visited! 

I'm not satisfied by a response to poverty which is focused on thankfulness that I don’t share their plight.  I don't mean to suggest that guilt is any better reaction (even though guilt might at least cause us to actually do something).  But gratitude for my possessions is a terrible place to stop, as we see in Jesus' parable of the fat-and-happy farmer who built bigger barns because of his sheer pleasure in possessing such an abundant harvest.

"You fool" is how Jesus refers to that guy. I don't think Jesus was a fan.

But I could tell by my lunch partner’s countenance that there was something different about her comment. There was some active energy to it, and as I probed further, I discovered what it was: She had been moved by what she had seen, and was grateful that she could do something about it. She was thankful for what she has been entrusted with, because it would allow her to make a difference for others in ways that she otherwise would not have been able.  Yes, she has accumulated material means, and increasingly she has been drawn toward using those to lift the marginalized, those who didn’t win the Accident of Birth Lottery like you and I did.

Suddenly her opening comment made perfect sense to me: she was grateful for the accumulated resources that were at her disposal to allow her to make a significant impact for the Kingdom of God and for those in need. 

Gratitude, I discovered, though not an adequate response to the needs of the poor, can be a terrific place to start. And I've never been more thankful to hear an initial reaction of joyful gratitude.

Then last week, this same joy of grateful action flooded over the phone line as I spoke to a dear octogenarian giver. Her delight spilled over as she told me of a local outreach effort she has been able to launch, simply by providing the initial funding. Hundreds of people will be coming together in a few days to work together on this effort, and as she related the details to me, I could sense her humble wonder and elation.

A year earlier, she'd simply been sitting at her kitchen table with a friend, and they began discussing this outreach idea. She blurted out to the friend, 'I would sell [an asset] to help make that happen!' Now, what she has catalyzed—through a resource as benign as money—has turned into a city-wide undertaking! She was humbled, and she was grateful—grateful to have the resources to make a difference, and grateful to have had the courage to respond with generosity.  I rejoiced with her in her joy.  After all, we all want to make our lives count.

It’s really rather amazing that turning our thanks into giving can turn our giving into joy.

As we approach Thanksgiving and contemplate ‘What I’m thankful for…’ let's not answer that question with "...for what I’ve been given" but rather "...for what I've been entrusted with." That’s the Kingdom mindset, one which allows us to respond to the Spirit's promptings, the opportunity to truly make a difference in the lives of others, to make our own lives count.

And when we do this, gratitude isn't the end of the story. It’s the beginning of the adventure.

With gratitude for you,

Cory

All News is God News

The news reports following Hurricane Matthew have saddened and disturbed me. As they say, "all news is local news," I guess.  The reports on national news always seem to start with how close the hurricane is to the USA and what preparations Americans are making to get ready.  News from the devastation in Haiti, or even Cuba or the Bahamas now, is almost a footnote, practically an afterthought. The death toll in those places, already over 100 souls and bound to grow precipitously, apparently isn't as newsworthy as the boarding up of windows in Miami or a potential loss of electricity in South Carolina.

Of course, those things matter too, but who isn't my neighbor?

How different this is from God's view of the news (if anything is actually 'news' to God).  We do not seem capable as a society of assigning the same value to every person. American jobs are deemed more important than Bangladeshi jobs in this--and every--election cycle.  And now our news programs show that perhaps even American property is more newsworthy than Haitian lives. 

Where is the Reign of God in all this? Where are the so-called "people of God?" We seem to actually be far more myopic "people of America" with a few Bible verses thrown in to validate our self-righteousness.

I tip my hat to Bill & Melinda Gates, whose foundation's focus is predicated on the simple yet paradigm-altering notion that every human life has equal value. Imagine how that guiding principle would actually lead to radically different priorities than almost any of us live... what we read, how we donate, our political views, how we pray.

This is such basic Jesus stuff! Yet we ignore it completely by thinking, "Well, I know people in Florida. I don't know anyone in Haiti. And for the record, I don't even like Cuba."

A World Vision donor recently made a transformational gift to significantly expand our humanitarian work inside Syria.  He'd been presented with several options, prayed about them and called my colleague with his decision.  "I think I'm supposed to love my enemies" was all he said by way of explanation.  Let's let that soak in for a moment...

Not all news is good news, but it is all God news. I think I'm supposed to try to see the news, especially the people involved, the way God does.

Cory

October 2016

Ignoring the Good Samaritan

Today marks my 35th spiritual birthday, so I was especially eager to attend church. It was one of those services when the Anglican lectionary was prophetic. A preacher could scour the entire Bible for the most appropriate passage for current events and would do no better than one scheduled decades and decades ago for today in the round-robin lectionary cycle.

After the past week of police killings and the killing of police, the Gospel reading for today was the Good Samaritan parable (Luke 10:25-37). As my pastor John Taylor pointed out today, for 500 years the Jews and the Samaritans had been feuding, even at times inflicting fatal blows on each other.  Deeply entrenched distrust and spite plagued both sides. 

This long-smoldering enmity is the backdrop for a despised Samaritan to become the hero in the story Jesus told his Jewish audience. Being a Jew himself, Jesus could present such a story deftly, knowing just where Jewish ribs separate to neatly slip in the knife of conviction. 

Understanding that the story wasn't meant only for first-century Jews, Fr. John gave several real-life contemporary examples of equally selfless kindnesses in the face of the hatred that might 'humanly' be expected.  Then he spoke about the little kindnesses and “benefit of the doubt” interpretations we need to extend to each other in our attitudes and actions if we ever hope to have a Good Samaritan-like response in a crisis.

The parable of the Good Samaritan is perhaps Jesus' most famous story. Reaching beyond enmity and distrust with compassion is a challenge that has constantly stayed with us for 2000 years. And almost everyone seems to know the story, regardless of their faith journey.  To be a labeled a Good Samaritan is a wide-used compliment in many secular as well as spiritual contexts. 

It's JESUS 101. Anyone who knows anything at all about what Jesus stands for and what Jesus taught his followers knows the Good Samaritan story.

That's why such discouragement washed over me a few minutes later.  Midway through the sermon, my mind shot back in time just 48 hours to a meeting I had on Friday with three energetic World Vision volunteers.  They were commenting about several emails they've recently received and conversations they've had - as recently as that morning - where the common message was: "Hey, what's going on with World Vision? I thought they were a Christian organization. What in the world are they doing ministering to Muslim refugees?!"  

And the thing is, literally every person issuing this "complaint" would call themselves a Christian.  Meaning, a follower of Jesus.  In that context, this doesn’t seem to be a question that even deserves the dignity of an answer.

Is it possible to ignore Jesus' most basis, most well-known and well-loved teaching, and still claim to be his follower?  Is it possible to be shocked when an organization that claims to be animated by the teachings of Jesus actually does things Jesus tells his followers to do?

Jesus never created a so-called "Christian subculture.”  But there was a culture Jesus talked about until he was blue in the face.  It was the topic he discussed until he was practically a broken record.  He called it "the kingdom of God" or "the kingdom of Heaven." We too-mindlessly pray for it to come every time we say the Lord's Prayer: "Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth, as it is in heaven."  

Our assignment is to show forth the signs of that culture, of the kingdom coming on earth, just like the Good Samaritan did. "Let me give you a picture of the Kingdom of God," Jesus says over and over, and then he proceeds to tell a story, a parable, an illustration of what it will look like when we live that Way. (As in, “This is the way; walk in it.”)

I agree with Fr. John: if we're going to get through this season of mistrust and enmity and election accusations, we're going to have to embrace and exercise Jesus' teaching in the small things… our interactions, our attitudes, our distrusts. 

When Jesus called us to be salt and light, I don't think he meant we should pour that salt into the world's wounds or use our light to scorch others or add to the world's heat.  For those of us still smitten by the Good Samaritan, Jesus has one singular instruction: "Go and do likewise."

Cory

July 2016

Once Upon A Path

An allegory: 

Once upon a time, there was a World Vision Area Development Program (ADP).  

And in that ADP there was a lovely latrine, which World Vision had taught the community to construct at a school.  This latrine was even called a "VIP Latrine" (meaning ventilated improved pit latrine).  The latrine had several private enclosures, for boys and also for girls, both younger and older, even one for menstruating girls.  This last enclosure even had a hand-washing facility.  Many girls now stayed in school for years longer because they had a private place to clean themselves during menstruation.  They felt understood  and respected for the first time in their lives.  

Many other new ideas and lifesaving measures were introduced into the ADP, as well. The community was so proud of the changes that they officially changed their name to Progress. 

Some years later, World Vision completed its work in Progress ADP.  It was a sad day when the World Vision staff left, but there was a big celebration with speeches from the regional governor, a cabinet minister, the local chief, and numerous community members who gave testimony to the impact of the improvements which had come to their area as a result of World Vision's efforts.  Several young women who had actually gone on to complete university specifically mentioned the VIP latrine at their school, and credited that latrine with keeping them in school against all odds at a decisive point in their lives.  It was a wonderful and fulfilling celebration for everyone.  

Yet, as the World Vision vehicles drove away, you would have thought the community had just seen Elijah taken up by the Lord's chariot.  The people of Progress felt very alone. So they tried very hard to remember and practice what they had learned from World Vision. 

Soon after that seeming "day of ascension", back at the school, those now-aging VIP latrines were creating such an odor that no one wanted to use them anymore.  Besides, now the latrine doors were off their hinges and no one could fit them back again, because the bricks had settled akimbo over time and set the doorjams ajar.

But there was hope on the horizon! The regional government had just announced that water and sewer lines were being constructed along the main road, and communities could tie into the lines with proper connections.  A new toileting facility could be constructed with actual flush toilets and sinks with running water!  This could be just what the school needed; it could be the answer to their prayers!

But the community members of Progress remembered their dear friends, their teachers really, from World Vision.  World Vision had taught them speficially how to construct VIP latrines, with concrete platforms and a hole in the center for squatting over.  They had built hand-washing stations which could be filled by the bucketful, and even ingenious tip-taps for each home which could tip over a small bottle of water from a peddle and string contraption which didn't require touching anything with soiled hands.  

"That’s the way World Vision taught us to do it!," some zealously shouted during the community meeting where they would vote on putting in sewers and water pipes.  "Why spend the money for these new gizmos we don't understand?" yelled one man. A woman joined in, "World Vision taught us how to use the latrine, and the tip-taps work well enough. We should stay with what was clearly taught to us by World Vision. We trust them, and they  never told us that flush toilets and metal sinks were good for us."  Their hearts were stirred as they recalled the big celebration, where the praises of the VIP latrine had thrilled everyone. 

And with that, the community voted to not bring in water lines and sewer pipes. Over time, usage of the VIP latrine continued to dwindle, disease went up, school attendance for teenage girls went down, and slowly the community reverted to its former unhealthy, unhappy state.

Though in their minds they were still being faithful to what they'd been taught, Progress had stopped progressing. 

I hope this story has never happened, and never will!  The purpose of World Vision's work is to put communities on a path of development, not a destination.  The "software" principles -- such as banding together for synergy, of everyone having a voice, of embracing new possibilities – are far more important than the  "hardware" particulars of development such as water pumps, latrines, granaries, etc. The specifics come and go, but the principles are designed to help the community continue to move forward over time as they face new challenges and opportunities.  Anything less than this must ultimately be considered failure.

And yet, and yet….. Why is it in the Christian church, we are like the people of “Progress”, focusing on the specifics, and missing the universal principles of Jesus?  Over the decades and centuries, we’ve stumbled over women's rights and ordination, slavery, equal rights and power for every group under the sun...because we haven't been under the Son's tutelage, we haven't continued on in the direction he showed us.  His actions, perhaps even more powerfully than his words, spoke of breaking down walls. Yet we often focus only on the specific walls Jesus broke down, not on the guiding principle of being wall-breakers. So we celebrate the walls he brought down, and instead of bringing down the walls that exist in our generation, we often become those most zealous for keeping them up.

Did Jesus become “the author and perfector of our faith” by giving us the final word, or by showing us the way forward, that we might continue along that path, after his ascension?

We are supposed to be the people of the Way, yet oh how often we are merely the people of the Destination.

Workers, Not Master Builders

Twenty-five years ago today, on May 17, 1991, two World Vision leaders were gunned down on the streets of Lima, Peru as they stepped from their vehicle to enter the national office that morning. Though the crime was never prosecuted, all evidence pointed to the then-notorious guerrilla group, Sendero Luminoso, or Shining Path.

It was a dark day.  Canadian Norm Tattersall, acting Director of WV Peru, died on the spot. Colombian National Director Jose Chuquin, who received 22 bullets, died of his wounds on May 28.

Not long before that, Norm taught an adult Sunday School class that Janet and I attended for a year, at a church across the street from our kids' high school. As I recall, his wife later moved back home to Canada.  I don't know what became of Jose's wife and family of five younger children. But without question, both families were shaken to the core, if not broken.

Two months later, World Vision lost three more staff, Peruvian nationals whose bodies and vehicle were never found, and for a few months we closed the office there in order to not put the staff at further risk.

In World Vision's Seattle-area office, there is a small Visitor's Center that contains a memorial to those staff members who have lost their lives in service to the poor and God's Kingdom. Their names appear translucently as images over running water, scrolling slowly down with the silently spilling substance, a reminder of the transcendent yet transitory nature of our existence. Norm and Jose Chuquin are remembered there, along with the others. For me, it's a sobering and silencing experience to pause with prayer and thanksgiving as I read dozens of names from disparate cultures yet who share this common distinction. And my breath always stops a bit when those two names appear.

It's a sobering reminder of the price some of our colleagues pay... not only World Vision workers pay this price of course, as we've seen lately in Syria with deaths from MSF (Doctors Without Borders) staff and from other groups.

In addition to their lasting individual contributions to World Vision's work and ethos, Norm and Jose teamed up a year before they were killed to propose more intentional work be done in economic development. This was only months after the fall of the Berlin Wall and the crumbling of communism, and a time when market capitalism threatened to leave the global poor behind.  World Vision leaders in Latin America approved their recommendation and hired a leading expert in the new innovation called "microfinance." This eventually helped lead to the creation of VisionFund, World Vision's wholly-owned microfinance subsidiary, which today creates or sustains well over 1,300,000 jobs annually and makes small loans to over one million borrowers each year.

Reflecting on this part of Jose and Norm's legacies, I'm reminded of the wonderful poem attributed to Bishop Oscar Romero, a tireless advocate for the poor and a vocal critic of violence, social injustice and state-sponsored repression. Bishop Romero was himself gunned down, as he celebrated Mass in San Salvador.  The poem-prayer reminds us: "We may never see the end results, but that is the difference between the master builder and the worker. We are workers, not master builders..."

We are only the workers.  But the Master Builder takes our humble efforts and can accomplish amazing things over time which we may never see.  In fact, the older I get, the more my faith clings to this.

  

In honor of Norm, Jose and the many others over the years and even centuries, as well as those to come, I close with the full poem:

It helps now and then to step back and take a long view; the Kingdom is not only beyond our efforts, it is even beyond our vision.

We accomplish in our lifetime only a tiny fraction of the magnificent enterprise that is God’s work.

Nothing we do is complete, which is a way of saying that the kingdom always lies beyond us.

No statement says all that could be said.

No prayer fully expresses our faith.

No confession brings perfection.

No pastoral visit brings wholeness.

No program accomplishes the church’s mission.

No set of goals and objectives includes everything,

This is what we are about.

We plant the seeds that one day will grow.

We water seeds already planted, knowing that they hold future promise.

We lay foundations that will need further development.

We provide yeast that produces far beyond our capabilities.

We cannot do everything, and there is a sense of liberation in realizing that.

This enables us to do something, and to do it very well.

It may be incomplete, but it is a beginning, a step along the way, an opportunity for the

Lord’s grace to enter and do the rest.

We may never see the end results, but that is the difference between the master builder and the worker.

We are workers, not master builders; ministers, not messiahs.

We are prophets of a future not our own.

Amen.

Fading Memories

Some photos, a few faces, are still etched in my mind.  After 30-plus years for some, I'd like to say they are there "forever", permanently burned on the pixilated screen of my memory. But I know better now.

In some darkened file folder, I still have the photos of my first and only visit to India in 1984, where we had an audience with Mother Teresa, and of my first-of-many trips to Ethiopia, in 1986, shortly after the devastating drought and famine there wiped out an estimated one-million souls.  As I flip through those photos now, I am ashamed at how little I remember about the vast majority... the names, the stories, why I chose to keep a certain memorable photo with an “unforgettable” story behind it that I can no longer remember.  

Memories fade.

I've damaged some of those photos by writing on the backs of them—names, stories, details—and others by adhering stickers with similar information. But those notes help me remember and honor the experience.

Last evening, my neighbor Brad told me that his father had served as a paratrooper in World War II.  As half Native American, bearing a Germanic name, he came under plenty of abuse.  Since his father’s death, Brad now possesses quite a unique collection of war memorabilia: the lapel pins, cuff buttons, or coins his father removed from each person that he or a soldier in his unit had killed during the war.

His father’s comrades-in-arms would get very angry, afraid that he might get into harms' way simply in order to "collect a souvenir." But for Brad's father, that wasn't the driving purpose at all.  How could he explain? His Native American heritage compelled him to always carry with him a memento of each life. He felt responsible to keep something of that person “alive” as a way to honor the sacredness of each unique human being, wartime enemies included.

What a beautiful extension of the spirit we ought to carry when we encounter other cultures. I usually travel for my work, so it’s true that I need to be able to faithfully share those experiences with others afterwards.  But another large part of my motivation has to do with stewardship—that same responsibility Brad’s father felt, to treasure those people and encounters that God puts in my path.

My methods have changed considerably--from illegible journal entries hand-scribbled onto a notepad, to blazing thumbs speeding across my smartphone keypad, edited on the plane home. Someday soon this method too will be arcane. I've gone from having a few precious rolls of film to unlimited photos on a memory card... far more than I could ever remember the stories behind. Culling and curating those few best photos for others to see and absorb is sadly becoming a lost art. 

Sometimes, I'm tempted to forget that photos are stories, too. Exceptional photos need no words to have their affect, but you can be sure those are the rare exceptions. And in the quest for the perfect picture worth those thousand words we can easily lose any personal connection with the human dialog and connections happening right in front of us.

I suppose I learned to be a chronicler from my father.  When I was five-years-old and our family of 6 was crammed into a two-bedroom cracker-box house, my dad frustrated my mother by purchasing a console reel-to-reel tape recorder. This clumsy device, with its giant spools of fragile exposed magnetic tape which were regularly getting mis-spooled, broken or eaten by the machine, became a nearly-buried treasure in the attic. 

Back then for a few years, my dad would gather us around the recorder on some cold, dark North Dakota winter's night to interview me and my three younger brothers. When we quickly ran out of anything to talk about, he'd start singing a song or would ask us to sing one.  Then afterwards he would rewind the tape and we would "listen to how it sounds" and laugh at hearing our own voices. Tape was expensive, and often he would record over parts of past recordings with new material, losing the old forever and leaving mostly snippets for posterity. 

My young father was only 25 years old then, but amazingly prescient: he died as a young man of 40 years in his sleep, from an undetected brain aneurysm. For the four decades since then, those few recordings have been some of my clearest and dearest glimpses into my dad. He was funny, he was an organizer, and he was a closet crooner in the Frank Sinatra era.  We all learned to sing the old songs thanks to my dad, and my brothers and I still sing a few of them when we get together.

Last year, my wife Janet gave me one of the most meaningful gifts I've ever received, albeit with considerable effort on my part. Janet's amazing gift was the chance to record something "with" my deceased father, using one of those old reel-to-reel fragments, now digitized. I was able to compose three harmony parts around the largest fragment, thanks to what I've been learning about Barbershop harmony, to create an a Capella ‘quartet’—with a bonus.  On the new recording, there are five voices: I'm singing three parts as a 60-year-old, while harmonizing behind my 26-year-old father and my 6-year-old self.  

What an honor!  For a couple of months, I’d focused all my attention on how to approach the project and do it justice, working on it in my spare time, mostly late at night. So it wasn't until I was on my way to make the recording that the incredible holiness of the experience washed over me.  

Had my dad not captured those memories in the first place, as they were happening, none of it would have been possible. He had the foresight to see the preciousness of the memories we were making back then, and to capture them as best he could. Fifty-five years later, his chronicling provided me the chance to relive some of those experiences and to receive one of the greatest gifts I'll ever get.  And now my children and grandchildren, my siblings and my dad's siblings, all have both the old and new recordings.  I believe that I was able to honor my father’s memory in his way... and that it will help mark my own life.

When people in disparate cultures give us the gift of their time, attention and interactions, we owe them something back. Our experiences are not intended for voluntourism or prophylactic voyeurism. They are not for our entertainment or for the “Temp” file on our brain’s hard-drive. They are for our transformation.

Can we believe that? …that God and the universe want to tell us something, that our experiences are not accidental? Rather, they are gifts to be received, treasured, remembered and contemplated.

For me, honoring and stewarding those gifts is what note-taking and journaling, chronicling and recording are all about. I’m so grateful to my dad for modeling that commitment. And, much as Brad’s father willingly made great efforts to honor the sacredness of each life, we all have the opportunity to honor the sacredness of each encounter and person along our own journey.

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?”

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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