Eyes of Understanding

Two days ago, we spent a night at one of the humbler rural lodges in which I've ever stayed. The small town in southeastern Kenya where it's located has no electricity after midnight, so when jetlag woke me at about 4am, I had plenty of time to lay in the dark, and my mind quickly reflected back on a moving encounter from the previous day. Then, when I remembered I could read my daily devotions on my backlit Blackberry, the pieces all came to light with the dawn.

The day before, we'd had several wonderful encounters with the poor. Bouncing for miles down dirt roads, we came to the end of the trail, to a village named "California!" Ladies in colorful dresses danced and sang for us, and I joined the dance with them as the comic relief. When the festivities gave way to speeches, we of course told them that we'd come from the “other” California and asked how they'd chosen the name. They explained they'd changed the village name a few years ago to "California" because that name represents the furthest place on earth for them (our equivalent is "Timbuktu"!), and they feel far away from anyone caring or paying attention to them. So our visit was a special grace to them, and they told as much to God when they prayed to start and end our brief visit, as so often happens here.

The new pride of their remote hamlet was a hand-pump well which they proudly displayed. Thanks to the well, girls can now attend school instead of fetching water all morning, women can be more productive, and children get sick --and die-- less frequently. When the village elder greeted us, he said that thanks to the well they now feel that they are legitimately "part of the world."

Our group tried out the handpump and then we all adjourned for warm soda under a tree, where they told us more about the impact which the well has had. That's when things got personal.

One woman reported happily that now her children are clean, because she has enough water to bathe them. My mind flashed to a recent recounting of a woman who said that her top personal “dream” is to be able to take a bath at home.

Just then, a very brave women chimed in, and we heard the translation amid muffled snickers and giggles from others in the crowd. "Before the well, when a man and a woman would come together as a couple, they were not able to wash afterwards."

Her words were shocking in their obvious meaning and profoundly human practicality, yet without any salacious subtext. I felt extremely honored that she would make such an intimate comment to seeming strangers... though World Vision is no stranger here, of course.

After more praying, singing and dancing we bounced off to our next stop. But that night over dinner we each spoke of our most powerful image or memory from the day, and I found myself bringing up this woman's comment. Lucy, a Kenyan woman on our staff who'd also grown up "in the bush", commented, "Yes, it was very brave of her to speak so frankly. But what she didn’t say, yet was really implying behind the words, was that if the woman can't be clean, then her husband is likely to lose interest and go into town to find 'girls'."

My heart sank. I began to think of the helplessness these women must have felt. A woman is very conscious of personal hygiene anyway and would be the first to sense any personal unclean-ness. Then for her husband to go consort with prostitutes would only compound her own inner condemnations and feelings of shame and worthlessness. The women there looked old and weathered before their years anyway, and then to feel unclean, and to be rejected as unclean, must have led to great despair.

I remember a trip somewhere where we visited a girls' latrine at a school and learned that once they reached puberty, perhaps three-fourths of the girls had previously been dropping out of school because of their personal hygiene needs and the lack of gender-specific school toilets, a luxury previously beyond their means. This ridiculously simple girls’ latrine had hugely increased female enrollment and reduced dropouts. It was one of those moments where a dumb male like me can very tangibly understand the vulnerability and sensitivity of females.

Another moment for me recently was reading the fabulous book, "Half the Sky" by Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn. The book is a compendium of riveting women's challenges and inspirational stories of modern heroines who are overcoming their barriers and the sins visited against them by men (and at times by other women, whether those who perform genital cutting or those who hold them down so the male soldiers can gang rape them). When I closed the book, I declared myself a feminist before God.

Now enter the shamelessly honest woman from "California" as my latest ah-ha.

I was again contemplating her with increasing empathy in the pre-dawn dark of the next morning when I grabbed my Blackberry to read my daily email devotion. (Ah, the marvels of technology!) I read that two mystics from the 1100's (Hugh of St. Victor and Richard of St. Victor) wrote that God gave humanity three sets of eyes, each building on the previous one. The first are the eyes of the body, the second are the eyes of mind, and the third, the eyes of true understanding and compassion, perhaps the eyes of the heart...

Suddenly it became clear that God has indeed given me three sets of eyes. My physical eyes saw the water well, even saw the dancing and singing. The eyes of my mind saw the brave woman explain an intimate aspect of the blessings of clean, sufficient water which I might not have considered. And finally, thanks to my colleague Lucy, the eyes of my heart broke with compassion as she explained the painful, unfair truth behind the woman’s words... unfair because women once more have the disadvantage, have special needs, have less power in relationships, and yet are the most self-aware in issues such as personal hygiene. Those who already judge themselves are further judged by their husbands’ spurning, further confirmed in their self-deprecating personal appraisal.

I told our group that morning about my devotional, about our three sets of eyes and how it perfectly fit our prior day’s experience. Because ultimately, these trips are exactly about moving from seeing to knowing to feeling. It is God’s invitation in every one of these visits with the poor.

Why? Because from the eyes of the heart comes not only heart-rending compassion but compassion-fired motivation; motivation to be the change which might just change the world, might change it into something that could be recognizable as the Kingdom of God.

Open the eyes of my heart, Lord. Open the eyes of my heart.

Cory
October 28, 2010
Lukenya, Kenya

So Long, John Stott

John Stott died last week, at age 90. When I read it, I almost felt like crying... http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/28/world/europe/28stott.html?ref=sunday

John Stott was a spiritual grandfather figure for me in my faith journey. He was the first “light” for my understanding of Christian/evangelical social responsibility, and he put into words what was already stirring in my heart. I was a fairly new Jesus follower, and new to World Vision, when nearly 30 years ago someone recommended his books to me, especially his series on evangelical social responsibility published by InterVarsity Press. I led an adult Sunday School class through several volumes, stretching all of us and re-envisioning my own understanding of the day’s issues through this new lens of Jesus’ paradigm. What did it mean to follow Jesus footsteps in a world not just of economic disparity but also of nuclear weapons, of birth control, of the death penalty, and increasing divorce in the church? Stott gently unpacked each issue with non-judgmental understanding for differing opinions, yet with a consistent call to compassionately engage in a world in need. Thirty years later, the Protestant Church has moved, albeit fitfully and protestingly, toward where John was inviting us, following an engaged and compassionate Jesus.

It’s a very hard road, this stepping out of oneself, seeking to truly understand the other, and laying down the cultural assumptions which define so much of what we think of as Christianity. Patriotism/nationalism, party politics, upbringing… all these and more color our reading of the gospels and become cultural blinders which we spend a lifetime trying to overcome in attempting to follow the Shepherd more nearly. Or, as the famous Godspell refrain says it—and which I pray after communion each week: to see Thee more clearly, love Thee more dearly, and follow Thee more nearly.

I had a conversation recently with a conservative friend of mine. He now attends perhaps the most notoriously activist, vocally “liberal” church in southern California, whose pastor I’ve read about in the papers at least since the 1980’s, when this church was taking in refugees from Central American nations whose dictators were supported by the U.S. government. “America, right or wrong” has definitely not been their rallying cry. They’ve probably declared themselves a “nuclear-free church,” for all I know. I would often shake my head reading these stories, but also ponder what compass they were using which gave them the boldness to undertake such unpopular actions. Which means that every once in a while I’d have this fleeting question as to whether this was just a difference in our political overlays or if their reading of scripture had fewer cultural blinders than mine. Could they be right?

So, remembering this pastor’s notoriety, I asked my friend how in the world he came to that church a decade ago from his conservative church background, and how did he feel about this pastor. His answer continues to haunt me. “Cory, I never cease to be challenged by him to care more about people. I’ve never encountered anyone who so consistently leads with love.”

Leading with love, with compassion. That sounds a lot like Jesus to me. Jesus had an amazing lack of need to “hold the line” on so-called moral issues. He loved the woman caught in adultery, he loved the woman at the well who’d had 5 husbands and was cohabiting with another man, he even loved the rich young ruler before inviting him to give away everything which he possessed and which possessed him if he really wanted to follow a new Master. (Mark 10:21)

We on the other hand seem to have a great need to “hold the line” on Jesus’ behalf, and to the outside world, it appears that our judgment triumphs over mercy. Fifty years ago, the church held the line on divorce, removing divorced persons from church leadership and sometimes from the church rolls. We judged those with AIDS. We held the line on women in the pulpit, sometimes barring women in any church leadership position “over men.” Women’s ordination was the impetus for many painful church splits and denominational splinter groups.

We see these hard-line stands as forgivable miscalculations, forgetting the hordes we’ve left shunned and rejected, perhaps permanently, by our principled positions.

When it’s so easy to find examples from as little as a few decades ago where passionate principles were rigorously defended, yet which now seem shamefully backwards to us today, what haunts me is this: In view of that history—and my own history of getting it wrong—what are the issues facing the church today where we are busy “holding the line” yet which in 50-100 years will seem equally absurd? When will our intransigence on Jesus’ behalf once again prove ultimately to be a blemish on Jesus’ reputation?

New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof wrote an editorial this past weekend about John Stott’s life and his huge, positive impact on Christian thinking and engagement in the world, how he commended Jesus to a skeptical world by challenging believers to lead with love. Kristof also contrasted Stott with some well-known “blowhards”, as he refers to them. To my point, he wonders, “When the Rev. Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson discussed on television whether the 9/11 attacks were God’s punishment on feminists, gays and secularists, God should have sued them for defamation.” (http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/31/opinion/sunday/kristof-evangelicals-without-blowhards.html?_r=3)

So what nags me is this: Will God accuse me too of defamation of character? And how will Christ-followers in future generations judge how I stewarded his reputation during my “watch”?

I know a doctor who was sued by a homosexual patient and the ACLU over his refusal to provide a medical service on religious grounds. Millions of dollars, numerous news articles and nearly a decade of court battles later, he lamented with what seemed like disillusionment, “Looking back, as a Christian I’m not sure how good it is to be known for what I’m against.”

Looking back, I too lament for being known for what I’m against. My position has changed over the past 30 years (thank goodness!) on some issues, like women in the pulpit for instance. If I got that wrong then, what am I getting wrong now? And how do I avoid the same hard-line mistakes over today’s issues? I honestly don’t know where I stand on some of today’s hot-button “morality” issues, but my new starting point is to lead with love, to seek first to understand.

Each generation desperately needs gracious yet prophetic voices such as dear John Stott who can help us see beyond our day’s culture wars, beyond our culture, and be confronted once again with the example of Jesus, who is not just savior but also, as Stott himself may have put it, the Lord of Love.

So long, John Stott. I feel as if one of my anchors has just broken off, but my rudder is more firmly set on course because of your life and witness.

Cory
August 2011

Eating an Elephant

I'm watching an elephant being eaten, one bite at a time.

That's one of the real takeaways from my trip to Kenya a week ago. The “elephant” is the AIDS pandemic which was overwhelming much of sub-Saharan Africa a decade ago.

On this latest trip, we were primarily visiting water-related programs, but along the way we also visited a group of PLWHAs or “PLEW-ahs”, People Living With HIV and AIDS. The group was formed both for support and to provide a way for these outcasts to make a living. They were banding together for an income-generating activity—grinding corn (maize), thanks to a grant from World Vision which provided the grinder. This group has 66 members who take turns working at the grinding mill, and 142 children are benefitting as a result. Not only that, but these people with the virus are now providing a service to their community and generating resources instead of draining their community’s resources.

We talked with them about the stigma they experience (“sometimes other kids aren’t allowed to play with our children”), about the availability of anti-retroviral (ARV) drugs, about their business… and we prayed together. It was yet another special experience with precious people, loved by God, yet suffering from HIV/AIDS.

But what was most notable was what we didn't experience. I saw it, but those with me couldn’t.

So I had to explain to my fellow travelers what it was like to visit PLWHAs just 8 or 9 years ago, before ARVs, before sensitization training against stigma, before testing for the virus was generally accessible, before President Bush’s AIDS Initiative. Back then, I said, we often were visiting AIDS patients "on bed", which usually meant they were lying on the ground, if not under a tree outside the house. Their tears came so easily as these sallow victims told of being cast out of their own homes by spouses and children, or as they begged siblings or parents to care for their too-soon-to-be orphaned children. It was such a terrible scourge, with terrible suffering and terrible stigma and shame. It's hard now even to imagine that this was happening in the 21st century, under our watch, and that these were things I had personally witnessed in multiple countries and settings.

I had to explain all these dynamics to first-time visitors who had never experienced them. It was astounding to realize that, in my last three trips visiting those with HIV and AIDS, the experience was much more related to "living positively" than to dying with some dignity. This is truly an amazing improvement in less than a decade. There is still some stigma, fear and a lack of understanding. But the level of rejection is measurably diminishing, to the point that customers were willing to let the group’s members grind the corn their families would cook and consume. The PLWHAs were thin and dull-eyed, but they were all standing, walking and attending our gathering. There are still doors closed to them and rejection in the workplace, but they've embraced a new way to generate income as a group, to keep working and to provide for their families with the sweat of their brows. They may need transportation help to access medications, but those are generally available for most who need and want them. I expect these PLWHAs will still die of complications from the virus, but now they are living for years and are able to raise their children toward the safety of adulthood in the meantime.

It's stunning, really, to think of the overwhelming mountain that loomed in front of us ten years ago, and how these improvements are gradually but steadily showing themselves in numerous ways and countries. I'm experiencing it incrementally but clearly each time in my own travels, not just reading statistics about it.

It's also surreal in a way. I could hardly believe the stories I was sharing with my fellow travelers about the situations I experienced in the early years of the last decade. So recent and yet so ancient as to sound like I'd lived during the Black Plague. In fact, I suppose in some ways we did. I read recently that during the Plague, some regions actually lost over half of their inhabitants. One man wrote during that no one cried anymore over individual deaths—they were all themselves just waiting to die. I couldn't even imagine the sense of hopelessness, despair and doom. And I wasn't at all surprised to read that there was a widespread belief during that era that the world itself was about to end.

Despair tinged with hopelessness was bleeding through the strong social fabric of African communities a decade ago too, and plenty of us bystanders were ready to finally give up on Africa rather than deal with this overwhelming crisis. It's completely shameful that we "rich nation" peoples would allow something like this to go on. Of course, a small Gideon’s Army of people like Rich Stearns, Kay Warren and Lynne Hybels sounded the alarm and helped change our tolerance into intolerance. And from a Kingdom perspective, President Bush's tripling of funding to combat the global AIDS pandemic may have been his greatest foreign policy achievement, as he brought tremendous resources to bear in fighting this battle.

Finally, it was a bit shocking to have to explain these things to my first-time fellow travelers, to be reminded of how few people even ten years later really understand what happened—and is still happening, albeit to a lesser degree. The facts were painful to conjure up; the feelings, impossible. Like soldiers returned from the front who can't begin to adequately explain to the folks back home what it was actually like to experience the decisive battle which saved their city. Yet all the same, what a privilege to be able to say "Yes, I served; I was a foot soldier in that battle."

Of course, the battle isn't over, but I can report from my last few visits to the frontlines that the battle is turning, the tide is shifting, the dawn is coming.

If you ask me, the glass is half full. The elephant is half eaten.

Cory
August 2011

Brief Good Friday reflection 2011: Just Another Face in the Crowd

In "The Three Crosses," Rembrandt famously painted himself as a face in the crowd at Jesus' crucifixion. See the attachment of the full piece, and then the 'close-up' where in the center of this bottom left section you'll find a bald, bearded, European-looking man staring straight ahead, with almost a glazed look on him. Apathy? Stupor? Penitence? He seems to be looking the other way. Or... maybe that's his point.

Mel Gibson makes the slightest 'cameo' appearance in his movie "The Passion of the Christ"... his left hand is seen holding one of the nails that is hammered into Jesus' hand. According to Gibson, he did this to symbolize (and remind himself) that he too crucified Christ.

Love for Jesus, blended with an understanding of their own sinfulness and culpability for his execution, motivated these men to 'not leave themselves out' when portraying the hostile or apathetic crowd gathered at the crucifixion. While admirable and even touching artistic gestures, these were deeply personal acts, and to be honest, some of their power is lost on me as simply the viewer. I'm only an uncomfortable bystander at their confession.... until I draw my own face in the same picture.

The power comes when I see the invitation in their actions. Then the question, for each of us, becomes: If I were making this drawing, where would I put myself and what would I be doing? Or perhaps, What kind of artwork would I create in its place?

Being just another face in the crowd can be a powerful act, after all. May we all find ourselves as just another face in the throng eternally singing praise before the Throne of Grace. Because, in words I heard at church last night, infused with theology of the meaning of Good Friday, "Jesus decided he would rather go to hell for you than go to heaven without you."

Cory

Brief Meditation for Maundy Thursday 2011: Tonight's the Night!

Last year on Maundy Thursday, I waited at a traffic light behind a florist delivery truck. On the back of the truck was wording that reminded readers:
Why send flowers?
- To say I love you.
- Get well soon.
- Tonight's the night!

"Tonight's the night"? Wow--that can mean all sorts of things.

Yet it was the perfect sentiment for Maundy Thursday. We reserve the term "Night of Nights" for Christmas Eve, yet tonight was the night of Jesus' passion,
Of his voluntary death on our behalf,
The night when he sealed his pact of ultimate obedience with the Father,
The night he instituted the Eucharistic feast,
The night of his final and fatal spurning by the religious authorities...

a night without sleep
a night without Light
...it was the "Night to End the Night."

So send flowers. At least send prayers of solicitous thanks and humility.

Tonight's the Night!

Cory

Involuntary Sacrifices

I've finally figured out something to give up for Lent -- the use of my right wrist... and the right to complain about it.

Last week I went to my doctor for a few nagging ailments, including a thumb which still was experiencing pain three weeks after falling off a paddleboard into 18 inches of water on a rocky coastline one Saturday afternoon. As I fell backwards, I twisted around and used my right arm to catch myself, possibly preventing serious injury but also jamming my wrist and hand pretty hard. I bought a drugstore brace and quickly put it on, then went to urgent care the next day to get x-rays. When those came back negative I became more lax about the brace, and I gradually felt the wrist was healing. But I wasn't sure about my thumb.

My doctor agreed and sent me for more x-rays, and then his office called saying there was in fact a fracture and I needed a cast! I dutifully, if grudgingly, went back in yesterday and made peace with the idea of a cast on my thumb. My doctor came in, and to my great surprise, began to wrap my palm, skip my thumb altogether and go all the way up my forearm with a stiff fiberglass cast! When I expressed shock, he told me that the thumb was fine but that I'd broken my wrist after all. Oh joy. Now I know what a "distal radius" is, though.

The next morning I was still discovering new frustrations in trying to go about my normal routine with this unhuman prosthetic device from which my captive fingers protrude. It was a struggle to not be frustrated. It was even more a struggle to concentrate on my Lenten devotion time, and when I finished I melodramatically thought of the tragic passage from Jeremiah, "The summer is ended, the harvest is past, and we are not saved." My quiet time was over, it was time to get ready for work, and nothing had altered my faltered state.

That's when the revelation hit me: this minor (and temporary) infirmity could be embraced, not fought, and with Lent upon us, this handicap might be a form of sacrifice, albeit involuntary. Though I’d been struck by how very many references there were in last Sunday's liturgy and Lenten hymns about fasting and sacrifice being the normal Christian response during this season—like it used to be for me—I hadn't yet had the bandwidth to voluntarily sacrifice something this Lenten season. I'd felt convicted on Sunday, both by my own fading commitment, and in realizing how little fasting and sacrifice are talked about, much less practiced, in “modern” Christendom.

The least I can do—and I do admit it's the least—is to not chafe under the bridle when an involuntary "fast" is visited upon me. Keeping my eyes open to seeing these hindrances and obstacles as my “appointed” sacrifices, and responding appropriately, is a spiritual discipline I should probably learn, too. Peacefully enduring these "light and momentary troubles" will no doubt take energy and discipline, and require me to bring not only my body but also my mind and spirit under submission to the Holy Spirit.

The payoff could be exactly what I've craved this morning and throughout this Lenten season: not only remembering in some intellectual or theoretical way, but also experientially participating in the sufferings of Christ in some small measure. Isn't the purpose of Lent to find meaningful vehicles for contemplating Christ’s sacrifice and suffering for us? I could do better at proactively choosing the tools I employ for this, but sometimes God puts a tool right in my palm—if I’m willing to grasp it.

Cory
March 2011
Postscript: In the week since I first wrote this, I’ve had a transformed attitude and at times almost joy (almost) about my formerly unwelcome appendage.

Responding to Haiti

There's a profound generosity that kicks in during times of crisis. Our generosity doesn't hold a candle of course to the generosity of people in the rubble who, victims themselves, climb under unsafe pieces of concrete to rescue someone else. The generosity that gives away one's food, even opens one's business so others can get what they need to survive. And to do so in a place where there is no insurance claim to file, no reimbursement to receive.

But though they are of a different calibration, there are many kinds of generosity being displayed. CNN is generous with its coverage of Haiti, almost shockingly so. A donor called to say "We're making a credit card donation. We'll have to sell something to pay the bill when it comes, but we simply must respond."

We must participate. We know deep in our hearts that when others suffer, we must somehow share their burden. I don't quite relate to the $10 text message fundraising, but for kids that may be a sacrificial gift; others may be texting in $10 five times a day. Huffington Post and others are shaming anyone making a buck on the crisis, like the credit card services who are now waiving their 1-3% fees on all donations to approved NGOs.

Let's admit it: Haiti has been looked upon with disdain for decades as the basket-case of the Western Hemisphere. And sometimes it takes alot to overcome someone's preconceived disdain. Witness the attitudes to the LA riots after Rodney King. And it's true that on the radio tonight I heard an interviewer asking skeptical questions about graft and greed and incompetence and wealthy oligarchs and all the litany of excuses people love to use to excuse themselves from caring.

Yet this disaster has amazingly leapt over the vast majority of skepticisms and brought out the best in humanity. Has this been a wake-up call to us that Haiti has all along been Lazuras lying right at our rich-man gates? And now that the dogs went from licking his wounds to devouring him we are stirred? Truly enough, there's something patently wrong with such levels of poverty so close to our shores. And lousy government or not, this is not the fault of the Haitian people.

Some may condemn "the idiots who built their buildings so poorly", forgetting the reality of those who can barely afford four walls, much less earthquake retrofitting. And if anything, their home improvements would have been designed to protect against the wind and rain of frequent hurricanes, not rare earthquakes.

I find it hard to know what to do in these situations. World Vision has staff who are getting two and three hours of sleep a night. Shouldn't I work as hard, if only in solidarity? Yet I can only read and learn and communicate so much. But I've discovered that I'd rather over-respond than wonder if I've done enough. Maybe a lot of people are making the same decision in their own way.
Cory
1/19/10