A Whisper and a Voice

I love being a “voice for the voiceless.” It's one of my great privileges to be able to whisper into the ears of the wealthy about the needs of the poor, and hope that God got there ahead of me.  

But on my first day back from a trip to El Salvador, I read a quote that challenged my preconceptions and brought the whole trip experience into focus.  

Our group started our visit there with a presentation by World Vision's national leadership team, and it seemed to me later that everything we saw that week cascaded from the strategic framework that was presented that first day...  When we wanted to learn what World Vision was doing to equip the churches, we met with the pastors and volunteers who are on the Christian Commitments committee. When we visited a water project, we learned about it from the local Water Board members. When we saw child protection work, we met youth leaders and a teacher and others who are all part of the Child Protection Coalition. When the topic was health, we met health professionals and youth and "mother coach" volunteers who serve on the Health Committee.

All this talk about committees may sound uninteresting or even bureaucratic, but the big idea is to mobilize various "actors" in the community to come together, work together, get equipped to do more, speak into the halls of power whether locally or nationally… and find their voice.  The shared goal is always to improve the well-being of children, and anyone in the community who cares about children is not only welcome but proactively invited and expected to participate.

Our final day was at an Area Development Project that had only been started 3-4 years ago.  One traveler said that a high point of her trip was when she asked the ADP Manager there how they get all the work done, and he explained that they have 8 staff... and 300 volunteers.  These community volunteers are the people who make it happen, even setting the agenda and priorities of their teams, with guidance and capacity-building help from World Vision staff.  They, much more than the staff, are making the change we and they want to see happen in their communities, and in the process, they are empowered to think of themselves differently and dream bigger than they ever thought possible.    

All of these thoughts were rumbling in my heart and head as I read In the Company of the Poor the next day and came to the following paradigm-bender by Latin theologian Gustavo Gutierrez: 

There is no true commitment to solidarity with the poor if one sees them merely as people passively waiting for help. Respecting their status as those who control their own destiny is an indispensable condition for genuine solidarity. For that reason the goal is not to become, except in cases of extreme urgency or short duration, the “voice of the voiceless” as is sometimes said— undoubtedly with the best of intentions— but rather in some way to help ensure that those without a voice find one.

Helping the "voiceless" find their own voice was in fact the underlying theme of everything we saw and experienced in El Salvador, and it was beautiful to witness.

It's true that Scripture calls us to "Speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves, for the rights of all who are destitute.  Speak up and judge fairly; defend the rights of the poor and needy."  [PR 31:8-9 NIV]

But let me say--even happily now--that this is the second best solution. As beautiful as it is to defend the rights of another, how much more beautiful when that one can defend fairly their own rights.  It's actually tougher than we might admit to give over the reins of control to those who have been powerless.  How much we secretly enjoy being "benevolent" but ultimately maintaining control.

But as we heard it said in El Salvador, we must remember that the poor are "the actors in their own play." Thus, they--not we--are the ones who must ultimately make the decisions which will most affect their lives. Trusting them to do so is the challenge for all of us.

In fact, Jesus’ invitations to us are much more whisper than commandment (other than the command to love). And though that whisper still evokes a violent rejection by some, which we mark again on Good Friday, yet we would have it no other way. So maybe I still get to whisper to the wealthy, and trust my colleagues in our field offices to treat the poor with that same dignity and respect. We each are the actor in our own play.

Cory

March 2014

DQ'ed

I started my Lenten observation last week with a sunrise Ash Wednesday mass at the cathedral in San Miguel, El Salvador.  The church covered a full city block, and the doors on three sides were all flung wide open, giving a wonderful sense of worship in the midst of life's noisy activity, of respite at the center of the waking city's hustle and bustle. I've been writing a bit lately, and as part of my observance of Lent I will attempt to share some thoughts which have been especially meaningful to me, and I hope something will add benefit to this season for you, as well.

DQ'ed

As I swam this evening, I reflected on our very positive trip to El Salvador last week and some recent reading I've done on the invaluable contribution that Latin American Christianity has made to the global Church and beyond through its so-called theology of liberation.  Some altogether beautiful and invitational ideas have blossomed like crocuses from that milieu, such as God's "preferential option" for the poor, our call to live in solidarity with the powerless, and something Dr. Paul Farmer terms "accompaniment"--the idea that true service and effective ministry comes from actually accompanying the poor on their journey to wholeness and health, not just providing services which may or may not be helpful to them, for reasons we would never know without walking with them.

But I'm so frustrated that too much of this theology of liberation is far too new to me, as it is to most of the Church outside Latin America. Now, I'm familiar with some of its ideas, though in other terms. Other ideas were over my head when I read them 25-30 years ago, when I decided to trust more experienced believers (whom I trusted because they were like me) to discern the wheat and discard the chaff.  But part of the reason I did that was because liberation theology also used politically-charged words for that era, words like "comrade."  So I gave up on it.

Nelson Mandela also used such words, even up until his election. So when he died, I found myself feeling the odd need to temper the accolades he was receiving for his amazing global leadership. I felt that need because my personal discomfort with him in the 1970's and '80's kept me from " betting on his horse" then.

It's difficult to articulate how discouraged I feel about this.  I'm so terribly tired of having history find me too little aligned with those I should have been supporting.  And it's all because something they did or said caused me to, in swimming terms, DQ or disqualify them.  In a race, you can get DQ'ed for the slightest technicality...touching a wall the wrong way, or brushing the lane lines, for instance. Nothing else you did in that race mattered, because you were DQ'ed.

I've DQ'ed far too many people and teachings that would have enriched my life and perhaps the lives of others... Mandela because he visited Cuba and tolerated violence. Martin Luther King because he was purported to have had a longtime affair. Liberation theologians during the terrible upheaval in Latin America because they used language associated with communism and some of its proponents supported government overthrow against repressive regimes.  My response? To over-throw out the baby with the bathwater. 

This is more than a once or twice thing, where I can continue to fool myself into thinking, well OK, maybe I didn't align with the right side that time, but every other position I'm currently taking--or avoiding--is correct. No, there are some systemic problems which I need to face.  

As a middle-class American, and thereby one of the richest people on the planet, how would I like it if other people automatically DQ'ed my words on some topic which I know well, simply by saying "How can I listen to that guy when the Bible has 2000 verses on God's concern for the poor and the downtrodden and he can live in such a wealthy society? He has nothing to say that I could learn from."  How would any of us feel? And who says my DQ rules more valid than theirs? Oh, how much we miss because we are quick to DQ one another over technicalities.

Just as I want to be listened to, everyone deserves to be heard.  So here's the question I struggle with: Who do I continue to DQ today without even thinking about it? Who do I ignore and what do I dismiss or avoid?  It is often the most militant who are the most marginalized, and I've come to realize that in many cases this is the very reason they in their tremendous frustration have resorted to militancy.  My unwillingness to actually listen to their voice has contributed to them replacing their voice with their fist. Our collective DQ has made them provocative and incendiary, which only reinforces our stereotype about them and perpetuates misunderstanding and human devaluation.

This is not a call to neglect discernment. But far too often I've used that label to mask distrust and judgment. Rather, the call I sense from Jesus is that these are the very people, the very voices I must especially strain to hear.  In doing so, in giving them the dignity of their voice, I may just save them from becoming shrill, strident or even violent. And in the process, their voices may just redeem me.

Last night there was an odd smell wafting in the bedroom windows. We realized it was eucalyptus and manure. They use manure freely around here as fertilizer, and perhaps also where people grow crocuses, as well. Too often, my sixth sense for offense has kept me from finding the beauty right under my nose.

Cory

March 2014

Praying... for Santa

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

This prayer was read a decade ago at World Vision’s annual Day of Prayer, one of several Children's Prayers that day. I saved it at the time and have never forgotten about it.  In fact, I prayed it just the other day for the children of Syria, that nation now torn asunder with its children strewn beyond its borders. As silly as I might have sounded to the others in the prayer circle, it just felt right.

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…

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

   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 2013

The Child of Christmas (from 2010)

We took Christmas Eve dinner to Janet's stepmother's home this evening.  Alice lives alone with a caregiver, and at age 93, dementia is coming on quickly.  After dinner, she opened her gift basket, and the highlight was a small set of photos Janet had assembled in an accordion-folded photobook.  She created it as a memory book of different stages of the life of our family, especially where Alice and Janet's now-deceased father where part of the scene.

Alice had lots of trouble determining who the people were in the pictures, but she was mesmerized with it.  When Janet then showed her there were just as many photos on the back side of the accordion folds, she was fascinated.  I remember as a small child going with my mom to the grocery; other days we went to the meat market.  One day, I discovered a short hallway in the grocery, and a few steps later found myself in the meat market!  My delight at such an amazing discovery was much like Alice's delight tonight.  As she finished the back panels, she started back the other way as though she'd never seen these photos.  Back and forth she went, perhaps 4-5 times.  And each time she did, the people in the pictures were slightly more familiar and she was even more touched.  She kept asking if she could have a copy of some of the photos, and each time that we assured her the entire memorybook was hers to keep, she would be overwhelmed with gratitude.  At Christmas Eve when our son Ben was two years old, 35 years ago now, he received a jack-in-the-box.  As we twirled the grinder, he began to dance to "Pop Goes the Weasel".  And when the jack actually popped up, he was so stunned that he gasped and fell backwards, straight as a board, to the floor.   It was so hilarious, we played it again.  And Ben was just as stunned and fell backwards all over again.  Finally, after about four times, he'd figured out what would happen, and he dropped backwards, but only to please us.  The gig was up.

But not so with Alice this evening.  In fact, each time we assured her again, and each time she saw the photos of her late beloved husband, the more moved she was, not less.  Tears then came freely for her, and I comforted her that it's good to remember on Christmas, even the memories that touch us in tender places.  Alice, who had been quite agitated earlier in the evening, certain that she'd bought and wrapped untold gifts for us which were nowhere to be found (because they didn't exist), ended the evening in childlike wonder and contentment, memorybook and chocolates still clutched in her hands.  She will have many days of re-discovering her memorybook and its photos, even as she tries to recapture some of her quickly fading memory.

Please don't misunderstand my attitude: each time I see her struggle with her memory, I'm reminded that I'm not far behind her at all.

As we drove away, Janet broke down in tears.  Seeing the photos of her father and her only sibling, both now deceased, and remembering once again the passing of her mother just one year ago, opened her eyes.  "The past few weeks preparing Christmas gifts, I kept feeling I was forgetting something or someone.  Now I realize it was my family members who are no longer around to give gifts to."

And I had a bit of a revelation that sadness at Christmas is not necessarily morbid, that it can be honoring, and cleansing.  As we got home I told Janet that I thought her dad would be very proud and grateful for her thoughtful gift to her stepmom.

Earlier that afternoon, Janet and I had sung Christmas carols with residents of a retirement home in our little town.  This was the second year we've done this, and though the crowd is only a few handfuls, we know these are the people who don't have family and friends calling, and we're blessed to be there.  Between the carols, I sang a few songs at the piano, including a lovely one made famous by Amy Grant, "Grown-Up Christmas List".  The chords and notes are a bit tricky, so I'm usually paying attention to that.  But mid-song, I was struck in some new way by the sentiment of the chorus and thought to myself in a flash, "This could be my theme song!"

No more lives torn apart
That wars would never start
And time would heal all hearts
Everyone would have a friend
And right would always win
And love would never end
This is my grown-up Christmas list

I really like the song, but honestly I always thought it a bit sappy.  But this Advent season, I've been noticing more and reading more about the Peaceable Kingdom of God.  Passages from Isaiah about lions laying down with lambs, and children playing at adders' dens, as lovely as they are, are also very fanciful, frankly.  Lions as we know them need meat, and mother snakes are as protective as are any other mothers around their young.

What happened to Isaiah?  Was he simply senile, in his so-called "second childhood", like Alice (as delightful as that can be at times)?

Maybe another possible answer can be found in the bridge of the same song:

What is this illusion called the innocence of youth
Maybe only in our blind belief can we ever find the truth

When I read Isaiah's prophetic passages, it's clear that you and I can never usher in the fullness of the Kingdom of God.  We can -- and if we call ourselves followers of Jesus, we must -- work toward a more just and peaceable world, as he did.  But we can't turn lions into vegetarians or make snakes trust infants with their offspring.

But we can embrace a childlike faith that God can bring about something of which we can only dream as in childlike fantasy, that somehow, somewhere in time, God will do the part that only God can do.  And just maybe God also helps us to do our part in the meantime.

Keeping the child alive in ourselves probably shouldn't be confined to the beginning and ending days of our lives, especially in this special season as we keep the Child of Christmas in our hearts.

Cory
Christmas Eve, 2010

Still Waiting for God

I have no idea what else she said.  It was one of those prayers where one sentence stops you cold. You wish you could just hit the brakes on the prayer and contemplate for a bit; but instead the pray-er keeping truckin’ down the road and you find yourself left at the curb, gazing into the pearl you discovered.

She said it in the middle of a lovely prayer in a lovely home in Orange County, as 20-25 of us joined hands around the bounty in our midst.  "...And we thank you Lord for once again providing us a beautiful meal," prayed the woman of great faith from Congo (DRC, formerly Zaire), "even as we are mindful of those around the world who are still waiting for you to show up in their lives today."

That juxtaposition took my spiritual breath away.

There we were, encircling the trappings of our invulnerability, but those “still waiting for God to show up for them”, on the edge, without a net—they are really the ones with faith.  Faith is what you must have when you don't already possess what you need.  Let’s admit it: for us, faith is usually optional, something that kicks in when a loved one is sick or some situation is beyond our power.  For the poor, exercising faith is as daily a regimen as my morning stretches.

Will God show up in their lives today? And if another day goes by where they feel forgotten by God, will they still have faith enough to ask again tomorrow?

Rich Stearns in He Walks Among Us, his new devotional book with wife Reneé , tells the story of driving away from an earthquake-ravaged village in India when a desperate mother ran up to the window of his car, holding her young son—who had no feet. In the chaos, Rich’s driver kept going, but Rich couldn't get the boy out of his mind, despite the thousands of other faces and needs he'd seen there in Gujarat. He felt personally compelled to find out more, and some weeks later the staff found this boy whose legs had been crushed in the quake.  Rich gladly wrote a personal check for the boy to get the prosthetics his mother couldn't begin to afford ...a whopping $300.  Three hundred dollars to change his life for years, allowing him to go to school, help his mother at home and begin to make his new way in the world as a double amputee.

The boy's mother in all likelihood had watched Rich's car drive away, the son in her arms feeling heavier by the minute as the adrenalin of hope drained away, and felt once again that God had not shown up for her.

"Hope deferred makes the heart sick" even Solomon the king admitted (Prov. 13:12).  And not simply deferred; this mother must have felt that hope had just left her behind, wheels kicking up a cloud of spurning dust in its wake.  Hers was a desperate hope, of course: the only way out that she imagined was for Rich to whisk her boy away from her; a stranger, but one who may have seemed like royalty from her vantage point.

It's a story with a lovely ending. And it was a reminder to Rich that desperation and poverty have a face, and a name (Vikas), and that we each can make a difference in individual lives.

But it's also a reminder that even behind the sometimes sterile statistics of victims harmed and beneficiaries helped—whether in India, Haiti, New Orleans or now the Philippines, there are not only real faces and real stories, but real people clinging to hope, with faith enough to keep waiting for God to show up in their lives today...like the women in this short video report from a Philippines relief operation last week..http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=rCGFMwsZziQ&desktop_uri=%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DrCGFMwsZziQ

I said earlier that, for those of us with means and safety nets, faith is mostly optional, reserved for family and friends in crisis and times when we feel powerlessness.  But that depends on what we think about and pray for, doesn’t it?  If our prayers and our vision are large enough, they are always beyond us; we are always powerless.  When we seek to see the wide world as God can see it, we become aware that only God can heal it.

And if our hearts and prayers are willing, God will even recruit us in doing just that.

I’m thankful to know people like you: willing to be part of the answer to the prayers of those still waiting for God to show up today.

Happy Thanksgiving,

Cory
PS: This year as we gather around our own bounty, I for one plan to repeat the words of her prayer.

Saving We Few Who Are Rich

Yesterday, on the 50th anniversary of President Kennedy's assassination, I re-read JFK's inaugural address, considered one of America's finest by some historians.

Buried amid the oft-quoted sections, one line jumped out at me which I hadn't noticed before, at the conclusion of this paragraph: 

"To those people in the huts and villages of half the globe struggling to break the bonds of mass misery, we pledge our best efforts to help them help themselves, for whatever period is required--not because the communists may be doing it, not because we seek their votes, but because it is right. If a free society cannot help the many who are poor, it cannot save the few who are rich."

No doubt his line about saving the few who are rich was an ominous warning against the pent-up disaffection of the huddled masses of humanity for whom suffering is a daily reality.

But what struck me is a slightly different, but equally real, truth which permeates my life's work: that we, the global minority who are rich, can only find redemption in helping the many who are in poverty.

It's true that we can also save the lives of many in need, improve their opportunities, level their playing field, and create an enabling environment where they can gradually make a better life for themselves and their offspring and communities.  

And, in the bargain, we too are saved: power-washed of the toxic influences of wealth, the hoarding and frivolous spending of money, and an intentional blindness to the inequities of the world as the ones who benefit from those inequities. A “least of these” mindset can mercifully redeem us of the radioactivity of wealth accumulating like so much plaque on our souls.

This week, I had coffee with a supporter I hadn't met previously.  Despite the pressures of his job as leader of thousands of subordinates scattered around the country and carrying a high corporate position, he has delved deeply into some emotionally and mentally disturbing issues that otherwise don’t come close to touching his personal world, such as the use of gender-based violence as a strategy of war. 

It was a great encouragement to talk to this soft-spoken C-suite executive. He told me, "A decade ago you wouldn't have found me open to these issues at all. I was focused on my kids' sports and the stuff of life."  But eventually he began to realize his responsibilities to the wider world as a person "to whom much has been given."  God stirred his heart through an African safari that also exposed him to people who must live not unlike the animals he came to see. A Generous Giving conference and a chance encounter with Rich Stearn's The Hole in Our Gospel provided some directions for the stirring already in his heart and mind.

We talked at length about issues of grinding poverty and injustice, about his recent and upcoming trips to see needs and to work on solutions. And as we parted I thanked him for our time together, how it had encouraged me to hear how his life had transformed as he had opened his mind, heart, wallet and calendar to these needs.  He seemed to laugh a bit at himself as he replied, "Now, the reason I go to work every day... is for this stuff."

"If a free society cannot help the many who are poor, it cannot save the few who are rich."

I think my new friend is one of those being saved.

Cory

November, 2013

PS: The text and recording of JFK's inaugural can be found here: http://www.jfklibrary.org/Asset-Viewer/BqXIEM9F4024ntFl7SVAjA.aspx?gclid=CNH6toLR-7oCFUlyQgodKnYA7Q

Philippines Typhoon latest

My heart is heavy this morning for the people of the central Philippines. Initial reports seemed that Typhoon Haiyan had moved over the islands with such speed as to avoid the major destruction of flooding and mudslides. But subsequent reports of a deadly storm surge of seawater (think Katrina, Sandy, the Asian tsunami) up to 13 feet deep, along with winds clocked up to 190 mph, have decimated lowlands. Today's NY Times story and slideshow paint a grim picture of total destruction in some areas, with many others unaccounted for... http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/12/world/asia/vast-challenges-for-philippines-after-typhoon.html?_r=0

In anticipation of the typhoon, last week WV had pre-positioned relief supplies  but I have not seen reports yet on whether those are already being deployed.  As you'll see in the NY Times video clip above, WV's global supply site in Frankfurt has air-shipped blankets, tarps, and medical supplies.  (I've also run across in-country WV interviews on BBC and NPR.) WV has many ongoing programs and sponsored children in the effected areas, and staff who live alongside the people they serve there. The most recent internal SitReps from World Vision include this:
Twenty World Vision ADPs [area development programs] across nine provinces are affected by this latest disaster, including in Bohol, which was hit by an earthquake last month. In World Vision ADPs, close to 40,000 sponsored children and their families are potentially affected. 
There are reports that 10,000 people have died in one area alone (Tacloban) as a result of the massive storm. The number of recorded fatalities is likely to rise as communications channels are restored and access improves to impacted areas. Around 4 million people are believed to be affected by the disaster country-wide. Lack of communication and power outages, plus destruction of major roads and infrastructure is rendering information flow extremely difficult. 
The key needs will be water and sanitation, food, shelter, child protection and education, health and nutrition and psychosocial support. Staff care is also a priority – many staff have been personally affected by this latest disaster and relief workers have been managing back-to-back disaster responses this year. 
World Vision is planning to target 400,000 people with relief operations.  To meet the significant humanitarian needs of children and communities affected by Typhoon Haiyan, World Vision is appealing for US$20 million for its response. 

Please join me in prayer for the people in these devastated communities, our staff, sponsored children, and for effective and speedy relief operations.

Kindly,
Cory
PS: Janet and I felt moved to donate for relief the day the typhoon hit and may send more.   If you feel led to do so, the fastest way is through our website Typhoon Haiyan Response page http://www.worldvision.org/news-stories-videos/typhoon-haiyan-philippines , or contact me for details.