Where We Hang Up Our Lives

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

On the willows there we hung up our lives

For our captors there required of us songs 

And our tormentors mirth, saying, 

"Sing us one of the songs of Zion"

"Sing us one of the songs of Zion"

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

On the willows there we hung up our lives

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

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

I accepted the invitation.

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

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

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

Cory 

March 2015

Enough Is Enough

One day a couple weeks ago, the top three headlines on the daily news emails from both the NY Times and LA Times were all concerning Ebola, and ominously, the focus of each was on Ebola-related topics here in the USA...who’s actually sick, protection measures, CDC guidelines. It seemed to me then that America’s focus was shifting inward once again, that the thousands of Ebola victims in West Africa were taking a backseat to the two or three possible cases here.

Since then, the mix of Ebola stories hasn't changed much, despite a few very moving profiles of West African medical personnel who risk their lives daily to staunch the growing epidemic at its source. If we can take our eyes off ourselves, through print and video stories like this one we can witness in our lifetimes the drama of those risking their own lives in a modern-dayplague: http://www.nytimes.com/video/world/africa/100000003187061/the-ebola-ward.html?smid=fb-share 

But these stories are increasingly the exception. And the shift by the media to insular coverage both reflects and stokes the fires of more fear, less compassion.  It came to a head for me yesterday... 

During our team devotions, a colleague gave thanks for her successful trip last week to Zambia, in southern Africa. But she also asked for prayer for two of the travelers.  

The first was a teacher at a parochial school in the Midwest. As the team changed planes in Johannesburg on their return trip, she began receiving unexpected emails and texts about her upcoming “voluntary” 21-day quarantine before returning to the classroom.  Then she saw the email from her principal about how parents were applying pressure to keep the teacher away from their children. So she was being asked (read: told) to take a paid, 21-day leave.

Now, I must stop here and point out that Zambia is further from the Ebola zone in West Africa than Omaha is from...wait for it...Caracas, Venezuela.  Can you imagine someone traveling from London to Omaha and being quarantined when they returned because they were deemed too close to Caracas? Or take the analogy north instead…they were deemed too close to Fairbanks, Alaska!  It's absurd.  On top of the sheer absurdity of it, it'd be offensive to the people of Omaha that Londoners wouldn't have any better sense of geography than that.

The returning teacher prayed about it and decided that to comply with this commanded absence would only perpetuate fears and stigma. So instead, she resigned, telling the administrators of the school that the parents’ fears were unwarranted and that as a Christian she could not in good conscience contribute to this uninformed stigma against any person who touches an entire continent. 

My colleague's second prayer request wasn't much better: another woman who was on the same Zambia trip got a call from her housekeeper when she got home. The cleaner explained that she wouldn't be able to come clean the lady’s house for at least 21 days, because her other clients told her they would not allow her to clean their homes again if she entered the traveler's home.  Of course, the charwoman had little choice—she is a pawn in this little drama; she needs the money the most and would lose multiple clients by not giving in to this demand. Again, we’re talking about a traveler who was about 3000 miles from any Ebola-impacted areas.

Call this what you will: fear, hyper-diligence, snobbery in its own way, etc.  Here's the tricky part: I'll bet many/most of the housekeeper’s clients are parents. They are thinking, as are the parents at the Christian school, "I'm responsible to protect my children from harm." Who can argue with that?

But we've taken this principle to be supreme, as though it has no boundaries. There is nothing in our faith that calls this a first principle. If it were such, there would never have been a missionary who took their family with them to serve others. No, we must admit it: this is completely a cultural overlay that we decorate in a Christian wrapper to justify as honorable and diligent. We throw up two or three weak Bible references about children being a gift from God, and act as though those gifts are to be hoarded.

Whatever happened to civility, to treating others as we would be treated? Whatever happened to bearing in our bodies the sufferings of Christ, to bearing one another's burdens?  

Our nation’s current response to Ebola, in the Christian as well as secular community, breaks my heart as we elevate our personal safety, and that of our children, above practically every other consideration... compassion, mercy, justice, selflessness… meaning, of course, that we stand in direct contradiction to everything Jesus ever stood for.

Cory

November 2014

PS: I’ve since heard several other equally shocking Ebola-phobia stories, and also read this useful piece on discerning reasonable fears from unrealistic worry… http://www.christianitytoday.com/women/2014/october/what-ebola-panic-reminds-us-about-worry.html

Conditional Grace

I had a very gratifying dinner with a World Vision supporter last week. Ed and his wife had spent a day at a World Vision project in Ethiopia recently and was telling me about the experience. He said that one of their most meaningful encounters was meeting a group of clergy, consisting of both Christian and Muslim faith leaders. These pastors and imams admitted that they used to distrust and even hate each other and would cross the road to avoid encountering each other.  Yet today they are collaborators and co-laborers for the good of their community.  Ed and his wife visited a community-wide childcare program operating in a church, and a program for widows and orphans run by an imam. And today, these faith leaders, former enemies, now smile and touch, a friendly arm on each other's shoulder. 

This change is stunning, worthy of Isaiah's vision of dangerous animals lying down together. 

(Parenthetically, this report was also very gratifying for me personally, because World Vision's Innovation Fund underwrote the pilot of this “Faith-Based Forum” project. FBF had recently been created in the tinder box of mixed-religion refugee settings. Great distrust turned to enmity and was erupting in violence. Creating clergy dialog and joint programs for the benefit of children was beginning to bear fruit in that setting, and now our grant attempted to apply this same promising idea in well-established mixed-faith communities, where tensions could also simmer and were at times erupting.  World Vision itself has experienced some violence against our offices in the past.* FBF is designed to engage the disparate faith communities in their shared commitment to their children, and in the process to build understanding, trust and peaceful relations between the faiths. Three years ago I was in a different region of Ethiopia where we met two nascent FBF groups. They were collegial though still somewhat formal, and they were making early plans to create programs, and were also honoring and even attending each other's religious holy day events. So Ed's report was the next gratifying chapter, both in the progress of interpersonal relations and their solid and active programming. These were no longer simply plans, but now established efforts caring for the most vulnerable. And FBF is spreading all over Africa, which is exactly the goal of the Innovation Fund!)

Ed said that the imam who ran the outreach for widows and orphans was quite intimidating at first encounter... tall, dark, formal. But immediately as this Muslim cleric began talking about the outreach program to orphans and widows, and the collaboration between the faith communities for the sake of the most vulnerable, his passion shined through and warmed the room.

To Ed, the whole idea of Faith-Based Forums was a great encouragement.  "I grew up in a church that talked a lot about grace. But this always seemed to me to be a conditional grace, dependent on a person doing certain things or believing certain things. But here World Vision is extending grace and help to everyone in the community without reservation. There was no withholding of assistance or relationship or engagement as a way to pressure or coerce anyone."

As I listened to Ed, I thought it interesting that World Vision puts this program under its "Christian Witness" umbrella. We both wondered if some might disagree about this being a "witness", and yet it struck me as being perfectly so.  It mirrors exactly Jesus' approach to people, and as such, WV’s actions here are a living, active witness to Jesus himself… not to mention a reflection of God, who provides the sun and rain to everyone without condition. (Matt 5:45)

"Conditional grace." It doesn't even make sense.  Yet how often is this exactly the kind of grace I extend, which isn't grace at all.

Really, is "conditional grace" any kind of witness to the real Jesus? It's certainly an adulteration of how we claim God treats us. Yet we are so very adept at bending our interpretations to accomplish our agenda or to get others to do our bidding, even to the point of withholding the very love we've been shown. Where's the good news in that?

Lord, have mercy on us. Show us Your grace. And as a result may we extend the same authentic love and grace we have been shown. May we truly be your children, as it is written: "But I say to you, 'Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be children of your Father in heaven." (Matt 5:44)

Cory

October 2014

* Inter-religious distrust has impacted WV offices including in Afar, Ethiopia, where the office was attacked by an angry mob of youth and the ADP manager was nearly killed. My granddaughter Emmy and I had a powerful experience of being with this man on the day he first encountered some of his former attackers... at their high school! You can read about it here: http://corytrenda.blogspot.com/2012/04/my-new-hero.html or catch up on other past meditations.

Speed Filing

The other evening on the radio, I heard an excerpt of a TED talk.  The topic was how infants and toddlers think and learn, presented by Alison Gopnik, a professor of psychology and philosophy at UC Berkeley.  

[https://www.ted.com/talks/alison_gopnik_what_do_babies_think#t-954295]

She marveled at the ability of toddlers to take in reams of disparate information: one moment a crawly bug, another an airplane high above, then a boo-boo, then a kitty cat. They are terrible at focusing and drilling deeply into one subject, but are far more adept than we adults at allowing in and noticing all manner of information, the vast majority of which we more advanced grown-ups filter out…they have “a lantern of consciousness rather than a spotlight,” she explains.

We all get a little glimpse of this phenomenon when we go to a very different culture, as is the case on vision trips to a developing country. We haven't yet created categories for the plethora of new stimuli coming at us--those odd smells, sounds and living conditions, so we can't easily categorize and dismiss these in order to focus on the few truly "important" bits, like the presentation a community member might be making about child mortality rates and programming strategies. 

It's not uncommon for a visitor to wander off from the group or become absorbed in a game with children, whether from overload or fascination. Sometimes the "Agenda Trenda" part of me wants to grouse at the errant visitor, "Hey, you're missing the best part!"  

And at the end of a week on these trips, we can't believe all we experienced …it seems more like we were there a month!

Frankly, these trips can be exhausting.  We need time to process, to sift through our memories of all the experiences and information and people we encountered. We hold onto it all, not sure what is most important and not wanting to exclude or ignore any possible 'treasure'.

Children it seems are on a constant treasure hunt.  No wonder they need so much sleep!

The morning after hearing this talk, I read a meditation from Richard Rohr that reminded me of it and highlighted one aspect of my adult mindset I need to "unlearn." Like many of us, I can pride myself on being a "quick study" of other people and new situations. We adults are adept at categorizing each new situation or person we meet. We have pre-constructed strategies for dealing with each category and are able to glean the key information and respond quickly. We believe our response is usually the correct one; but when we turn out to be wrong, we’re quick to forgive ourselves, knowing that this skill allows us to move through many situations quickly.  

One could say we are fast at filing. Heck, we might want to apply to be an administrative assistant to God, because in fact we often do the very same thing with new situations that bump into our religious convictions. This is sinful, that's apostasy, this is theological error, this is good, that is bad. We are fast, we are certain, we are comfortable. We find people who agree with us, and we play Speed Filing for God. 

But Rohr calls us to something different perhaps, something higher and holier than being adept filers into pre-assigned categories:

   Contemplation is a panoramic, receptive awareness whereby you take in all that the situation, the moment, the event offers without eliminating anything. That does not come naturally. You have to work at it and develop practices whereby you recognize your compulsive and repetitive patterns.
   It seems we are addicted to our need to make distinctions and judgments, which we actually call “thinking”! Most of us think we are our thinking, yet almost all thinking is compulsive and habitual. After a while you see that this kind of thinking is not going to get you very far, simply because reality is not all about you and your preferences!
   Non-dual consciousness is about receiving and being present to the moment and to the now exactly as it is, without judgment, without analysis, without critique, without your ego deciding whether you like it or whether you don’t like it. It is a much more holistic knowing, where your mind, heart, soul, and senses are open and receptive to the moment just as it is. 

Just like the TED speaker pointed out, maybe there is something to be learned from little children. To survive in the fast-paced adult world, we needed to learn the skill of ignoring most information much of the time in order to grasp quickly what was expected of us in a given moment. But in the process, we've abandoned the critical skill of paying attention to extra information. "Extraneous" we label it, but sometimes it's the very information that might take us to new places. Just like how sometimes it's that unplanned but precious encounter not on the formal agenda—talking with an impoverished child or being invited into a humble hovel—which might prove to be the most impactful memory in a travelers’ cross-cultural journey. 

There's an invitation here. And an exhortation. As I recall, somewhere Jesus says unless we change and become like little children, we cannot enter the kingdom of God (see Matt 18:3). Maybe Jesus wasn't nearly as afraid as we sometimes are of information that doesn't neatly fit into our pre-defined categories. 

Personally, I sense a gentle invitation to once again be open and expansive to something higher than Speed Filing; something childlike that allows the Spirit to still speak. 

Cory

September 2014

When You’re Hanging on a Cross - a Good Friday meditation

When You’re Hanging on a Cross

Good Friday meditation

I read an anecdote some years ago which initially bothered me, but which has also lingered in my memory for its striking analogy. The story was of the Dalai Lama, a tireless advocate for justice, who had just finished giving a speech at a major university.  Afterwards, two student attendees were overheard talking in the lobby.  The first commented, "He really didn't say much, did he?" The other replied, "When you're ‘hanging on a cross’ you don't have to say anything."  Once past the theological questions, I recognized this poignant nod to the power of personal sacrifice.

That phrase came rushing back into my mind during a Lenten walk last year through the Stations of the Cross with a couple of buddies. We were gazing at Station XI, where Jesus' body, his fleshy, contoured, sinewed humanness, is being fastened onto the stiff, hard cross-beams of unforgiving wood.

Jesus didn't have to say anything (though mercifully he did).  The act itself said it all.  That's why the crucifix, discomfiting and vile, is such a powerful and enduring symbol.

Janet and I walked the stations again later that week, on Good Friday, this time at an abbey near our home.  From its hilltop perch, a gorgeous pastoral vista fought for my attention, a peaceful springtime backdrop to the violent and cruel scenes of the crucifixion story.

Up ahead was Station XII... Christ on the cross.  A young woman knelt there, head down, on the hilltop grass.  She wore a bright red shawl and bright red lipstick.  The sun glinted off her deep-auburn hair.  

Here it seemed was Mary Magdalene in the flesh.   I nearly expected to see a costly bottle of perfume next to her.

I'd seen her there earlier, and then she'd finished the stations and left... only to come back a few minutes later.  This time she lingered, sometimes touching and nearly hugging the foot of the cross, always upon her knees on the balding hilltop.

We gave her a wide berth to do whatever business with God she needed to do, but eventually some sincere yet energetic young men came close, and she quickly got up and moved away to leave for good.

She walked past us now, but I just couldn't let the opportunity pass to at least give her a chance to connect with someone in the flesh if she so wished.  I called to her and told her how blessed I'd been in seeing her devotion at the foot of the cross, and she accepted a lingering hug.  She was quiet a moment, then said "I really wanted to gain strength from the cross today; three days ago I tried to commit suicide.  Coming here really helped."

We introduced ourselves and talked for another minute, and she explained her situation a bit.  Before we parted, Janet asked if we could pray for her, which was a privilege.  Janet later exchanged phone numbers with her and offered to stay in touch, and by the end of the day they'd already traded text messages on some favorite verses Janet sent.

Rachel in red.  I’m glad we spoke with her, yet it was her silence that spoke most to me.  There she’d knelt, alone, below a simple wooden cross.  All was silent but for the breeze and the swallows flitting to and fro, high above.  But... she didn’t have to say anything.

Let’s face it: It’s our actions—not our words—which truly “speak” anything. Our actions tell everything about who we believe and what we put our faith in.

I heard it again during a chapel message last month in El Salvador, that “World Vision presents the gospel with a body.”  Another of our spiritual leaders etched a phrase in my mind a decade ago which I’ve never forgotten: “World Vision will preach no disembodied words.”

As Dietrich Bonhoeffer reminds us powerfully, “When Jesus bids a man, he bids him come and die.”  So, may something of us die on that cross this Good Friday. May we die to any notion that cheap words, not costly deeds, profess our faith and show what we stand for. Christ hung on a cross to dispel that myth. 

When we’re hanging on a cross, we don’t have to say anything. And when we’re not, our words really don’t mean a thing.  I think that’s part of why Good Friday is probably the most meaningful holy day of the year for me.

May Good Friday “speak” volumes to you this year.

Cory

Under The Cross

There's a well-known Rembrandt sketch I like to ponder around Good Friday. Known as "Three Crosses," it portrays a crowded and chaotic crucifixion scene... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Rembrandt_Harmensz._van_Rijn_-_Christ_Crucified_Between_the_Two_Thieves_(%22The_Three_Crosses%22)_-_Google_Art_Project.jpg

Blending into the crowd under the crosses on the hill is a clearly Renaissance-era man, purported to be either the artist himself or the patron of the painting (often done in religious art of that era). The figure seems to be gazing elsewhere, perhaps oblivious to the significance of the drama playing out right in front of him.  As we approach Good Friday, it's always worth reflecting: If I were there, literally under the cross, where would I be, and what would I be doing?

As followers of Jesus, of course, we are all called to "live under the cross."  I've been thinking about that ever since an encounter we had in El Salvador. We were meeting with a group of pastors and other local church leaders and some of their spouses. The topic was World Vision's work through a wonderful initiative called Channels of Hope, to help the church credibly live out the Gospel they proclaim.

Channels of Hope (CoH) was created during the worst years of the AIDS pandemic, and during that time churches were often the most stigmatizing institution in town.  It's hard to remember back even 10-15 years ago, at how condemnatory and vitriolic our own churches and churches in Africa could be regarding AIDS.  Many saw their role as pointing out "sin" from some high and holy perch, and they hadn't begun to think about where Jesus would be in this situation, or how the church could lead the way in compassionate response to those who were sick and dying.  At one time, I'm ashamed to say, I could be painted right there in that crowd.

Channels of Hope walked faith leaders through these realizations, which convicted their own hearts, and then empowered them to reach out tangibly with hope and help in their communities in beyond. Over 200,000(!) pastors and faith leaders have gone through this program, and they in turn have walked millions of congregants through this same amazing transformation, from sideline finger-waggers to frontline helping hands… one reason the AIDS crisis is abating.

Now this same methodology is being applied to new issues, particularly around child protection and "gender" issues (demeaning and mistreating girls and women), and we were hearing about these that day in El Salvador.  This new training helps participants explore their own upbringing and cultural overlays... what we "bring with us” to the Bible when we try to understand and teach it.

We can't help it that we start with a specific family and cultural context; everyone does. But we can acknowledge that we have one, and try continually to be open to our fellow Christ-followers who can take us by the hand around our resulting blind spots. And that was exactly the epiphany we learned of this day.

After we'd heard a bit from the pastors, the question was asked about what the impact has been. Eventually Pastor Juan announced with a quiet urgency that he wanted to say something.  First, he asked one of our visitors who was sitting next to him if she could move so that Juan's wife--his "First Lady"--could sit by him. His need to speak up and this symbolic action spoke even more directly than their subsequent words about their private transformation.

He invited his esposa to be the first to speak: "We’ve been trained on gender equality,” she began. “This has helped us a lot, even as a couple: My husband and I have been working to make adjustments in our own relationship. We understand each other better. We spend more time together and more with our children. We are doing what we can with the families in church, but we have improved as well."

Then Juan added, "We learned about disorganized creation and reorganized creation… This has to do with us as a couple. God created a natural order.  Then sin came and created disorder. But with Christ, everything is reordered." He went on to say that in the church they dedicate one Sunday of every month to family issues and have instituted an annual retreat to talk about family concerns using the training they've received. Clearly, they have made this learning a major focus in their church.

Just as clearly, there was more to their personal story than they spelled out, but in a machismo culture, the details are not difficult to imagine. But beautifully, now his wife truly seemed to be his “First Lady.”

After others had spoken, I felt a strong urge to comment on one aspect of what Pastor Juan had said. But how does one coming like me from a culture of power speak properly to a humble servant of God? I dropped onto my knees from my chair. I thanked him for his comments, but then tried to gingerly point out that it was not the very same moment he became a Christian when suddenly his family life was “reordered.” Rather, the act of opening ourselves to God in Christ is an invitation to remain continually open to God’s conviction and to “say yes” in obedience whenever we hear his voice. “You humbly opened yourself to new teaching and other ways of thinking, and when you heard God’s voice in that, you were obedient to it."

This feels very important to me.  Living "under the cross" must call us to continual transformation, not a one-time event and then a lifetime of intransigence.  I don't think that there has been a time when I have changed as much in my Christian life as I have the past 5-10 years. I’m no longer afraid of discovering new areas where I've been wrong. Nowadays I simply assume that in many areas I was “born blind,” and I can't wait to recruit the help of others—provocative authors, diverse cultures, historical figures—to help me navigate past my blind spots in order to get a better understanding of Jesus than any single culture or upbringing could give me, my own included.

Don't misunderstand me: I don't enjoy feeling convicted or discovering areas where I've been a judge rather than a light, where my viewpoint has been only a view from one point without considering the views of others. This is not a good feeling. 

But I now have a different goal which drives me, rather than defending my viewpoint: to be continually transformed more and more into the image of Christ, as quickly as I can. And this means letting go of my preconceptions and admitting quickly when I just might not be as dead-right as I thought I was. If it's true that only together we form Christ’s Body, then I desperately need all those other parts of the body to help me navigate, if we are to make any progress at all in the work we are together called to do.

Pastor Juan sat there without pride, having let go and been transformed on this issue. Not afraid to be convicted. Not afraid to say that his eyes had been opened, that he was wrong, that all the Scripture verses he had used to justify his previous actions and attitudes toward his children and wife were trumped by others which until recently he had simply ignored as being irrelevant.

Today, as a result, he is leading the way for his entire congregation on that same journey past this cultural blind spot, and leading his fellow pastors in what it means to "confess our sins to one another,” bearing each other’s burdens “and so fulfill the law of Christ."  What would it really mean to take seriously our need to confront and confess our own flaws and blind spots as the only way we can actually "fulfill the law of Christ" together?

It might mean staying in that place of continual transformation, of living under the cross.

Cory

March 2014

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