Ignoring the Good Samaritan

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Cory

July 2016

Once Upon A Path

An allegory: 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Workers, Not Master Builders

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  

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

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

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

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

No statement says all that could be said.

No prayer fully expresses our faith.

No confession brings perfection.

No pastoral visit brings wholeness.

No program accomplishes the church’s mission.

No set of goals and objectives includes everything,

This is what we are about.

We plant the seeds that one day will grow.

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

We lay foundations that will need further development.

We provide yeast that produces far beyond our capabilities.

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

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

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

Lord’s grace to enter and do the rest.

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

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

We are prophets of a future not our own.

Amen.

Fading Memories

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

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

Memories fade.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Away, In a Manger

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

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

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

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

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

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

---

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Cory

Christmas Eve 2015

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

Treasuring Our Debts

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

With gratitude for you,

Cory

November 2015

Empathique

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Vive la France.

Cory

November 2015