Words Half Heard

Looking Toward Lent

2012-02-19T14:57:00.000-05:00

My childhood churchtradition that had no interest in Ash Wednesday, or Lent, or any of the seasonsof the liturgical calendar. The idea of giving up something as a spiritualpractice seemed superstitious: does God care if I eat chocolate or not?

Yet, in a dry, thirsty timeof my life, I was deeply fed by my encounter with a deeper liturgical practice,and after almost thirty years now in the Anglican tradition, I look forward toLent the way I look forward to an hour of quiet at the end of a long, hard day.

Lent is an ancient practice –an attempt to approximate in some way the forty wilderness years of the Israelite people, the forty days in the desert of the prophet Elijah, and theforty days of fasting and temptation of Jesus at the start of his ministry. Duringthe seventeenth century, a period of reformation and liturgical revision, anAnglican priest, Anthony Sparrow, wrote a defense of Lent which appealed tochurch histories going back as far as the time of the apostles:

A Rationale upon the Book of Common Prayer
by Anthony Sparrow, D.D.

London, 1672.

THe Antiquity of Lent isplain by these Testimonies following. Chrysol. Ser. 11. Chrys. in Heb. 10. 9.Ethic. Cyril. Catech. 5. August. Ep. 119. . . That forty days should beobserved before Easter, the custome of the Church hath confirmed. . . One Fast in the year of forty days we keep at a timeconvenient, according to the Tradition of the Apostles. . . .

This forty days Fast of Lentwas taken up by holy Church in imitation of Moses and Elias in the oldTestament; but principally, in imitation of our Saviours Fast in the NewTestament, Augustin. ep. 119. That we might, as far as we are able, conform toChrists practice, and suffer with him here, that we may reign with himhereafter. . . .

The examples of Moses, Elijah and of Jesus highlight the tension between the kingdoms of this world and the kingdom of God.

Moses and his people, newlyescaped from slavery in Egypt,wandered in the desert – some wanting to go back to life under Pharoah, Mosesinsisting that God would provide.

Elijah, after defying bloodyKing Ahab, and with Queen Jezebel on his trail, ran for his life tothe desert, where he collapsed under a broom tree and begged God to take hislife.

And Jesus himself, afterforty days of fasting, was confronted with an offer of “all the kingdoms of thisworld and their splendor.”

Lent offers us a time toexamine our own allegiances, our own journey between the kingdoms of earth andthe kingdom of God. Small sacrifices are one way tohelp us focus. Some of my friends choose to fast one day a week, or to give upfacebook, wine, dessert, coffee.

The point isn’t the smallsacrifice. Rather, the sacrifice helps us set the time apart – a small, regularreminder of Christ’s sacrifice for us. But it’s also a reminder of our deepcomplicity in kingdoms we don’t understand, our hunger for the tastes of theold ways, our willingness to find comfort in material things, rather thanhunger and thirst for a deeper knowledge of God.

In Ephesians 4 Paul urged thechurch in Ephesus to “put off your old self, which is being corrupted by itsdeceitful desires; to be made new in the attitude of your minds; and to put onthe new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness”

That work will never be done,but Lent is a time to pause, and to ask: what should I be putting off? Wherehave I given control to things, to habits? What have I been feeding myself? Where am I headed?

Christ in the Wilderness, Briton Riviere, 1898

It’s a time to look moredeeply at my own attitudes. I usually give up sugar, which also means I give upcoffee. In the withdrawal from both sugar and caffeine, my underlying attitudessurface quickly: Irritation. Impatience. Discouragement. Self-pity.

Lent can sound depressing,but I don’t find that to be the case. As addictions and harmful attitudes surface, Ican acknowledge them, address them, and set them aside, ready to put onsomething new.

It’s a bit like retooling acomputer. Over time, unused files, dumb downloaded games, the backload ofcached internet files slows the system down. It takes time to erase unusedprograms, delete files no longer needed, adjust the start menu, optimize diskstorage. It takes time, but it feels good to get it done.

That sounds a bit mechanical– an analogy, but not a good one.

Because Lent, while it’s atime to confront our evasions, our half-believed lies, our self-protectiveinner story, is even more a time to draw closer to God.

The Israelites, out in thewilderness, experienced God’s presence in manna, in cloud and pillar of fire,in the tent of meeting.

The Israelites in the Wilderness Preceded by the Pillar of Clouds
William West, Bristol, 1830

Elijah, in the cave where hefound refuge, complained that he was the only faithful follower left, Godinvited him out onto the mountain, where he experienced God’s presence in a newway, and heard God’s word of encouragement and instruction.

And we, setting asidedistractions, distortions, determined to shed whatever deceives us, prepare toknow God better – in the sacrifice of Good Friday, in the joy of Easter, in thecountless little ways that God’s grace meets us in moments of hunger, orprayer, or waiting.

There are lots of ways to approach Lent.

My favorite online bookstore, Hearts and Minds, offers a mix ofresources for Lent.

World Vision, Relevant Magazine and Intervarsity arepartnering to promote their Relentless ACT:S of Sacrifice –six weeks of exploring sacrifice on behalf of global justice.

Tearfundis inviting Christians around the globe to take part in a Lenten Carbon Fast –with facebook messages every day suggesting actions and prayer.

Lots of churches give out Lenten readings. This morning I picked up a copy of our new rector, Richard Morgan's "A Cross Centred Life," with readings, prayers, and some questions to consider.

My own plan isto give up sugar (and, sad to say, coffee), to explore both the Acts of Sacrifice and Carbon Fast, to work through the readings from our church, and to experiment with some new, or rather very old, approaches to prayer,fasting, and stillness.

As always,I'd love to hear your thoughts - especially about Lenten practices that you'vefound helpful, or resources you recommend.

Lord, You searched me and You know,
It is You Who know when I sit and I rise,
You fathom my thoughts from afar.
My path and my lair You winnow,
and with all my ways are familiar.
For there is no word on my tongue
but that You, O Lord, wholly know it.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Search me, God, and know my heart,
probe me and know my mind.
And see if a vexing way be in me,
and lead me on the eternal way.
(The Book of Psalms, 139, translated by Robert Alter)

Chocolate Dreams

2012-02-12T09:22:00.001-05:00

noukorama,Flickr Creative Commons

I love chocolate. Let me repeat – I LOVE chocolate. In allforms: candy bars, cocoa, cake, frosting.

Over the past fifty years I have bought a LOTof chocolate. I’m fairly sure my first personal purchase was a chocolatecupcake, at the bakery at Four Corners, ourneighborhood shopping mecca. Every postcard I sent home from camp was smearedin chocolate – most likely the chocolate coating from the ice cream bars Ibought every afternoon in the little camp canteen. My first gift from a boy wasa whole box of Reeses miniature peanut butter cups –bought in that same campstore.

In all my purchases of chocolate – bagfuls to throw at youthretreats, bowlfuls to pass at planning seminars or youth group leaders’meetings – I missed the memo about cocoa sourcing. I didn’t realize – untiljust last week – that most of our

chocolate is sourced from WestAfrican plantations where child labor is the norm, and child slavery is common.

I’m still a little stunned, I confess. I’ve been aware ofhuman trafficking. I’ve been a strong supporter of Fair Trade. I’ve been buyingmy coffee from farmer’s cooperatives for years – and somehow missed thechocolate story.

In 2001, news reports in the

and

called attention to child slavery on cocoa farms in Ghana and Côte d'Ivoire .Downward pressure on cocoa prices had made it impossible for cocoa farmers topay their employees; as a result, desperate farmers were using children toharvest crops. Children as young as six were being kidnapped, or sold, or lured into service with the unfulfilled promise that they would be given money at theend of their time of service.

Dark Side of Chocolate 2010

Under pressure from consumers,the major chocolate manufacturers agreed to the Harkin-Engel Protocol, anon-binding document that acknowledged the problem and outlined a plan toaddress it. The companies agreed that by 2002 they would create enforceableinternational standards and an independent monitoring system, and would providefunds for a foundation to research and share best practices. They also agreedthat by 2005 there would be industry-wide standards of certification ensuringan end to child slavery and abuse of child labor.

A decade later, the protocoldeadlines have passed, the cocoa producing regions of the world are even poorerthan before, and child slavery has expanded. Last spring, ten years after thesigning of the protocol, a study by TulaneUniversity found that more than 1.8million children in West Africa are involvedin cultivating and harvesting cocoa. Estimates are that at a significantpercentage of those are actual slaves – numbers range from 100 to 200 thousand.Few attend school. Most are involved in high risk activities, applying dangerouspesticides, carrying heavy loads that leave scarred backs, beaten with bicyclechains or coca branches when they fall behind..

The two largest

firms involved in slave-trade chocolate: Mars and Hersheys.

You know Mars: makers of M&M's,Snickers, Dove, Milky Way, Kudos, and a wide range of other foods and candies.Mars is still owned by the Mars family -- chairman John Franklyn Mars, VP JacquelineBadger Mars, and former CEO Forrest Mars Jr. Together the Mars siblings areworth forty billion dollars, making their family one of the wealthiest in the world. Howmuch of that wealth was at the expense of children working twelve or more hours a day, with no shoes, no school, littlefood, no pay?

CNN Chocolate Child Slaves 2010

While Mars has made only smallmoves toward monitoring cocoa sources for the chocolate they sell in theEuropean Union (but not in the

),the Hershey company has done even less. Hershey is the largest supplier ofchocolate in the

- Resse’s. Kisses. Nutrageous. 5th Avenue. Almond Joy. Caramello. Heath. Kit Kat.Mounds. Mr. Goodbar. Rolo. Symphony. Take5. York. Whatchamacallit. The list goes on and on.

According to a 2011 report by the International Labor Rights Forum,Green America and Global Exchange, “Hershey remains a laggard in its industryon the important issue of child labor. Consumers, businesses, and legislatorsare increasingly embracing greater transparency and the reduction of laborabuses in supply chains. The most iconic chocolate company in the

… is the lone holdout.”

Fortunately for chocolatelovers everywhere, there are alternatives, and from now on, I’ll be seekingthem out. Equal Exchange has beenworking with small farmer cooperatives since 1986, and has moved increasinglyinto cocoa and chocolate production in the past ten years. Equal Exchange isitself worker owned and run, and encourages democratic decision making andshared best practices at every level of their supply chain.

Divine Chocolate is anotherbright spot in the world of chocolate. The company partners with Kuapa Kokoo, acooperative of cocoa farmers from

Ghana

. All cocoa comes from thecooperative, ensuring the farmers fair prices, protection from pricevolatility, and a say in how the cocoa is produced and marketed.

There are other ethical chocolate companiesworking hard to treat farmers well and ensure fair wages and education forchild workers while providing delicious chocolate. Trader Joes, Whole Foods, and any fair trade or natural food store will offer a selection.

But think for a minute: ifyou had forty billion dollars (the collective wealth of the Mars siblings),what would it take to change the lives of the children in your supply chain? Ina country where a living wage is less than $2 a day, and annual salary is lessthan $700, it would take $70,000,000 to pay 100,000 children a generous wage. Addsome schooling, throw in some shoes, and you won’t even notice it’s missing.

Green America Chocolate Scorecard

All the big chocolatecompanies have made gestures toward addressing this problem. Internationalwatchdog groups say not nearly enough. The agreement was to have slave tradein chocolate solved years ago. The most recent Tulane report, overseen by the StateDepartment, was that less than 3% of cocoa farmers in West Africa had any awareness at all of a move to address child labor.

Sometimes it feels like ittakes too much work to live as an ethical consumer in a profit-mad world. Whyshould I have to research my chocolate before I eat it? Why should I need todebate pros and cons before I order a cup of hot cocoa? Does it matter where Wegman’sgets the cocoa in their chocolate cakes? What about the chocolate in browniemix? Just thinking about it exhausts me.

But then I stop to think ofthe exhaustion of small children, lugging huge bags of cocoa pods on theirbacks. Of young boys, scaling trees with machetes, swinging tired arms, too often missing and hitting legs instead. Of hungry pre-teen girls, chopping away, day after day, at mountains of cocoa pods.

On the Slave Free Chocolate site,I came across this:

In Conclusion: CircumspectusOrbit. Look around you. If you accept that which you are aware is intrinsicallywrong and have influence over, have you not contributed to its existence? Youare what you do. . . Willfulblindness will not buy divine absolution. That which is ignored will not ceaseto exist. Closing one’s eyes serves only to feed the rabid, gaping maw ofindifferent, self-serving greed, the continued existence of harsh injustice andthe exponential growth of dehumanizing inequality; and in the process . . . makesus responsible accomplices.

That which is ignored will notcease to exist.

So, while I dream of a daywhen large corporations do the right thing, because they can, because peoplecount more than profit, I’ll act in full knowledge that I do have influence, nomatter how small, and I’ll use it on behalf of those children who have none.

I’ll sign the online petitions and campaigns.

I’ll look for Fair Trade chocolate (and cocoa, and brownie mix, and ice cream).

I'll try some creative ideas - like a Valentine's Day greeting on manufacturers' facebook pages, reminding them that I can't eat their chocolate until they address their cocoa sourcing and pay cocoa farmers a fairer price.

And I’ll pray – for convictionwhere needed, for courage where needed, for freedom for the oppressed, justice for the poor, fair prices for the farmer, slave-free delicious chocolate for us all.

As always, comments, ideas, suggestions are welcome. Click on the _comments line below for the comment box to appear.

Wondering about Wealth

2012-02-05T09:45:00.000-05:00

The Synchroblog topic this month is “extreme economic inequality”. Since I’m not an economist, don’t really like numbers, have other things I’d much rather write about, I was tempted to let this topic pass.

But I’m afraid, as I think and pray about it, that this may be one of the most important topics of this election cycle, this decade, maybe of my remaining lifetime.

Economic inequality isn’t a new thing. There have always been rich and poor.

But we seem to be in a new place. The income gap between rich and poor is the greatest it’s been in decades. There are plenty of statistics on this –Forbes, Reuters, the Economist. Choose your favorite financial source and take a look at the troubling graphs.

But the real issue, from what I can see, isn’t income, but wealth. Wealth - net worth - can be defined as financial assets (stocks, bonds, savings) plus real assets (primarily housing) minus debt. Credit Suisse, a multinational finance group, provides some interesting data in their 2011 Global Wealth Report:

The average net worth, globally, in 2011 was $51,000 USD (that’s US dollars).
But the median net worth, globally, was $4,200. In other words, half of the world’s population has a net worth of $4,200 or less.
The top 10%, globally, has net worth of $82,000 or more.
The top 1% has net worth of $712,000 or more.
The richest 10% owns 84% of the world’s assets.
The top 1% owns 44% of the world’s assets.
The bottom half owns just 1% of the world’s assets.

The report discusses “Ultra High Net Worth individuals” (UHNW), noting, without explanation, that “to assemble details of the pattern of wealth holdings above USD 1 million requires a high degree of ingenuity. The usual sources of wealth data – official statistics and sample surveys – become increasingly incomplete and unreliable at high wealth levels.” Is this because the very wealthy hide their assets and their earnings? Is it because their wealth is in off-shore tax havens, invisible to all eyes but their own?

For those with net worth from 50 million and upward, “very little is known about the global pattern of asset holdings.” What is known is that “the United States has by far the greatest number of members of the top 1% global wealth group, accounting for 41% of those with wealth exceeding USD 10 million and 32% of the world’s billionaires. The number of UHNW individuals with wealth above USD 50 million is six times that of the next country . . .Although comparable data on the past are sparse, it is almost certain that the number of UHNW individuals is considerably greater than a decade ago. . . [N]otwithstanding the credit crisis, the past decade has been especially conducive to the establishment of large fortunes.”

I’m not an accountant, economist, or historian. But what seems clear, in these terse financial statistics, is that a small handful of very wealthy Americans have been busily consolidating their wealth at the expense not only of their fellow Americans, but at the expense of the poor and struggling in nations around the globe.

In trying to understand this, I came across a Bill Moyer interview with Jacob Hacker and Paul Pierson, authors of Winner Take All Politics, a recent book investigating this consolidation of wealth. Here’s just a hint of what the authors, and book, have to say:

JACOB HACHER: these large shifts in our economy had been propelled in part by what government has done, say deregulating the market, the financial markets, to allow wealthy people to gamble with their own and other peoples' money, and ways to put all of us at risk, but allow them to make huge fortunes.

And at the same time, when those risks have become apparent, there has been a studious effort on the part of political leaders to try to protect against government stepping in and regulating or changing the rules.

BILL MOYERS: You write, we have a government that's been promoting inequality, and at the same time, as you just said, failing to counteract it. This has been going on, you write, 30 years or more. And here's the key sentence: Step by step, and debate by debate, our public officials have rewritten the rules of the economy in ways that favor the few at the expense of the many.

The Price of Big Oil

As Hacker and Pierson make clear, as has been made clear by others before them, money equals influence equals power equals money, and as money, influence and power become more and more concentrated in the hands of the few, real democracy, real justice, real opportunity disappear.

Picture a Monopoly game. Your opponent owns the utilities, the railroads, all the properties, and has two hotels on each property. He’s rewritten the rules so every time he passes GO he collects $20,000, while every time you pass GO you collect $20. There’s no money left in the bank, so he’s written elaborate IOUs from the bank to himelf. Each time around the board he writes another IOU.

Are you having fun? Do you have a come-back plan? Are you ready to quit?

Profit comes from somewhere. Assets have some connection back to the material world. What happens when foreign investors own the best farm land in Africa? What happens when foreign corporations determine what happens to mountains, forests, oil fields in small hungry nations?

Bolivia v. Bechtel

What happens when international financiers pressure desperate countries to open their markets to companies like Monsanto, or to sell their water supply to private corporations? What happens when debt-ridden communities sell their hospitals, airports, bridges, schools, prisons?

Are we really hoping the new owners and investors will, from the goodness of their hearts, subsidize these efforts to serve the common good? A short reading of the water wars of

Bolivia

might be instructive, and a growing body of research makes clear what should be obvious to all but the most determined libertarian: privatization of public resource yields unchecked profit for the investor, higher cost for the public, greater suffering for those already struggling to survive.

I don’t hear our Christian leaders speaking out on this, but the Old Testament prophets had plenty to say about justice and injustice, and about those who become wealthy at the expense of the poor:

“Woe to those who make unjust laws, to those who issue oppressive decrees, to deprive the poor of their rights and withhold justice from the oppressed of my people.”

“The plunder from the poor is in your houses. What do you mean by crushing my people and grinding the faces of the poor?”

“You do as you please, and exploit all your workers.”

“The people of the land practice extortion and commit robbery; they oppress the poor and needy and mistreat the foreigner, denying them justice."

“They sell the innocent for silver, and the needy for a pair of sandals. They trample on the heads of the poor as on the dust of the ground and deny justice to the oppressed. “

“You take interest and make a profit from the poor. You extort unjust gain from your neighbors.”

“The people of the land practice extortion and commit robbery; they oppress the poor and needy and mistreat the foreigner, denying them justice.”

Is this something we should be talking about, praying about?

WaterJustice.org

Should we be asking our representatives to explain their preferential treatment of the rich?

Should we be organizing as citizens to demand justice – not for ourselves – but for those being forced out of their homes, bankrupted by their hospital bills?

Should we be paying attention to the ultra high net worth individuals whose profits are maximized at the expense of child slavery, sweat shops, misuse of resources stolen from indigenous people who lack the power to stop them?

Should we be wondering where those graphs will end? Where the consolidation of income and power will lead? What happens when not just 44%, but 100%, of the assets are held in the hands of the wealthiest one percent?

In Isaiah 1 the prophet, himself a grandson, nephew, cousin of kings, one of

Judah

’s wealthy one percent, explains to his people that God is not convinced by their offerings, their spiritual words, their observance of feasts, their religious gatherings. According to Isaiah, here’s what God has to say. The words echo across thousands of years, timeless, clear, convicting:

Stop doing wrong: Learn to do right; seek justice.
Defend the oppressed.

Take up the cause of the fatherless;
plead the case of the widow.

I’m not sure yet how to do that, but, as Isaiah says, maybe it’s time to learn.

As always, your comments are welcome. Click on the ___comments link for the comment box to appear.

This post is part of Synchroblog, a group of Christian bloggers posting on a common topic. Other posts about extreme income inequality are listed below:

Marta Layton - Fear Leads to Anger. Anger Leads to hate …

Kathy Escobar - Pawn Shops, Empty Refrigerators, The Long Hill Up

Glenn Hager - Shrinking The Gap

Jeremy Myers - Wealth Distribution

Liz Dyer - The First Step Is Admitting There Is A Problem

Ellen Haroutunian -Ec onomic Inequality: Coming Back ToOur Senses

K. W. Leslie - Wealth,Christians, and Justice.
Abbie Watters – My Confession

Steve Hayes - Notesf rom undergro und: Obscenity

Whose Seed? Whose Food?

2012-01-29T08:53:00.001-05:00

In January, seed catalogues start arriving in my mailbox: Burpees, Gurney’s, Stark Bros, others. I like to page through, thinking about what I might plant, marveling at the varieties of tomatoes, squash, peppers.

This year, though, my thoughts have been turning in a different direction. Last weekend I helped a local group host a screening of The Corporation, a sobering film about the role of multinational corporations and their impact on food supply, energy policy, rights of workers, and a wide range of other important topics.

One segment of the movie describes global agribusiness Monsanto’s sale of Bt cotton to illiterate, traditional farmers in

India

. In 1998, the World Bank forced India to open its seed sector to multinational corporations like Monsanto. Monsanto promised that its patented, genetically modified cotton would yield huge increases in returns and allow a decrease in the amount of pesticide used. Farmers were provided loans to shift to the new seed. They quickly discovered that Bt cotton required far more pesticide than previous varieties, needed twice as much water as traditional cotton, and that they would be prosecuted if they tried to save seed to plant the following year. The harvest yields were not large enough to cover the increased costs. In fact, most farmers found their yields were smaller.

Farmers who believed Monsanto promotions found themselves deep in debt, without seed for the new year ahead and without funds to buy more seed. For Indian cotton farmers, the margin was always slim, with seed, crop, and climate held in fragile balance. Since the introduction of Monsanto’s seeds, that balance has disappeared. More than 200,000 Indian farmers have committed suicide under the weight of crushing debt. In 2010, the Indian National Crime Records Bureau estimated that 46 farmers were killing themselves each day – one suicide every 30 minutes.

Monsanto’s disruption of traditional farming methods, in India and countries around the globe, goes far beyond false advertising and terminator seeds (seeds genetically altered so that the next generation of seed is sterile). While buying up seed companies large and small, Monsanto has also been applying for patents of traditionally grown crops that have been selected over centuries for disease or pest resistance. At the same time, company enforcers have been suing farmers, in the US and other countries, whose farms show signs of pollination from Monsanto patented plants. Since pollen can be carried by bees, or travel on the wind, and since seed itself can drift, Monsanto patented variants can show up in neighboring fields. Hundreds of farmers have lost to Monsanto in court, with hundreds more settling out of court rather than face bankruptcy in the face of legal fees. As the company patents seed traditionally passed on from farmer to farmer, farmers around the world can now be sued for growing the same plants they’ve grown for years.

For over half a century, Monsanto has been working to control markets, and has been marketing products with false promises. Monsanto produced and marketed Agent Orange –the herbicide used during the Vietnam War. While Monsanto said it was non-toxic and could be sprayed safely to deforest large tracts of jungle growth, the chemical killed and maimed hundreds of thousands and caused an epidemic of miscarriages, stillbirths, and horrifying birth defects among the people of Vietnam.

Monsanto was also responsible for marketing and manufacturing DDT, promising the chemical was completely harmless to humans and other creatures. DDT was eventually banned in the US, but not before the bald eagle and osprey were almost extinct.

Roundup is another popular Monsanto product, the most widely used herbicide in the United States. About 100 million pounds are applied to U.S. farms and lawns every year. According to Monsanto, Roundup is bio-degradeable, non-toxic, and completely safe for birds and animals. According to independent researchers in a variety of countries, Roundup’s combination of ingredients can cause cancer, tumors, and birth defects.

Another Monsanto invention –recombinant bovine growth hormone – rGBH (also called rBST, or Prosilic), is marketed to dairy farmers to increase milk production. The testing period in the US was only ninety days. According to Monsanto, “there’s nothing to worry about.” When a team of investigative reporters found that there were, in fact, health implications to consider, Monsanto bullied Fox News into killing that report. Canada, Europe, Japan, New Zealand, Australia and other countries have banned rGBH. In the US, Monsanto fought consumer requests to have rGBH milk labeled, even pushing laws banning organic dairy farmers from advertising or labeling “no rGBH” milk.

Monsanto has a reputation for saying “this is harmless,” without doing the necessary research to be sure that’s true. Untested Monsanto products have left a wide swath of misery in countries around the world.

Which brings me back to my seed catalogs. As Monsanto buys up smaller seed companies and introduces unlabeled genetically modified seed, how do I know what I’m growing? The Monsanto seed monopoly is hard to track, but food activists believe the company now controls 97% of the world’s maize market, and 95% of the global cottonseed supply. Seed prices are skyrocketing, as Monsanto exercises control over the supply.

Trying to sort out the implications of the Monsanto seed monopolies and the introduction of GMOs (genetically modified organisms), here’s what I’ve discovered:

Genetically engineered foods can contain genes derived from bacteria, viruses, insects, fish, animals, or unrelated, sometimes toxic, plants.
93 percent of US soy, cotton, and canola seed planted in the US in 2010 was genetically engineered.
86 percent of field corn and, according to Monsanto, half of the sweet corn planted in the US this past season was genetically modified.
70 to 80 percent of processed foods on supermarket shelves–from soda to soup, crackers to condiments–contain genetically engineered ingredients.
Any American meat not labeled “certified organic” or “non-GMO” carries traces of GMOs, since corn and soy are the primary feed grains.
Some strawberries, citrus, bananas and papayas, tomatoes, potatoes, sweet peppers, yellow squash, and zucchini are genetically modified. They aren't labeled.
“Natural” foods are not regulated. They usually contain less, or no, artificial flavors, colors or sweeteners, but can contain GMOs.

I’ve been wondering, for years now, why there are so many mystery illnesses that didn’t seem to exist when I was younger, or which occurred with much less frequency: autism, Alzheimer’s, asthma, food allergies of every kind, chronic fatigue, persistent acne, unexplained digestive disorders. Biologists and physicians around the globe are tying these to the untested, undisclosed additives and alterations in our food.

GMOs have been flooding the market in the US for the past fifteen years and the upswing in most of these ailments, along with increases in some kinds of cancers and tumors, tracks almost exactly with the increase in GMOs. As a result of proliferating health concerns, and ongoing research, almost fifty countries now insist that any genetically modified food be labeled; some nations ban all GMOs, including honey from bees in countries like ours where GMOs are permitted.

“Nonsense,” says Monsanto. “Nothing to worry about.”

At what point does this become my concern? Should I care about what happens to cotton farmers in India? Rice farmers in China? Corn farmers in Haiti?

Should I sign on in support of organic farmers here in the US, facing Monsanto in court this week in the opening hearing of a lawsuit, Organic Seed Growers and Trade Association (OSGATA) et al v. Monsanto, challenging Monsanto’s abusive seed patenting practices and struggling to keep the organic food movement alive?

Should I join the many health and food democracy groups begging the FDA to require that GMOs be labeled, so those afflicted with mystery illnesses can shop with greater confidence and protect themselves from the harm of altered foods??

In 2 Corinthians, Paul urged the Corinthian Christians to express their support of their struggling brothers and sisters in Macedonia. He reminded them that as they reached out with generosity and concern: “he who supplies seed to the sower and bread for food will also supply and increase your store of seed and will enlarge the harvest of your righteousness.”

In all the talk about seeds, GMOs, farmers, I find myself thinking about the amazing gift of seed, the dangers of selling tampered seed without years of careful research, and the disaster waiting for all of us if Monsanto and its agribusiness colleagues are allowed to continue putting profit before human health and sustainable farm practices.

The tipping point in all this will be an informed American public speaking out, not only on behalf of our own safe food supply, but on behalf of small farmers here and around the world.

Want some action points?

Express support for the organic farmers in their hearing this week against Monsanto: Add your voice

Ask the FDA to require GMOs to be labeled: Just Label It

Download a non-GMO shopping guide as an ebook, iPhone app, or pdf file, and vote with your dollars for GMO-free food. Shopping guide.

As always, your thoughts, suggestions and comments are welcome.

Hijacked?

2012-01-22T09:20:00.001-05:00

The Kingdom of Heaven is Like unto the Leaven
Hidden in the Lump, Yelena Cherkasova, Russia

Listening to the radio while organizing boxes in my basement, I was intrigued at the way discussion of a new book, You Lost Me, about young Christians leaving the church, segued into discussion of evangelicals and right wing politics in the North Carolina primary. Minutes later, the broadcast turned to the recent debate in which Newt Gingrich was asked about his alleged request to his second wife for an open marriage.

George Barna, respected Christian leader and founder of the Barna Group, announced this week that “After a lot of study, soul searching, and prayer,” he is endorsing Newt Gingrich for president, and has agreed to lead Gingrich’s “Faith Leaders Coalition,” the Gingrich campaign’s outreach to the Christian community.

You Lost Me: Why Young Christians are Leaving Church ... and Rethinking Faith, describing the departure from the church of more than half of those in their twenties, is by David Kinneman, Barna’s successor at the Barna Group. The new book, and a previous work by Kinneman and Gabe Lyons, unChristian: What a New Generation Really Thinks of Christianity ... And Why It Matters, make use of a three-year Barna study of sixteen to twenty-nine year olds. The results of that study demonstrated, with painful clarity, that the majority in that demographic view Christians with hostility and disdain.

Here’s the critique:

* antihomosexual 91%
* judgmental 87%
* hypocritical 85%
* old-fashioned 78%
* too political 75%
* out of touch with reality 72%
* insensitive to others 70%
* boring 68%

Surely George Barna has at least heard of Kinneman’s books? Knows at least a little of their content?

The overwhelming grief for me, in this season of angry partisan rhetoric, mudslinging and attack ads, is that the sorry reputation of the Christian church is pulled through the mud along with the candidates. And that Christian leaders, pretending that there is one, correct, “faith leaders” point of view, hurry that process along.

“Are outsiders asking us to stay out of politics?” Kinneman asks in unChristian in a chapter titled “Too Political.” “According to our research, not exactly. Many outsiders clarified that they believe Christians have a right (even an obligation) to pursue political involvement, but they disagree with our methods and our attitudes. They say we seem to be pursuing an agenda that benefits only ourselves; they assert that we expect too much out of politics; they question whether we are motivated by our economic status rather than faith perspectives when we support conservative politics; they claim we act and say things in an unChristian manner; they wonder whether Jesus would use political power as we do; and they are concerned that we overpower the voices of other groups.” (165)

Kinneman quotes one young man, Brandon, an agnostic, active in the Republican party: “I believe that American Christians have become tools of the Republican election machine—at the expense of their own image and message.” (166)

He quotes another young adult raised in the church who “became disillusioned with his church and eventually his faith because he started to question the heavy-handed political involvement that seemed to be a requirement. His comment: ‘A lot of times the church would take a conservative Republican stance, and anyone who did not fit into that mold was judged as not as good a Christian as everyone else.’” (166)

As Kinnemann makes very clear, there is no one, unanimous “Christian” presence in politics, despite the rhetoric of groups like the Moral Majority or the Christian Coalition, or the new "Faith Leaders Coalition": “among the evangelical segment, only a slight majority are registered Republicans (59 percent). That’s a high proportion, but far removed from the monolithic levels one might expect based on media pronouncements or the expectations of Christian leaders.” (161)

Last fall Christianity Today published an article with this headline: “Survey: Frequent Bible Reading Can Turn You Liberal." In the article, Aaron B. Franzen summarized conclusions from a recent poll by LifeWay Research:

For each increased level of Bible-reading frequency, support for the Patriot Act decreased by about 13 percent.
Support for abolishing the death penalty increased by about 45 percent for each increase on the five-point scale measuring Bible-reading frequency.
The more someone reads the Bible, the more likely he or she is to believe science and religion are compatible. (For each increase on the five-point scale, the odds that they see religion and science as incompatible decrease by 22 percent.)
"How important is it," the survey asked, "to actively seek social and economic justice in order to be a good person?" Again, as would be expected, those with more liberal political leanings were more likely to say it's very or somewhat important. And those who read the Bible more often were more likely to agree. Indeed, they were almost 35 percent more likely to agree at each point on Baylor's five-point scale.
The survey asked whether one must consume or use fewer goods in order to be a good person. Political liberals and frequent Bible readers are more likely to say yes.

Just last week, Abington Press released a new book called Hijacked: Responding to the Partisan Church Divide, by Mike Slaughter and Charles Gutenson. I haven’t had a chance to read it, but the problem it addresses is a real one, and growing worse by the day.

In his own blog, Slaughter writes “As Christians we have too often allowed worldly political ideologies to become determining factors for our theology rather than grounding ourselves in sound biblical theology for determining our politic. Some well-meaning believers have become more passionate about engaging in the heat of partisan political debate than they have been in sharing the good news about Jesus. Left and right, blue and red are but imperfect systems that are passing away. These systems, by their very nature, create barriers of division. The way of the cross is eternal and tears down the dividing walls that stand between us. "There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave or free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus" (Gal. 3:28).

George Barna and other Christian leaders are free to vote as they wish. They are free to endorse the candidates of their choice. But when they include the word Christian or faith in their endorsement, they hijack, once again, the name of Christ, and the community of believers, for their own less than perfect causes. As a follower of Christ, I pray for our disillusioned generations, and encourage our leaders to reconsider their allegiance and their misuse of influence. As Christ's people, we are called to be agents of reconciliation - to God and to each other - not agents of one political agenda.

I'd love to hear what you think on this. Your comments and questions, as always, are welcome. And I've been working on moving to an easier commenting platform - but not sure it's an improvement. I'd welcome your thoughts on that as well.

Perplexed, but still hopeful

2012-01-18T12:09:00.000-05:00

Untitled, Ben-Zion,
New York, 1950s

Not, I’ll not, carrion comfort, Despair, not feast on thee;

Not untwist—slack they may be—

these last strands of man

In me or, most weary, cry I can no more. I can;

Can something, hope, wish day come,
not choose not to be.

(from “Carrion Comfort”
Gerard Manley Hopkins,1887 )

We see through a glass darkly – but there are times that seem darker than others. Winter nights close in; the accumulating sorrows of friends and family pile like snowdrifts against our windows. We find ourselves wishing for summer, or surfing vacation rental websites, longing for escape. We wrestle with hope: Is healing possible? Is wholeness an illusion? Does it make sense to invest, again, and again, in systems that seem irrevocably broken, in people who seem determined to fail?

Reading Hopkins’ “Carrion Comfort”, I find myself wondering what struggles sapped his strength, stole his joy, led him toward the dark place of doubting God’s goodness. His poem points back toward Jacob, running from home, wrestling in the dark with God.

And it calls to mind Paul, in his second letter to the Corinthians, confessing his own temptation to despair.

For some reason, we pretend that conversion to Christ is a guarantee of a smooth and easy ride. Trust God and all will go well. Believe and your problems are solved. Let go and let God.

Praying Monk, Frank Brangwyn, Belgium, 1930s

But there’s Hopkins, a Jesuit priest in his prime, bruised by his dark night of the soul. And Paul, acknowledging that he and his fellow workers were “under great pressure, far beyond our ability to endure, so that we despaired of life itself” (2 Cor. 1).

I could list countless friends, faithful people living lives of deep obedience, who struggle with unexplained tragedies and wrestle with doubt, with a sense of abandonment that rivals David’s when he cried out:

“My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?

Why are you so far from saving me,

so far from my cries of anguish?

I am poured out like water,

and all my bones are out of joint.

My heart has turned to wax;

it has melted within me." (Psalm 22)

If suffering is part of the human condition, God's people are not exempt.

There’s a word play in 2 Corinthians 4 that we miss in English translation. Paul says “We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed.”

Aporeo (perplexed) means to be without resources, in doubt, not knowing which way to turn: stuck. I’m beginning to feel that’s my natural state. Daily, I find myself perplexed. I don’t have what’s needed. I can’t do what I promised. The challenges I face are more than I bargained for. My resources are few, my wisdom is slight, and the situation is beyond me. I laugh as I write this: I thought that state of perplexity would end when I stepped away from full-time ministry with youth. Instead, it’s more pronounced, as God leads me into more and more perplexing missions, with fewer resources at hand.

Paul says: aporea, but not exaporeo. Perplexed, but not to the point of despair. Without resources, but not without hope of help. In doubt, but not in such confusion I can no longer pray, or trust, or wait. Stuck, but not - literally - "out of a way through."

When I look back on the past year, and the years before that, I see that some of the moments when I was most perplexed, God was most at work. Those places where I found myself standing still – uncertain, doubtful, at the end of my resources, ingenuity, understanding - God’s grace intervened, sometimes in ways that were immediate and dramatic, much more often in ways that could only be seen looking back across time.

The Man with the Burden
Rachael Robinson Elmer, New York, 1913

Yet there are situations where I still wrestle, still stand in perplexity, still see no sign of resolution, no clear way through. What then?

In Paul’s example in 2 Corinthians 4 I find clear advice for my own cases of “aporea”:

One: Don’t lose heart. Don’t give up. He says it at the beginning and end of the chapter: We do not lose heart.

Easy to say. Not so easy to do.

Two: Admit, acknowledge, even embrace weakness. We aren’t the ones who need to be strong. I love that. We are jars of clay. Frail, flawed, struggling creatures.

I’ve certainly had the temptation, at different points along the way, to “look strong for the kids,” to try to hold it together. That never works. Much better to say “I’m struggling here. But don’t worry: God will help us.”

Third, Paul says: Keep your eyes on what’s ahead. Don’t let this present moment drag you down. “We fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.”

I have lots of areas of weakness, but one in particular has sometimes been a problem. I hate long, high bridges. I start focusing on the side: the flimsy rail, the too-close edge, the long drop to deep water below. And then I focus on myself: my sweaty hands, the fact that I can’t breath. If I can keep my eyes and attention out ahead, I’m okay. If I start thinking “what if . . .” I’m in trouble.

The bridges are hard. But the other side is worth it.

And these struggles we face are hard, but they’re not the end of the story, just as those miserable bridges are never the end of the road. As Paul says, “Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all.”

I pray that will be so.

We travelers, walking towards the sun, can’t see

Ahead, but looking back the very light

That blinded us shows us the way we came,

Along which blessings now appear, risen

As if from sightlessness to sight, and we,

By blessings brightly lit, keep going toward

That blessed light that yet to us is dark.

(Sabbaths 1999, IV, Wendell Berry)

The Pilgrim of the World at the End of his Journey,
Thomas Cole, New York, 1846-47

This post is part of the January Synchroblog on hope, done in partnership with Provoketive, an online magazine devoted to creating space for dialogue about faith, life, justice and culture. As usual, your thoughts and comments are welcome. And if you're needing wrestling with hope yourself, or in conversation with others who are struggling, please take time to visit some of the other websites linked below.

The Trouble With Hope: John Ptacek

Hope = Possibility x Imagination: Wayne Rumsby

Little Reminders: Mike Victorino

Where Is My Hope: Jonathan Brink

Hope for Hypocrites: Jeremy Myers

Now These Three Remain: Sonny Lemmons

A Hope that Lives: Amy Mitchell

Generations Come and Generations Go: Adam Gonnerman

Demystifying Hope: Glenn Hager

God in the Dark: On Hope: Renee Ronika Klug

Keeping Hope Alive: Maurice Broaddus

Are We Afraid to Hope?: Christine Sine

On Wobbly Wheels, Split Churches and Fear: Laura Droege

Adopting Hope: Travis Klassen

Hope is Held Between Us: Ellen Haroutunian

Hope: In the Hands of the Creatively Maladjusted: Mihee Kim-Kort

Paradox, Hope and Revival: City Safari

Good Theology Saves: Reverend Robyn

Linear: Never Was, Never Will Be: Kathy Escobar

Better Than Hope: Liz Dyer

Caroline for Congress: Hope for the Future: Wendy McCaig

Fumbling the Ball on Hope: KW Leslie

Content to Hope: Alise Wright

Hope: Oh, the Humanity!: Deanna Ogle

Power.Money.Justice.Love?

2012-01-15T09:07:00.000-05:00

In 1960 Martin Luther King, describing his own spiritual and intellectual journey, wrote: "The gospel at its best deals with the whole man, not only his soul but his body, not only his spiritual well-being, but his material well being. Any religion that professes to be concerned about the souls of men and is not concerned about the slums that damn them, the economic conditions that strangle them and the social conditions that cripple them is a spiritually moribund religion awaiting burial." (Pilgrimage to Non-Violence)

My intent in this blog has been to wrestle with the realities of faithful living in the widest sense possible: what does it mean to act justly, love mercy, and walk humbly with God? What does it mean to do the things Jesus did, to live as his friend, to abide in him in this culture where I find myself? What does it mean to care about the people God has put in my life, but also to care about the systems that hold them captive? What are the fragments of beauty and light and joy I can point to as signposts of the kingdom of grace I see off in the distance?

The Story of Citizens United v FEC

Some weeks I find this a pleasant task. Some weeks it’s more of a brain puzzle. This week I’ve been unhappily mulling over the upcoming anniversary of the Supreme Court decision affirming “corporate personhood” and the idea that free speech implies unlimited corporate expenditure in elections. I never studied economics, am not really interested in the flow of money, would rather spend the morning birdwatching, or taking a young friend or two to the nearest library. But if our current economic system strangles and cripples people struggling toward freedom, am I responsible to care? If good people believe - as many I know do - that democracy is dead, or dying, do I need to understand what it is they're saying?

I have a foreboding sense that we are at a crossroads. I fear that unless more of us, people who love the earth, who long for justice, who believe in compassion, unless more of us take the time to understand our current economic and political conditions, we will make the wrong turn and find there’s no way back. Some I know say we've already made that turn. I"m hoping they're wrong.

Last October I began attending a local Occupy group. Occupy Phoenixville has never had an encampment, rally or demonstration. We haven’t even made any homemade signs. Our first move was to promote Occupy the Polls – with a website offering voter information and encouragement to engage. Since then we’ve done some work about billboards, helping Phoenixville oppose a corporation trying to force large digital billboards on a community that doesn't want them. And now we’re working with Films for Action to use documentaries to promote conversation about issues like corporate personhood. Our first film. The Corporation, will be screened this Saturday, January 21, the anniversary of the Citizens United decision.

As I said, I’m not an economist. And while I studied and taught American lit for years, I confess, I never read Ayn Rand. Is capitalism moral? Evil? Neither? Are free markets the answer to all our troubles, or the cause? Are corporations our friends, benevolent job-creators, the source of our prosperity, or are they evil empires, intent on ruling the world, oblivious to the pain they leave in their wake?

We tend to talk in absolutes: all capitalism is good, or all corporations are bad. The truth is obviously somewhere in between. I fear that unless we spend some time sorting out the good from the bad, the helpful from the harmful, we’ll be more and more overrun by the freight train currently in place: runaway corporatism, an economic system run by a handful of multinational corporations who hide their profits in offshore banks, shift jobs from place to place in search of the lowest wage, and control the political arena with huge invisible contributions, slick attack ads, revolving door lobbyists, and regulatory agendas promoted far from public scrutiny.

Well yes, I do have some opinions. I’ve been doing some reading, and what I read alarms me.

Here’s a sampling:

Thomas Jefferson: "Yes, we did produce a near perfect Republic. But will they keep it... I hope we shall crush in its birth the aristocracy of our moneyed corporations, which dare already to challenge our government to a trial of strength and bid defiance to the laws of our country." "The end of democracy, and the defeat of the American Revolution will occur when government falls into the hands of the lending institutions and moneyed incorporations."

Andrew Jackson: "Unless you become more watchful in your States and check this spirit of monopoly and thirst for exclusive privileges, you will in the end find that the most important powers of Government have been given or bartered away, and the control of your dearest interests have been passed into the hands of these corporations."

Abraham Lincoln: "I see in the near future a crisis approaching that unnerves me and causes me to tremble for the safety of my country. As a result of the war, corporations have been enthroned and an era of corruption in high places will follow, and the money power of the country will endeavor to prolong its reign by working upon the prejudices of the people until all wealth is aggregated in a few hands and the Republic is destroyed. I feel at this moment more anxiety for the safety of my country than ever before, even in the midst of war. God grant that my suspicions may prove groundless."

Franklin D. Roosevelt: "The first truth is that the liberty of a democracy is not safe if the people tolerate the growth of private power to a point where it becomes stronger than their democratic state itself. That, in its essence, is fascism - ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. "

Justice Louis D. Brandeis: "We can have a democracy in this country or we can have great wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we cannot have both."

From Citizens United v. FEC

In the 1990s, management guru Peter Drucker worried that "The largest 100 corporations hold 25 percent of the worldwide productive assets, which in turn control 75 percent of international trade and 98 percent of all foreign direct investment. The multinational corporation...puts the economic decision beyond the effective reach of the political process and its decision-makers, national governments."

Consider: of the largest 100 economies in 2010, more than half were corporations, not countries. One quarter of those corporations are invested heavily in fossil fuel, with a total income that would put the fossil fuel industry somewhere in the top 10 nations.

The Citizens United decision opened the door to increased money from fossil fuel industries in our political process. An industry publication asks “Is the Oil and Gas Industry Trying to Buy a Keystone XL Decision from Congress?” The answer is an obvious yes.

Equally obvious is the way the shale gas industry has taken control of the energy equation here in Pennsylvania. After giving millions to the governor-elect and others in the last election, shale gas influence has overseen the deregulation of the industry while ensuring steep cuts to effective promotion of sustainable energy sources.

Broke: The Story of Stuff Project

According to a recent report by the International Energy Agency, in 2009, “Fossil-fuel consumers worldwide received about six times more government subsidies than were given to the renewable-energy industry. State spending to cut retail prices of gasoline, coal and natural gas rose 36 percent to $409 billion as global energy costs increased. . . Aid for biofuels, wind power and solar energy, rose 10 percent to $66 billion. While fossil fuels meet about 80 percent of world energy demand, its subsidies are creating market distortions that encourage wasteful consumption."

Sustainable energy, care of creation, fair wages, healthy food . . . the more I read, the more connected I realize these are. And somewhere at the heart of them all is the issue of values, value, and economic policy: are corporations people? Is unrestrained capitalism the best way to get where we say we want to go?

from Citizens United v. FEC

This will be a big conversation in the year ahead, and an important one. The world we pass on to our children, and their children, will depend in large part on how many of us choose to engage, and how.

To continue the conversation, you might want to watch the two short videos (linked through the Citizens United and Broke graphics) that explain some of the issues at stake. Yes, both videos are oversimplifications, but any discussion short of a several volume work will simplify these complex, often-confusing questions.

Come join us for our screening of The Corporation (followed by some roundtable conversations). Or watch it free online.

A more sustained, long-term discussion about economics, public policy, and sustainable alternatives is taking place at The New Economics Institute. Change is possible, but only if we pay attention and become informed voters and consumers, demonstrating our love by attentive concern to the challenging issues of justice and power.

I'd love to hear what you think on this. Your comments and questions, as always, are welcome.

Midwinter Wisdom

2012-01-08T10:32:00.000-05:00

Midwinter spring is its own season

Sempiternal though sodden towards sundown,

Suspended in time, between pole and tropic.

When the short day is brightest, with frost and fire,

The brief sun flames the ice, on pond and ditches,

In windless cold that is the heart’s heat,

Reflecting in a watery mirror

A glare that is blindness in the early afternoon.

And glow more intense than blaze of branch,

or brazier,

Stirs the dumb spirit: no wind, but pentecostal fire

In the dark time of the year.

Between melting and freezing

The soul’s sap quivers.

(Four Quartets: Little Gidding I, T. S. Eliot)

We often have a day or two of “midwinter spring” - welcome days of warmth that melt the tops of frozen lakes and remind us that winter won’t last forever. This year, though, it’s been more like a midwinter summer. Our temperature reached 63 °C yesterday – a record high in a week that saw over a thousand new record highs.

I took my binoculars and new spotting scope to Marsh Creek Lake, not far from our home, and headed off on the dirt track on the far side of the lake. The path runs through thickets and brambles, skirting the foundations of old buildings abandoned when the lake was flooded back in the seventies. Dirt bikers plowed through muddy ruts, a young family scrambled happily over a massive downed sycamore, and a lomg line of gulls marked the half-way point in the perfect blue of the lake.

Normally most of the lake is frozen by this point in the year, but kayaks danced along in the bright little waves and a flat-bottomed fishing boat moved along so close to shore I could see the fishing line slice the water.

Kingfisher Pair, Suzanne Britton

Pausing to watch a pair of belted kingfishers following each other along the lake edge, I found myself wondering: is this a good thing? This beautiful warm weather, this early pairing of solitary kingfishers? What if a day that seems like a reprieve is really a harbinger of harm?

I thought of a blog post I read just days ago: Scot McKnight, responding to a recent debate in The Spectator on global warming, asked “what would it take to change your mind?”

“Put on the table one of your most cherished theological ideas — say creationism, the historicity of Jonah surviving in a big fish, Calvinism or Arminianism, penal substitution, the gospel as social justice, progressive ideas on the gay/lesbian debates… just put your major idea on the table and ask yourself one question:

What would it take to change your mind?”

McKnight’s book, The Blue Parakeet: Rethinking How You Read the Bible, documents his own change of mind on the topic of women in church leadership, but his question has far-reaching importance in this contentious political season. How do we know what’s true? What kind of evidence are we looking for? Whose voices do we listen to? What are we willing to question?

The Pharisees were sure of a long list of things, which made it impossible for most of them to hear what Jesus had to say. They started from a position of theological certainty and spent their energy looking for ways to discredit their opposition, rather than taking time to listen to see what truth they could learn from a very new perspective.

Can You See the Writing on the Wall?
Mary Padgelik

Ah, but isn’t it dangerous to listen to voices you’re not sure of, to consider ideas that don’t fit the currently accepted grid?

Standing still in the late afternoon sunlight, I listened to the wild cry of a red-tailed hawk soaring overhead, and the secretive scuffle of the white-throated sparrows, hiding in low bushes along the trail. There are voices easy to hear, like the raucous chorus of crows, or the constant chatter of the chickadees. And there are voices we prefer to hear: the mockingbird song. The sweet chirps of the pretty red house finch.

What happens when we shut out too quickly voices that are new, or difficult, or threatening? What happens when we refuse to hear those whose message doesn’t fit our own?

In Soul of a Citizen, Paul Loeb talks of an “ethic of listening,” learning to act from an awareness “that our knowledge and perception will always be partial, and that we learn best from dialogue with others.” Loeb notes the need “to cultivate a bit of humility. To hear the souls of others requires silencing the clamor of our own obsessions about how the world should be.” (238)

Humility is one of those words we don’t spend much time with. We like to be people who know the answers, who have firm opinions, who are quick to make those opinions known. We like to know which voices are approved, who is on “our side,” and who is not. Discussions move quickly from ideas offered to ad hominem attack. Once we’ve labeled someone a communist, fascist, racist, heretic, we can stop pretending to listen and go back to celebrating our own strong opinions.

I grew up in a household where argument was plentiful, in a church tradition where the stronger your opinion, the more you were admired. I realized early on that the motivation in most arguments had little to do with the point being offered. What I heard loud and strong in most discussions I witnessed was power, pride, and a deep disregard for the people most affected.

Reading on my own, I came across James 3: “Who is wise and understanding among you? Let them show it by their good life, by deeds done in the humility that comes from wisdom.” I had seen enough to know that opinions held in pride cause harm, that real wisdom is gentle, and shows up in action more than bombastic argument.

The Fruit of the Spirit: Peace, Mary Padgelik

In my early twenties, I memorized James 3:17 and 18:

“But the wisdom that comes from heaven is first of all pure; then peace-loving, considerate, submissive, full of mercy and good fruit, impartial and sincere. Peacemakers who sow in peace reap a harvest of righteousness.”

In this warm, strange, midwinter summer, marveling at the beauty of red hawks in flight, dodging mountain bikers who call “on your right!” as they pass me in the muck, I find myself repeating that ancient passage. I pray for humility, wisdom, peace. Not for myself only, but for all of us, fellow travelers on a tired planet, concerned citizens in a divided country. I pray for a wisdom humble enough to consider a change of mind, wide enough to hear all the voices crying to be heard, and for harvests of righteousness abundant enough to meet the needs of all.

Join the conversation: What would it take to change your mind? How do you know when you're holding an opinion from wrong motives, or pride?Where do you hope to see deeper dialogue in the year ahead?

What the Magi Found

2011-12-28T17:54:00.003-05:00

Journey of the Magi, Francesco Pesellino, 1446, Italy

This is written as part of a post-Christmas synchroblog: "So Jesus came . . . did you get what you expected?" Other synchroblogs on this topic are linked at the end of this post.

*******************

During this Advent season, I’ve been thinking about expectation, waiting, what we look toward, what we regret. Along the way, I’ve been reminded of T. S. Eliot’s "The Journey of the Magi", printed in 1927 just weeks after his baptism into the Anglican church at the age of 38.

"'A cold coming we had of it,
Just the worst time of the year
For a journey, and such a long journey:
The was deep and the weather sharp,
The very dead of winter.'
And the camels galled, sore-footed, refractory,
Lying down in the melting snow.
There were times we regretted
The summer palaces on slopes, the terraces,
And the silken girls bringing sherbet.
Then the camel men cursing and grumbling
And running away, and wanting their liquor and women,
And the night-fires gong out, and the lack of shelters,
And the cities hostile and the towns unfriendly
And the villages dirty, and charging high prices.
A hard time we had of it.
At the end we preferred to travel all night,
Sleeping in snatches,
With the voices singing in our ears, saying
That this was all folly."

The Journey of the Magi
James Jacques Joseph Tissot, France, 1894

In the weeks leading up to Christmas, I found myself repeating “A hard time we had of it.” I had committed to a variety of adventures, and all had jolts and detours along the way.

I drove a friend home from her first semester of college, had great conversation along the way, then found myself driving in unfamiliar urban neighborhoods, trapped by one-way streets, wondering how I got there, wondering how I'd get home.

I went to drop off clothes for a friend in a half-way house and found myself driving in circles in an industrial wasteland, then standing toe-to-toe with a hostile security guard convinced I was attempting to defy contradictory instructions.

A morning I had set aside for Christmas baking vanished as I went to the second funeral in a matter of weeks. A trip to pick up a relative turned into a wrestling match with a defective refrigerator. Attempts to answer the call of welcome, hospitality, and sharing of others’ burdens seemed to take strange directions, until, like Eliot and his magi, I found voices singing in my ears, “saying that this was all folly.”

But the wisdom of this world is foolishness in God’s sight, and what seems folly can be wise in ways we can’t explain. There were moments I regretted, and days I knew it would have been easier to stay home, but as Eliot's poem reminded me, the journey toward knowing Christ always has a cost.

"Then at dawn we came down to a temperate valley,
Wet, below the snow line, smelling of vegetation;
With a running stream and a water-mill beating the darkness,
And three trees on the low sky,
And an old white horse galloped away in the meadow.
Then we came to a tavern with vine-leaves over the lintel,
Six hands at an open door dicing for pieces of silver,
And feet kicking the empty wine-skins.
But there was no information, and so we continued
And arrived at evening, not a moment too soon
Finding the place; it was (you may say) satisfactory."

Adoration of the Magi,
Edward Burne-Jones, 1887, tapestry, England

Eliot’s poem captures a vision of almost surreal significance, a place of unexpected beauty, of flowing water, and three trees that suggest the three crosses ahead. The vine-leaves call to mind Christ’s insistence that he is the vine, but spread over the lintel, they also call to mind the story of Pentecost: the death of a sacrifice that protected God’s people from the death of their firstborn sons. The silver echoes the exchange of silver at Christ’s betrayal, the wine-skins hint at the new wine Jesus promised. The white horse in the meadow: is that a promise of something still to come, Christ on a white horse? Yet the horse, free as it is, is old. It doesn't line up neatly, but neither did the prophecies.

The magi, looking back, remembers that sense of seeking ("there was no information"), of arrival ("not a moment too soon"), of certainty – a certainty that can only be hinted at, not explained: “it was (you may say) satisfactory.”

The description of the magi’s arrival brings to mind other passages from Eliot: the moments when time seems to stand still, the sudden bursts of clarity that defy words, yet illuminate all that went before and after.

Eliot’s biographers describe a moment from his own faith journey that seems to echo the magi’s experience. The year before his baptism, Eliot and his wife Vivienne traveled through Rome with her brother and his wife. In St. Peter’s Cathedral, they encountered Michelangelo’s Pieta, and Eliot, to the surprise and embarrassment of his companions, sank to his knees in apparent adoration.

I find myself wondering – what did Eliot see in Michelangelo's work that cut through his skepticism? And what did the magi find when they came to the end of their journey? How did they know they had found the one their ancient prophecies promised? Artists like to put halos around the heads of Jesus, Mary and Joseph. I’m sure there were no halos. Instead, my guess is they found an ordinary-looking child, a simple mother, a non-descript dad, piecing together life like the rest of us, washing dishes, sweeping the floor, wondering what to do next.

Sarcophagus, 3rd century, Rome

That’s how my Christmas came and went: lots of cooking, cleaning, quick conversations, wondering how the floor could be covered in crumbs when I just put the broom away. And in the middle of the mundane, the luminous moments: lovely little girls dancing to “Mary Did You Know?” Our delightful smallest family member, belting out “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.” Thoughtful cards to every family member, with a first-grader’s carefully printed “I love you.” Unexpected laughter. Inexplicable tears.

The refrain, behind, around every interaction: "This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life.” “The true light that gives light to everyone was coming into the world.”

"All this was a long time ago, I remember,
And I would do it again, but set down
This set down
This: were we lead all that way for
Birth or Death? There was a Birth, certainly,
We had evidence and no doubt. I have seen birth and death,
But had thought they were different; this Birth was
Hard and bitter agony for us, like Death, our death.
We returned to our places, these Kingdoms,
But no longer at ease here, in the old dispensation,
With an alien people clutching their gods.
I should be glad of another death."

Literary analysts have had a field day with Eliot’s poem, the unexpected regret, the description of difficulty, and wonder if the poem suggests ambivalence on Eliot’s part regarding his conversion and baptism. What’s all this about birth and death? About being ill at ease? About looking toward another death?

Did the magi find what he expected? Did Eliot?

Did we?

I find the magi's sense of displacement strangely familiar. Those who think Christianity is simplistic or straightforward have somehow missed the journey. It starts in simple expectation, travels through doubt and difficulty to death, then leaves us strangers where once we felt at home. We set aside one set of gods, only to see ourselves clutching others. Free of one kingdom, we camp out in another, not yet to the place we were hoping to find, not yet the people we were hoping to be.

The deeper my faith goes, the greater the questions. Why did God allow the slaughter of the innocents, triggered by the magis’ search? Were those infant deaths part of the plan, “Rachel crying for her children, because they were no more?” How could the prince of peace also bring a sword?

The Magi, He Qi, 2001, Nanjing

And the longer the journey, the more need I see for death of the kind the magi discovered: death to the old gods, the old self, the old dispensation. Death to wanting it my way. Craving my own peace, that has nothing to do with love.

But that death is a birth.

If you need it wrapped neatly with a bow, forget poetry. Forget mystery. I'm tempted to say - and will - forget faith.

As the old year dies, as the new year emerges, I wait to see what God has in store. I wait to see what will need to die next, what expectations will be set aside.

“The true light that gives light to everyone was coming into the world.” “In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.”

Blog posts by others asking "Jesus came: did you get what you expected":

Glenn Hager – Underwear For Christmas

Jeremy Myers – The Unexpected Gift From Jesus

Tammy Carter - Unstuck

Jeff Goins - The Day After Christmas: A Lament

Wendy McCaig – Unwanted Gifts: You Can Run But You Can Not Hide

Christine Sine – The Wait Is Over – What Did I Get?

Maria Kettleson Anderson – Following The Baby We Just Celebrated

Leah – Still Waiting For Redemption

Kathy Escobar – Pain Relief Not Pain Removal

Ellen Haroutinian - December Synchroblog: Jesus Came: Did You Get What You Expected?

Please join the conversation. Your thoughts and experiences in this are welcome. Look for the "__ comments" link below to leave your comments.

The Christmas Miracle

2011-12-24T14:27:00.000-05:00

Christmas, Helen Siegl 1990, Philadelphia

We who must die demand a miracle.

How could the Eternal do a temporal act,

The Infinite become a finite fact?

Nothing can save us that is possible:

We who must die demand a miracle.

(from “For The Time Being”

W. H. Auden)

In last week’s post, I asked: “in a world suffused with miracle and mystery, what do we make of the incarnation, the assertion that God came to earth in the form of a baby?” There are plenty of people who accept the ample evidence the Jesus was a real person, a man of surprising insight and influence, but stop short of the idea that he was more than that: the son of God, born of a virgin, “God with us,” as the prophets predicted hundreds of years earlier.

Really, no matter how many times we hear the story, no matter how committed we are to the truth of the gospel reports, who could ever claim to understand the idea of God becoming human? The idea of life itself, breath filling us, then suddenly gone, is a mystery no one can fully understand. God in that breath? The power of God in helpless human form?

C. S. Lewis called the incarnation “the grand miracle”:

“One is very often asked at present whether we could not have a Christianity stripped, or, as people who ask it say, ‘freed’ from its miraculous elements, a Christianity with the miraculous elements suppressed. Now, it seems to me that precisely the one religion in the world, or at least the only one I know, with which you could not do that is Christianity . . the Christian story is precisely the story of one grand miracle, the Christian assertion being that what is beyond all space and time, which is uncreated, eternal, came into Nature, into human nature, descended into His own universe, and rose again, bringing Nature up with Him. It is precisely one great miracle. If you take that away there is nothing specifically Christian left. . . .

The Nativity, Jean Charlot, 1943 Mexico

“Just as every natural event exhibits the total character of the natural universe at a particular point and space of time, so every miracle exhibits the character of the Incarnation. Now, if one asks whether that central grand miracle in Christianity is itself probable or improbable, of course, quite clearly you cannot be applying Hume's kind of probability. You cannot mean a probability based on statistics according to which the more often a thing has happened, the more likely it is to happen again . . . Certainly the Incarnation cannot be probable in that sense. It is of its very nature to have happened only once. But then it is of the very nature of the history of this world to have happened only once; and if the Incarnation happened at all, it is the central chapter of that history. It is improbable in the same way in which the whole of nature is improbable, because it is only there once, and will happen only once."

The mystery of the incarnation, to me, is not so much that of the virgin birth, the dozens of prophecies fulfilled, the angel announcements to Mary, Joseph, shepherds. I know there are many who insist that what we see is what we get. Nature, science, provable fact, that’s all there is, and all there’s going to be.

For me, there’s too much that explanation can’t explain. Science is great, but only goes so far. Reason is a good thing, but I’ve seen how far short reason often lands. Explain the color of a sunset as much as you want – why does the beauty of those colors speak so deeply to our hearts? Show me the math that explains musical theory: why do certain sounds make me homesick for someplace I’ve never been?

Of all the mysteries I wonder over, here’s the big one, as Lewis said, “the grand miracle”: the son of God, himself part of God in a way we can’t explain, chose to come to earth as a baby, helpless, tiny, powerless, and aligned himself with the poorest of the poor, an occupied people, pressed down by the brutality of the Roman military engine. The Word that spoke the universe into being – whatever that means, however it happened – that Word agree to be born as an outcast, a displaced person, in a time of great hardship, in a land with little freedom.

The Nativity, Frank Allen Humphrey, England

Writing to the Philippians, Paul said: “In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus: who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage; rather, he made himself nothing, by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness.”

There’s the grand miracle: he used his power to divest himself of it, made himself nothing, the poorest of the poor, to show us another avenue to peace, to freedom, to joy, and to take on our age-old enemy, death, in a way that only God himself could do.

And invites us into that reality. Imagine Paul saying this: “Have the same mindset as Christ Jesus . . .”

I can understand rules: do this, don’t do that.

I can understand liturgy, prayers to say on what occasion.

But God with us? God a baby, hunted by Herod, passed from hand to hand?

Nativity, Sadoa Watanabe, 1965, Japan

God divested of power, influence, comfort, reputation?

And for what – for pompous Pharisees, who spat in his face?

For scurvy lepers, who begged to be healed, then ran for home, forgetting to say thank-you?

For a conscience-less thief, ridiculing him from the cross beside him?

For all the generations of defamers, accusers, angry agnostics, cynical skeptics?

I think of my own paltry attempts at love, and how I respond when my efforts are rejected.

I think of my own small investments in peace, kindness, justice, healing, and how discouraged I get when the investments don’t yield immediate rewards.

I think of my own small sacrifices. Hours spent reading a picture book for the millionth time. Weekends spent sharing a bathroom with a dozen middle school girls. Summer evenings singing crazy songs with a bunch of kids in a hot urban neighborhood.

And for what?

Was it sacrifice at all? Or was it a chance to be with people I loved, to share life with people I cared about?

Was Christ’s birth, life, time on earth, a sacrifice? Or was it an explosive, humbling expression of love on a level we’ll never understand?

As I surround myself with Christmas, I’m mindful of the words of the friend who seemed to understand Jesus best:

Nativity, Yo Iwashita, Japan

"This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters. If anyone has material possessions and sees a brother or sister in need but has no pity on them, how can the love of God be in that person? Dear children, let us not love with words or speech but with actions and in truth." (I John 3).

I pray Christ’s grand miracle be seen in the miracle of our own love for each other, a love pressed down, overflowing, generous, merciful, kind beyond reason.

May Christ’s miraculous love be yours this Christmas season!

Feel free to share your Christmas thoughts and greetings. Look for the "__ comments" link below.

Common Miracles

2011-12-18T09:38:00.000-05:00

Orthodox icons

The commonplace miracle:

that so many common miracles take place.

The usual miracles:

invisible dogs barking

in the dead of night.

One of many miracles:

a small and airy cloud

is able to upstage the massive moon.

Several miracles in one:

an alder is reflected in the water

and is reversed from left to right

and grows from crown to root

and never hits bottom

though the water isn't deep.

A run-of-the-mill miracle:

winds mild to moderate

turning gusty in storms.

A miracle in the first place:

cows will be cows.

Next but not least:

just this cherry orchard

from just this cherry pit.

A miracle minus top hat and tails:

fluttering white doves.

A miracle (what else can you call it):

the sun rose today at three fourteen a.m.

and will set tonight at one past eight.

A miracle that's lost on us:

the hand actually has fewer than six fingers

but still it's got more than four.

A miracle, just take a look around:

the inescapable earth.

An extra miracle, extra and ordinary:

the unthinkable

can be thought.

"Miracle Fair,"Wislawa Szymborska

The world is suffused with miracles. Some can be explained – almost - by discussion of dna, bacteria, electrons, gravity. But look behind those and there’s the miraculous again: what holds atoms together? What determines how they operate? Each question opens new avenues of mystery. The deeper you go, the more perplexing.

Subatomic physics reveals an invisible world where a nearby observer can bend outcomes, where energy loops in ways no one can explain, where everything is separate, yet everything connected – a world that easily fulfills the definition of miracle: “not explicable by natural or scientific laws . . . highly improbable or extraordinary.”

The more I read of quarks and string theory, the more I’m reminded of Colossians 1: 16-17: “For by him were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible . . .he is before all things, and by him all things are held together.”

7th century icon from Sinai

Look from the small to the large: we can explain the miracle of sun, moon, seasons- almost. But who can explain the miracle of precision that holds it all in tension? What miracle, or series of miracles, produced the set of realities described as the anthropic principle, or the “goldilocks enigma”? The composition of earth’s atmosphere, strength of the earth’s magnetic field, earth’s place in the solar system, in the galaxy, the color of the sun, the speed of orbits . . . those are just some of the factors which must be exactly right in order for our life to exist on earth.

We live on a privileged planet in a privileged solar system in a privileged galaxy in a privileged universe – a level of privilege not explicable by natural or scientific law.

According to Stephen Hawking, the level of “coincidence” necessary to explain the fine-tuning of the universe for human life is like teaching a pack of monkeys to type then waiting for them to produce a Shakespearean sonnet. “The remarkable fact is that the values of these numbers seem to have been very finely adjusted to make possible the development of life…”

A clock-work understanding of a deterministic, rationally-explained universe dissolves as scientists stare with wonder at the meticulous design embedded in everything from dna to gravitational pull to the workings of the human eye. On the deepest level, it’s all miracle: inexplicable, improbable, extraordinary. Einstein repeatedly marveled at just this:

“The most incomprehensible thing about the universe is that it is comprehensible.”
“You find it strange that I consider the comprehensibility of the world as a miracle or as an eternal mystery. Well, a priori, one should expect a chaotic world, which cannot be grasped by the mind in any way…

“The scientists’ religious feeling takes the form of a rapturous amazement at the harmony of natural law, which reveals an intelligence of such superiority that, compared with it, all the systematic thinking and acting of human beings is an utterly insignificant reflection.”

Ethiopian nativity, from The Road to Bethleham

The natural world, to many who know it best, is suffused with miracle. And beyond the natural world are miracles of another kind: What would compel people in one nation to extend kindness to people in another? What extraordinary motivation would prompt individuals to benefit those they don’t know, have never seen, at cost to their own tribe, own family, own comfort? Forgiveness, mercy, generosity, the idea of justice – who can explain them? Where do they come from?

Christopher Hitchens, author of God is Not Great, was much in the news this week as he lost his life to cancer. He was famous for insisting, over and over, that faith is irrational, atheism “the only position that leaves me with no cognitive dissonance.” Yet again and again, he stumbled over the inexplicable as he spoke of human dignity, beauty, love. “Distrust compassion; prefer dignity for yourself and others. Don't be afraid to be thought arrogant or selfish. Picture all experts as if they were mammals. Never be a spectator of unfairness or stupidity. . . . Do not live for others any more than you would expect others to live for you.”

If we are all mammals, even language is a miracle. The idea of fairness is a miracle as well. Where does it come from? What is it’s basis? The possibility of dignity, beauty, love . . . those, if we stop to think, are inexplicable mysteries we too often take for granted.

In a world suffused with miracle and mystery, what do we make of the incarnation, the assertion that God came to earth in the form of a baby? I’ve had friends, alarmed or amused at the Christian faith, who’ve found the idea of a virgin birth a particularly strange idea. But isn’t any birth, in its way, strange? Hard to imagine, mysterious, miraculous. If there’s an intelligence and power holding quarks in motion, fine-tuning the distance between planets in orbit, surely an unexplained pregnancy is a small thing to manage?

C. S. Lewis called the incarnation "the grand miracle," the miracle that explains all others. As I look toward Christmas, I give thanks for that miracle, but also for the daily miracles: the four bluebirds watching me from the feeders outside my window, the dusting of white on the ragged front lawn, the bright wide expanse of sky, and the unseen loving presence that tuned the universe and holds its quarks in motion.

Your thoughts and experience in this are welcome. Look for the "__ comments" link below.

Voice in the Wilderness

2011-12-11T08:11:00.000-05:00

St. John in the Wilderness,
Geertgen tot Sint Jans

If we really want to pray,

we must first learn to listen,

for in silence of the heart,

God speaks.

— Mother Teresa of Culcutta

Is wilderness a place of exile, or a period of preparation?

Is it a time of punishment, or a season of promised rest?

Is it a barren burden to be suffered, or a beauty to be longed for?

Advent is always a puzzle. We wait for the lovely story of God’s light shining in the darkness, but read the unsettling texts of John the Baptist’s call in the wilderness. We dream back to a silent village and the inescapable angel song, while around us the pace is faster and faster, the noise and distraction louder, always louder.

As we struggle to keep up, as we make our lists and check them more than twice, somewhere inside we know there is something we’re missing. Something that has nothing to do with tinsel, or cookies, or the carefully decorated tree.

In Matthew 11 and Luke 7, Jesus, reminding the crowd of John’s time in the wilderness, asked “what did you go out into the wilderness to see? A reed swayed by the wind? If not, what did you go out to see? A man dressed in fine clothes? No, those who wear expensive clothes and indulge in luxury are in palaces.”

Walter Bruggemann, in Journey to the Common Good, as well as in sermons and essays, describes the wilderness as a place to experience God’s alternative kingdom. God invited his people out of Egypt, the pharoah’s kingdom, into the wilderness, where he showed them his provision and protection.

In the wilderness, God heard and cared for weeping Hagar, a slave woman with no status and no defender. In the wilderness he met and ministered to Elijah, the fearless prophet who faced down bloody King Ahab and the prophets of Ba’al, then collapsed in exhaustion beneath a broom bush and prayed that he would die.

Jesus prepared for ministry in the wilderness, faced temptation in the wilderness, and demonstrated God’s provision by feeding thousands in the wilderness.

Brueggemann points to text after text that call God’s people to step away from their dependence on armies, wealth, stockpiles of food, economic maneuvering:

“Thus says the Lord: Do not let the wise boast in their wisdom, do not let the mighty boast in their might, do not let the wealthy boast in their wealth; but let those who boast boast in this, that they understand and know me, that I am the Lord; I act with steadfast love, justice and righteousness in the earth, for in these things I delight, says the Lord.” Jeremiah :23-24.

St. John in the Wilderness, Thomas Cole

The people who went out to see John the Baptist in the wilderness went to see if another way of life was possible. As Jesus pointed out, if it was the status quo of power and wealth they were seeking, they would have gone somewhere else.

But now, December 2011, here in the outer suburbs of Philadelphia, there is little wilderness nearby. And no voice that I can hear offering an alternative way.

I pause as I type that. The other night I sat in a Quaker meeting house with a small band of local Occupy Wall Street supporters. One young man spoke with great feeling about a desire for a culture based on something other than selfishness and hoarding. He had read about indigenous gift economies, in which surplus was dispersed through celebrations and lavish sharing of wealth. He was grieving a culture where money is the prime motivator, where value is assigned by net worth, where work is done for a meager paycheck rather than for the love of the task.

He was describing the kingdom Jesus came to offer. The kingdom of freedom, rather than enslavement. Of generosity, rather than scarcity. Or love and kindness and welcome, rather than fearful protection of boundaries and anxious exercise of power.

And yet – here is the great grief to me – the Christian church, as it presents itself in this place and time, stands firmly with the pharoic kingdom, the kingdom of scarcity, and power, and fear. So much so that those who stand outside consider any statement of faith an act of aggression, or exclusion.

Thomas Merton, a Jesuit monk, wrote “There must be a time of day when the man who has to speak falls very silent. . . .There must be a time when the man of prayer goes to pray as if it were the first time in his life he had ever prayed; when the man of resolutions puts his resolutions aside as if they had all been broken, and he learns a different wisdom: distinguishing the sun from the moon, the stars from the darkness, the sea from the dry land, and the night sky from the shoulder of a hill.” - From No Man is an Island

My one little patch of wilderness is a overgrown margin around a small pond not far away. As I wander there, watching for blue heron, smiling at the marsh hawk that flies low above the grasses, I find myself praying, and wondering. What would the voice sound like, clear enough, and firm enough, to call a self-satisfied, self-righteous church back to the wilderness? Where is the voice kind enough, convincing enough, to speak to those who have written off the Christian faith because they’ve see so little compassion, so little mercy, so little wisdom?

Elijah in the Wilderness, Frederic Leighton

As I think, and grieve, and pray, I’m reminded that across generations, across continents, God has preserved a faithful witness. Elijah. John the Baptist. Tertullian. Perpetua. Jerome. Patrick. Monica. Aidan. Francis. Clare. Mother Theresa. The list could go on and on: faithful voices that stood outside their cultures and pointed the way to something very different. I’m thankful, beyond thankful, for those I’ve had the privilege of knowing, for the faithful voices that dared to call me toward the wilderness.

I’m thinking of one voice that crossed my path when I was wandering in a particular season of wilderness. Gene Denham, a leader with Students Christian Fellowship and Scripture Union in Jamaica, came to stay in our creaking old house in West Philly for several weeks when I was a grad student and young mother. Gene was not much older than me, but stronger in every way. She had known deep poverty in Jamaica, had been shuttled from one meager household to another, had experienced great inequity and great injustice. Yet she had a personal knowledge of God as loving father so strong it propelled her work with children and youth all over Jamaica and motivated her to travel to share her work and vision.

I remember the insightful questions she asked, the penetrating observations, the energy she invested in everything she did, the buoyant laughter. I had begun to wonder if it was possible to live as a just, free, faithful follower of Christ. Yes, Gene said. And gave me just a glimpse as we shopped Philly porch sales together, gathering shoes and clothes she would take home to Kingston for her mother and sisters, and as we talked together over tea in the time she had between speaking engagements and visits to donors.

Gene died in her forties of an aneurysm on a much-planned trip to South Africa. At her funeral, over three thousand Jamaicans gathered to sing, dance, share stories of her influence and extravagant generosity of time, energy, and resources, and to pray for courage to be faithful voices in God’s service in the way that Gene had been. Traveling to Jamaica several years after her death, I was moved to meet many of her friends, and to be included in their circle of friendship just because I, too, had known and been shaped by Gene.

Not long before she died, reading the story of John the Baptist, Gene wrote in her journal: “A revolutionary messenger with a revolutionary message for revolutionary times. Lord let my life this year show a 100% revolution towards holiness so I can be completely your messenger in every way.”

Yesterday was my birthday, a day of celebration and thanksgiving. Today, as I look toward the year ahead, I wonder what kind of revolution in me would allow me to be God’s messenger more fruitfully. And what kind of revolution, in all of us, would allow us to hear more faithfully the voice of God, calling us to, and through, the wilderness.

Israelites Passing through the Wilderness,
William West

A voice of one calling:

“In the wilderness prepare
the way for the LORD;
make straight in the desert
a highway for our God.
Every valley

shall be raised up,
every mountain and hill

made low;
the rough ground

shall become level,
the rugged places a plain.
And the glory of the Lord

will be revealed,
and all people

will see it together.
For the mouth of the Lord

has spoken.” (Isaiah 40)

I wonder: Whose voices have called you to, and through, the wilderness? And how has wilderness, for you, been preparation, rest, a chance to see God's provision? Your thoughts and experience in this are welcome. Look for the "__ comments" link below.

Metanoia

2011-12-04T10:11:00.001-05:00

John the Baptist
Old Saint Mary's Cathedral
San Francisco

Advent is a time of preparation. In the liturgical church, John the Baptist is the voice of that challenge to get ready. The gospel texts describe him calling “Prepare the way." "Make straight the path." "Repent and be baptized.”

“Repent” is one of those words badly flattened in translation. The original word is “metanoia” – “meta” and “noia.” “Noia” is easy: “mind.”

“Meta” is harder. It’s a prefix we see in “metanarrative” or “metaphysics.” It can be translated “beyond,” or “after.” But the meaning seems larger, more like “encompassing,” or “like this, only bigger.”

So “metanarrative” is the bigger story that contains, and explains, other narratives. “Metaphysics” is the bigger vision that contains, and explains, the physical world.

And “metanoia”? Literal attempts at translation read it as “a change of mind.” But it’s more like moving from a small mind, our own, to the “meta mind,” the larger mind that encompasses ours: God’s own.

So what John calls for is to let our small minds go, and find our place in God’s. Or to let our own agendas go, and find ourselves in God’s. To set aside our own blindered sight, and ask God to help us see his larger vision.

C. S. Lewis, struggling to explain this larger view of repentence, put it this way:

“In other words, fallen man is not simply an imperfect creature who needs improvement: he is a rebel who must lay down his arms. Laying down your arms, surrendering, saying you are sorry, realising that you have been on the wrong track and getting ready to start life over again from the ground floor—that is the only way out of a "hole." This process of surrender—this movement full speed astern—is what Christians call repentance. . . . It means unlearning all the self-conceit and self-will that we have been training ourselves into for thousands of years. It means undergoing a kind of death." (Mere Christianity)

We like to think of repentance as something we can check off, a quick confession, a grudging acknowledgement of guilt, then on to other things. But metanoia is much bigger, more lasting. As Lewis says, it’s a kind of death, letting go of our own great ideas, our own fiercely held prejudice, our own self-importance. It’s a willingness to take on a less selfish way of living, a less self-absorbed way of seeing.

The difficulty, of course, is that we can’t do it ourselves. We see what we see. We are who we are. We hold tightly to our smallness. Conditioned by our experience, our upbringing, our temperament, the voices of our culture, our families, our favorite tv shows, we are locked into our own way of knowing, and trapped in our own ways of living.

The first step in “metanoia” is to recognize that, and to ask for help, to ask for the Holy Spirit to move in us, through us, around us, showing us as we really are, showing us what we were made to be.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, in his Letters and Papers from Prison, written not long before he was executed by the Nazis, puzzled over this:

"Christ Ready to Embrace the Penitent Soul"
Isabel Piczek 1982, St. Norbert Catholic Church
Orange, California

“One must completely abandon any attempt to make something of oneself, whether it be a saint, or a converted sinner, or a churchman (a so-called priestly type!), a righteous man or an unrighteous one, a sick man or a healthy one. . . I mean living unreservedly in life’s duties, problems, successes and failures, experiences and perplexities. In doing so we throw ourselves completely into the arms of God, taking seriously, not our own sufferings, but those of God in the world – watching with Christ in Gethsemane. That, I think, is faith; that is metanoia . . .”

So, on a bright December day, I find myself wondering what it would be like to live “unreservedly” in the perplexities and struggle of a concentration camp. I wonder what Bonhoeffer saw, as he trusted himself into the arms of God. And I consider my own ongoing metanoia, the continuing call to prepare the way.

Where do I need a change of heart, a change of mind, a larger vision?

Hesychius, one of the early church fathers, wrote, "We will travel the road of metanoia correctly if, as we begin to give attention to the spirit, we combine humility with watchfulness . . .”

There’s that word again: watchful.

My thoughts turn to the Ignatian prayer of examen, a discipline of looking back, to see where God has been at work, to see where my own pride, or selfishness, has gotten in the way.

Sitting in God’s presence, I sift back through my day, and ask:

“Was my motivation love, or pride?”
“Was I really listening, or just waiting for my turn to speak?”
“Did I use my time well, or wastefully?”
“Was that opinion of mine a reflection of your heart, God, or of my own preferred way of seeing things?”

Venerable Matt Talbot
Maria Orr, 2010, Michigan
Chapel of the Penitent

The goal isn’t to correct myself, or to justify my behavior. It’s to see myself honestly, which is only possible when I’m reminded of God’s love: “do you think lightly of the riches of His kindness and tolerance and patience, not knowing that the kindness of God leads you to repentance / metanoia?"(2Corinthians 7:10).

Here’s the examen (in the slightly strange language found in almost any explanation of it):

The first Point is to give thanks to God our Lord for the benefits received.

The second, to ask grace to know our sins and cast them out.

The third, to ask account of our soul from the hour that we rose up to the present Examen, hour by hour, or period by period: and first as to thoughts, and then as to words, and then as to acts.

The fourth, to ask pardon of God our Lord for the faults.

The fifth, to purpose amendment with His grace.

I have friends who see repentance in any form as a very negative thing, who think that acknowledging wrong is bad for the psyche, that confession of any kind is negative and harmful.

I find it deeply comforting. I’m not perfect. My attitude, my thoughts, my words, my actions. None are perfect. Not even close.

I do things badly. I mess up. I harm others. I let people down. I hold fiercely to my own ideas, and react with frustration when asked to explain them. I harbor resentments. I procrastinate when prompted to reach out in ways that might cost me time, or risk my emotional safety.

And God still loves me. Still surrounds me with his kindness. Still calls me to deeper wisdom, clearer vision, more consistent faithfulness. Forgives my failings, calls me to change, and gives me grace to take the next step forward.

So I ask for grace to move on toward wholeness and holiness, to be more like Christ, to inhabit the callings we are all called to: agents of reconciliation. Light in a dark world. People who love in the way we’ve been loved.

And I wait for metanoia: a change of heart, of mind, of life. I trust myself to the mercy greater than myself.

Most merciful God, we confess that we have sinned against you in thought, word, and deed, by what we have done, and by what we have left undone. We have not loved you with our whole heart; we have not loved our neighbors as ourselves. We are truly sorry and we humbly repent, for the sake of your Son Jesus Christ, have mercy on us and forgive us; that we may delight in your will, and walk in your ways, to the glory of your Name. Amen. (Book of Common Prayer)

The Holy Spirit and the Arms of God, Maria Orr, 2010,
Chapel of the Penitent, St. Mary Magdelene Church, Kentwood, Michigan

Please join the conversation. Your thoughts and experiences in this are welcome. Look for the "__ comments" link below to leave your comments.

Advent I: What I'm Waiting For

2011-11-26T10:39:00.002-05:00

Exiles in Babylon, L. Castelli

2700 years ago, in a period of disruption and deepening injustice, prophetic voices spoke out against dishonest leaders, corrupt business practices, oppression of strangers, misuse of workers. They warned of famine, drought, barren land, social upheaval, danger from all sides. The situation they described was bleak; the days beyond, they said, would be harder still.

But somewhere in the future, beyond the hardship and destruction, they foresaw a new leader, a righteous king, someone who would bring healing instead of harm, light instead of darkness. They spoke of a future day of justice, of plenty, when even the poor would have their own land to farm, their own homes to live in, when those who had been hungry would be filled with good things, when those who had oppressed would be brought low, and equity restored.

Hundreds of years later,in another time of disruption and injustice, in a time of almost global corruption and oppression, new voices spoke: angel voices, saying “The time is now.” “The promised one is coming.”

And a young woman from the edge, a powerless no one, found herself waiting as the angel’s voice took shape within her, then gave words herself to what she knew was coming:

Virgin of the Annunciation,
Fra Angelico, Florence, 1400s

“From now on all generations will call me blessed,

for the Mighty One has done great things for me—

holy is his name.

His mercy extends to those who fear him,

from generation to generation.

He has performed mighty deeds with his arm;

he has scattered those who are proud in their inmost thoughts.

He has brought down rulers from their thrones

but has lifted up the humble.

He has filled the hungry with good things

but has sent the rich away empty.”

Her son Jesus - the promised child, the “word made flesh,” strange man of love and kindness who faced down the powerful, welcomed the outcast, healed the sick, raised the dead – Jesus fulfilled some of the prophecies made, but not all. He brought healing, but not justice. He restored individuals, but not nations. He calmed the sea, but left the desert places dry.

He spoke of his kingdom as here, but coming. Now, and not yet.

So some rejected him. He was not the king they’d been waiting for.

And some accepted the partial kingdom and assumed that was all there was: individual salvation. Personal healing. A promise of eternal life, somewhere far away. The rest that was promised – justice, restoration, redemption of nations, lands, all things – too good to be true. Leave it for heaven.

Advent, these days of waiting for Christ to come, of remembering the weeks before his birth, is a time of longing. “Come thou long awaited Jesus, Come to set thy people free.” “Oh come, oh come, Emmanuel, and ransom captive Israel.”

We smother the waiting, the longing, in hurry: gift lists, parties to attend. Decorations, Christmas cards.

And we lose the connection between this time of disruption, unrest, injustice, and the promises made so many years ago.

Nativity, Fritz Eichenberg, 1954

But when we pause, we find the longing lingers: for a way of life more satisfying, more fair. For leaders more concerned for those they lead than their own financial gain. For a wise use of resources, that leaves the land more healthy than it started. For real community, real connections, honest conversation.

What am I waiting for this Christmas? What am I longing for?

I’m longing for those who claim the name of Christ to live as agents of his kingdom. There are some, faithful followers, using their gifts, resources, time, energy, to demonstrate the kingdom Jesus told us was unfolding among us. There are others who promote the agendas of greed, environmental harm, penalties to the poor, more and more power to the rich.

We pray, week after week, in churches around the globe, “thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven,” then hurry on our way with no thought of what that might mean, now, here, in this place we call home.

Isaiah prophesied seven hundred years before Christ:

   “The Spirit of the Lord is on me,
   because he has anointed me
   to proclaim good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners
   and recovery of sight for the blind,
to set the oppressed free,
    to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”

Jesus, standing in the synagogue at the start of his years of visible ministry, read that passage, then told all listening: “Today this is fulfilled in your hearing.”

But not all prisoners and oppressed were set free. Not all blind recovered sight. The poor are still waiting to hear the good news.

Jesus healing a leper, sketch by Rembrandt

I’m waiting for that. Longing for that.

And I’m waiting for those of us who follow Christ to live out the knowledge that while Jesus met, and meets, with people one by one, the intent was always to knit them into communities, families, the inter-woven, interdependent body of Christ, a visible community of light that extends around the globe, that reaches across time.

“Love each other,” Jesus said, again and again. And showed how to do it: touching lepers. Eating with sell-outs to the Roman regime. Allowing known prostitutes to touch him. Calmly crossing divides of race, religion, gender, to welcome and restore those who were rejected.

That’s what the church is supposed to look like. I see glimpses, now and then. But for the most part, the church is balkanized by race, politics, income level. Divided again and again over things like women in leadership, forms of baptism, liturgical nuance, exegesis of Genesis and Revelations.

Love each other? We look past each other – amputated body parts, ineffective in every way.

I long for Christians, myself included, to be real reflections of Christ. And I long for the church to be the church he had in mind. His body, a place of welcome, love, healing. I confess my own failings in these, and long for a community that will challenge me to do better.

And yes – I long for, wait for, pray for Christ to come. I pray for him to come, to me, in me, through me, every day. And I pray for him to come to his church, his people, to be visible, to be known.

But I pray, too, for him to come again as the righteous judge, the king of glory, the great I AM. To set this mess right. To restore justice. To set the prisoners free.

What am I waiting for, this advent season? I’m waiting for the fulfillment of the vision of the prophets so long ago, working toward it now, longing for it later:

He will teach us his ways,
so that we may walk in his paths. . .
He will judge between many peoples
   and will settle disputes for strong nations far and wide.
They will beat their swords into plowshares
   and their spears into pruning hooks.
Nation will not take up sword against nation,
   nor will they train for war anymore.
Everyone will sit under their own vine
   and under their own fig tree,
and no one will make them afraid,
   for the Lord Almighty has spoken.

Peaceable Kingdom, Fritz Eichenberg, 1950

This post is part of a monthly synchroblog, a group of bloggers posting monthly on the same theme. This month's theme: Jesus Is Coming: What Do You Expect? Other entries are listed below:

ron cole at the weary pilgrim – advent: reimagining everything
liz dyer at grace rules – expect the unexpected
sarah styles bessey at emerging mummy – in which i’m expecting something from advent
miz melly at perchance to dream – parousia
kathy escobar at the carnival in my head – present, humble, vulnerable
David Perry at Visual Theology – Advent As A Mirror of Possibility
Christine Sine at Godspace – Jesus Is Coming What Do We Expect?
Liz VerHage at Living Theology
Sally Coleman at Sally’s Journey – Come Spirit of Advent
Jeremy Myers at Till He Comes – Jesus Is Returning Today
Glenn Hager – Antithetical Advent
Tammy Carter at Blessing The Beloved – His Gift … the way of escape!
Ellen Haroutunian – Remember Our Story
Mihee Kim-Kort – Advent Expectations: Keep Awake
Wendy McCaig – We’re Expecting A Baby
John Reid at Blog One Another – Undiscovered Advent: The Second Coming of Christ
Dave Wainscott – For Advent I’m Expecting What I Desire and What I Deserve

Please join the conversation. Your thoughts and experiences in this are welcome. Look for the "__ comments" link below to leave your comments.

All Comfort

2011-11-20T09:15:00.004-05:00

from Drawings by Van Gogh

By expenditure of hope,
Intelligence, and work,
You think you have it fixed.
It is unfixed by rule.
Within the darkness, all
Is being changed, and you
Also will be changed.
. . .
Nothing
Is given that is not
Taken, and nothing taken
That was not first a gift.

I had thought to write this week on thanksgiving. I had been mulling over a great quote about the subversive nature of gratitude, and had ideas about where that might lead.

But it’s been a difficult few weeks. An email from a friend asking for prayer for painful dynamics in a over-burdened family. A facebook post, then email, from another friend trying to serve a beleaguered community, beleaguered herself by endless health concerns and the resultant financial weight. A call about someone I love, back in the hospital, battling unrelenting mental illness.

Weave through that the endless headlines about child sex abuse in State College. At every new revelation, I grieve again. After my years of doing all I could to safeguard the young people in my care, I find myself sick at heart at the thought of all those men protecting their jobs, their reputations, their programs, at the expense of children who most needed their protection.

Add alarm and grief at the fracking debacle unfolding in the hills and valleys of our beautiful state. As participant in organizations concerned with the health of our water and air, I receive emails with updates, too many updates. A fracking blow-out in one town. More dead cows in another. A pond bubbling with methane. More children with unexplained, scary symptoms. And I find myself talking with people affected. Moms afraid for their families. Farmers worried their safe, organic crops are no longer safe, but not sure what to do.

Ten days ago I came across a passage I had never really seen. I’m sure I’d read it, but it hadn’t registered. 2 Corinthians 1:3-7:

Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God. For just as the sufferings of Christ flow over into our lives, so also through Christ our comfort overflows. If we are distressed, it is for your comfort and salvation; if we are comforted, it is for your comfort, which produces in you patient endurance of the same sufferings we suffer. And our hope for you is firm, because we know that just as you share in our sufferings, so also you share in our comfort.

It’s kind of an extreme passage – with nine uses of the word comfort in one short paragraph.

That passage came to mind again when the phone rang last Sunday with word of another grief. A young man we knew through involvement with our urban partner church died of a brain aneurysm early Sunday morning. He was a senior in college, a hard-working kid determined to do his best. No drugs, no alcohol, no foul play. And yet he’s dead, and a whole community is grieving.

What does comfort have to say in light of a loss like that?

What does it mean that God is “God of all comfort”?

It was part of my job, for over a decade, to say the right thing in times of trouble, to kids, families, young adult leaders. But sometimes there is no right thing to say. Sometimes the best we can do is sit in the dark of difficulty and despair, grieving, with those who are grieving. And wondering, with those who are wondering: Why? How can this be right?

In fact, it’s not right. There’s nothing “right” about our young friend's death. It’s an outrage. As the abuse case at State College is an outrage. As fracking, as it’s currently done, is an outrage.

Yet, here’s the puzzling thing: none of this is a surprise to God. The lightening strike that shattered our friend Emily, three years ago, wasn’t a surprise to God.

We live in a battered, broken world. Death’s grip is strong, and pain is inescapable.

We work hard to build our defenses: If I do the right thing. If I live the right way. If I pray the right prayers. If I avoid all risk.

Or, as Wendell Berry says in his Sabbath poem, “By expenditure of hope, Intelligence, and work, You think you have it fixed. It is unfixed by rule.”

Christ in Gethsemane, Michael D. O'brien, Canada

Sometimes I wish I knew Greek. Some words for suffering in Paul’s letter to the Corinthians suggest persecution for the Christian faith. Others suggest any kind of anguish, distress or trouble.

In other places, even later in this same chapter, Paul suggests some of those kinds of distress: lashings, beatings, stoning, shipwreck, imprisonment, hunger, betrayal by coworkers and friends.

And yet he dares to say God is able to comfort in the midst of all suffering, that in fact, as the suffering grows, the comfort grows. As suffering “abounds,” comfort overflows to others.

Again – what’s this word “comfort”? It brings to mind “comfortable” – which has little to do with the kind of grief and suffering Paul is describing. It’s not “comfortable” to experience loss, illness, injustice. To speak of “comfort” in the face of great loss feels a little simplistic, maybe even insulting.

Some words are sadly flattened in translation, and “comfort” is definitely one of those.

Parakaleo (the verb form) carries all of this:

to call to one's side, call for, summon

to address, speak to in exhortation, entreaty, comfort, instruction

to beg, entreat, beseech

to strive to appease by entreaty

to console, to encourage and strengthen by consolation, to comfort

Paraklesis (the noun) suggests exhortation, admonition, encouragement, consolation, comfort, solace; persuasive discourse, stirring address: instructive, admonitory, conciliatory, powerful hortatory discourse.

Even with all the defining words, we don’t quite get there. “Exhortation” and "hortatory discourse" sound kind of preachy. The real meaning is much deeper, more sympathetic. We don’t have a word for it. "Parakleo" suggests something that speaks to the deepest part of us, with insight and encouragement that goes far past words.

Maybe a better way to explain these words would be to say they’re drawn from the same root as "Paraklete", a word used to describe the Holy Spirit: advocate, helper, encourager, consoler.

Why struggle to understand Greek words from a very old book? What help are they in the face of today’s sorrows?

Sometimes words fail. And our interpretations fail. But there’s something Paul is saying that he’s seen to be true: in our sorrow, as we open our hearts to God and to others, something happens that goes beyond words. God’s kindness, mercy, comfort, presence, fill us in ways we can’t explain. And as we wait with others in their grief, as we speak with others of their sorrow, that same comfort can move through us, overflow from us, filling others, bringing real comfort to us all.

“Within the darkness,” Berry says, “all Is being changed, and you / Also will be changed.”

Christ and Adam, Michael D. O'brien, Canada

In the dark places of grief, our simple answers are painfully stripped away. Our childish belief that we can control things melts.

And in the dark places of grief, if we call out to God, we can come to know him in a way far beyond words. We can feel his presence pressing in close – love, warmth, understanding, mercy, hope, peace. Those words are only hints of what transpires in those places of sorrow as God comes near and our defenses melt.

And in that place of darkness we are reshaped, into people who can grieve with others, hear the pain of others, call on God on behalf of others.

Sometimes, not always, we can become agents of that deep comfort God offers: his warmth can flow through our own burning hands. His love can be heard in our own words of blessing.

I don’t have space to tell of the times I’ve felt God’s presence in my own broken places, but I have. Sometimes through others – strangers, friends, family – calling to God on my behalf. Sometimes all alone, knees on hard floor, tears flowing, grace surrounding me with courage, hope, even joy.

And I don’t have space to tell of the times I’ve seen God move in others: melting icy places of bitterness. Lifting heavy loads of guilt. Speaking words of kindness and love past walls of doubt, anger, grief.

Nothing
Is given that is not
Taken, and nothing taken
That was not first a gift.

So I do come, despite the sadness of the day, to a place of thanksgiving. These lives that circle mine, these fragile, precious lives, these lives are gifts. Gifts given, taken. Thank you for these gifts.

The land I love and grieve for – mountains, valleys, rivers, streams. Beautiful, enduring, groaning. Gifts given. Thank you for these gifts.

And the deeper gift: the knowledge, beyond words, reason, questions, grief, that God is near. A gift I would give to others. The comfort from the God of all comfort. That, too, is a gift. Thank you.

Fracking Hysteria?

2011-11-13T08:43:00.000-05:00

When I was twelve or so, a camp counselor described me as “phlegmatic.” I had just put six arrows through an archery target's bull’s eye, and instead of jumping up and down, or screaming enthusiastically as some girls my age might have done, I silently went to pull the arrows out (in the proper way, left hand against the target, right firmly grasping the arrow), and handed the bow off to the next girl in line.

I wrote the word down and next time I was near a dictionary, I took a look. “Phlegmatic: adjective: (of a person) Having an unemotional and stolidly calm disposition.”

Well, maybe. I don’t resonate with the description, but it’s true that I’m not given to wild enthusiasm, tend not to worry much, and I’m rarely overcome by panic. I like a little drama now and then, but hysteria? Never. Not even close.

Hysteria has become the word of choice in describing those who express concern about fracking, hydraulic fracturing. Spend time on Shale Gas Coalition websites (boring, I agree, but someone has to do it) and you’ll find a consistent message:

Oil companies have been using hydraulic fracturing for 60 years.
Hydraulic fracturing is safe and effectively regulated.
Misrepresentations, hysteria and fear-mongering threaten this clean energy resource.

We live in an interesting time. In fact, the more I read, see, listen, think, the more convinced I am that the next few years will be long remembered as a watershed, or turning point. Where we’ll end up is still not clear, but it will be someplace very different from where we are right now.

The oil and gas industry has a great deal of money committed to preserving the status quo, reliance on fossil fuel, even though that fossil fuel is harder and harder to get, and extracted from more and more sensitive regions, in more and more untested and dangerous ways.

The industry could use its profits to lead the way into a different future, but instead is spending millions fending off criticism and concern about the current course. This is tragically true in Pennsylvania, which has no limit on campaign contributions. Donors from the oil and gas industry gave Governor Tom Corbett’s campaign over $1.6 million; more than a quarter of that was from individuals subsequently named to serve on his Marcellus Shale Commission. Another 1.9 million was given to people running for the state legislature.

Add in the money spent on TV spots promoting “clean energy and good jobs”, an army of high-priced lobbyists, and the military psy-ops hired to make sure the industry maintains control at small town meetings and it’s clear the industry is determined to have it’s way, no matter who objects, or why.

from the Gasland movie website

Yes – I know eyes glaze over at the mention of hydraulic fracturing. It’s complicated, it’s science (who wants to think about science?) and those hysterical fear-mongers are putting snail darters, or some other environmental nonsense, over energy and jobs. And we know how much we need energy and jobs.

But we need our health more. And clean water. And clean air. Not to mention democratic discusson, among real stakeholders, about what’s best for our both our environment and our economy.

While the natural gas industry has been drilling for gas for the past sixty years, the techniques that are the focus of the current controversy are much more recent, and still untested. Slick-water fracking (injecting a stew of chemicals to keep seams in the shale from closing) was first tried in 1997. Horizontal and multi-stage fracking (which extend fractures far beyond the initial drill site) were introduced in 2004.

So – it’s all safe, right? Not at all. For each concern raised, for each disaster that happens, the industry says “That has nothing to do with this,” “You can’t prove we’re responsible,” “That was a glitch, but we’ve solved that now.”

Problems? Books can, and will be, written. I did blog on this a bit back in September, but the more I know, the more concerned I am:

· Contaminated well water, either from mishandled fracking fluid, or from migration of fluids and methane through the fracture shale, causes headaches, rashes, dizziness, cancer, kidney failure, miscarriage. Pets and livestock have died. No count on how many wells have been contaminated so far. And no good research yet on what happens when the same contaminates find their way into larger drinking water supplie

Explosion near San Francisco

· Toxins that evaporate from the fracking ponds — heavy metals, non-biodegradable chemicals, radioactive substances — settle on farms, on growing food, on pastures, waterways. Gases and dusts lingering in the air cause asthma, headaches, itchy eyes, leukemia, other cancers.

· Methane migration into basements has caused explosions. “Blowouts”, well sites that explode from uncontrolled methane, have caused whole communities to be evacuated. Local volunteer fire companies are not prepared to handle these events, and are put at risk when they are called on to put out these fires.

· Whole streams have been killed from improper dumping of fracking fluids, or from toxins released by well site blowouts. Vegetation dies on contact.

· And remember those strange earthquakes last summer? In places that don’t normally have earthquakes? The natural gas industry says there’s no possibility that they’re connected, but just this week an oil industry newsletter publicized the headline: U.S. Government Confirms Link Between Earthquakes and Hydraulic Fracturing.

I could go on. And on. And on. About the Halliburton Loophole, the exemptions the industry has from clean air and clean water regulations, the maneuvering by the industry, in individual states and in the national arena, to cut regulation and defund regulatory agencies, the potential impact on tourism, farming, food and water supply.

This is an important month in the fracking world. And an important month for anyone in Pennsylvania, or the mid-Atlantic states. The Pennsylvania legislature is debating proposals from Governor Corbett’s Marcellus Shale Advisory Commission for regulating fracking in the state. The proposals don’t address questions of density, don’t acknowledge the limited research on a host of health questions, and don’t go far enough to protect citizens, the environment, or the over-loaded roads and municipal water systems. A bipartisan Citizens Marcellus Shale Commission has offered its own recommendations, which have so far been ignored. Concerned watchdog groups are asking for a complete ban on further wells until more research is completed.

from the Josh Fox documentary Gasland

At the same time, the Delaware Basin River Commission is preparing to lift a moratorium on drilling in the Delaware watershed. The water supply of over fifteen million people is at stake, including public water in New York City, Trenton, Philadelphia, and Wilmington. As a regional paper notes: "The rule-making process is technical and complicated, yet it must be tempered with one precaution: If a fracking spill or blowout or illegal dumping of waste fluid ends up contaminating the Delaware River, it might not be easy to contain. Shutting off the intake valves for the public water supply of millions of people is not an option."

Sandra Steingraber, a biologist, professor, author, poet, mother and environmental cancer survivor, spoke at the conference I attended last month, and offered a compelling analogy she’s used in other settings:

“Consider the drunk who has already cashed out his kid’s college fund, hocked the family heirlooms, burnt the furniture and terrified the dog. He’s beginning to grasp that he has a problem. And he’s also running out of whisky. He flirts with the idea of alcoholics anonymous. But wait. He suddenly discovers a fully loaded wine cellar buried deep beneath the basement of his house. Falling in love with his own cleverness, he begins to lay plans to blow up the foundation to get at it. His own family members hold an emergency meeting. What will they decide to do? Stay out of his way? Help him get the wine and regulate its consumption? Insist on overseeing the detonation of the basement? Or will they all join together and bar the way to the cellar steps?”

It’s time for intervention. And given the scale of the problem, it needs to be a big intervention. The gas industry is rolling out fracking plans around the globe; France has already banned the practice, and other states and countries are watching Pennsyvlania to see if the industry can be stopped, or regulated in some way that ensures the safety of people, water, and air.

Need more information? Here are some places to start::

o Fractracker

o No Fracking (a New York group, but scroll down on the site for a wealth of informative links)

Organizations working together? Here are a few of the biggest. There are dozens more:

o Clean Water Action

o Damascus Citizens

o Delaware Riverkeeper Network

o Earthjustice

o PA Campaign For Clean Water

o PennEnvironment

Want to do something right away?

o Email the president:

o Sign a petition:

o Contact your legislators:

o Or – in Pennsylvania - call Governor Corbett’s office, 717-787-2500, and ask him to declare a statewide moratorium on fracking.

The Loyalsock - a river at risk/ 2010

I’ll be participating in two protest events in the days ahead, one in State College on November 18, another at the Delaware River Basin Commission’s shale gas conference in Trenton on November 21.

Not because I’m hysterical. And not because I’m a fear-mongering activist.

But because I’ve seen the devastation of mystery illnesses – health lost to hidden dollars. I’d like to see less of those – not more.

Because I love streams, birds, cows, clean water, healthy food.

Because I want a say in the world we leave our children.

1. How much poison are you willing to eat for the success of the freemarket and global trade? Please name your preferred poisons. . . .

4. In the name of patriotism and the flag, how much of our beloved land are you willing to desecrate? List in the following spaces the mountains, rivers, towns, farms you could most readily do without.

5. State briefly the ideas, ideals, or hopes, the energy sources, the kinds of security, for which you would kill a child. Name, please, the children whomyou would be willing to kill.

(From “Questionnaire,” a poem by Wendell Berry)

Please join the conversation. Your thoughts and experiences in this are welcome. Look for the "__ comments" link below to leave your comments.

Limbaugh and the LRA

2011-11-06T09:50:00.001-05:00

What do you know about the LRA?

I first heard of the Lord’s Resistance Army a decade ago, when Bishop Ojwang and his wife Margaret visited our church to strengthen the partnership between the Church of the Good Samaritan and the Anglican Diocese of Kitgum in Northern Uganda.

The LRA was formed in 1985 by Joseph Kony, an irrational, often violent man. By early 2002, the year of the Ojwangs’ visit, he had cut a wide swath of misery through four countries of central Africa, crossing borders between Northern Uganda, Southern Sudan, the Central African Republic, and the Democratic Republic of Congo. His mode of operation: attack villages at night, abduct young boys and their early adolescent sisters, insist the new captives torture, dismember, then murder remaining relatives, burn whatever's left. Captives who didn’t comply immediately were tortured and killed; children who attempted to escape were killed by other children.

The Ojwangs were hoping to raise awareness of the tragedy unfolding in their region, and were looking for financial and prayer support. At the time, almost a million people were living in IDP camps (for Internally Displaced Persons) in Northern Uganda. Roads were impassable because of land mines and marauding bands. A once prosperous farming region was no longer yielding food, because the patterns of life were so disrupted.

Five years later, another priest from Kitgum visited our church, about the time we were learning of the Invisible Children. Someone in our youth group had seen the Invisible Children video about “night commuters” in Northern Uganda, tens of thousands of children living in fear of abduction, traveling miles from their villages each evening to sleep in relative safety in larger towns. We showed the video to our group and sat in tears as we watched the suffering of children an ocean away. One student asked if she could design a tee shirt to sell to raise money for the work of Invisible Children.

Our visitor, Rev. Wilson Kitara, then secretary of the Diocese of Kitgum, was able to offer his own perspective of the trouble in Kitgum, and told our youth group about the thousands of children the church sheltered every night, the ongoing work of providing food, medical care, and emotional and spiritual support to those children. Our group decided we would sell tee shirts and bracelets to support the work of Invisible Children, do what we could to share what we knew about the LRA and the night commuters, and find other ways to raise money for the Diocese of Kitgum in their work with the thousands of children affected.

Rev. Kitara invited our son, a recent college graduate, to come to Uganda to help write grant proposals, a continuing struggle for the short-staffed and underfunded Diocese of Kitgum, so that fall our church sent him off as a short-term missionary. He spent three months visiting IDP camps (at that point, swollen to hold almost two million displaced people), teaching computer skills to church staff and interested young adults, writing proposals and reports, and looking for ways our church could offer more support. He came home with a deep love for the people of Kitgum, some great ideas about continuing partnership, and a backpack full of bead necklaces the clergy wives had made for us to sell to raise money for school fees for the many children of the community.

Over the years we've continued to support and pray for the Diocese of Kitgum, raising money for the work there, selling the mothers’ bead necklaces, and joining a group called Resolve which has faithfully worked to raise awareness of the continuing tragedy of the LRA.

Through the advocacy of Resolve, Invisible Children, and others human rights groups, the LRA Disarmament and Northern Uganda Recovery Act was introduced to Congress in March of 2009 by five bi-partisan co-sponsors. Over the next year, the bill gained momentum and attention as activists made endless phone calls, lobbied representatives, and organized letter-writing campaigns. By the time the bill came to the Senate floor a year later, it had 65 Senators as cosponsors. It passed unanimously, then moved to the House of Representatives on May 13, 2010 with 202 Representatives as cosponsors. Again, it passed unanimously, and was signed into law by President Obama on May 24.

The act required the president to submit a strategy to Congress, which he did last November. In the intervening months, those who care about northern Uganda, the child soldiers, and all impacted by the LRA have waited to see the strategy put into action. Budget conversations threatened to derail it, and repeated phone and mail campaigns have been undertaken asking Congress and the president to move “From Promise to Peace.”

On October 14, I was happy to receive news from Resolve announcing the president’s plan to deploy 100 US military advisers to LRA-affected areas as an initial step in a multi-faceted plan to bring the years of violence to a conclusion. The advisors will work with regional militaries, coordinating efforts across borders, encouraging rebel leaders to defect, and increasing surveillance of rebel activities while watching for human rights violations by both rebels and regional armies.

The plan also includes improved communication technology for military and impacted communities and a commitment to greater diplomatic efforts in the region, as well as a promise of ongoing funding for reconciliation and transitional justice initiatives, and much-needed reconstruction assistance to northern Uganda.

While I was celebrating this long-prayed-for announcement, I received another email, announcing “President Obama sending troops to kill Christians in Africa.” The email warned that the president had bypassed Congress and was plunging the US into further war.

In the days and weeks since, it’s become clear that that email, and more like it, was prompted by hasty remarks by commentators with no knowledge of the LRA and no real interest in learning the truth before initiating attacks against the president. The tidal wave of criticism and misinformation was launched by Rush Limbaugh, who announced that President Obama had invaded Uganda to attack a Christian army:

“[M]ost Americans have never heard of it, and here we are at war with them. Lord's Resistance Army are Christians. . . . They are fighting the Muslims in Sudan. And Obama has sent troops, United States troops to remove them from the battlefield, which means kill them. . . .So that's a new war, a hundred troops to wipe out Christians in Sudan, Uganda, and no, I'm not kidding.”

EnoughProject.org

I’m still trying to understand how even the most irresponsible commentator could misrepresent a situation so completely. And I’m trying to understand how any organization could fire off email alerts without first doing a few minutes of research to see if the alarm was well-founded. Five minutes on Google yields a heart-breaking supply of information about the harm Kony and his LRA have done.

I’m amazed that in the outcry since Limbaugh’s comments, he hasn’t seen the need to apologize or correct his statements. And I have yet to receive clarifying emails from those organizations and individuals who alerted me to the president’s plan to kill Christians.

How is it possible that a national news commentator would not have heard of an international war criminal who has killed thousands, and impacted millions, across a span of twenty-five years?

And how is it possible that political antipathy would overrule the simplest rules of public discourse? Is the truth that expendable? Is fairness even possible?

And how helpful can it be to have headlines rocketing around the globe: "Obama Invades Uganda"? "President Killing Christians"?

I find I’m grieving at the state of political conversation, as I continue to grieve at the incredible damage done by one evil man and those he drew into his web.

In a public statement released last week, Bishop Ojwang and other Christian leaders in northern Uganda thanked the US for promised aid, and asked policy makers in the United States, Africa and elsewhere to heed the lessons of history and focus their efforts on dialogue rather than force, engagement rather than confrontation. Despite all the violence and suffering, they still pray for a non-violent solution. “Let us redouble our efforts to engage in dialogue. We believe this is the only way to bring about a lasting solution that will foster healing and reconciliation.”

If they can advocate for understanding, reconciliation, and peace, after all the atrocities they’ve witnessed, all the suffering they've lived through, surely we can find a way to do the same. Hard as it is to speak with those who hear only what they want to hear, and say what they want with no interest in the truth, "Let us redouble our efforts to engage in dialogue." And continue to pray for reconciliation, healing, and peace, here, and in Central Africa.

We pray for all who govern and hold authority in the nations of the world;

That there may be justice and peace on the earth.

Give us grace to do your will in all that we undertake;

That our works may find favor in your sight.

Have compassion on those who suffer from any grief or trouble;

That they may be delivered from their distress.

Please join the conversation. Your thoughts and experiences in this are welcome. Look for the "__ comments" link below to leave your comments.

Hyperlink

2011-10-30T10:07:00.000-04:00

My husband says I have a hyperlink mind. I want to know how things connect, love to link one idea to another. I’ve been known to jump up from the dinner table to Google some phrase or word to see how it fits in our dinner conversation. I expect to find connections, even with people I’ve never met, in places I’ve never been.

In college, I set off to major in physics, hyperlinked to math, then found myself completing a double major in humanities and literature. It’s all connected: nuclear “strong force” theory sets me thinking about the passage in Colossians 1 that says Jesus “is before all things, and in him all things hold together.” Discussions about Genesis 1 raise questions about language, how we understand words, the relationship between poetry and truth. Simplistic thinking in one area leads to error in another, but our world parcels out ideas to different disciplines, ensuring that knowledge is fragmented, meaning is lost. I want to pull ideas back together, rebuild connections, make the meaning clearer.

Teaching lit at the college level gave me some scope for that endeavor, but not as much as I had hoped. My years at home with kids left me consigned to teaching freshman writing and I found myself repeating rules about adverbs and adjectives and the uses of the semicolon, rather than leading scintillating discussions about ideas and their consequences.

Building connections in Philadelphia.
Yes, that's me in the middle in my orange tie dye shirt.

An unexpected move into youth ministry allowed new kinds of connections. I enjoyed fostering friendships between our youth and the children of Kensington, or North Dakota, building bridges between our group and youth in Bolivia, or Northern Uganda. Discussions about scripture and what it means to follow Jesus led to conversations about science, politics, literature, the possibility of knowing not just truth, but Truth.

I was sad, leaving youth ministry, to lose the constant, ongoing conversations, with ministry colleagues, teens and volunteers, parents, even grandparents, about what church is meant to be, and what it means to show God's love in a broken, fractured world.

I began this blog a year ago, partly to hold myself to the discipline of bringing thoughts to completion, but also, I realize now, as a way to continue the conversations.

The conversations aren’t just between me and you, readers known and unknown. Not just posts and responses, or passing conversations in the church parking lot about a recent post.

Illustration of Wangari Maathai, by Kadir Nelson
from Mama Miti, by Donna Jo Napoli

The conversations, I’m realizing, are between different ways of seeing, different constructs, different disciplines. Last week I posted about two African women whose lives challenge mine. One was a biologist, the other trained in restorative therapy and peace-making. Both were shaped by conversations that took place years before they stepped into leadership. Both were sustained and encouraged by conversations with women in other parts of the world, in very different walks of life. Reading their stories, writing about their lives, drew me into their conversation, reminded me that a small stone thrown today can ripple across decades and continents.

The week before I posted my own thoughts on scripture I was reading, but also shared from blog posts by people involved in the Occupy movement. A few weeks before, I shared from a blog I follow written by a Christian leader in Sri Lanka. As I’ve been blogging, I’ve find myself posting comments on other blogs, including some on other continents, some from very different points of view.

Conversation, for me, is a way to see around corners, to understand what’s beyond me, to hear sounds outside my range.

What happens when we burrow too far into our own ways of seeing? When we think our own perspective is always the right one? When we only hear what we choose to hear, only talk with those who share our opinions? When we listen just long enough to label, or correct?

House that exploded from methane gas build-up
Photo J. Trallo from Fractracker.org photolog

I posted not long ago about hydrofracking, a process of drilling for natural gas that has raised deep concerns from health professionals, mortgage bankers, the tourism industry, fishermen, environmentalists, homeowners whose properties have lost value, whose water is no longer drinkable, whose way of life has been shattered by the noise and traffic of industrial wells built in once pastoral settings.

I’ve had people I value send me links to clearly biased sources that say “hydrofracking has been proven to be safe” and “fracking fears are unfounded.” I understand why those in the natural gas industry would want the public to believe that, but I’m puzzled at those who think the conversation is over if a partisan source says there’s nothing to fear.

I’ve also been interested to receive the same kind of feedback about the Occupy movement. Of course there are sources resistant to financial reform, groups unconcerned about money in politics, industries committed to policies that benefit rich rather than poor. And there are justifiable questions about the impact of ongoing protest communities in the middle of working urban areas. But sources dismissing the Occupiers as “kids” or anti-capitalist socialists have little to add to the conversation.

Interfaith clergy at Occupy Wall Street
photo by peacecouple/fllickr

For me, the first step in conversation is the knowledge that my understanding is incomplete. I know in part, and understand in part. I see through a glass, darkly. It’s not my job to label and dismiss. It’s my job, first, to listen, to hear what’s being said, to understand who is saying it, and what might motivate them to say it.

What makes it hard to listen? Sometimes, other voices are drowned out by our fear. If what you say is right, I might have to change. And I don’t want to.

Sometimes, our ears are stopped by our own allegiance to money or power. There’s an ongoing conversation about energy use, banking, finance, the ways our economic system works. Most of the louder voices in our culture have huge financial investments in keeping the status quo. It’s important to hear what they have to say, but it’s also important to understand why they say it.

My neighbor and I have begun a group we’re calling “Democracy Dialogues.” I hosted our first meeting, last Monday evening. We talked about why it’s hard to talk about politics, about the constraints on real dialogue about things that matter. Often, we feel we don’t know enough to offer an opinion. We don’t want to be labeled, and we don’t want to be judged. We don’t know how to find out what we need to know, and we don’t know who to trust.

Several evenings later, I met with a very different group of people to "Occupy Phoenixville." Phoenixville is a town just north of where I live; the group gathered in the local coffee shop included people involved in local politics, several reporters, parents, young adults, all interested in making government more responsive, community more possible. Our first step is to prepare a voters' guide for the upcoming election. No mention of socialism, or capitalism, although everyone present agreed on the right to public protest, and the need for citizens to "occupy the polls."

Conversation is messy, and building bridges can be risky. What if friends decide I'm a left-wing radical? What if someone wonders

why I'm drinking coffee with "those people" - whichever group "those people" happens to be?

It often seems easiest just to segment things: politics here, faith here, environment here, economics over there. We set all the "big ideas" aside and focus on our families, our jobs, our busy schedules.

But what if it’s all related? What if unexplained fatigue and the epidemic of new allergies are caused by changes to our food supply? What if the food supply is linked to how we treat our land and water? It’s not hard to show links between agribusiness and the way our economy works. Link that to governmental policy and we’ve almost gone full circle.

But faith has nothing to do with all that, right?

Except that scripture has far more to say about food, money, land, good governance than most of us like to acknowledge. And if we’re committed to following Jesus, we need to spend time thinking, and praying, about his concern for the poor, his thoughts about power, what it means to love what he loved. His first public statement (in Luke 4) was about poverty, healing, oppression, and freedom. Mary’s song celebrating his coming birth called attention to the same themes.

Wendell Berry, novelist, poet, essayist, farmer, professor, environmental activist, shuns computers: he writes in longhand, just as he plows his fields with a team of horses. But he’s a model to me of the hyperlink life: love of words led him home to a love of land. Love of land led him to a prophetic political voice insistent on the relationship between unexamined growth, abuse of power, racism, sexism, environmental destruction, loss of community, dependence on war and the instruments of war. His essays often lead back to the same point: it’s all connected. Wholeness is impossible without addressing fragmentation:

"A medical doctor uninterested in nutrition, in agriculture, in the wholesomeness of mind and spirit is as absurd as a farmer who is uninterested in health. Our fragmentation of this subject cannot be our cure, because it is our disease. The body cannot be whole alone. Persons cannot be whole alone. It is wrong to think that bodily health is compatible with spiritual confusion or cultural disorder, or with polluted air and water or impoverished soil. Intellectually, we know that these patterns of interdependence exist; we understand them better now perhaps than we ever have before; yet modern social and cultural patterns contradict them and make it difficult or impossible to honor them in practice.

"To try to heal the body alone is to collaborate in the destruction of the body. Healing is impossible in loneliness; it is the opposite of loneliness." (The Art of the Commonplace: The Agrarian Essays of Wendell Berry, p. 157)

As Berry says, “Persons cannot be whole alone.” Healing can’t take place in a vacuum. Fragmentation “is our disease.”

Which leads us to conversation. Not just with those who affirm our ideas, who make us feel good, who say “yes, I agree,” but with those who challenge, question, point us in new directions, call us to account.

This blog is a record of my own conversation, with you, with other bloggers, with the wider world just a hyperlink away.

My hope is to build connections, community, a view of what it means to live in this fragmented world. To catch, and to give, at least a glimpse of wholeness.

And by the way - if you disagree with anything I've said, or want to talk about it, please do! That's how conversations grow. Look for the "__ comments" link below to leave your comments.

#ONEMOM

2011-10-23T08:01:00.003-04:00

Watch the video

I believe in moms. Average, every day moms. Busy, distracted, usually a little frazzled.

Which is why a link from an email this week, "It only takes one mom," brought tears to my eyes. Check it for yourself. Can you watch it without tearing up?

I believe everybody needs a mom: a sometimes practical, sometimes sentimental, always available female elder. My mom was my grandmother, strategically augmented by an aunt who was good at listening, some female teachers and professors who helped me get my feet pointed in the right direction, and a generous, gracious mother-in-law.

Everybody needs a mom. And every community needs a mom. Preferably more, but at least one: a doorbell (or cell phone) you can always ring, someone who knows what to do about a bloody nose, a baby who won’t stop crying, or those strange dots that show up on small children just to make their parents worry. Someone who wants to see every kid in sight grow up strong, healthy, cared for.

My community mom, when my kids were small, was a neighbor named Sheila Allen. She had the answers. Even more, she had the time, and the heart, to open her door and life to young families around her. When she moved away, she handed off to me: when the first desperate younger mom with a bleeding child appeared at my townhouse door, I thought of Sheila, and knew what to do.

Every community needs a mom, or five, or fifty. Every school, every church.

And yes, - we need dads too. More than ever. But that’s another blog post. So forgive me if you think I’m being sexist and let’s leave that for another day.

I’ve been reading autobiographies of two world-class moms. One, Wangari Maathai, Nobel Peace Prize Laureate, environmentalist and political activist, died last month at the age of 71. The other, Leymah Gbowee, was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize just weeks ago, along with two other women, for her work in organizing a prayer movement that helped end civil war in Liberia in 2003, and inspired the of the first female president on the African continent.

Both women are far more than mothers. And both struggled with the challenge of caring for children while pursing the paths they found stretching out before them.

But if you listen to what motivated them and kept them moving through fierce opposition and threat of physical harm, it was love of their children, the children who would follow, and the world those children would find.

For Wangari Maathai, the first female Kenyan with a PhD in biology, the presenting challenge was deforestation and the attendant erosion, loss of clean water, and rural poverty. In the 1970s, still a young woman with small children, Maathai founded the Green Belt Movement, an organization committed to planting trees and promoting the rights of women. Under Maathai’s leadership, the movement spread to other African nations and has been responsible for planting more than 30 million trees while helping nearly 900,000 women earn a modest income.

Along the way, Maathai spoke out for freedom in a repressive regime, aligning herself with mothers whose sons had been imprisoned for dissent, living as part of a rotating hunger strike for most of a year in All Saints Cathedral, the seat of the Anglican Archbishop in Kenya, along with a community of other mothers.

She also spent time in hiding, spent days barricaded in her own home, was tear-gassed, beaten, repeatedly imprisoned, consistently ridiculed and defamed. Her courageous work for women, freedom, and the environment helped lead the way to a freer, more democratic Kenya. In 2004, she became the first African woman to receive the Nobel Peace Prize, a tribute to her work in "development, democracy and peace." When she died, the entire conservation community mourned the loss of “Mama Trees.”

Leymah Gbowee is younger, just 39, the mother of six children, three from an early, abusive marriage that ended as

Liberia

, Leymah’s home country, was plunging into civil war. After a period of chaos, in her own life as well as the life of her country, she volunteered to work with the Trauma Healing and Reconciliation Program at the Lutheran church she’d attended as a child. She was trained to work with boy soldiers, newly released from dictator Charles Taylor’s infamous “Small Boys Brigade,” young boys kidnapped and trained to attack schools, villages, churches, markets. Drugged and armed, the boys were part of a bloody regime that killed over 250,000 people in Liberia’s First Civil War, from 1989 to 1996.

Leymah’s work brought her into contact with a group of Mennonite peacemakers who offered her books, training, and experience in conflict resolution. In 1999, as Liberia was descending into its Second Civil War, Leymah was invited to the first meeting of the Women in Peacebuilding Network (WIPNET) in Ghana. Later, Gbowee wrote: "How to describe the excitement of that first meeting...? There were women from Sierra Leone, Guinea, Nigeria, Senegal, Burkina Faso, Togo -- almost all the sixteen West African nations.”

Gbowee went home to enlist other women in peacemaking and to begin an branch of WIPNET in Liberia. One night, she dreamed of a group of women gathering to pray. When she told others of her dream, and asked who would lead such a movement of prayer, she was told the calling was hers. “The dream belongs to the dreamer.”

She enlisted friends to help her invite women to pray for peace, reaching across ethnic lines, visiting churches to hand out fliers, approaching women in the markets, inviting Moslem women to join them because “Does the bullet know Christian from Muslim?”

The movement grew until there were thousands of women gathering to pray and sing, then to hold non-violent demonstrations and protests, dressed entirely in white, hair wrapped in white headscarves.

Through months of protest, demonstration, and prayer, Gbowee led the women of Liberia, finally convincing President Charles Taylor, in April of 2003, to listen to their requests. With two thousand women praying for her outside the presidential mansion, Gbowee stood in front of the ruthless dictator and delivered her message:

"We are tired of war. We are tired of running. We are tired of begging for bulgur wheat. We are tired of our children being raped. We are now taking this stand, to secure the future of our children. Because we believe, as custodians of society, tomorrow our children will ask us, 'Mama, what was your role during the crisis?'"

Taylor agreed to attend peace talks in Ghana later that summer. More months of protest and prayer led to growing international pressure, which in turn brought about a peace settlement and the end of civil war, with Taylor resigning and disappearing into exile. In 2006 he was found and brought to trial for a long list of war crimes. That same year, Gbowee and the women working with her were part of a massive move to register women voters, resulting in the election of Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, the first and so far the only elected female head of state in Africa.

Both Wangeri Maathai and Leymah Gbowee faced great personal danger, painful sacrifice, and the frequent sense of being in far over their heads. They lived in cultures where women were expected to mind the children and be still, in places and times where powerful, dangerous men made the rules, with little thought for the needs of the weak or poor. Yet, in their love and concern for the generations to follow, they stood strong and spoke out in ways that shocked those who watched them, bringing hope and courage to the women and children who joined them.

Video of Maathai's Hummingbird Story

On a recent speaking tour in the US, promoting her book and her continuing work for peace in West Africa, Leymah Gbowee often began, or ended, with the familiar gospel song “This Little Light of Mine.” She says, “For the past 16 years I have done nothing great; just let my little light shine.”

Wangeri Maathai, when speaking about her own work, often told the African story of the hummingbird, a small, seemingly powerless bird that did what it could in the face of overwhelming danger and difficulty.

Little light, helpless hummingbird. As Maathai's hummingbird story concludes: “I may feel insignificant, but I will do the best I can.”

I confess, there are days when "the best I can" seems less than insignificant. Sign up with the One Mom's movement? Sure -but what will that help? Spend an afternoon with a needy kid? Sure, but what does that change? The dangers that confront us in the west are small compared to those faced by women like Maathai and Wangeri, but the temptations to cynicism, apathy, lack of involvement are great.

"What I have learned over the years is that we must be patient, persistent, and committed. When we are planting trees sometimes people will say to me, 'I don't want to plant this tree, because it will not grow fast enough.' I have to keep reminding them that the trees they are cutting today were not planted by them, but by those who came before. so they must plant the trees that will benefit communities in the future. I remind them that like a seedling ,with sun, good soil, and abundant rain, the roots of our future will bury themselves in the ground and a canopy of hope will reach into the sky." Wangari Maathai, Unbowed, p. 289

I'm praying for that canopy of hope, and looking for ways to plant seedlings that will take root. And thankful for those amazing moms, who changed their part of the world through their faithfulness to the next small step.

Please join the conversation. Your thoughts and experiences in this are welcome. Look for the "__ comments" link below to leave your comments.