Allow Me to Ruffle Your Feathers.....

I often decide what to write about based on my own thoughts, feelings, and reflections. This week I have decided to write about a trend I have been observing of late. A friend of mine just last week stepped right into this debate on Facebook with a family member. The subject at hand is "Who Deserves Our Help?"

Here is what I have noticed. As things have tanked right here in this country there is increasing rhetoric to stop assisting other countries and keep the money at home to benefit people in this country. To be sure our economy is in a bit of a mess and has been for awhile now. Unemployment is still high. Gas prices are skyrocketing. Inflation is rising. Wages are not increasing to compensate for all of the above. The cost of health care? I won't even go there. In short- many people in the US are having a tough time right now. I get that. Really I do. But I take exception to the notion that we should take care of our own "suffering" people at home first. Allow me to point out a few facts that help put all of this into perspective....

If you live in this country you are already wealthier than 95% of the world. Over half of the world's population lives on less than a dollar a day! The average wage in Uganda is about 70 cents a day. And guess how much they pay for gas? The equivalent of $10 a gallon! Can you
imagine what would happen here if we suddenly had to pay $10 for a gallon of gas!? There would be riots in the streets! People would be bombing gas stations or BP's headquarters! Now imagine you made only 70 cents a day and had to pay this for gas. Guess who drives? Almost no one! There is no "safety net" in the Third World. There is no "welfare". There is no Medicaid. In this country if you are poor and sick you can qualify for Medicaid and you will receive medical assistance. Real world example: if you are poor in this country and your baby is born with a cleft lip or palate you will be assigned a social worker who will help you get qualified for Medicaid. Your baby will get the life saving surgery he or she needs. Same child born in India to poor parents grows up disfigured well into their teens possibly until a group like Operation Smile comes and provides the surgery free of charge. And at that you may have to walk for 3 days or up to a week to get to the clinic where they are providing the surgery.

This is my 9th mission trip coming up. I have been 3 times international and 5 times right here at home helping the poor. And as far as the US goes, there isn't poverty anywhere that can begin to compare with Appalachia. Appalachia is what I like to refer to as the Third World right here in our own back yard. And guess what? I have never been to a home even in the worst place in Appalachia that didn't have clean water. Never. They might not have plumbing or a roof that was water tight, but they at least had a well! This is just not true at all for most of the third world. Millions of babies die every year from diarrhea caused by lack of clean water. Water in most villages must be hauled from great distances. It is a job for the children. How can they be expected to go to school if it takes a half day to haul water from the river for drinking and bathing and cooking? My point is this: when I hear about how we have "our own people suffering right here that we should be taking care of" I think to myself "define suffering!"

Back to my original idea for the subject of this post: My friend and her Facebook debate. Her family member had posted that she had written her senator telling him that our tax dollars should help people at home and let other countries take care of themselves. "It's the Christian thing to do". Uh...no actually. It's not! I have no objection to people wanting their tax dollars to be spent here. I don't agree with cutting off funding to poor nations, but that's me and I realize that others are free to disagree. What I object to is the idea that this is somehow "Christian". Jesus does not recognize man made boundaries and divisions of nations. He does not recognize the people of this nation as being any more deserving of assistance, food, water, shelter, medical care than any of His other children in far off lands. He consistently healed and ministered to both Jews and Gentiles. He praised Samaritans and healed the servant of a Roman soldier. In short- he did not discriminate based on race, nationality, creed, or religious background. I suspect that as such, He would now disapprove of us doing the same.

I realize that this idea is not popular with many. Increasingly this country grows more nationalistic and ethnocentric. I suppose that is only to be expected because we are experiencing such difficult times. But I would challenge people to think before they start waving the flag around and shouting about God and country and taking care of our own first. The "suffering" taking place here is not of the same magnitude experienced every day in places like Darfur, Bangladesh, Haiti, Guatemala. Ultimately, who the richest nation on the earth gives financial aid to should be a "both, and" not an "either, or" proposition in my opinion. That's the fun thing about writing a blog. It's all my opinion! Don't like it? Start your own! Shalom!

Too Good Not to Share

This may not be fair since I am supposed to be writing my own stuff,  but this is just too good not to share.  This is a Franciscan benediction that struck a chord with me.  Maybe it will with some of you as well....


May God bless you with a restless discomfort about easy answers, half-truths, and superficial relationships, so that you may seek truth boldly and love deep within your heart.

May God bless you with holy anger at injustice, oppression, and exploitation of people, so that you may tirelessly work for justice, freedom, and peace among all people.

May God bless you with the gift of tears to shed with those who suffer from pain, rejection, starvation, or the loss of all that they cherish, so that you may reach out your hand to comfort them and transform their pain into joy.

May God bless you with enough foolishness to believe that you really can make a difference in this world, so that you are able, with God's grace, to do what others claim cannot be done.

And the blessing of God the Supreme Majesty and our Creator, Jesus Christ, the Incarnate Word who is our Brother and Savior, and the Holy Spirit, our Advocate and Guide, be with you and remain with you, this day and forevermore.  Amen.

What a great prayer.  Wish I had written it!  The entire prayer resonates with me but especially the first verse.  That part about "seek truth boldly and love deep within your heart".  What I find is that in seeking truth boldly and loving deeply you begin to see that there is no other way to live that satisfies.  Everything outside of this feels like some kind of pale imitation of the real thing.  I wish I could say that I love deeply all the time, but that is not the case.  I fall down a lot.  I judge where I should not..  I withhold forgiveness where I should not.  I allow myself to feel bitterness toward others whose actions and words offend me.  In short, I am no different from any of you.  We are all the same in our sinful nature and brokenness.  But what is true of me is that I am increasingly aware of my shortcomings.  I can see the times and places in my life where I need Grace.  And so I ask for it.  And what I have learned is that it is always provided.  Sometimes it takes while before I can feel it at work in my stubborn heart.  Other times I can slip back into my old rut even after I have experienced it's powerful effects.  So it is definitely not a one size fits all sort of solution.  Because I fail again and again, in each instance a fresh measure of His love and grace is required.  The good news is that I see the need for it so much more clearly now, so much more often, and I ask for it so much more freely.  That, I believe, is progress!  Or to use a big fancy churchy word " sanctification".  It is the process of sanctification whereby we are all being made more like Him.  We are sanctified by His grace.  John Wesley would be proud.  I paid attention in my Methodism classes!   Wesley was big on sanctification. 
:-)

So go forth.  Seek truth boldly and love deeply.  See what kind of impact it has on your life and the world.  Shalom!    






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A Stranger in a Strange Land

Ever feel like this? You are standing in a group of people and as they talk about the inane you think "I could be home doing laundry and it would have more meaning than this!". Or you are at a social gathering and as people chatter all around you, you realize that your thoughts are a million miles away. Or sometimes even when I am at home I can no longer stand the sounds of CNN or Fox News and I steal away to my patio to commune with the coi fish and read or study. There are times, increasingly so, that I feel like a stranger in a strange land.

I don't pretend to understand the world around me most days. Yesterday the lead news story was about a mother who injects her 8 yr old daughter with Botox so she can be more competitive at those vulgar little girl beauty pageants where all these young girls are sporting spray tans, hair pieces, and fake teeth. Before that was the on going national debate about the wisdom of whether or not to release photos of Bin Laden's blown out visage. In the midst of it all, "reality TV" shows featuring punks from Jersey sleazing it up at the shore, "real" housewives and all their catty antics, and spoiled 16 yr old girls who throw $100K birthday parties. Just to name a few things. Meanwhile, children in Africa continue to be orphaned by the AIDS epidemic at an alarming rate, and 10 million more around the world will die by the end of this year from preventable causes. Maybe a few of the girls from My Super Sweet Sixteen could have forgone having Snoop Dog come perform at their birthday party and saved a few lives with some of daddy's money. I'm just sayin'.......

Sometimes it just gets to be too much for me. Nothing makes any sense. I retreat into prayer, into scripture, into long conversations with a handful of people who seem to understand my feelings and share them. I spent a couple of hours this week with one such friend. I was talking about how isolated I feel sometimes. Like a fish out of water. Like I have little in common with most people these days. I just don't seem to care at all anymore about the things the world deems important. And the things that are important to me would make most people wonder. What he told me was both sad and enlightening. First of all, that this is normal once you commit to putting your feet on a different path. You then essentially become a Citizen of a different kingdom. This world is no longer your home. You are now officially "in the world but not of it". And secondly, that feeling of disconnect from the world just gets a whole lot stronger the longer you journey with Christ. Oh great. So at least I've got
that to look forward to!

So what does all this mean for me? I have no idea. This is just my journal. I'm just recording my reflections, observations, and feelings here. Albeit, a bit publicly. What I do know is this. Richard Stearns writes that our hearts should be broken by the things that break God's heart. This is already true of me. And I haven't even spent 2 weeks in Africa facing down true poverty yet. What am I going to be like when I get home from this trip? How much more dismayed and disgusted will I be by American society and values when I return home? How much more like a foreign galaxy will I feel like I am living in then? It's a scary thought. I guess I'll find out in the near future......Shalom!

Uganda Calling

I know I wrote about this in the fall but I am going to Africa soon. In less than two months I will be sleeping in a tent in a remote village, devoid of all technology (I expect to have full on withdrawal symptoms from lack of iPad!!!) with 20 senior high kids and 6 other adults. Most of whom are under 30. I am the senior citizen of the group. Why am I going? Well now that's a great question. All I can tell you so far is because God spoke and that was pretty much that! It's just like that camp song says " I will go Lord. If you lead me. I will hold your people in my heart." I think it's called "Here Am I Lord".

Though I don't know the exact reason I have been called to go, I am beginning to have some inkling. At first I thought it was so that I could keep everyone healthy. I am the only medical person going along. And that will certainly be something I will do. But there is a personal "for me only reason" God has called me to go. I am certain of that. And what I know is that He will reveal that thru the experience of it. So I have been content to wait and see....

This Sunday we began some in depth training with the group out of Nashville who are our leaders and will be with us in country. The leader - a young guy named Greg, looked more like a Hispanic gang member than a seasoned missionary with over 200 trips to Africa under his belt. He joked that when he walks past women on the streets they pull their purses to the other side! But as He spoke, and as his soul opened up, and as he expressed his love of Christ, my own soul began to stir. And what I realized is that though by age, gender, race,
etc, I seemed to have nothing in common with this young man, yet I had everything important in common with him. When you shed all the externals and become just who you are in Christ you find that all those who seem so different are really just brothers and sisters you don't yet know. That was his point about the Ugandan villagers we will be living among and worshipping with. We are all children of the King. We are more similar than dissimilar.

The other thing that I have begun to be acutely aware of is that this trip is The Final Straw for me. God has been very busy breaking me down over the past year or so. What I mean is that He has been stripping me. Of my independent streak. Of my need to fix things. Of my desire for control. Of my need to exert my own will. Of my material desires to a large extent. Of my focus on the things of this world. He has been replacing them one by one with other priorities. I can sense, I just know somehow, that this trip will be His final act in this
work He has begun in me. Not that He is ever done tweaking us as His vessels. But somehow I just sense that this is the final stage of my major remodel. What I have no idea of, is the implications of that. And frankly, it is more than just a little scary. There are already plenty of days when I feel like a stranger even to myself. What must I seem like to those closest to me? I haven't had the courage to ask.....

So I wait. Hopefully expectant. Anxious at the same time. What is waiting for me on the other side of the Atlantic? What might God be asking of me as a result of what He intends to show me and teach me? What might it cost me? What will be the outcome of Uganda calling? Stay tuned for more journal entries. I intend to write every day while I am away. Trip starts July 6 th......Shalom!

Christian Atheists and Atheist Christians

Labels. We all use them to describe ourselves. Why? I guess because they convey information about who we are with a minimum of language expenditure (although economy with words has never been anything I personally aspire to!) When I say I am a Christian, people immediately form a thought in their minds about what that means. Their perception of what it means, and my use of what it means as a way of describing myself may be vastly different. And typically are. To me it means one who belongs to Christ. Who follows Him. Who recognizes him as Savior. Who believes that we are set apart by Grace. To others who hear this term it means one who is rigid theologically. Who excludes "the other" who is not in Christ. It may evoke images of people protesting outside of Planned Parenthoods or picketing soldier's funerals. Sadly, those who bear His name deserve much of the blame for the negative way the world sees us. Gandhi once said "I like this Christ very much. It is you Christians who I am less certain about". That may be a paraphrase but it's darn close!


Here is something to ponder. I read a book over the summer called The Christian Atheist which I encourage ALL of my friends to read. It is about how many of us who believe that we are Christians live just like people who do not believe in God at all. The author himself is a minister and a recovering Christian Atheist. It is a very convicting book indeed. The distinction the author makes is one of believing in God, versus really knowing Him, thus being transformed and made into something completely different by His presence and Spirit. Unfortunately, I know far too few people who fit this description.

And strangely enough, I have a very close friend who calls herself an atheist, who lives in a much more Christlike way than many of the people I know in the Christian community. Go figure! She wasn't always an atheist. She was raised in a fundamentalist home and can quote more scripture than I can. She simply decided as an adult after much researching, reading, studying, and reflecting, that she really didn't believe in God, as it turns out. So instead of going to church, reading the Bible, etc she now devotes her time to living a quiet, simple, unadorned life. She is not materialistic. She cares about animals and the environment. She gardens and exercises. She supports organic farmers with her purchasing power and practices non violence and tolerance. When our friend was dying, she sacrificed her time and quiet life to travel great distances to take care of her frequently. She shared this responsibility with me out of love. In short- she is a better Christian as an atheist than most Christians I know. Which is why, when you get right down to it, labels are meaningless.....

The book I am currently reading (I am always reading something- usually 5 or 6 books at a time!) has helped me make sense of much of why things are they way they are in churches and among the "religious". It is called "The Deeper Journey" by M Robert Mulholland Jr. This book goes a long way toward explaining the phenomena of why so many Christians seem so un-Christlike. Mulholland talks at length about what he calls the "religious false self". This religious false self pretty much embodies everything we think of as being a bad example of what it means to be a Christian. These are dogmatic, rigid, right fighters for Jesus who are convinced that they have a lock on the truth and treat others badly who may hold opposing or different views. They very much believe in God. What they lack, however, is a loving union with Him. They can be described as busy do-ers who are in the world for God, without being in God for the world. These people have a very rigid God construct and they like to keep it that way. Mulholland calls this their "God in a box". They keep the notion of their God very much clasped in a tight fist. Because to allow Him free reign might be disastrous. He might just show up and make some demands of them.....Hmmm.....can't have that! 

What I have found, what I am learning and growing into, is that the very best of who we are and who we can become, begins to occur when we leave behind the rigid God construct and exchange our ideas about God for a relationship with Him.  One of my friends likes to say it is so much better when we do things "with God" instead of  "for God".  With Him implies a partnership.  We let Him lead.  We give Him the reigns.  When we can do this, and it isn't easy by any means, wonderful things begin to happen.  Seeing this manifest right in front of your eyes has a powerful effect.  Once you see what happens when you get out of the way, stop inserting your will, stop insisting on your own way, it is easier not to do this the next time you are tempted.  I believe that we are our own worst enemy most of the time.  The problem with most Chistians is that we look absolutely no different from the rest of the world.  We say we love God.  We say we know Him.  But to outsiders we look absolutely no different.  And this is because most of us, if we are honest, are still very much running our own show and relying on our own judgement.  We live independently from God.  Which is the very essence of sin....

I believe that until we show the world something different we can never expect to change it.  People come to Christ for one reason and one reason only.  They see the effect He has on those who embrace Him.  It is the radical agape love that flows thru us because of Him that draws the world in.  This can't happen until we abandon ourselves to His will, to His leadership, to His agenda.  Anything less is a false religious self, a "God in a box" construct.  It's a paper tiger.  It won't hold up and it won't change the world.  No matter what kind of label you put on it.......  Shalom!