All posts by Rod White

African Famine and the Somalia of our souls

A life in the Spirit, Climate, Spiritual direction, , , , , , , , ,

In a land of food glut and people overdosing all around us, it is hard to remember that 1.3 billion people in the world are food-insecure and the number is rising. But we did remember.

I was treating my wife to an exquisite and expensive meal at Lark for her momentous birthday. But even as she was taking another splendid bite, she remembered people who do not have food.

So the next day, I got into the IRC website and ended up connecting my wealth to the starving people of Somalia. We regularly connect with the International Rescue Committee because they often find a way to get on the front lines in the most distressed places. We also stay connected to the Mennonite Central Committee (MCC) because they are good at long-term solutions produced through churches or partner organizations.

I want to tell you a bit about Somalia, since you might not remember where it is and might not know how it got into the mess it is in.  Maybe even more, I think I can help to show how the same elements that produce physical hunger around the world are also threatening to impoverish our souls in Philadelphia and all over North America.

Somali woman in camp

Poor Somalia

The IRC puts out a yearly Watch List in an attempt to understand where the deepest crises are happening and where the greatest trouble will be in the coming year. They and their supporters want to be in those places to save lives and help form a better future. If you hit the link above and read the material, you will be much more educated.

Conflict, climate change and economic turmoil are the three key accelerators of humanitarian crisis in Somalia and all the other watch list countries. “They have a twin impact:

  1. exposing individuals and communities to greater shocks and
  2. weakening the systems and infrastructure they depend on to withstand such shocks.

These three accelerators consequently feed off themselves— and one another—to drive vicious cycles of deepening crisis.”

The United States was intricately involved in deepening the 30-year conflict that is confounding every attempt to save the lives of Somalis. You might remember Ridley Scott’s movie Black Hawk Down, which followed  one of three helicopters shot down over Mogadishu when U.S. special forces were sent by President Clinton to capture or kill the warlord who was not following the U.N. peace accord brokered in 1992. If you’re not about 40, maybe you don’t remember the action itself but have run into the Oscar-winning film on Netflix (where it is “included with your subscription”).

What was supposed to be a couple of hours of in and out turned into an overnight battle the U.S. calls Battle of Mogadishu. The Somalis call it Maalintii Rangers, the Day of the Rangers.

In 1992 under the first President Bush, U.S. forces, primarily, helped end the Somali famine in the south. In 1993, the U.N. authorized a force to establish a secure environment throughout the country (which is big, as you can see). All 15 factions agreed to the terms hammered out at the Conference on National Reconciliation in Somalia. But Mohammed Farrah Aidid’s faction signed it and did not comply. So President Clinton authorized the Rangers to take Aidid out. The military objectives were achieved but the U.S. could not tolerate soldiers being killed and dragged through the streets with contempt. Within six months American forces were withdrawn and the whole U.N. experiment ended in 1995. The civil war is ongoing.

Somalia illustrates how crisis accelerators interact with each other. The country has been on IRC’s  Watchlist for the past decade but recently rose to #1 as climate change and worldwide economic turmoil deepened the crisis. When well-constituted countries get a jolt, poorly-organized ones get clobbered. Somalia would have been better able to withstand the shocks were it not for decades of chronic armed conflict that destroyed and weakened many of the systems and infrastructure that protect communities in other countries when disaster strikes. What’s more, Somalia was unable to produce food locally because of conflict and climate change, so they had to rely on imports. 90% of their wheat comes from Russia and Ukraine. Last year U.S. citizens were upset at 11% rise in food costs. In Somalia, the sixth poorest nation in the world, food price inflation was about 40%.

Worldwide, a staggering 80% of malnourished children are not getting treatment, leading to roughly two million deaths annually. In Somalia nearly 8.3 million people were projected to experience crisis or worse levels of food insecurity by mid-2023, with over 700,000 facing starvation every day. With poor rains persisting in 2023, even more Somalis have been unable to access enough food and many have little option but to leave their homes to seek humanitarian assistance in urban centers or across the border in Kenya and Ethiopia. About 80,000 Somalis had crossed into Kenya by last April — that’s twice as many people as live in my zip code

The Somalia of the Soul

Last week Republican radicals in the House changed their focus of uproar to the Southern Border, where thousands of people have pressed for entry into the United States. Their insistence that we wall off the country is characteristic of their hollow Christianity and emblematic of the loveless and murderous solutions the nations of the world are implementing when it comes to growing crises.

Their reaction is much like the situation married couples find themselves in when their mutual sense of violation makes them defensive and they are caught in a recurring argument that often escalates into rage and even violence. They build emotional walls to feel safe.

Children in New Delhi

The same factors that are bearing terrible fruit in Somalia and also infecting my city and undoubtedly yours, too. Conflict, climate change and economic turmoil are the three key accelerators of crisis in the U.S. too — and maybe in your homelife. They have exposed individuals and communities to greater shocks and they have weakened the systems and infrastructure they depend on to withstand such shocks. The accelerators feed off themselves to drive vicious cycles of deepening crisis. Joe Biden was trying to fight them in Arizona last week.

These accelerators create an atmosphere our souls are breathing. Each of us may, or may not have the personal, spiritual, or relational resources to screen out the toxins and have a healthy soul. If there is any hope of spiritual survival, we must begin with identifying what is choking off love and starving faith. Here are five factors making us soulsick.

  1. Climate change causes anxiety and withdrawal.

Climate change is real and climate change anxiety is increasing. When we are threatened we proverbially fight, flee or freeze. We might not automatically pray, connect or act. Many churches discovered they were too weak to withstand the pandemic and other recent challenges. Some became addicted to fear and no longer follow Jesus. But I see revival beginning in unexpected places. It is hope for the world if Jesus followers trust God, build community and take action.

  1. High food prices make us insecure

Last week a friend obsessed about whether his palatial house was actually a good deal. He could hardly enjoy it because he could only think of whether he had squandered too much of his wealth to buy it. Our first world problems are dehumanizing.

The media helped preoccupy most of us with inflation after the pandemic, which has quickly calmed down. But we were so used to inexpensive food, the uptick felts like a crisis. I refused to buy a $6 box of cereal yesterday, which gave me a little twinge of insecurity.  Meanwhile the U.N. says 10,000 children a day die from hunger and related causes.

When I am in crisis because my glut of food costs more than it used to, that is being soul sick.  If you have faith, your security is in God, right? If you don’t have faith, you at least have the rational capability to respond to facts.

  1. Violence makes us feel at risk

Last week opportunists overshadowed the protesters who were bringing attention to Judge Wendy Pew’s dismissal of charges against Office Mark Dial. On August 14, he shot Eddie Irizarry  through his rolled up window during a traffic stop, on video, within 5 seconds of exiting his police cruiser. Maybe that exemplifies our deteriorating social infrastructure in a nutshell.

Instagram got looting going for a few days. The media exploded with outrage. And people got more scared and hopeless. Consider that Somalis have been enduring a much higher degree of violence for 30 years!

We are minting psychotherapists and hallucinogen providers at a quick rate, these days. They often identify any thing that bothers us as “trauma.”  Our endless defensiveness makes us sick.

  1. Conflict blunts compassion

Last week the U.S. Senate passed further aid for Ukraine but House radicals still want it ended. This has a direct impact on Somalia. But I think it also is having an impact on our souls.

Our own interpersonal and societal conflict makes it difficult to feel well and cared for. We have become accustomed to a constant battle for power instead of collaboration to find mutually beneficial solutions. I think people actually care about others, but we are caught in a bad pattern. Again, it is like some couples I have worked with. Many of them have to spend a long time learning and implementing nonconflictual behavior before they can get back to love and hope.

  1. Lack of funding undermines action

Poverty leads to more poverty. Philadelphia is the poorest city in the United States like Somalia is one of the poorest countries in the world. One of the main reasons is lack of or inequitable funding and poor use of the funding there is.

Likewise, a starving soul leads to a dead faith. At least that is what James said. Not long ago an AA acquaintance said they had a “high bottom,” meaning others had to hit “rock bottom” before they would turn around. I pray that soulsick people in the U.S. see the grace around them long before they hit rock bottom. Developing our souls is not a luxury it is a necessity.

The other night, we were inspired to make an investment in a living faith that has been exercised enough to be strong when it faces the deterioration of the world. We literally funded our development. Obviously, having a healthy soul is not just about about how we spend our money. It takes a lot of various investments to thrive. But if we don’t put our money where are hearts are, it surely won’t make our souls healthier.

Add a stanza to the “prayer for peace” — It’s a tough world

A life in the Spirit, Spiritual direction, , , , , , , ,

I have several copies of the “Peace Prayer,” attributed to St. Francis, on walls where I am likely to bump into it. (Don’t worry, you’ll bump into it down below, if you’ve never heard of it). I need to remember it in a world that is more about power than peace.

I do remember it. By now, after all that bumping, that prayer is etched on a convenient wall in my mind. So I had it on hand the other day when I needed it. And, like prayer often does, it inspired me to go beyond it. Maybe you’ll want to get someplace beyond what it usually offers you, too.

Some history of the Peace Prayer

There is no way Francis wrote “Make me an instrument of your peace.” For one thing, he rarely wrote anything about “me.” More relevant is the fact this prayer did not appear in general circulation until 1912. If a stray prayer of Francis of Assisi had been laying around for 700 years, someone would have known about it.

The prayer first appeared in Paris in small spiritual magazine called “La Clochette” (The Little Bell), the newsletter of La Ligue de la Sainte-Messe (The Holy Mass League). The league’s founder and editor of the newsletter was Father Esther Bouquerel (1855-1923). He published the prayer as written by “Anonymous” with the title of “Belle prière à faire pendant la messe” (A Beautiful Prayer to Say During the Mass). The author was probably Father Bouquerel himself, but the identity of the author remains a mystery.

The prayer was sent in French to Pope Benedict XV in 1915 by the aristocrat, Marquis Stanislas de La Rochethulon. This was soon followed by its 1916 appearance, in Italian, in L’Osservatore Romano [the Vatican’s daily newspaper] in the middle of World War I. Around 1920, the prayer was printed on the back of an image of St. Francis with the title “Prière pour la paix” (Prayer for Peace) but without being attributed to the saint. It was first attributed St. Francis in 1927 by a French Protestant Movement, Les Chevaliers du Prince de la Paix (The Knights of the Prince of Peace).

The first time it was published in English was probably in 1936 in Living Courageously, a book by Kirby Page, a Disciples of Christ minister, pacifist, social evangelist, writer and editor of The World Tomorrow. Page clearly attributed the text to Francis. During World War II and immediately after, this prayer for peace began circulating widely as the “Prayer of St. Francis,” especially through Francis Cardinal Spellman’s books. Over the years it has gained a worldwide popularity with people of all faiths. It was central to the gathering memorialized below.

Artwork memorializing the first World Day of Prayer for Peace in Assisi (1986), with Pope John Paul II hosting religious leaders from around the world.

Let’s pray the prayer

There are four major wars raging in the world right now. It is time for a prayer for peace. Each war has caused over 10,000 deaths, or more, in the past two years (Wiki). Over fifty conflicts with fewer casualties are also ongoing.

Last week Reuters said Russia doubled its 2023 defense spending to more than $100 billion — a third of all the country’s public expenditure. In July, the Kiel Institute for the World Economy, a German research institute, calculated the U.S. had, so far, spent $75 billion in assistance to Ukraine; included was humanitarian, financial, and military support.

“Let there be peace on earth and let it begin with me!” In a world at war in large ways and small, shouldn’t that be our daily prayer? The peace prayer is that kind of prayer. Let’s try it out:

Lord, make me an instrument of your peace.
Where there is hatred, let me sow love;
where there is injury, pardon;
where there is doubt, faith;
where there is despair, hope;
where there is darkness, light;
and where there is sadness, joy.

O Divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek
to be consoled as to console;
to be understood as to understand;
to be loved as to love.
For it is in giving that we receive;
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned;
and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.

In the 1970’s, Franco Zeffirelli and Donovan put music in the mouth of Francis along with the erroneously attributed words, which is how I usually pray the prayer, too.

Add your own lines

In the middle of World War I a hopeful priest wrote a beautiful prayer. People picked up on it over time, translated it, tweaked it here and there in the process, put it on prayer cards. published it in magazines and bulletins, and said it was authorized by St. Francis, himself. I love it. Mother Teresa and Desmond Tutu loved it.

But I don’t think a recited prayer is very alive unless people keep rewriting it.

The other day, I remembered my old favorite prayer and the erroneous depiction of my favorite saint praying it.  I was especially moved by  “O Divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console.” I had been feeling a bit inconsolable. The prayer helped me turn from my “side screen” to look at the “big picture” of my life [post on turning].

As I prayed, I began to see all sorts of other ways I should be praying the same basic prayer. Once it set me on a roll, I kept on rolling!  And I realized  neglecting to do so would result in a lack of peace in me and there would be that much less peace in the world, too.

I now have a longer prayer to use — at least until I need to add something else! Here is the new stanza I added especially for me. If you need it, nothing prevents you from praying it with me!

Lord grant that I may not so much seek

to be found as to find;
to hold out for what I deserve as to give;
to evaluate what meets the test as to accept;
to justify my temper as to be patient;
to resist possible disappointments as to collect small joys;
to sort out the weaknesses of others as to relish their goodness;
to protect my safety as to risk what it takes to connect.

What should you be adding to the peace prayer?

Be careful as you meditate on that question. Note that Father Bouquerel/Francis said “grant that I may not so much” NOT “Grant that I may erase my needs and desires.” We love others as we love ourselves. Erasing yourself does not make others more alive. Being unhappy is not a price you pay for making others happy. Turning into what is better is an everyday necessity — thus, we love that great peace prayer when we face all our conflicts, inside and out.

Peace is a lot more likely to take root in our hearts if we love others like Jesus loves us. And that love for others will be a lot more authentic when we are at peace in the love of Jesus. Pray: “Lord you are the instrument of my peace; make me an instrument of your peace.”

Memorial Day Psalm for Uvalde

A life in the Spirit, Poetry, , , , ,

 Old graves to decorate

Many towns in the United States claim they invented Memorial Day after the horrible Civil War, from which the country has never recovered, I’d say. All over the nation, graves were growing uncared for and many people thought that was shameful. Within 30 years the government made Decoration Day into a national holiday. It was placed at the end of May when flowers are in bloom everywhere.

Roughly 2% of the U.S. population, an estimated 620,000 men, lost their lives in the line of duty during the Civil War.  Taken as a percentage of today’s population, the toll would have risen as high as six million people. 

There are many people to remember on Memorial Day. It is hard to get a hold on just how many there are!

Most record keepers suggest that about 75 million people worldwide died in World War 2, including about 20 million military personnel and 40 million civilians. Many civilians died because of deliberate genocide, massacres, mass-bombings, disease, and starvation.

America has been in 19 known wars since World War 2. But just remember the death toll from three of the bloodiest conflicts: The Korean War, The Vietnam War, and the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan. The total death toll of people killed by American troops in all these wars put together is over 12 million.

Our war weapons are used on our own own citizens, too. 

This week last year, the sad facts of Memorial Day were heightened when we heard about 18 year old Pedro Ramos, who shot his grandmother in the face after they argued over how he did not graduate from high school. He then took his two legally purchased AR-15 automatic weapons to Robb Elementary and shot 36 people, mostly children in two adjoining classrooms, killing 21.

You probably don’t remember the details. There is a year-full of subsequent shootings. As of the end of April this year, in just four months, there have been 185 mass shootings in the U.S. (using the definition of 4 or more people shot in one incident). 254 people died. 708 were wounded. Untold numbers were traumatized. 

The Uvalde victims

I often say, “How could someone do that?”  But there are many terrible reasons. They are not all personal. Pedro Ramos lived in a country in which leaders of his state tenaciously protected his freedom to buy an automatic weapon in the name of freedom. He lived in a country which is committed to spending, if I calculated the unfathomable right, about $26,000 a second in 2023 to maintain by far the largest military in the world to protect Pedro Ramos’ freedom. You can do your own moral math about that and watch the country refight the  civil war on the “news.”

New victims to memorialize

I want to spend my Memorial Day tears on placing symbolic flowers on the graves of
people killed in Uvalde on May 24, 2022. I know the survivors are more overwhelmed by their losses than I can imagine, even a year later.   But I can imagine a lot.

Lord, I pause the fun at the lake.
I dare to look at my lively grandkids.
I force myself to look at the numbers,
at the evil statistics too horrible to know.

I will ask for forgiveness later.
But first I examine the sin, the heartbreak,
the wounds reopened every second
with every dollar spent on power,
spent on the mistaken notion the right to kill
makes Pedro Ramos free, like he must have thought.

Ten year old Nevaeh Bravo.
Her name was heaven spelled backward.

Nine year old Jacklyn Cazares.
Her first communion picture was offered to the press.

Ten year old Makenna Elrod.
Four sisters and three brothers will never forget.

Ten year old Manuel Flores.
His mother said, “He was very good with babies.”

Irma Garcia had taught at Robb for 23 years.
Two days after her death her husband died of heart failure.
Their children were told mom was seen shielding her students.

Ten year old Maile Rodriguez.
She died helping others to safely hide.

There are more Lord. Always more.
We are overwhelmed with more.
You bear the overwhelming sins of the world.

No amount of decoration on graves
will conceal the hideous truth.
Humanity chooses power over love,
even makes you a warrior God
instead of a suffering servant.

Can you forgive us who rarely forgive?
Can you save us who believe AR-15s save?

 

A psalm of examen: Bite and bile

A life in the Spirit, Poetry,

Francis receiving stigmata: Seville Cathedral

Not long after I spent a few minutes staring at this amazing piece of art in the sumptuous Seville Cathedral, I popped into a neighborhood church on the way to more gelato. Unlike how I imagine frustrated Francis patiently enduring his place in the wall of a treasure house, treasuring a lost bird winging through the  air near the ceiling, and seeing Christ in the hordes of tourists, I felt a bit too much bite and bile rise up in reaction to the state of the church — my church, and God’s.

This dashed-off psalm down the road by the pool reflects my examination.

An instinctive turn into the church:
Sevillans are intoning a rosary.
The leader gives a glance to verify
We are invisible tourists.

I make my companion sit with me:
Sevillans creating a foreign atmosphere,
Making a world for the initiated.
I get through a cycle and leave.

Out on the sidewalk I speak softly,
A sotto voce of contempt lest they hear,
“That’s a good reason for the church to die.”
I am self-righteously upset.

I am right again. So right. So right.
But my scorn is also a good reason
For your beleaguered Church to die.
I kick its last leg in the shin.

Every time I wander here, I lament
When the baroque church was powerful,
When they got a cut the land and gold
From which I still benefit.

They spread out art in every corner of each town:
Brilliant details amplify your honor and glory
With the ill-gotten gains of thieves and murderers.
I inherited murderous thoughts.

I am instinctively turning into this psalm,
Into a place outside my bite and bile.
If for just a moment, I am freed by worship
As my heart sees the invisible.

The fourth week of Advent – The joy of hope

A life in the Spirit, Doing Theology, ,

[This is revised from an Advent message given during Circle of Hope’s “captivity” in Benjamin Franklin High School]

Advent is the pregnant season. It always seems to pop up and try to grab my attention just in time, right when I feel emptied out or adrift on an ocean of trouble. Thank you, Jesus!

The noisy prophet, Jeremiah, is often the tool God uses to focus my attention on hope instead of trouble. The revelation he experiences draws me into a listening space with him and I often end up pregnant with hope, myself. I hope that is your experience this year (after, again, what a year!). As Jeremiah speaks what he hears from God, he paints a picture that won’t be completely clear until God impregnates the world with himself in Jesus Christ and continues the process through His followers. Here we are being what he is seeing.

I love the richness of having Jeremiah open our eyes from his vantage point 2600 years before our time. He can do this because what we experience with God and remember during Advent is like what I hear is sort of a timeless moment women in labor experience just before the baby is born. For some women everything seems to stop – they may have a wild sense of euphoria or suspension, maybe a still point before the final push, when the seconds slow down and all times become this one time. We are called by Advent to enter into such a still point and be with God as God is with us. I believe Jeremiah had many still points when God came to him. What the Lord revealed then can teach us now. We can enter that timeless moment with him.

Ebed-Melek Pulls Jeremiah out of the Cistern
Ebed-Melek Pulls Jeremiah out of the Cistern — Johann Melchior Bocksberger (1587)

Some things never change

We need a Jeremiah during Advent to tell us to keep looking for the fullness. But don’t overlook what you’ve already received! Jeremiah did not have the already but not yet experience we have – he was fully into not yet. And his own people definitely overlooked him like yours may be dismissing you. But he has an amazing amount to teach us about hoping for God when he seems far away.

Jeremiah is a fascinating guy. God calls him into the middle of a huge political situation in Judah, which is the remaining functioning part of the nation of Israel at the time – we are in the 620’s BC, here. His little country is a political football between two huge empires: Egypt on the south, with which the kings of Judah have been allied for a while, and a new conqueror, Babylon, to the north, with its famous, brilliant, King Nebuchadnezzar. The powers that be in Judah, including some sincerely patriotic, but false prophets, are on the side of Egypt. But Jeremiah is convinced that God is going to use Babylon as part of His plan to fulfill what He started in Israel. So he says, “Don’t resist Babylon.” Because of this message, Jeremiah is a lonely, isolated, threatened prophet, trying to hold on to his faith and calling while the conquerors are at the door, as the city of Jerusalem is about to be taken over again, and as his own people think he may be a traitor. There is a lot of sadness and doom and personal struggle in the prophecies of Jeremiah that his buddy Baruch so carefully wrote down.

When you look at what Jeremiah says, it may seem like he lives in Philadelphia, or in your own town. He cries out about sin and separation from God, outright rebellion and disrespect — broken, antagonistic, competitive relationships are making a mess everywhere — everyone has their own agenda. Survival of the fittest reigns. Who you know, not what you know, reigns. King Zedekiah is generally considered illegitimate, a ruler who did not gain power in the proper way (no one “stopped the steal”).

From the belly of that city and situation Jeremiah tells what he hears from God. And I mean belly, quite literally, since the king throws Jeremiah into a cistern for a while so he will be quiet. From the pits, Jeremiah prophecies hope. God likes using people to do that. Jeremiah impregnates the city of Jerusalem, the navel of Israel, like a little seed planted in the cistern; he shoots up life into the air and talks about hope that is going to arise from this distressing pregnancy. God’s people have become like a woman with no prenatal care at all, but she is going to give birth to a remarkable, healthy child. That is his message.

See if you can listen to him over the 2600 years since he lived. I’m not sure anyone can do this anymore. We all think this “magic moment” is the only time we can share. But I think our eternal God can draw us all together across time. In these readings from Jeremiah’s prophecies, see if you can enter the moment with him. See if you can hope for something you don’t have from God yet and believe it will come.

Call Trump's Attacks On The 1619 Project What They Are — Censorship of American History

Hope in bondage

In this first piece, Jeremiah is speaking to people under the yoke, like so many of us and like even more of those around us. We see our version of this yoke in the bondage of addiction to drugs and porn, of self-destructive habits of heart and relating we can’t get rid of, the yoke of unbelief we cling to, of fear, the prison of disease and cancer and trauma, of demons and mental illness, of relationships that dominate us, of ignorance. From the belly of all that Jeremiah is crying out to get people to hear the possibilities of the coming of the Lord.

“In that day,” declares the LORD Almighty,
“I will break the yoke off their necks
and will tear off their bonds;
no longer will foreigners enslave them….
I am with you and will save you,”
declares the Lord. — Jere 30:8,11 (NIV)

Jeremiah doesn’t know when “that day” is, but he sees it. It is an eternal now, a live possibility.

Hope before your jump

Meanwhile, it has really gotten bad. The people and the whole nation have gotten to the point of no return. It is like some of us who teeter on the edge of diving into what kills us, and then jump, or like some of us who have been ambivalent about a relationship for so long that we finally get too far away to get back to reconciliation – too dismissed or dismissive, cancelled or cut off.

This is what the LORD says:
“Your wound is incurable, your injury beyond healing.
There is no one to plead your cause, no remedy for your sore, no healing for you.
All your allies have forgotten you; they care nothing for you.
You have been stricken as one would strike an enemy and punished as one would the cruel,
because your guilt is so great and your sins so many. — Jer. 30:12-14 (NIV)

Jeremiah’s pictures of what things are like, begin to feel like Philadelphia. It is like he is walking down some of the streets where quite a few of us work and live. Jeremiah sees the ruin, but he cries out for hope.

This is what the LORD says: “I will restore the fortunes of Jacob’s tents
and have compassion on his dwellings; the city will be rebuilt on her ruins,
and the palace will stand in its proper place.
From them will come songs of thanksgiving and the sound of rejoicing.
I will add to their numbers, and they will not be decreased;
I will bring them honor, and they will not be disdained.
Their children will be as in days of old,
and their community will be established before me;
I will punish all who oppress them.” — Jer. 30:18-20 (NIV)

Can anyone hear this? We were at Sampan on 13th St. the other night  (very good!) and they were blasting electronica and people were talking so loud we could hardly hear each other. Can anyone hear anymore? As it turns out, most people in Jeremiah’s hometown, Jerusalem, couldn’t listen.

Some people always see and hear the promise

You may see as well as Jeremiah, and even better. We can’t wait for a season that gives us a better excuse to celebrate all that God has born in the world than Advent. We strain to take it all in.

Keep trying to look to what is coming from God: in your yoke, in your bondage, in your incurable-seeming wounds, in the middle of your ruined city where so many lives are ruined right now due to their own sin and the sin of the system. Can you hear God’s message of hope? He says:

the Lord will not turn back
    until he fully accomplishes
    the purposes of his heart.
In days to come
    you will understand this. — Jer. 30:24

The LORD appeared to us in the past, saying: 

“I have loved you with an everlasting love;
    I have drawn you with unfailing kindness.
I will build you up again,
   and you…will be rebuilt.” — Jer. 31:3-4

God Used Holy Spirit To Cause Mary To Become Pregnant, Even Though She Still A Virgin | BabyCenter

Hope in the pregnancy

How is this going to happen? – how will this purpose accomplished, how will this this drawing to himself take place, how will this building up again begin? In a very strange image, Jeremiah says we hope in a pregnancy.

Study it for yourself, but Jer. 31:22 (NKJ) says:

The Lord will create a new thing on earth –
a woman will surround a man.

It is the language of sex, of procreation. “Surrounding” in the old English is a euphemism for having sex. Usually men are seen as the ones who surround the woman. But here is a turn of events. God is going to do something upside down, and a woman will surround a man! God had often been imagined as surrounding the nation of Israel, husband to wife. Can it be that Israel will surround God? Could this be Jeremiah dimly seeing God being born, surrounded by a woman from Israel? Jerome in the fourth century thought this was all about Jesus being “surrounded” by Mary in the womb. However much a person can get out of this, I certainly think it means that a new kind of pregnancy is going to occur. And from my vantage point, it has occurred.

What did Jeremiah see that gave him hope in the pits? In one of the most striking examples of being pregnant with God’s presence, Jeremiah sums it up, and he still gives me hope.  I hope this seems remarkable to you – not only because Jeremiah could see it, but because it all came about with the coming of Jesus.

“The days are coming,” declares the Lord,
    “when I will make a new covenant
with the people of Israel
    and with the people of Judah.
It will not be like the covenant
    I made with their ancestors
when I took them by the hand
    to lead them out of Egypt,
because they broke my covenant,
    though I was a husband to them,”
declares the Lord.
“This is the covenant I will make with the people of Israel
    after that time,” declares the Lord.
“I will put my law in their minds
    and write it on their hearts.
I will be their God,
    and they will be my people.
No longer will they teach their neighbor,
    or say to one another, ‘Know the Lord,’
because they will all know me,
    from the least of them to the greatest,”
declares the Lord.
“For I will forgive their wickedness
    and will remember their sins no more.” — Jer. 31:31-4

Notice two things about this, OK, so you can be a part:

“I will put my law in their minds and write it on their hearts.”

This is about you and God. She wants to be incarnate in you, impregnate you with life and see life get born in you and from you.

“I will be their God,
    and they will be my people.
No longer will they teach their neighbor,
    or say to one another, ‘Know the Lord,’
because they will all know me,
    from the least of them to the greatest,”

This is about US and God. She wants to be incarnate in you, impregnate you with life and see life get born in you and from you. God wants US to know him, from the least to great. I know the church in the U.S. is a wreck right now, but there are multiple seeds in cisterns sprouting right now. God will be among us, knowable. We will know him in the biblical sense and be pregnant with him. And we will give birth to love and goodness and hope in the world.

This is as crazy as a woman surrounding a man! What do you do with this, apart from receive it and appreciate it? If you are listening to Jeremiah at all, you couldn’t do the “Christmas” thing with it and see Jesus as some nice little gift under your tree. The only true response is to get intimate, get pregnant, give birth, enjoy the timeless now of knowing and being known by God with us.

What do we hate more: Humility or Forgiveness?

A life in the Spirit, Psychological growth, Spiritual direction, , ,

It took a while

Our internet provider was trying, really they were. The autopay failed, for some reason. I lost consciousness about fixing it. They called us in France and I told my wife the call must be a scam, mainly because I was drunk with beautiful countryside and did not want to be bothered. I came home and paid the day after they cut me off.

Now I am waiting for the cable guy to show up because they could not reconnect, even after I bought a new modem to replace the one the nice lady said was too ancient to be trusted. I can almost guarantee you have had similar issues. We now live under the incomprehensible thumb of virtuality, so there are new challenges. But we still have the same old inner problems when we face them. I am mainly talking about the need for humility and forgiveness.

Sometimes I hate humility

It is downright shameful to mismanage the cable bill and subject your loved ones to a day without Netflix (and worse!). That sentence may have aroused a common response: “It’s no big deal. Don’t be so hard on yourself. It could happen to everyone. It will all work out.”

All that is true. But one might as well say, “Stuff that shame back where it belongs! I don’t want to see it. It is shameful to feel shame.” Being humiliated is tantamount to being murdered in our culture. So we walk around all day suspicious someone is trying to humiliate us. Our comedians amuse us by mocking people. We revel in scandalous revelations about celebrities.

While I was praying post-cable-fiasco, I felt I had some space to be humble. It is obvious to God, and to me when I am present to God, that I am fallible. Even though I strive to be unassailable, I mess up the cable bill and get shut off. Then I get defensive and look for someone to blame (like the cable company — the one that called me to tell me I was going to be shut off). Then I withdraw and don’t want to talk about it. Then I spend twelve hours in recovery until I can look at it and say to myself, “Yep. That happened. You did that.”

Being humble is just admitting who we really are and what we really did. It is being seen as God sees us. God knows we are dust, a breath. We have sinful responses to almost everything. Yet God loves us without reservation and respects us enough to fill us with the Holy Spirit and trust us to make our way into wholeness. Humility is not just admitting I am flawed. It is also admitting I am loved, regardless. It is admitting I can’t prevent all wrong, all suffering, and admitting I am not shameful if I don’t. I am just fallible and, apparently, nonetheless-lovable me.

But not as much as forgiveness

The other side of the humiliation of having one’s precious internet shut off is forgiveness. That word may have aroused some common responses in you. “No need to ask forgiveness. No problem. It’s nothing. Let’s just move on. You’re not to blame. You’re fine.”

Some of that is nice. But one might as well say, “Stuff that shame back where it belongs. I don’t want to be a part of it. It is embarrassing to be dealing with your private parts.” I think I said I was sorry about messing up the cable bill. I may have just looked regretful. Maybe I just furrowed my brow in self-loathing and projection. I can’t remember. I was too busy fretting about being in a situation where I needed to be forgiven. We are a punitive bunch in the U.S. We want justice. We want the “rule of law.” We ruthlessly apply any available law to ourselves, no matter how godless. And we expect the same of others.  When I am listening to couples trying to work things out, asking forgiveness or giving it is often not even a consideration – as if something else works!

I can relate to that resistance. As I was praying post-cable fiasco, I realized I needed to be humble enough to be forgiven. Even if everyone else just accepted my sins as no big deal (which is nice of them), I still felt ashamed. And until that shame was touched with grace, it was going to make an impact. It was going to flood my private parts with contempt and condemnation as I vainly tried to complete my uncompletable task of stuffing it, bearing it secretly like an ill-capped, undersea oil well, oozing pollution. All that over a cable bill!

I felt able to sit in my forgiven place with God (or I probably wouldn’t be writing this, right?). I even apologized more directly for messing up the screens. I felt released. I hope you do, too. Asking forgiveness and receiving it might be the beginning of freedom, of mental health, of love. Admitting how we hate it might be humble enough to get us started and get us reconciled with God. Avoiding that confession might keep us rolling around in some shame cycle waiting for the cable guy to come, another thing completely out of our  control.

Death in the harsh desert

The Mission, , , , , , , ,

On day six of our MCC learning tour of the Borderlands in Arizona, we spent a stirring time with Brian Best, one of the Tucson Samaritans. They are devoted to saving the lives of migrants who are making their way through the treacherous Sonoran desert. We took a dirt track off the two lane highway to Sasabe and were soon off the beaten track. The following video gives you an idea of the terrain a migrant has to get through without getting caught by the border patrol.

Our group was ending a time of prayer and remembrance around a cross placed by artist Alavaro Enciso on the spot closest to a reported death of a migrant. Thousands of deaths have been verified since Pima County started carefully tracking twenty years ago; many more people have never been found.

A baby cholla invaded my shoe

Brian Best gave us three hours to get a taste of what it is like to try to make it into the US. For one thing, almost every plant has stickers. I stepped near a baby cholla and spent the next hour getting spines out of my foot and shoe. It takes days to get through the desert and no one can carry as much water as they need. It might be safer to travel by night but hard to navigate and avoid the dangerous plants. There are rattlesnakes, coyotes, scorpions and other animals you need to avoid. It is very likely you don’t have the best clothes or supplies because you can’t afford them. It is quite cold at night and very hot in the day. It is a miracle anyone gets through.

As soon as we exited our van to walk with Brian, we saw a backpack laying on the ground, and then a pile of camouflage shirts and hats nearby. From the bushes we extracted two little satchels we saw. One had three phones in it. Brian’s best guess was the Border Patrol tracked the migrants with hilltop cameras and drones until they emerged at a convenient place to nab them.

My heart broke for these poor, desperate, invisible young men. Most people do not care about them. But they deserve to be remembered like anyone else. I took comfort that God sees and loves them, just like you. But I suffered over the fact that most Americans don’t see migrants as people and feel obligated, for economic reasons, not to love them.

Further resources

In Sasabe we visited the recently-opened welcome center for migrants, Casa de Esperanza, a project of Salvavision. Sasabe is a sleepy little desert town, but it is still a point of entry for migrants and a place where removed people are set loose. While we were there we were treated to snacks in the Super Coyote convenience store down the street.

Sasabe is the starting point for the annual Migrant Trail experience, which you can join. One of our MCC leaders for our tour, Saulo Padilla, walks the trail every year. He would be glad to tell you all about it. (Read Open Your Arms: An Invitation)

Saulo Padilla 
MCC US Immigration Education Coordinator
saulopadilla@mcc.org
574-304-9196

The next day we had another feast at the Tucson table of compassion and activism. We met John Fife, one of the originators of the Sanctuary Movement, which has spread much further than sanctuary churches. (More history)

The legal razor wire on the other side of the wall

The Mission, , , , , ,

I actually fell asleep in the back set of the van yesterday and missed my second visit to Bisbee Arizona!

I was sleepy because I volunteered to help with the 2-5am shift at the Migrant Resource Center, which is right at the exit of the border crossing. It is a project that began in the Church and remains a wonderful place of mercy for tired, scared and often bewildered people. We had sandwiches, coffee, blankets, a place to nap and a few supplied for about 80 people by my count. I helped one young man find a new pair of pants since his had been ripped on the razor wire. I also found him some new outerwear since his coat was full of thorns. Most of the mostly men waited to be retrieved by their smuggler and taken to a cartel “safe house.”

I was glad to be awake enough to meet Noah Schram of the Florence Project out of Tucson, now 120 lawyers and trained people advising and defending people in the immigration process. One of us jokingly told him we were on our learning tour trying to make sense of the U.S. Immigration process. He laughed too, because no one can really do that.

Right now Title 42 is still in place. It was one of Trump’s executive orders that effectively closed the border. In the name of public health no one was allowed in when they went the legal route of presenting themselves at the port of entry and there was no means to appeal. All the lawyers note this is against the international agreement on refugees to which the U.S. is a signer.

People still get in, however. They evade capture when they scale the wall or they manage not to die of thirst or exposure when they cross where the wall ends far out into the desert. Many do die and their remains quickly dry up; no one knows how many.

Those who cross and are captured from certain countries can get through an asylum loophole since Mexico will not take anyone back who is not from Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras or El Salvador. Unaccompanied minors get dropped off and get through the port of entry now under Biden’s rules. If a family with a young child is caught in the desert they usually get through.

Getting through and into the legal process of gaining asylum means going to the detention center part of a prison. There 14% of the migrants will get representation to help make their case to the immigration judge. Imagine being in your twenties, fleeing your impossible or violent situation, making it through the longest trip you’ve ever taken under the thumb of the cartel, making it over the wall or around it and through the desert, being caught by the military presence in the United States, taken to a prison, then getting into a bureaucratic and legal fight which is done mainly by English speakers!

That’s where Noah and his people come in, God bless them. The system is not designed to welcome strangers, just repel them. The judges are rarely impartial, taking the side of the unrepresented; many of them function more as another prosecutor. When I read the Bible these days I see how much of it is written with such injustice and lack of compassion in mind.

Further Resources

Noah Schram in making such good use of his law degree! The Florence Immigrant and Refugee Rights Project is on of many such projects along the border. Every immigrant needs an advocate to get through a system designed to trick them, detain them, and thwart them even when they are in line with international and U.S. law.

The 1951 Refugee Agreement is still in place.

The United States has long guaranteed the right to seek asylum to individuals who arrive at our southern border and ask for protection. But since March 20, 2020, that fundamental right has been largely suspended. Since that date, both migrants seeking a better life in the United States and those seeking to apply for asylum have been turned away and “expelled” back to Mexico or their home countries. These border expulsions are carried out under a little-known provision of U.S. health law, section 265 of Title 42, which the former Trump administration invoked to achieve its long-desired goal of shutting the border. The Biden administration has continued using this provision, and over 1.2 million expulsions have been carried out since the pandemic began, even though ports of entry remain open with nearly 11 million people crossing the southern border every month and thousands flying into the United States every day. (full article from the American Immigration Council)

The Department of Justice contributes to non-profits like FIRRP through its Legal Orientation Program. Only 14% of people seeking asylum are represented however. We spoke to one of them who somehow connected with people from a Tucson church visiting  Eloy. It took TWO YEARS for her unjust detention to be ended, but she made it. Now she has started a business.

Why do the authorities release people without their shoelaces? What in the impact of the Migrant Protection Policy (MPP)? (Anchorage Daily News)

Immigration court judges are not impartial. The system in broken. (NYTimes)

On this day we also visited the brick-making neighborhood of Agua Prieta, Sonora, to see DouglaPrieta. It is a project begun by women seeking more dignity to make their own way in the world. It is a mutual teaching center for backyard farming, sewing, carpentry and other skills. What we witnessed was how good a training center it was for disempowered women to become leaders and builders. They even made their own adobe bricks to make one of their buildings! I bought some of their work to take home.

Education in Agua Prieta

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I am in Mexico. I hope to share some of what I am learning about the border each day this week. Here’s the first story.

David Bonilla wanted to stop talking about the cartel members who protect the educational services the Frontera mission supplies to poorly-served elementary kids on the Mexican side of the border at Douglas, Arizona. He would rather talk about the souls he snatched from that devil. They don’t ask to be protected. But the cartel considers “places of peace” valuable.

He was being translated so I could have missed some meaning. But I know he recalled a young boy said he wanted to be a hit man when he grew up when he first arrived for the enrichment their program supplies. That profession is the kind he could see around him. The leaders of the cartel are like a huge business (perhaps like UPenn) which provides services to whole sections of a town. The kids aspire to work for their elaborate trade indrugs and migrants. In Agua Prieta the city government and the cartel have somewhat equal power. It is more peaceful to have just one trafficking business rather than a war for your town. Many kids would like to see themselves riding around in the fancy Jeep that sometimes pulls up outside the after school program to make their presence felt.

Here the school day is 8-12. It is not enough to make progress in overcrowded classrooms. MCC had a worker for several years creating this additional free opportunity for further learning. Education provides more imagination to young minds deciding who the are in the shadow of the wall under the threat of violence.

I am happy David gives his life to the cause. He was a pastor in Bogota in a section of the city so marginal the authorities would not provide it electricity and water. They expected it to slide down the mountain. Before it did, David and his wife applied to work with MCC in Mexico as they had helped in Colombia.

Further resources

While everyone seems to have a website these days the main resources I discovered in the borderlands were PEOPLE! There are MANY wonderful people caring for the helpless and hopeless crashing into the American wall. Many of them are associated with MCC.

David Bonilla is doing a good job of whipping Frontera de Cristo into shape with his administrative skills. He got connected via MCC in Colombia.

You might want to look up my new friend Emily Miller whose home base is Juarez, Mexico, across the border from El Paso. She is the Coordinator of projects and relationships for  Northern Mexico as part of MCC Mexico. emilymiller@mcc.org