Psalm 55
"Give ear to my prayer, O God,
and hide yourself not from my plea of mercy!
Attend to me, and answer me;
I am restless in my complaint and I moan,
because of the noise of the enemy,
because of the oppression of the wicked.
For they drop trouble upon me;
the terrors of death have fallen on me
Fear and trembling come over me,
and horror overwhelms me.
And I say "Oh that I had wings like a dove!"
I would fly away and be at rest;
yes, I would wander far away;
I would lodge myself in the wilderness."
Who is our enemy? Who is the one we are saying this psalm to? Right now, sitting in my house in Freetown, and as I look out across the edge of the windowsills, I see that the enemy is ourselves, humanity. The streets of Freetown are trash-strewn and deteriorating underneath the feet of people who long for more, yet don't have time or energy to distract themselves on it, especially when simply living is so demanding. I wonder what this place looked like before the West came, equating shiny stones in the earth to billions of dollars to be used for the already rich, the already engorged. And I wonder what this place was like before the automobile came, demanding the paved roads that suffocate everything, as they spew their lungs of sulfur and smoke. The natural world here is vibrant, magnificent. There is a tree perched on a hill where we walk regularly to and from Krio lessons and meetings. It must be centuries old. The magnitude and vibrancy of that tree looks down on and laughs at the mad schemes for money, power, control, effeciency and even strife of the civilization that has grown up around it. When I think about America, with its form-cut paved roads and strip malls (may as well be strip-mining) I see the enemy humanity has become there also.
"Because of the noise of my enemies, because of the oppression of the wicked." We so often look so sharply for our enemies outside of our own selves that we fail to detect our growing affluence and despondancy to the natural world. I feel the noise and evil of our wicked selfishness on both sides of the ocean, East and West, and I long to fly away and I say "Oh that I had wings of a dove, I would fly away and be at rest, yes I would wander far way, I would lodge myself in the wilderness."
As I write this, bearing the burden of these thoughts, I prepare to go out amidst the slums, the trash-strewn streets and murky, coal waters, filled with the plastic scum of a people who have forgotten the place of God's earth in their lives. I go not with a sense of fatality or defeatism, but with the sense that however hard it may be, the gates of hell will not prevail against God's mercy and his beautiful creations. Amen to God.
Friday, February 29, 2008
3-1 + Cynicism
First day of March. Rain and wind wakes me up at 5 o'clock and precedes to rain like I have seen few times before. It is significantly cooler as I sit with the open wondow at my back with cool breeze entering in. The breeze is always welcome but this one comes without the humid air which often surrounds it, and with much less heat.
Reading the morning paper:
"AFRC Loses Appeal"
Alex Brima, Brima Kamara, Santigie Kanu, all convicted of mass murder, gang rape, child sioldiering, difigurement, and raiding villages. "The victims were babies, young children and mena and women of all ages." Sentence? 50, 45, and 50 years consecutively between them. Kidding me? Not even life sentences for some of the worst crimes in human history.
"Saving the Gongkoma forest from AK-47 Rifles"
At a village so isolated that it has seen its first automobile as the conservationists arrived has had problems with a specific tree being cut dowen for the production of AK-47 rifles. The forest had been untouched for a century and now good-for-nothing 20th and 21st century weapons are decimating it. War and the land can never co-exist, one is there at the cost of the other. People who have never seen a car before have regularly seen the most mass-made and brutal weapons. Yes, the world is growing smaller, but sometimes I am sorry that it is.
And then, the midst of a small West African newspaper are recorded the progress reports of the U.S. primaries in OH and TX. I feel so exasperated when the bias leans toward one egocentric nation. How can we stop thinking about our own small North American world if the rest of the world is so hell-bent on talking about us? Record holding events such as one of the first democratic elections in Sierra Leone ever are covered up with reports about a single car bomb in Iraq or new, daily, incessant reports about which Democratic candidate will the Democratic candidate. I feel like America is sleepwalking off a cliff of narcissism.
Forgive my negativity, it really was a good morning, one that I spent relaxing and writing. It just seems that some things always cut through anything good.
Reading the morning paper:
"AFRC Loses Appeal"
Alex Brima, Brima Kamara, Santigie Kanu, all convicted of mass murder, gang rape, child sioldiering, difigurement, and raiding villages. "The victims were babies, young children and mena and women of all ages." Sentence? 50, 45, and 50 years consecutively between them. Kidding me? Not even life sentences for some of the worst crimes in human history.
"Saving the Gongkoma forest from AK-47 Rifles"
At a village so isolated that it has seen its first automobile as the conservationists arrived has had problems with a specific tree being cut dowen for the production of AK-47 rifles. The forest had been untouched for a century and now good-for-nothing 20th and 21st century weapons are decimating it. War and the land can never co-exist, one is there at the cost of the other. People who have never seen a car before have regularly seen the most mass-made and brutal weapons. Yes, the world is growing smaller, but sometimes I am sorry that it is.
And then, the midst of a small West African newspaper are recorded the progress reports of the U.S. primaries in OH and TX. I feel so exasperated when the bias leans toward one egocentric nation. How can we stop thinking about our own small North American world if the rest of the world is so hell-bent on talking about us? Record holding events such as one of the first democratic elections in Sierra Leone ever are covered up with reports about a single car bomb in Iraq or new, daily, incessant reports about which Democratic candidate will the Democratic candidate. I feel like America is sleepwalking off a cliff of narcissism.
Forgive my negativity, it really was a good morning, one that I spent relaxing and writing. It just seems that some things always cut through anything good.
Monday, February 25, 2008
The City of Rest
The amount of new informationa and experiences that have come and gone here for me would be impossible to write about. Aside from an entirely new culture and language I have also had other sorts of responsibilities laid on my head, which are the basis for the rest of my time here until June. My interest specifically? My eyes have laid rest on a small community amoungst the bustling, trash-strewn streets of Freetown, known as the "City of Rest." It is a place for the mentally disabled and recovering drug addicts. When one thinks about these categories in the states one might think about spotless, white-washed anemic rooms, nurses coming to and fro, patients going through the program of rehibilitation. The "City of Rest" is something else entirely. It was started by one woman sent from Germany into the town after the Civil War. She was initially sent in order to do traditional mission work but found a special calling for herself in a building that had been set aside for another purpose but ultimately ended up in her hands. From her small amount of resources she engaged the community in the most loving way possible: by taking those stricken with mental diease off of the streets where they had been thrown, where they would remain in debilitating poverty, without friends or family. But the woman brought them in, one by one, using the rooms there to shelter them and her own friends from Freetown to watch over them and serve them. The staff is paid less than $30 a week in return for their full-time service and dedication to the "guests."
It is a small two-storied building with an enclosed compound area no bigger than a basketball court. In the rooms both d0wnstairs and up there are men and women (separately) in bunkbeds, cramming each room without reserve. The trick about the whole facility is that it has no medical staff. There is a severe lack of health professionals in Freetown and even if one could be acquired would be far too expensive to pay. A doctor does come when a new guest arrives and puts them on a non-specific cocktail of drugs to put the patient to sleep to wear off any drug-affects. After this there are no psychiatrists, no nurses, no therapists. The staff is composed of two pastors, the woman Helaina, and some other minimally paid workers.
The basic program for drug addicts is to let them go to personal counciling sessions for a certain prescribed periods of time, usually months. These recovering addicts cannot leave the building or the compound their entire time of rehabilitation. For patients with serious mental problems it is even worse. Some have been living inside the facility for years, with few or none opportunites to be outside. Programs? Not enough money or resources. Relationships? These people are outcasts from their families and friends because of their special needs. Counceling? The woman Helaina and the two other pastors are overworked and have responsibilites also outside the compound. Psychiatric medicine? Those specific kinds of meds are not available in-country and cannot be shipped in with current international trade laws. It is all that can be done to simply take these people in and feed them, provide them a space to live in off of the lonely streets.
As I entered into the compound with my teammates in order to be briefed on the needs there there was a flock of people, ready and desperate for new friends, new relationships. They need someone simply to talk to, simply to tell their story to. They need music, laughter, love and a listening ear. In the States I have these things and more, comfort with my family and wealth, complete with dependable air conditioning and ice cream (it is reported that with all the money that Americans spend on ice cream each year, you could cure world poverty). But here there is no reprieve for those born in the streets of Sierra Leone. Within that compound Jesus lives there, forgotten and passed by, the poor suffering man who knows brokenness and true humility.
Do I have the arrogance to pass Christ by, as he sits in his overpopulated room craving some semblance of friendship and connection with the outside world? Surely it can't be so. I have spent my time thinking and praying, and here is where I will attempt to act and be Christ for someone else. These people have weighed heavily on my heart and mind, a weight that will only get heavier as I go amidst them and experience brokenness and rejection, even maybe their rejection of me.
I think my music may have a place here among those who have the least cause to sing. We'll see if a guitar can help, I am not sure. What else can I do but invest my meager talents where there is the least to go round? Please be praying for me as you read this, and understand that people are suffering in ways that we have walked passed in disdain and ignorance. I feel that the service I offer here will only cause me to be broken as well, humble before God as I find that I may not be so different than the "poor" that I serve.
It is a small two-storied building with an enclosed compound area no bigger than a basketball court. In the rooms both d0wnstairs and up there are men and women (separately) in bunkbeds, cramming each room without reserve. The trick about the whole facility is that it has no medical staff. There is a severe lack of health professionals in Freetown and even if one could be acquired would be far too expensive to pay. A doctor does come when a new guest arrives and puts them on a non-specific cocktail of drugs to put the patient to sleep to wear off any drug-affects. After this there are no psychiatrists, no nurses, no therapists. The staff is composed of two pastors, the woman Helaina, and some other minimally paid workers.
The basic program for drug addicts is to let them go to personal counciling sessions for a certain prescribed periods of time, usually months. These recovering addicts cannot leave the building or the compound their entire time of rehabilitation. For patients with serious mental problems it is even worse. Some have been living inside the facility for years, with few or none opportunites to be outside. Programs? Not enough money or resources. Relationships? These people are outcasts from their families and friends because of their special needs. Counceling? The woman Helaina and the two other pastors are overworked and have responsibilites also outside the compound. Psychiatric medicine? Those specific kinds of meds are not available in-country and cannot be shipped in with current international trade laws. It is all that can be done to simply take these people in and feed them, provide them a space to live in off of the lonely streets.
As I entered into the compound with my teammates in order to be briefed on the needs there there was a flock of people, ready and desperate for new friends, new relationships. They need someone simply to talk to, simply to tell their story to. They need music, laughter, love and a listening ear. In the States I have these things and more, comfort with my family and wealth, complete with dependable air conditioning and ice cream (it is reported that with all the money that Americans spend on ice cream each year, you could cure world poverty). But here there is no reprieve for those born in the streets of Sierra Leone. Within that compound Jesus lives there, forgotten and passed by, the poor suffering man who knows brokenness and true humility.
Do I have the arrogance to pass Christ by, as he sits in his overpopulated room craving some semblance of friendship and connection with the outside world? Surely it can't be so. I have spent my time thinking and praying, and here is where I will attempt to act and be Christ for someone else. These people have weighed heavily on my heart and mind, a weight that will only get heavier as I go amidst them and experience brokenness and rejection, even maybe their rejection of me.
I think my music may have a place here among those who have the least cause to sing. We'll see if a guitar can help, I am not sure. What else can I do but invest my meager talents where there is the least to go round? Please be praying for me as you read this, and understand that people are suffering in ways that we have walked passed in disdain and ignorance. I feel that the service I offer here will only cause me to be broken as well, humble before God as I find that I may not be so different than the "poor" that I serve.
Monday, January 28, 2008
Nothing New Under the Sun
Sometimes there’s nothing as significant as simply raking the leaves on a wind-swept day with your grandmother. She simply came up to me on Sunday morning, right after a lovely sermon, as I stood catching up with an old friend. It was in this setting of warm fellowship, within the familiarity of the church and church friends, that her idea bloomed up to me. And it did require going up, from her form their peering beseechingly to my stratosphere at above 6'3" altitude. The majority of the people are obliged to crane their necks to converse with my high lean figure, so this wasn't disrupting the expected. It had occurred to her in that atmosphere of reflected and deflected utterances of Christian love, rooted from everything spoke and mentioned in that high-steepled place, to accept the compellent nature of God's love and be compelled. To what end? To rake.
The next day I found myself waiting in the church parking lot: rake, jacket, gloves, complete with bagged lunch; all in hand for the days work. Talk was sparked with some comics between us, then pragmatics, everything else following and falling in between. The sharp notes of our voices rose and fell with every moment, noting the work to be done and cares of the moment, slowly weaving through to the level of the mundane lives lead from moment to moment, day to day. Yes, mundane, steady, expected, and yet completely magnificent. The magnificence of the everyday in and out, up and down, within and without. Her aged demeanor drove carefully and deliberately on the highways and low roads until we arrived at our first destination, my uncle's mother's small plot in the maze of American suburbia. We arrived, unloaded, and began the day's long work.
The next day I found myself waiting in the church parking lot: rake, jacket, gloves, complete with bagged lunch; all in hand for the days work. Talk was sparked with some comics between us, then pragmatics, everything else following and falling in between. The sharp notes of our voices rose and fell with every moment, noting the work to be done and cares of the moment, slowly weaving through to the level of the mundane lives lead from moment to moment, day to day. Yes, mundane, steady, expected, and yet completely magnificent. The magnificence of the everyday in and out, up and down, within and without. Her aged demeanor drove carefully and deliberately on the highways and low roads until we arrived at our first destination, my uncle's mother's small plot in the maze of American suburbia. We arrived, unloaded, and began the day's long work.
The initial fury of our sweeps and stows at the depthless leaves soon gave way to the rhythm of burying our hands into the piles to bring the remnants of last summer to the light of day, only to be plunged back again into the dark plastic wrap. As any work with the land demands, the work undulated with breaks for breathers and additional sacks for the flowing heaps of leaves. A glass of water and brown sugar oatmeal square later we had completely revealed the cold semblance of a lawn. We had both decided that a before and an after picture would have brought the full justice of the act but the conspiracy for good that day wasn't to be hampered by obeying the haughty regulations of PR work. Publicity and humility don't often agree.
As we pushed our meager tools and shuffling bodies back into the car and headed toward the next target for my grandmother's cunning campaign of unprovoked service. Unprovoked and unsolicited, she had set out that day to commit the terrible mystery of selfless charity, and the day would not leave that motive unquenched. The next task proved more difficult and by sight more intimidating, but it was to submit to the vigilance of our efforts all the same.
It was in the hindsight of that day, as the muted cascades of houses and trees passed my mind and the regular rhythm of the day had done its work, that I saw what great nobility and treacherousness belonged to it. Mundane work, a mundane day, everyday service, the everyday sacrifice that courts it. The wondrous damage of the gospel on the world commits itself in the most subservient, quiet ways imaginable. And the work of the day had not so much to do with doing, but in fact being. Being diligent, being charitable, being in prayer, being in love. The truth of the matter is that life is mundane, and is much of the time not anything but regular, rhythmic, earthly. The writer of Ecclesiastes lived dictated by the agricultural world, the world of farms and farming. The sun rises, sets, the earth turns, seasons come and go. What always remains is the work to be done.
What can we say back to the writer of Ecclesiastes, who tells us with such morbid fatality that “What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun; Is there anything of which one can say, ‘Look! This is something new’? It was here already, long ago; it was here before our time” (Ecclesiastes 1:9-10). There is truly nothing new under the sun for those who work toward good, and this certainty gives us great truth and trepidation, but also the possibility for great thankfulness. How long will the leaves stay off of the land? How long will the grass be cut and the weeds be pulled? How long will there be fear and violence, pain and separation? In the same moment that we catch sight of our urgent longing for goodness to come, and to stay, we find that it does come, and to our surprise, stays. The love of God has come, is come, and will come. It is often seen in the regular, the rhythmic, the earthly. God's love is nothing new under the sun, but it cannot grow old either, and it cannot die. The heartbeat of God's love turns on us with a breathing persistence, steady and sure. Yes, there is nothing new under the sun, and how much peace that may grant us! Let us give thanks for the steady beat of God's love in every moment.
Saturday, January 26, 2008
Feel Good Music
There are a million movies out there to watch, and my family makes a good effort at seeing all of them. I would say movie-watching is my family's favorite past time, if it can beat eating food. Movies come in all sorts of shapes and sizes, but one common denominator in any movie that has any challenge to be overcome is what I call the the "progress soundtrack." Take Remember the Titans. Classic case of progress soundtrack. Names like Lynard Skynard, the Doobie Brothers, James Brown and Three Dog Night are often implicated in it. Its the Gospel music of any cinematic soundtrack. Its "feel good" music, its make-the-world-a-better-place music. Whoa, they're out of training, they're winning it, they're on their way! One of my favorites of all time is Angels in the Outfield. Disney is a huge fan of the progress soundtrack. The same goes for Glory Road and almost any other sports movie. Change is in the air, the season for success is upon them. And it isn't just a cinematic phenomenon. A fleeting glance at the Civil Rights Movement instantly roots that make-the-world-a-better-place music into the real.
But here's something else I catch myself wondering: will there ever be a time in my future ministry when I will hear those "feel good" chimes sounding off in my mind? It's been tough so far because I simply haven't been at one place on the globe long enough for even the beginning credits to get rolling. It seems as though that there is always a breaking point for any place, any job, and that once the ice had been chipped up a bit things should build some momentum, right? Or at least I hope so.
Or maybe that time will never come. Maybe there will not ever be a time for that far predictable moment, often seen and always heard in the movies, for a progress soundtrack. And maybe I hope it never does come. Maybe speeding through the middle of life with a good tune rolling over the finer details is the last thing I want. But maybe, maybe, I'll never know what I want until I get there. These days I just hope I can hold fast until I hit through the ice.
But here's something else I catch myself wondering: will there ever be a time in my future ministry when I will hear those "feel good" chimes sounding off in my mind? It's been tough so far because I simply haven't been at one place on the globe long enough for even the beginning credits to get rolling. It seems as though that there is always a breaking point for any place, any job, and that once the ice had been chipped up a bit things should build some momentum, right? Or at least I hope so.
Or maybe that time will never come. Maybe there will not ever be a time for that far predictable moment, often seen and always heard in the movies, for a progress soundtrack. And maybe I hope it never does come. Maybe speeding through the middle of life with a good tune rolling over the finer details is the last thing I want. But maybe, maybe, I'll never know what I want until I get there. These days I just hope I can hold fast until I hit through the ice.
Thursday, January 24, 2008
Wednesday, January 23, 2008
Dreamer
I am a dreamer. I spend a lot of my time dreaming, and one of the very first thing that comes into my mind when I enter a new place or start some new thing is dream about what I could become, dream about how things could be. But so often these dreams I have are so far from ever becoming realized. I read a passage from a prophet named Isaiah which attracted my eyes to it in its brilliant poeticism. It reads:
"as when a hungry dreams that he is eating,
but he awakens, and his hunger remains;
as when a thirsty man dreams that he is drinking,
but he awakens faint, with his thirst unquenched."
It seems that there are times when I grow so desperate about the dreams I sometimes have, so weary of waking up to find that the things I desire cannot be mine or will not be mine. And on another level entirely, the passage resounds with great truth about my quest for God, my desire to be holy. In my prayer and in the dreams that run their course in my mind, I find that many times it seems that the things which are good are so desperately out of my grasp. There is more to being holy then just aligning what God says is good and what you think is good, more to doing good than just wanting to do good. Dreams cannot be realized by simply dreaming them. I am a dreamer, but if I could only do half of what I dream...
It seems that pinning my dreams down to the ground is my ordeal at the moment. But even more dangerous is when I am in danger of losing the capacity to dream entirely. The danger of becoming a realist is the chance of becoming a skeptic, and God knows we don't need another one of those!
"as when a hungry dreams that he is eating,
but he awakens, and his hunger remains;
as when a thirsty man dreams that he is drinking,
but he awakens faint, with his thirst unquenched."
It seems that there are times when I grow so desperate about the dreams I sometimes have, so weary of waking up to find that the things I desire cannot be mine or will not be mine. And on another level entirely, the passage resounds with great truth about my quest for God, my desire to be holy. In my prayer and in the dreams that run their course in my mind, I find that many times it seems that the things which are good are so desperately out of my grasp. There is more to being holy then just aligning what God says is good and what you think is good, more to doing good than just wanting to do good. Dreams cannot be realized by simply dreaming them. I am a dreamer, but if I could only do half of what I dream...
It seems that pinning my dreams down to the ground is my ordeal at the moment. But even more dangerous is when I am in danger of losing the capacity to dream entirely. The danger of becoming a realist is the chance of becoming a skeptic, and God knows we don't need another one of those!
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