Sermon Series..."Living in the Mess"

I just listened to a very moving sermon on the church of the resurrection website…not by Adam Hamilton but by a woman named Penny Ellwood. I looked for the GPS (Grow, Pray and Study guide)…but there wasn't one for this sermon series. I loved what she had to say about how to “live in the mess.”

She talked about different life events, some hypothetical, some from her own life and some from the lives of people she knows. Her most moving story was the story of a young seminary student she worked with at one of the satellite campuses. While he was dating the woman he is now married to, her mother died. He went to the funeral out of state where he met her family for the first time. 

Her dad became distraught at the gravesite….so distraught he actually jumped into the open grave; on his knees, crying hysterically. Nobody knew what to do. The grave was deep and nobody could physically reach him. The young man....Joe....didn't know what to do either but he did the only thing he could think of; he jumped down into the muddy grave, in his new suit and simply embraced her father, wept with him and provided a shoulder to cry on. Like Job’s friends (before they became miserable comforters) Joe sat in the ashes with his girlfriend's father. 

When the grieving man finally calmed down, they were so deep in the muddy grave Joe wondered how they would ever get out….and then he looked up and saw many hands reaching down to help pull them out. The analogy is touching, poignant and inspiring.

It seems like an interesting series because we all….ALL….end up in the pit of despair at times in our lives. Although throughout the Bible we are assured that God is with us always…even in the “pits,” we are comforted when another human meets us in our pain, sits with us in our ashes and extends a hand up when we are ready to climb out.

Oh My God! the movie….

This morning on Facebook, someone posted a quote from "Oh My God," the feature length documentary by Peter Rodgers, The premise of the movie intrigued me. 

In every corner of the world, there’s one question that can never be definitively answered, yet stirs up equal parts passion, curiosity, self-reflection and often wild imagination: “What is God?”

Filmmaker Peter Rodger explores this profound, age-old query in the provocative non-fiction feature Oh My God. This visual odyssey travels the globe with a revealing lens examining the idea of God through the minds and eyes of various religions and cultures, everyday people, spiritual leaders and celebrities.

Keith checked to see if it was available on Netflix and indeed it was.  It should arrive sometime the end of the week, in time to watch on Christmas afternoon. Our Christmas Days are usually quiet....the kids head off to their dad's about noon and we eat leftover Chinese food and hang out.  Everybody has to have their traditions, afterall.

I will post a review of sorts after we watch the movie. It did not get very good reviews for content.  (although the photography is described as stunning) so we'll see.....

There is also a book called the "Oh My God Chronicles" written by Rodger.  There is an excerpt from the book to read PDF style on line.

He talks about his father, famed photojournalist George Rodger, known for his photographs of WWII that were published in Life Magazine.  He was with the British army when they liberated the Bergen-Belsen Concentration Camp on April 15, 1945.  His photographs were among the first "proof" of the atrocities committed by the Germans. Of the scene he witnessed, he says this....

Under the pine trees the scattered dead were lying, not in their twos or threes or dozens, but in their thousands.  The living tore ragged clothing from the corpses to build fires, over which they boiled pine needles and roots for soup.  Little children rested heads against the stinking corpses of their mothers, too nearly dead themselves to cry.  An emaciated man approached me.  "Look, Englishmen," he said.  "This is German culture." And he fell down dead in front of me.  Bodies with gaping wounds in the region of the kidneys, liver and heart testified to the cannibalism that had been resorted to, degradation begetting degradation.  

Which brings us back to the oft asked questions of theodicy....a question way beyond the scope of this post. 

How the Light Enters and Shines….

The wound is the place where the Light enters you. –Rumi

I came upon the Rumi quote as I was stumbling here and there on  (where else) the internet this morning.  It reminded me of a devotional I saved from a book of devotionals by Joni Erickson Tada.  She talked about the light of Christ falling on the broken pieces, the shattered pieces of our lives....and how God can turn the shattered ruins into a kaleidoscope through which his light can shine.  I think it is majorly cool when two people as different as can be....from different eras and cultures and belief systems convey the same deep truth.  Joni said it this way.....

Shattered glass is full of a thousand different angles, each one picking up a ray of light and shooting it off in a thousand different directions. That doesn’t happen with plain glass, such as a jar. The glass must be broken into many pieces. What’s true of shattered glass is true of a broken life. Shattered dreams. A heart full of fissures. Hopes that are splintered. A life in pieces that appears to be ruined. But given time and prayer, such a person’s life can shine more brightly than if the brokenness had never happened. When the light of the Lord Jesus falls upon a shattered life, that believer’s hopes can be brightened.

Your life may be shattered by sorrow, pain, or sin, but God has in mind a kaleidoscope through which His light can shine more brilliantly.

Bonus quote:

With a closed mind and heart, the light cannot enter.

-Shelby Taylor Weaver

Just prayed to a god that I don’t believe in….

After a year long (and then some) hiatus, I’ve been hitting the gym just about every morning. I’ve been getting up early (as usual) but instead of lollygagging around on the internet sipping a strong “not for wimps” cup of coffee for an hour or more, I’ve been heading out to my cold, frost covered car and driving to Planet Fitness.  Once there, I read the blogs I’ve saved in google reader and other miscellaneous stuff I’ve earmarked to read…on my Kindle 3 while pedaling or hoofing it on the treadmill.  Killing two birds with one stone.

I suspect some insights and thoughts are a result of the endorphins that are circulating through my system.  I’ve read there is a difference in the way the brain processes thoughts when you are exercising.

I’ve gotten so many ideas for blog posts, I’m pondering a new  “at the gym” tag. We’ll see.  No telling how long this early morning exercise resolution will hang on. 

The idea for this post came, not from google reader or anything saved on my kindle, but from the Planet Fitness music blaring from their speakers.  Usually an annoyance that fades to the background, these lyrics captured my attention. 

“I’m still alive but I’m barely breathing”

“Just prayed to a god that I don’t believe in”

The song is called Breakeven from The Script.  It is an ode to lost love.  An “I’m dying here while you are out there living it up” song.  The song emphasizes that he is “falling to pieces.”

It made me think about how often we turn to the god that we “don’t believe in” when our world is crashing down around us and we are “falling to pieces.” 

Wasn’t is C.S. Lewis, no stranger to incredible pain when he lost his beloved wife, Joy, who penned the words

But pain insists upon being attended to. God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our conscience, but shouts in our pains: it is His megaphone to rouse a deaf world. --C.S. Lewis

And George MacDonald said this

As cold as everything looks in winter, the sun has not forsaken us. He has only drawn away for a little, for good reasons, one of which is that we may learn that we cannot do without him. --George MacDonald

And there is the oft repeated “no atheists in foxholes” quote.

I won’t get into the perpetual, seemingly unanswerable question of whether God merely allows or directly causes our suffering.  I suspect it’s a bit of both and not strictly an either or thing.  But he uses our distress as his megaphone to break thought our deafness.  Many times when we have nowhere else to go, we turnj to the god that we don’t believe in….and find, to our utter amazement, that he is indeed there. 

My “testimony” is a variation of that very theme. 

I’m including a video of the song in this post.  Videos come and go on You Tube, so it will inevitably become a dead link.  I think it’s really interesting what they do with the photographs in the video. 

 

Sitting with the ashes…

I just read an article in the November edition of Reader’s Digest called “Love, Faith and War.” It is a short article (duh…Reader’s Digest, after all) about two chaplains in Afghanistan. Very well written….with carefully chosen quotes and situations that brought the story to life.

I checked the RD website to see if the story was on the internet but I couldn’t find it.  (There is an article called “Fifty Secrets Nurses Won’t Tell You”…..interesting read….and a bunch of other interesting titles)

There was a snippet, a quote by Capt. David Knight, that stuck out.

“Much of the chaplains job, he says, is not resolving problems or offering advice but simply being present as the patients and the staff cope with terrible situations”

“You need to be OK with people hurting, he says.”

He calls this sitting with the ashes, a reference to the Biblical story of Job, who lost his family, his health, and all his possessions.  “He was sitting in the ashes mourning and his friends came and sat with him,” he says. 

Now granted, Job’s friends are infamous for their “miserable comforting” techniques…..but perhaps there is a lesson to be learned there too.  What not to do when we sit in the ashes with someone who is hurting. 

As a mom, I’ve had to sit with the ashes.  All three of my kids have had difficulties and heartache in their lives.  Many times….most times…they brought it on themselves.  There have been times when, out of futility and necessity,  I’ve stopped beating my head against the brick wall of trying to control the situation and simply been there with them in the ashes. 

Right now, one of my kids is going through a challenging situation.  Nothing that will matter all that much ten years from now, but a costly, most definitely avoidable mistake that involves a lot of unpleasant untangling and damage control.  And I’m sitting with the ashes. 

And it hurts like hell to watch someone you love in distressing situations.  Especially your kids.  Especially your “mom, I’m and adult now” kids.  They are….yet they aren’t.  A time of transition…with one foot still in the old world of childhood and dependency….but the other foot in a new world of “I’m my own person and can do what I want.”

And I wonder if God feels that way about us.  He tells us, he warns us, he guides us….but sometimes we get that rebellious burst of “I’m my own person and can do what I want.” And when things fall apart, he sits with us in the ashes. 

I know he does because I’ve felt his presence very strongly in the ashes.  And I believe his heart aches for us when we make a mess of things….and he promises that he will (eventually)bring beauty out of the ashes…..

 

Evil Perpetrated Against a Child…

In the conversation between the brothers (aka Ivan’s tirade) in Fyodor Dostoevsky's, The Brothers Karamazov, Ivan’s big beef was the evil perpetrated against children…under the omnipresent eye of God.  That was his ultimate “WTF is wrong with this picture” moment….no fair, this isn’t right, time out, you’ve got to be kidding.  Children should not suffer the way they do.  Especially at the hands of adults. Especially not at the hands of adults who are supposed to love them and care for them….their parents.  Sometimes that is the most treacherous place for a child to be is in the care of their parents.

It’s really not like me to comment on current events in a post.  It is more my style to wait until the event is a distant memory and then write about it. The reasons? Perhaps procrastination…and too much I want to write about, not enough time to write it.  Maybe a bit of my “far from the maddening crowd” mindset.  If the vast majority of blogs in the Blogosphere are writing about it, I probably won’t be.

But the current events of the past few days so fit the topic of my last post that I would be remiss not to mention dear little Caylee Anthony and the great evil perpetrated against her at the hands of an adult.  Probably an adult who was responsible for her care. 

I love my Facebook feed,  It serves as a sort of demographic of popular opinion.  I have friends on FB that span the range of the spectrum--liberal/conservative, fundamentalist/new age. So I get a plethora of opinions and viewpoints.  There are no shortages of viewpoints about the Casey/Caylee Anthony case.  They run the gamut from “fry the bitch” to “our justice system worked the way it’s supposed to” to “what was the jury thinking?” and “this is the OJ verdict for a younger generation.”

I don’t know.  I didn’t follow the trial…and only read about it helter skelter during the three years the case captured the media’s attention.  Is Casey guilty?  I don’t know.  If she is guilty, why would she do such a thing to her own child?  Just another question mark…amongst the endless number of question marks surrounding suffering and evil….especially when it involves children. 

Again as I mentioned in my first post….Epicurus summed it up:

“Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able?
Then he is not omnipotent.
Is he able, but not willing?
Then he is malevolent.
Is he both able and willing?
Then whence cometh evil?
Is he neither able nor willing?
Then why call him God?”

 

Why? 

That is the heart wrenching cry of those tormented by the POE, the Problem of Evil. 

Why? Why? Why?

Theodicy tries to answer the question….and there are no shortages of opinions about it…and we’ll take a look at a couple of the most interesting theories in upcoming posts….but nobody REALLY knows for sure…and so the question remains

Why?

The Conversation Between the Brothers….

Long ago and far away, I ended the first post in this series….The POE Revisited….

More in my next post about the conversation between the two brothers, Ivan and Alyosha.   Here is the link to the excerpt.....Fyodor Dostoevsky on the Problem of Evil from the Brothers Karamazov.

Perhaps the title of this post isn’t quite accurate.  What goes on between the brothers isn’t actually a conversation….it is a one man dissertation.  Ivan presents his complaints against God to his brother …monologue fashion. Alyosha… mainly listens. 

And it is the children…the suffering children….the stereotypical argument that is so often raised against God…that bothers Ivan the most.  He makes his case using examples of suffering children….facts and anecdotes that he’s collected from newspapers and books.  And he has some really abhorrent examples.

The “theory of theodicy” he rails against is one of the many explanations mankind has come up with to reconcile the big three pillars of theodicy….the goodness of God, the omnipotence of God…and the existence of suffering.

Ivan is a made up character birthed from the mind and imagination of Fyodor Dostoevsky but he is a composite of many real life people who also find the POE and mystery of suffering….especially the suffering of children, to be the ultimate paradox…the unexplainable enigma…the “fly in the ointment”….the unforgiveable sin for a God who is supposed to be love.  The suffering of children is a frequent theme in Dostoevsky’s work so perhaps he, too, is trying to hash it all out…make sense of it…through his writings?

The angle Ivan chisels away at in his monologue is the necessity of suffering for an eventual, eternal harmony. The conclusion comes to is “no way, Jose’” It’s not worth it.   And he uses the examples of children to prove his point….even though he muses that….

I meant to speak of the suffering of mankind generally, but we had better confine ourselves to the sufferings of the children. That reduces the scope of my argument to a tenth of what it would be.

but….

I took the case of children only to make my case clearer.

Of the other tears of humanity with which the earth is soaked from its crust to its centre, I will say nothing. I have narrowed my subject on purpose.

I’ve had trouble getting started on this series. Perhaps because I don’t know exactly what I want to say.  There is so much to say…so many aspects of it to explore.  I’m just going start typing and see what unfolds…looking at it from several angles. Writing brings a clarity to thoughts, gives them form and order.  A bit like free style mind mapping, without the map. 

More to come in my next post. 

The POE Revisited

The idea for this series was sparked as I read some of the excerpts from The Brothers Karamazov.  How loving your specific neighbor was so suprisingly difficult to pull off.  In that same chapter, Fyodor Dostoyevsky deals with another big theological paradox.  Perhaps the biggest paradox there is....

The POE....the problem of evil....suffering....how to reconcile a loving God....an omnipotent God....with all the evil and suffering in the world.  That is the basis of theodicy, the defense of God's goodness and omnipotence in view of the existence of evil. 


From my own experience, I've found that his defense...or vindication, the word used in some dictionaries "ain't easy." I wasn't a Christian very long before I was faced with reconciling those three key points that form the theodicy riddle, the "therein lies the question" quandary/paradox/koan....

1. The goodness of God
2. The omnipotence of God
3. The existence of evil

 Epicurus summed it up:

“Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able?
Then he is not omnipotent.
Is he able, but not willing?
Then he is malevolent.
Is he both able and willing?
Then whence cometh evil?
Is he neither able nor willing?
Then why call him God?”

It haunted me for the longest time and  I was just absolutely, totally pissed off at God about all the starving children, death, disease, pestilence, natural disasters etc that abound in our world. We were barely on speaking terms, He and I. Well, mainly "I." He was still whispering softly to my heart but I wasn't interested in listening, I had a major pout going.  Huge chip on my shoulder.
 
But I wanted....needed....answers. And so I googled....and surfed.....and clicked on link after link about suffering and evil.  The Brothers Kromanov might have inspired this series, but I have no shortage of resources to draw from.  I have dozens, possibly hundreds, of articles saved on my computer....about suffering, the POE…..all trying to answer questions like…. just where the hell is God when we suffer.  I printed many of them off and saved them in binders.  I have at least as many links saved in my favorites and just as many quotes saved in my quotes file.

I plan on this being a series....but you know how I sometimes stray from the original, central theme.  I think the conversation between the two brothers is profound.  It sums up the problem of evil in a nutshell....succinctly.  Perhaps it will remind some of you of a long forgotten required reading assignment in English Lit....or perhaps it will be prose that many, like me, never struggled to read and understand.   And when it comes to the problem of evil, who really does understand? 

More in my next post about the conversation between the two brothers, Ivan and Alyosha.   Here is the link to the excerpt.....Fyodor Dostoevsky on the Problem of Evil from the Brothers Karamazov.

I came upon an article about fear….

I came upon  an article about fear this weekend.  I forget what I was even googling, but the article, God’s Confidence vs. Our Fears, was there among the search results. The article emphasizes a great verse that I should commit to memory and repeat a couple hundred thousand times a day.

Proverbs 3:25-26: “Have no fear of sudden disaster or of the ruin that overtakes the wicked, for the Lord will be your confidence and will keep your feet from being snared.”

Have no fear of sudden disaster?  Are you kidding?  Seriously? I am the princess of “What if?!!!!" My mother is the reigning queen.  She taught me everything she knows about worrying.  I learned from a pro. I am a pro.  I am so good at it.  I can conjure up the most unlikely and far fetched scenarios….usually focusing on the worst case ones.  They rarely happen.  And the article points out a quote by Mark Twain. 

“I have known a great many troubles, but most of them never happened.”

Yeah? Well what about the quote the gist of which is…

I know worry works. The things I worry about never happen.

Great quotes pointing out, in a tongue in cheek kind of way, the futility of worry….

Yet, somehow such fears of the unknown are not chased away by a clever quote. Knowing that most fears never happen doesn’t bring sleep late in a worry-filled night.

Worry usually doesn’t keep me awake at night.  It does, however, occupy my thoughts many, many days.  And often I am aware of danger lurking just around the corner.  Anticipating the rug being pulled out from under me….or the other shoe dropping. Thud!! It seems the fear of sudden disaster is always kind of hovering in the background. So what’s all this about the Lord being your confidence? 

I guess it’s all about perspective.  Enlarging our perspective from micro to macro.  Minor to major. Carnal to spiritual.  Earthly to heavenly.  This world is not our home.  This body is not the real us.  What happens to it, here in this realm, is of no lasting consequence and might even be for our ultimate good. (what?!!!) And when this whole concept is just too much for the egoic mind to wrap itself around, we can cling to the verse…my new mantra….the Lord will be your confidence. 

Too Lofty For Me….

This weekend...in between bouts of January "spring cleaning"....I found three quotes that string together nicely.  And so, in this post...I am stringing them.

I found two of them on annie's facebook feed.  The other came from notes I was looking through....excerpts from a garage sale book  I found a summer or two ago.  Spiritual Notes To Myself by Hugh Prather.  It was a quarter at the garage sale....totally worth

it. And now the quotes...

God will not hold us responsible to understand the mysteries of election, predestination, and the divine sovereignty. The best and safest way to deal with these truths is to raise our eyes to God and in deepest reverence say, "O Lord, Thou knowest." Those things belong to the deep and mysterious Profound of God's omniscience. Prying into them may make theologians, but it will never make saints ~ A W Tozer

Hmmmm...election, predestination, sovereignty….guess these things fit in the Psalm 139 too lofty for me category.  At one point I wanted to know.  Correction.  At one point, I demanded to know.  How His Sovereignty interplays with our will.  The purpose of evil.  Why is there suffering? At lot of stuff just does not seem fair in this physical realm.  In fact, it seems downright unfair.  Even though in life I haven't personally gotten the short end of the stick too many times, I can get pretty offended for those who have.  And I still...ten years later....don't have definitive answers.  Just a handful of theories, musings..... ponderings. Guess  I am not theologian material...but I'm pretty sure I'm not nearing sainthood either. 

Let your religion be less of a theory and more of a love affair ~ G K Chesterton

That does seem like a better plan since demanding answers is a bit like beating your head against a wall.

And the quote from Spiritual Notes To Myself?

Here I am moving from point A to point B to point C in a fog.  But God gently replies "Take my hand and I will lead you out of the fog"  Then I get stubborn and say, "you didn't answer my question."

We ask God which apple we should buy, and think divine Love leaves the one with the rotten core for someone else.  We may even think God saves one or two from the crash and leaves all the other to burn to death.  We actually believe that what favors our body is a sign of God's grace.

Do I really think god doesn't know my question? Hugh Prather

Of course he knows our questions. And in due  time....when God deems us ready...he will will whisper the answers…..

The Problem of Good….?

Many..many times...on many, many lists and message boards, I've participated in discussions about the POE. 
The. problem. of. evil. 
Suffering. Disasters. Disease. Pain. Loss. Heartache.
In my web meanderings I came across a quote I thought was kind of interesting...looking at it from a different angle....

The older ways of talking about evil tended to pose the puzzle as a metaphysical or theological conundrum. If there is a God, and if he is a good, wise and supremely powerful god, why is there such a thing as evil? Even if you're an atheist, you face the problem: Is this world a sick joke, which contains some things that make us think it's a wonderful place, and other things which make us think it's an awful place, or what? You could of course call this the problem of good, rather than the problem of evil: If the world is the chance assembly of accidental phenomena, why is there so much that we want to praise and celebrate? Why is there beauty, love, and laughter?

To read more from the article God, 9/11, the Tsunami, and the New Problem of Evil…where this quote came from…go HERE.

And I recently posted about Greg Boyd.  In that sermon marathon I talked about in my post…that I listened to on my way to Ellwood City, there was one called The Gospel of Suffering that I thought was pretty good.  You can find it HERE.

The POE...not something we are all likely to agree upon anytime soon. 

Okay…except for this one more thing….

In a recent post, I included a link to the speech Imam Rauf gave at the memorial service for Daniel Pearl.  I only faintly remembered his kidnapping and death…and so I did what I always do to fill in the blanks.  I googled it. 

And I came upon the website of his wife, Mariane Pearl.  She’s written a book, A Mighty Heart. There is info about the book on her website. I read most of the essays there.  The following excerpt is from “Why Good Hearts Must Go Public.”  When her husband Daniel Pearl was kidnapped she was disheartened the Pakistani people were silent.

During this ordeal, I was surrounded by individual Pakistanis and Muslims as courageous and beautiful as those terrorists appeared ugly and without souls. I can never be grateful enough for their graciousness, a ray of hope in the midst of darkness. In the five weeks when I waited in Karachi for Danny to come back to me and our unborn son, the Pakistani police reported at least 11 killings of Shiite Muslims in Karachi alone. Those slain were mostly doctors and professionals. Sectarian terrorists were pursuing their work of destruction. They were planting even deeper the seeds of fear in the hearts of people, making the silence of the majority even more painful to hear. Such fear and terror can destroy a society. When I finally had to acknowledge Danny's bloody murder, I decided not to leave Pakistan right away. I wanted to show defiance against fear. In those days, absorbing the murder of my husband, I received the most heartfelt letters of support from all over the world. And finally I heard from the majority in Pakistan as it abandoned silence.

Pakistani people wrote to me about their feelings. "May God give you strength. Danny's murderers are not Muslim and should be brought to justice." They shared their shame with me: "I am really saddened by the news and astonished that a Pakistani brother can do this." There were beautiful letters printed in Karachi's English-language weekly, The Friday Times. "Danny Pearl is not just a dead American journalist," a writer stated. "His suffering in our midst has made him a martyr to the Pakistani people. He died because Pakistan's enemies could not bear to see the country retake the course of tolerance and moderation that its founding father envisaged." Then I heard about a Web site in which Pakistanis bravely signed their names to a letter of condolence. They wrote: "We unequivocally condemn the perpetrators of this enormity: they are a plague to Pakistan, and the majority of her citizens would prefer to see their kind destroyed." At last count, the signatories numbered 3,767.

Just a side note here…

In many of the discussions I have been involved in about Islam, Muslims, the mosque, terrorism…a common criticism is that the moderate Muslims do not speak up and condemn the radicals.  Well, according to Mariane Pearl 3,767 (as of April 2002) spoke out…and signed their names.  They did this publically.  They did it in a country where it actually endangered their lives.  I wonder how many of those critics of moderate Islam would be brave enough to do the same thing?  And she continues….

Pakistani letter writers had left aside prejudices and appreciated my husband as an individual. One writer commented, "Your husband had a great smile -- a happy mixture of Pope Paul and Dean Martin."
Most captured the sentiments of a writer who called Danny's murder "a crime against the people of Pakistan." These voices give me the strength to believe that the hope of a modern, strong Pakistan still lives and that the people of Pakistan will help me see that justice is done. I'm told there is a hadith, a saying of the Prophet Muhammad, that tells Muslims that if they see an evil they should act to remove the evil. If they cannot do that, they should speak against the evil. If not that, then they must condemn the evil in their hearts.
The strongest expression, however, is to act against evil. In memory of Danny and for the future of our son, who is almost here, I also want to ask the people of Pakistan to act upon the sentiments they have expressed and build a memorial for Danny in Karachi. I will bring our son to this memorial and tell him this is the land where his father died, but that the people here stood by us so that his death would not be in vain.

Check out her website.  You will find information about her books…her son Adam and the life they’ve made since the death of Danny. 

Other 9-11 Families and Organizations

Spurred on by the AOL News article about Lee Ielpi....the first article I clicked on yesterday morning...I "leafed through" many links, articles and websites as I embarked on a fascinating cyber journey of hope.  The original article provided a snapshot of Ielpi's loss...his grief and his resolve to make the world a better place.  He, and many others I read about in my web travels, refused to let hate define them...to let hate fester in their hearts and sully the memory of their loved ones.  They vowed to make the world a better place.

I read about these people with a sort of dropped jaw amazement....convinced I would never....could never.....react the way they are reacting.   The evil perpetrated on 9/11 certainly seems to defy the "steps to forgiveness"  I wrote about recently.  Where does that kind of forgiveness come from? 

As a Christian...as a believer in the "light that lights every many that comes into the world, " I know....in theory...where it comes from.  But somehow...sitting here on my couch....imagining in my mind's eye how I might feel if I had lost one of my children in the fall of the Towers....if one of them were among the thousands of people who are missing...who were simply vaporized that day, I cannot imagine the least bit of interest in making the world a better place.  To want to " bless those who persecuted me and mine?"

Not. Likely.

But that is exactly what many of these families are doing.  Amazing. 

Like the leaven in the dough the Bible talks about, they are slowing changing the world by living out the kind of other centered love that Jesus talked about....loving their enemies and "being the change they want to see in the world." 

I visited Mr. Ielpi's blog, The Persistence of Memory....which linked to the organizations he helped to birth…. the September 11th Families Association and the Tribute World Trade Center Visitors Center.

One of the resources available at the Tribute site is an educational series on 9-11 called Stories of Transformation. It encompasses many aspects of the tragedy.  It describes the events of the day...and the aftermath from the perspective of about ten different people. One...the principal of a high school right across the street from the Towers.  She lost her sister that day...and eventually went on to not only move back to the school but to also found a school in Afghanistan...that educates BOTH boys and girls. She sees education as a way to change the world.

It looks at the tragedy through the eyes of a 9-11 widow with young children who refused to get caught up in the mission of the terrorists....to spread hate.  She, along with another woman widowed on 9-11, formed an organization to help widows in Afghanistan. They provide help and assistance in the form of grants for education for these women in a locked down country where there are no civil rights or opportunities. 

There are other stories, too....of a survivor....a female police officer, a Japanese man who lost his brother in the bombing of Hiroshima...and his son in the Twin Towers.  I will write more about him in an upcoming post. 

These resources are very well done...with short videos and information that help to "put a face" on a few of the people who were profoundly affected by the events of 9-11.

More to come…..

Cardboard Testimony....

Last weekend while browsing through some of the blogs I have saved on my bloglines account, I happened upon a blog...linked from Kansas Bob's blog, called Altered.  It chronicles the journey of a Christian woman diagnosed with ALS....self described as:

My purpose in writing this blog is to share what God is teaching me in my battle with ALS. In a revealing and honest way. My desire is to constantly be transformed by Him. Changed. ALTERED.

I am amazed at the courage, honesty, kindness and faith displayed in her writings.  Awed. 

In one of her recent posts, she included a link to a video, Cardboard Testimonies.  The video has probably been online for a while. There have been over 2 million hits on You Tube.  When I went there just now to get the code to embed the video in this post, the count was 2,164,796 and 305,464 Views on Tangle (formerly God Tube).  That's a lot of views.

I've watched the video several times.  The other night, Emily and I sat on the couch and watched it together. We talked about some of the stories depicted in the video. Life stories condensed to a few words written in bold black letters on pieces of cardboard.  Side one...who I was.  Flip it over to side two...who I am now.  A new creation in Christ. 

I tear up every time I watch it. What a visual testimony of the difference God can make in our lives.  From spiritual rags to spiritual riches.  From emptiness to my cup runneth over.  From despair to joy.  From turmoil to peace.  From hopelessness to trust.  From fear to victory.  From bondage to freedom.  Watch the video.  It is well worth the investment of nine minutes of your time.  And check out some of the other Cardboard Testimony videos listed on You Tube.  On Altered there is a post about the testimony that took place at Jill's church last Sunday....video included.

So what do you think your sign would say? 

  

              

Okay…last one…Wrapping up the Patriots Bible Series

In my earlier post about the Apollo 8 mission, I mentioned the section about Judeo-Christian ethics located in the beginning of this Bible.  How hypocritical is this little ditty....

Principle #1 - The Dignity of Human Life

Exodus 20:13 (You shall not murder)

Matthew 22:39 (You shall love your neighbor as yourself)

The Scriptures emphatically teach the great importance of the respect and preservation of human life.  In the Declaration of Independence, our nation's Founding Fathers wrote that everyone has "unalienable rights" and that among those rights are "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness." We Americans not only believe this for our land, but also we send our brave military men and women around the world to defend the rights of those who are threatened.

If people and nations do not grant ultimate respect and protection to both the born and the unborn, all other professed morals and values are meaningless.  The dignity of human life is not just a principle of the Bible, it is the first principle of any civilized society. 

How can they say this with a straight face?  I picked up a couple of books at a yard sale a couple of weeks ago (also for a quarter a piece.  That must be the going price for yard sale books these days) One is called Secret Native American Pathways.  In it there is a section that talks about Trail of Tears….

….and in 1838, the removal called the “Trail of Tears” took place.  Sixteen thousand Cherokees were brutally rounded up by US Military forces and marched in midwinter to Indian Territory, which today is known as the state of Oklahoma.  Of this group, four thousand would perish in holding pens or along the way.  The entire episode stands as one of the darkest and most shameful events in United States history. 

 

The Trail of Tears, was painted by Robert Lindneux in 1942. It commemorates the suffering of the Cherokee people under forced removal.

I’m thinking perhaps neither of these images made it into the glossed over view of American history depicted in the American Patriots Bible.  To repeat the closing sentence in the first principle of Judeo-Christian ethics….. 

The dignity of human life is not just a principle of the Bible, it is the first principle of any civilized society. 

Hmmmmmmmm……say that again??

Gleanings From a Trip To Lowe's - 3

OMG, is she STILL droning on about that stupid trip to Lowe’s and the Concordant Version of the Psalms???!!!

Just one more. For now anyway.

I have to say that I think it is totally cool how reading a verse in an unfamiliar translation peels another layer off the onion of spiritual understanding…brings out yet another facet of the scriptural diamond. Just three Psalms from the Concordant Version brought all kinds of thoughts to my awareness. Cool. Really cool.

So…Psalm 90:13 says:

Make us rejoice according to the days you humbled us, the years we have seen evil.

That brings to mind another verse I have always liked…..

Joel 2:25

And I will restore to you the years that the locust hath eaten, the cankerworm, and the caterpiller, and the palmerworm, my great army which I sent among you.

So, just to be clear what we are talking about here, I looked up all these critters on Google Images.  Not a pretty sight....

                                       The Cankerworm

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Caterpillar

                                              The Palmerworm

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Before I say anything else...let me just say...

"Ewwwwww...ick....yuk....Nasty!!!"

I can see all three of these things squished on a sidewalk.

I am sure one could find all kinds of spiritual implications in the habits and life cycle of these worms. Someday, I may research it further...but for now, just seeing them in living color is enough to make me realize I don't want them munching on my new petunias.

And scripture makes it quite clear that between the three of them, they could cause a lot of damage.  Another version of scripture refers to them as  

The creeping locust, the stripping locust and the gnawing locust.

Actually Joel 1:4 describes it this way:

What the cutting locust left, the swarming locust has eaten. What the swarming locust left, the hopping locust has eaten, and what the hopping locust left, the destroying locust has eaten.

So, it seems there is all kinds of devastation left behind afterwards....yet the promise is there.  I will restore to you the years the locust hath eaten....

 

 

Emily's Poem...

My daughter, Emily, not quite (but soon to be) 16 wrote this poem.  There are others at her site...a blog called Be Creative.  It's a private blog...and even I (probably most of all "I" being her mom and all) don't have the link.  She read a few of the poems to me yesterday afternoon and I was struck by the depth of thought coming out of someone so young.  Maybe I am just partial because she is my daughter but I thought this was a very good exploration of some of the questions we, as finite human beings, with a limited perspective, ponder. 

It's so weird to comprehend the complexity of a concept stating that
Life can begin in the same place a life has ended

Quick can you vision the sight of the elderly lady surrounded by family, with the outline of her life outlined in the deep lines of her face

And as her long lived life fades into a long lived afternoon
Of sharing memories and crying on the shoulder of the other

And quick another day is no where to be found as this long afternoon
fades into a young couple, awaiting the miracle after nine months of awaiting a miracle

The young father paces the hallway preparing for best case scenario careful not to scare
his quick to panic wife, as he assesses every worst case scenario inside his tired mind

What happens when the long lived lady gets to live even longer and the never lived baby barely gets his first breath, We can't fill our brains with the what if, what then

But when the what if turns into a what now, and a few with better faith, and a few broken hearts
We cannot just blow this off as the circle of life, because the circle of life took a U-turn

And turned straight into a figure eight, and when the baby never takes one breath,
and the old lady gets one to many

The figure eight of life, turns into a scribble on the paper of an eight year old,
that will never learn to color inside the lines,

And the thought sometimes passes his parents thoughts would it of been better if he didn't make it out of the nicu, and you gasp as if you never would of thought the exact same sin

We can't make ourselves mad over lives lived to long, and lives never lived at all because,
the first time you hold a baby in your arms you can't deny the scribble of life dealt a few miracles

I can remember the first time I sat down with a life long battle with good and evil,
and listened to war stories, nodding and crying as if I were there, fighting along with him

I will never forget as long as I live, when I saw that beautiful baby boy smile for the first time,
and when the miracle of a little girl first discovered those toes waving around, belonged to her

The circle of life keeps itself going one day at a time, and as this day is ending,
and my hand gets tired, I am finally realizing,

I cannot predict life, and pretend it goes in an even circle, but I can feel lucky,
I have received a pretty good deal, because this life can be cruel,

And as the long lived life goes into it's final day, and the newborn miracle is breathing on his own, this life is starting to form a circle, and the earth keeps spinning

Pondering the POE yet again...

I've been reading 1st and 2nd Corinthians...and came upon this verse the other night. 

2 Corinthians 1:3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, 4 who comforts us in all our tribulation, that we may be able to comfort those who are in any trouble, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God.

I know that a "been there, done that" comforter is more apt to truly understand our heartbreak than someone who has led a happy go lucky life. I know too that suffering must surely have a more noble purpose than enabling us to comfort someone else along life's rocky way. If not...thanks anyway, but I think I'll pass.  Actually,  I would like to opt out altogether until I get a little clearer understanding of exactly what the noble purpose is.  And while I'm at it, I would like to opt EVERYONE, EVERYWHERE out of it.  No more suffering for anyone. 

The POE...the biggest why in a whole arsenal of why's in the world of the unbeliever. The biggest "why" in the world of most Christians.  Theodicy.  The big,ugly question mark...the blot on God's reputation. If there is a good God, how come there are children like Hudson? 

 

 

I've come to accept that we...humankind...probably have a big part in and responsibility for the pain and suffering in our own little private world and the world at large.  I also have come to accept that God can bring good out of any situation.  He says so.  I have more questions than answers about the POE but I am not driven to find the answers like a was a few years ago. And in the meantime, let's not let any of our suffering (and insights gleaned during our turmoil) go to waste.  annie often uses the expression...don't waste the pain.  Learn from it, share it, let it enlarge you and pass it on....

Who, then, can so softly bind up the wound of another as he, who has felt the same wound himself? ~~~~  Thomas Jefferson

Compassion - Loving Detachment? Part 2

So...can loving detachment really be a component of compassion? That doesn't seem quite right but at the same time, might detachment allow for a clearer head and more decisive actions? On the message board I mentioned in my last post, they sometimes urge an overly distraught parent to detach. Try to think of your GFG as someone else's child. Let go of the "oh my god" fear that they will end up in prison or dead from an overdose. Try to let go of the outrage, the "how dare you behave this way after all I've done for you/given up for you/how much I've loved you" attitude. Treat them with respect, kindness, patience, understanding, empathy...the way you might treat a foster child entrusted to your care. Detach. Try not to let your happiness, your well being, your reason for living revolve only around your child. Detach. Nearly impossible when you love them enough to literally die in their place. Nearly impossible when they are in pain and nothing seems to help.

Jesus was able to detach. I was thinking of the rich young ruler who came to Jesus for the key to eternal life. Jesus told him:

Don't murder, don't commit adultery, don't steal, don't lie, don't cheat, honor your father and mother."

To which he replied...I have done these things!! Since my youth!

Jesus' reaction, as translated in The Message Bible:

Jesus looked him hard in the eye--and loved him! He said, "There's one thing left: Go sell whatever you own and give it to the poor. All your wealth will then be heavenly wealth. And come follow me.

The rich young ruler was not too keen on this stipulation and he went away with a heavy heart. And Jesus, loving him, let him go. Loving detachment.

And what about the Prodigal Son. The father let his son go off to a faraway land to spend his inheritance. Now there was some serious loving detachment going on there. But in the long run, it was the most loving thing to do.

On an out of the way website, I found the following definition for compassion:

Compassion - Understanding without judgment.

"Without judgment" is the hard part. And sometimes, the compassion Jesus displays is far from detached. He weeps. A wonderful article called Suffering and the Silence of God on The Rebel God web site describes the scene at the tomb of Lazarus:

When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who had come along with her also weeping, he was deeply moved in spirit and troubled.

The Greek word translated in the English as "deeply moved" means to make the snorting noise of a horse. In other words he was so overwhelmed with the sorrow that it literally knocked the wind out of him. It was the kind of pain where you can't catch your breath.

This all culminates in what Jesus does next: two powerful words:

Jesus wept.

I visited the message board this morning before I posted this. Unbelievable circumstances and degrees of mental illness these parents, mostly moms, are living with....dealing with. Compassion abounds on the board. Sometimes loving detachment. More often, though, the gut wrenching "can't catch your breath" pain only a parent of a GFG can fathom.

Compassion - Loving Detachment? Part 1

Things with Beth have improved somewhat. There are still setbacks. There are still mistakes. There are still errors in judgement. Overall, though, I have seen improvement. For one thing, there was a diagnosis. The testing we had done recently definitely indicates that she has ADHD-inattentive. No one suspected...no teacher, no parent, not even the counselor she went to for 9 months last winter. Not even Beth.

The first mention of it was from the crazy psychiatrist we took her to this winter to assess whether or not she was depressed enough to warrant medication. I looked it up, read about it...pondered it but nobody seemed particularly convinced. Not the counselor, not her dad, nor her step mom. Her dad's comment was something along the lines of "oh so is that what they call lazy these days." I think Keith was also quite skeptical. Then one day, in the midst of the past few months from the depths of hell, she and I had a tearful conversation on the way back to the shelter care. Shelter care is sort of juvie light....a detention center for troubled teens. She spent 2 two week stints in shelter care this summer.

After that conversation, I was pretty sure she had ADHD. I did some more reading. I scheduled an evaluation with a neuro psychologist. It took a while to get the insurance to approve the testing, then to schedule the testing...then to get the results of the testing. But finally, I have a 16 page report in my possession with a diagnosis of ADHD-inattentive. And ODD. Oppositional defiant disorder. No big surprise there. I guess ODD is a distinct disorder and can stand alone, but usually doesn't. It usually co-exists with something else. I've read that up to 67% of kids with ADHD also have ODD.

We are pursuing treatment, which is usually drug therapy and behavioral therapy. She started a low dose of Concerta (extended release Ritalin) last week. Except for a few minutes of rapid heartbeat last night, so far, so good.

I have been frequenting a message board for families with kids like Beth. Actually, kids much, much worse than Beth, with all kinds of mental health issues. There are families that are living in a nightmare. Some of the families have more than one GFG. That is the board acronym for "gift from God"...meaning that these kids are sent to us from God for reasons known only to him. Either he entrusts us with them because not everybody can endure the gift and only a certain type of person can face the challenges....or, through the challenges, he wants to make us into that "certain type of person." Perhaps he wants to cultivate qualities in us that might never be formed otherwise. Perseverance and patience come to mind. Hope, in the face of hopeless situations. Courage, trust...and compassion.

Actually, compassion was the point of this post. In a blog I happened upon the other day, a spiritual, Eckhart Tolle type blog, compassion was referred to as loving detachment. Hmmm. Do those two words belong next to each other in a definition? Doesn't compassion involve gut wrenching empathy and total involvement? I'm not so sure. More in my next post.....