Would you speak up?

This was a question my "soon-to-be-11" year old asked me on the way home today from school. He asked was it right for the Christian private school they are going to, to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on a new wing when so many are poor and suffering in Myanmar. They had a chapel this morning on the theme "Thanksgiving" where the host related that when so many are underpriviledged in this world, they are blessed to have the money to build this new wing to accomidate their growth. To at least 2 of my sons, this sounded contradictory and for my part, it did to me too. So launching into hollow-sounding reasons they may have for a new wing....I seemed to be painting myself into a corner. I finally said, perhaps they could've helped others reach a better standard first, and then think about expanding themselves. Nate piped up again, would you have told them that it was wrong to spend all that money on themselves? Honestly????? Would I? He was expecting an answer, so as I said that seeing all those people (many are very well to do) may make my courage find the first exit out of there! I said I would hope I would voice this hard question, and that staying in God's word and prayer would build me up to confront in the hard places.


I'm not sure if you all have kept up with the "Occupy New York" movement the past three weeks. These people, 700 now, are speaking up along with many thousands across the States and now Canada. We are the 99%!! The decisions on Wall Street and in tucked away board rooms are now coming home and sweeping jobs, life savings and struggling people off in a financial tsunami. I have a hard question for the church in this all, how much have we become part of this problem? How many off-base and selfish or neglectful "deals" have we cut to keep up the status quo and show to people a sucessful and progressing side of Christianity? While many go hungry, ignored and struggle in life and death issues. Something I want to see is a "Occupy Christian Church", sitting on the steps of the churches..."Wake Up"...don't let money make zombies out of you! Jesus even said, we choose what controls us money or God. Let's take the coin out of the fish's mouth and pay our obligations and get on with the real work of trusting God, serving the poor and speaking out the Truth of the Gospel of peace and justice.

Who Am I?

Who am I?  They often tell me
I stepped from my cell's confinement
calmly, cheerfully, firmly
like a Squire from his country house.

Who am I?  They often tell me
I used to speak to my warders
freely and friendly and clearly,
as though it were mine to command.

Who am I?  They also tell me
I bore the days of misfortune
equably, smilingly, proudly,
like one accustomed to win.

Am I then really which other men tell of?
Or am I only what I myself know of myself?
Restless and longing and sick like a bird in a cage,
struggling for breath, as though hands were compressing my throat,
yearning for colours, for flowers, for the voices of birds,
thirsting for words of kindness, for neighborliness,
tossing in expectation of great events,
powerlessly trembling for friends at an infinite distance,
weary and empty at praying, at thinking, at making,
faint, and ready to say farewell to it all.

Who am I?  This or the Other?
Am I one person today and tomorrow another?
Am I both at once? A hypocrite before others,
and before myself a contemptible woeboegone weakling?
Or is something within me still like a beaten army
fleeing in disorder from victory already achieved?

Who am I? They mock me, these lonely questions of mine.
Whoever I am, Thou knowest, O God, I am thine!

dietrich bonhoeffer--tegel prison--1944

Discipleship for Dummies

On the cover of the book the face is passive and almost looks stern.  Full lips, round wire-rimmed glasses with eyes that are firmly fixed foward, as if seeing a hard future.  Hard it was, the story of one man who stood and with humility conquered the evil of a madman.  Dietrich Bonhoeffer vs. Hilter of the Third Riech.  An exercise of dangerous, risky, Christ following in the wake of the most horrendous agenda in history.  I recently finished the HUGE biography (541 pages) and through snickers, hard thinking and tears felt like I had gone back in time and become friends with this incredible teacher and disciple.  His passion was for each Christian and especially Christian leaders to come under the yoke of Christ, to learn of Him the practical theology and love for the world, for people.  To learn "when Christ calls a man, he bids him to come and die" (taken from one of his books, The Cost of Discipleship).

 "To come and die"...ouch.  That led Dietrich to the gallows, with 4,999 of his fellow conspirators who for 10 years had worked hard to assisinate that madman.  The guy that led a Sunday School for inner-city kids that no one would touch and turned it around to the best attended event for these kids in their week.  The guy who loved writing alone in his wilderness cottage, who patiently took his Bible College students for walks and talks and hikes and showed them a practical Christianity that fell in love with people and offered truth and courage.  The German guy who found Jesus in a black church in Harlem and fought racism in his home country.  The guy who, in conviction of his hate for injustice and love for the Jews, become a double agent and plotted Hitlers demise and ended up in jail.  This man who, when the Allies started bombing Berlin, got in a rickety van with sixteen other prisoners and thier luggage.  Hundreds of miles later and three days before the camps were in Allies hands, hung on a gallows with peace and prayer on his lips.

Do we know of this kind of Jesus disciple in our Crispy Chip Christianity today?  He was pressed, he made decisions, he prayed, he taught, he argued, the world was falling in around his shoulders, he despaired and yet he chose what God called him to do.  The Christian church at that time opened their arms to their political saviour, Adolf Hilter.  Only a few knew his real agenda, his deep evil puposes.  No one could guess that many Christians were Hilter's arms and legs and voice that massacred millions and plunged Germany into a shame that would last generations.  Lulled into pride, false theology, an illusion of security and rightness....this smacks of our Christian world today while the world falls around our shoulders and we (I) remain numb and distracted.  Dummies that you could take for a car ride and they would bounce all over the car if it crashed.  The Jesus disciple that our Father is calling us to be is one that is called out to die....there are many ways of dying, but may it be with the name of Christ on our lips and a steady hand out to the proud, the bruised, the empty.  That is Nachfolge, The Cost of Discipleship.

Crazy Nights

It was around 11:30 pm, Thursday night that Steve and I heard the crackling.  Sounded like rain on the roof, but it wasn't raining when we looked outside our bedroom window.  I saw orange flames reflected off a neighbors house window down the alley and looked at Steve, "that's got to be fire!".  We threw something appropriate on over our pajamas and took off down the stairs, Cyclone barking behind us.  In the alley, a fire truck screamed by and stopped at a garbage bin about 4 houses down.  Flames were reaching up the telephone pole and was climbing the neighbors fence.  It was all over in about 10 minutes, but the remains of a discarded mattress smoldered.  Steve saw a lady standing nearby, we found out she was a "alley neighbor" across from us and had just returned from a late choir practise at her church (believer? of course!).  We stood chatting for awhile and went back to bed.  We were up twice more that night with gang activity across the street and phone calls to the police.  I allowed myself to sleep in that morning!

Last night, again up at 3 am with someone being chased down the street and sounds of a fight brewing.  Police action broke that up, but as some members ran away and were hiding between the houses opposite of us, Steve called the police and again with their location.  Then (as he described) four police cars, with search lights when up and down our street and alley way trying to find the guys hiding.  Steve could see them, but the cops couldn't and he said it was almost comical the way they kept passing each other on the road, searching.  They never found them.

7:15 am, Saturday morning.....more sirens scream down our street and stop at the "gang house" across from us.  Hoses, axes, windows smashing, smoke rising from top floor.  2 hours later, boards go up and the door is nailed shut.  Burned out, dumped and now left derelict....this small house endured a parting gift of the evicted gang members.  And now peace.  We can hear the rain, smell the fresh air of spring dripping off new leaves.  Birds looking for worms and our new flowers looking pretty in our yard.  It was two busy nights, alot of fear and tension, alot of great talks with neighbors.  so many questions in creating a safe and fruitful neighborhood.  Meanwhile, I'm hoping to get a good rest tonight.  We pray for peace.

That's Smashing!

It's Wednesday afternoon, about 4:30 pm.  The boys are chatting and enjoying thier Wii game downstairs and I'm catching up on some email from a friend in the States.  He writes that he missed his flight and appointment at a meeting and wondered why he was delayed....to avoid a plane crash on the one he was supposed to catch?  To talk to someone needing help, or who will end their life if he wasn't there at the airport waiting...but he intervenes?  Nope, nothing dramatic happens...but he does have a potential life changing talk with another believer on his next flight.  "Cool", I was thinking half-way into the letter....neat way of thinking of upsetting circumstances!  An opportunity, if we wait for it, not getting upset or bent out of shape.

SMASH! SMASH!  I looked out my 2nd floor bedroom window and 4 boys (Grade 5-6) dressed in black seemed to be having a great time smashing glass bottles into smithereens in the alley way.  After a couple times, I thought they were done, but I heard more and a bit ticked off, went downstairs to let Cyclone out to bark at them and see if I could get them to stop.  Cyclone did a fine tyrade of barking and I went out the gate.  The alley way was empty (those boys are fast!) except for a long line of smashed glass, jagged and raw.  A car tried to inch past it, the lady smiled at me.  I went for the kitchen broom.  My ticked-offness was increasing as I swept pile by pile, wondering what the heck I was going to do to these kids as an encore.
A bike rode past.  Then I moved for another car, the man gave me an angry glare as he tried to navigate around the huge shards.  "Yah, wad 'up dude", I thought.  He glares at ME?  The nerve of some people.

I hear another broom sweeping down the way.  The guy on the bike lives right there, he had got out his broom and was doing a clean up too.  "Cool", I thought.  My mind went to the kids again.  I knew one of them from the kids class last year.  Maybe next time I see them,  I'll tell them that was not nice to smash bottles in our alley and their pictures will be up on the police wanted wall.  Maybe I'll just get to know their names and give them ice pops.

Throwing the last bucket of glass into the bin, I went over to talk to my neighbor.  He's a believer, has a 9-month old little one and seems like a nice guy.  "We'll see you again!" he said, as I headed back to my gate.  "You can count on it, with kids like that around!", I commented back.  We were both smiling.  Funny how the wierdest things can create a tad more community.  Divine appointments?  Yep, after I finish reading my friends letter, I think I'll grab the ice pops and meet some kids......

Good Friday Song

We were a varied bunch, about 200 or so packed into a church that usually has traditional Baptist meetings.  Messianic Jews from Fellowship of Messiah, with prayer cap and colored string, jean clad inner-city New Lifers, suit and tie seniors of Mission Baptist, house church members from the area and the Karen (Burma) with longyi and colorful woven vests from Citi Church.  We all packed in to sing, hear the words of the cross and pray together.  Apparently, this weekend there is also another calender convergance that rarely occurs, Orthodox Easter, "English" Easter, Passover, and Canada's Earth Day all on the same weekend.  "In this," noted Michael Wodlinger (rabbi/pastor) of Haverim Mashiach fellowship group, "God has not made a mistake!"  Unity under the cross would make a great topic this Easter!!!

One song that stuck out for me this morning was one that the Karen choir sang.  One that their choir director wrote and taught to them (in their native Karen) called  Look To The Cross:

Look on to the cross

To the bottom of the cross, I wish to go and rest.

It is a very high sheltering rock with the great shadow.

It is a place of escape and refuge during difficult times.

It is the road to rest and where heavy burdens are

lightened.

On the cross, there is my Jesus Christ

And with my broken heart, I am afraid to look upon Him

Though he suffered for me, His face always glows

With a heart of repentance, I bravely come

Jesus Chrsit, Your love is so great and wonderful

I should never follow where my heart leads me

When I think of all your love

Look on to the cross

May we all, from all traditions or no tradition, kneel at its shadow today, and everyday.  Thank you Yeshua, Jesus, Son of God, the Lamb who took on everything that burdens us and  as the Father embraces us as dear children, fill us with Your Holy Spirit of love and deep devotion. We are looking foward to Sunday morning, when the promise of new life is fulfilled, and and old hearts can be made new. 

A Morning Walk in the 'Hood

I decided to take the camera on my walk today.  After dropping off the compost at the neighborhood garden bin, we (Cyclone and I) decided to saunter down the "alley/street" of McGee. The usual pile of furniture, matresses and pallets......

 On this couch, there was an assortment of clothes, bags of buns and what not (beside our local playground).

Somebody discarded this picture, part of an overflow of personal stuff...looks like a good posture to learn for our neighborhood.

I like the creative use of old doors...you see this everywhere down here.

Shopping carts, a valuable commodity,can hold anything, ice chunks, laundry, a small couch, children and even broken tvs.

We love to know what's going on our community bulletin board...is a new gang in town?  Let us know!

Major reno's on an old building looks horrid but inspires hope!!

This cool section of wall looked like an unused door of a garage.  I love coming across this colorful, creative works of art!!

Back on our own street, this is the house and chair of our old neighbor.  She sits here to read her mail.  Unfortunately her gate broke off the hinge and she props it up on the chair when she isn't using it

Cyclone relaxing after a great walk!