But the people became impatient on the way

The lectionary this week includes passages from Numbers, 1 Corinthians, and John. The passages revolve around the story of the poisonous serpents among the Israelites in the desert being a punishment for disobedience, and the Israelites being saved when they look the bronze serpent that God tells Moses to make. It doesn’t always happen with lectionary readings, but this time around all the passages work together and build on the same theme and story. It has made for great devotional reading this week.

But each time I begin my reading online, the text starts with the Old Testament reading. And this is what I see.

Numbers 21:4b-9
21:4b but the people became impatient on the way.

They were impatient with being stuck in the wilderness. First they say “there is no food and water” but then they say “and we detest this miserable food.” They are impatient with struggle, for the basic needs. But they are impatient even with what they do get, because it’s boring and bland and old

This seems to sum up much of life. 

I feel this way often enough. The journey through life is long, and at times consists of working through one routine after the other. Where is the success? Where is the glory? Where is the time to sip mojitos on the beach? And even when I’m not being that materialistic, where is the clear sign of God that the path I’m on isn’t just mindless wandering in the desert? Where is the intervention to prevent struggle rather than just barely bailing me out? If you can make food fall from the sky, O Lord, why can’t you at least vary the menu?

I don’t think God sends poisonous serpents among us every time we complain. But perhaps the poison is there in our hearts already. If I’m complaining and impatient, I am not able to enjoy what I do have. I am not recognizing the blessings I have received. And I’m annoying everyone else around me in the process, poisoning their own day and our relationships

Part of the New Testament reading for the week, 1 Corinthians 1:18 Says “For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.” The ongoing tense, “being saved,” fascinates me. Looking to the cross, it is the power of God, and I am being saved. An ongoing thing. Some days I feel it more than others. And some days, I pray for patience.

In fact I do that so much, I’m starting to get impatient with it.

Love Does

I recently read a book called Love Does by Bob Goff. It is a collection of stories from his life, each told to teach a lesson about life, God, being Christian, Jesus, and so on. Overall it is pretty good, well written, and inspiring. It was hard to relate to some of the stories, but clearly the author "oozes" and "leaks" passion, love, and Christ.

One trajectory of the book is telling about his desire to make the world a better place, and how he is using his training as a lawyer to do so. He told a bit about his work in Uganda, doing lawyer stuff to get a bunch of kids released from prison. This story stuck with me. Prisons are on my mind a lot lately, because of the chaplains I am working with here in Malawi. I had mixed feelings about the story. On the one hand, clearly the work he and his fellow lawyers did was positive, helping people who were clearly in need of help, working within the existing legal system. On the other hand, while I do not know Goff at all, the story does smack some of "white savior complex," and I strive hard to avoid being "the one in comes in and does for others." I strive to work with, to build up from within, rather than from without.

Goff mentions that they work to enforce the laws on the books in various countries, in regards to children rights, trafficking, slavery, etc. The problem in Uganda was that the civil war had rendered certain areas unreachable. Kids in prison hadn't had their cases heard or processed because there were no lawyers or judges in the area. So Goff went in with lawyer friends, did all the paper work, and convinced a Ugandan judge to travel to the area to hear the cases. It worked. All but two of the kids were released!

But I couldn't help but think of another "well wisher" I know, who comes to Malawi regularly and helps in the prison setting. They work with the Church of Central Africa Presbyterian (CCAP, our partner) chaplains, they visit prions, and they help by giving money and physical aid. Both Goff and this other family spend time with prisoners, listening, comforting, praying, bringing hope. I'm a big fan of that, since as a chaplain that's mostly what I do. But by handing out money, they manage to feed and cloth some people for now, but make no change in the system. The systems in Malawi largely rely on outside well wishers (mostly white people) to come in, give money, and keep the system afloat. In this way this visiting family is successfully keeping the broken and corrupt system in place.

Because both Goff and this other family fly in, do, and fly out, at first they felt similar to me. But as I pondered it further, I realize there's a big difference. Goff may not have fixed the system, but he showed how it can work: care, volunteer, do your job, enforce the laws, and so on. And the love and care he and his fellow lawyers brought with them, I think clearly had a large impact beyond just the legal skills they brought to bear. He made a difference in those prisons that lasted: one of them was empty! (He even stole the door!) This other family, though, is showing how the system doesn't work: the inmates will be hungry tomorrow when no one brings in foreign aid to feed them, they have not had cases heard, they have not had the laws on the books enforced in their favor. What if instead this family used their money to pressure local lawyers and judges to get to work in the prisons? What if they used their money to send the chaplains to training that would enable them to pressure people in the legal system? What if they used their money to set up farms, so that people could eat permanently?

Sometimes we can't help but come in from the outside. I mean, I'm not Malawian, I never will be, I will always being coming in to help from the outside. But I can do it in a way that is incarnational. Jesus literally walked in Jewish shoes for a mile (or thousand). Jesus had special skills and talents, after all, he created the world from scratch. And he used those at times when he performed miracles. But largely he worked within the existing systems, showing what they should be like, showing where they failed, and pressuring people to make changes. Maybe he's not the best example, since he did get killed for his efforts. But then again, maybe that's what Love Does: comes in, risks, gets dirty, and shows what change can look like.

How we talk about Cancer

This is not a post about how I haven't posted in forever. Or about wondering if there's anyone still listening to this thing. Although if there was dust on the internet there'd be a lot sitting on this site for sure!

I just read a news article about a scholarship being made to honor a Womanist Theologian who recently died. I'm being vague because I'm not interested in slamming that article in any way. But they said something in there that bothered me. When avoiding saying that she died, they said "she succumbed to leukemia."

I do get worked up sometimes about euphemisms regarding death. Maybe it is because I am a chaplain, often helping people work through their grief, but using words that avoid saying straight out what someone is suffering from annoys me. I have read other things debating how we talk about cancer. People talk a lot about "the fight against cancer." Like I can punch it in the nose and knock it out. This can be empowering, but the downside is, when someone "loses" the fight, it makes them, well, a loser. Weak. Failed, somehow.

This time, someone "succumbed" to cancer. So I guess people are learning not to say she lost the fight, but is succumbing any different?

 Going to our good friend Merriam-Webster, we can learn that succumb may mean:

1 : to yield to superior strength or force or overpowering appeal or desire

2 : to be brought to an end (such as death) by the effect of destructive or disruptive forces 

 For definition #1 it gives the example of "succumb to temptation." This definitely is a weakness, to succumb. It means the other force was stronger, that I failed somehow to overcome, that I lacked strength. Is this what it means to die of cancer? That I was weak? I failed?

  

Spoiler alert: we all die. It stinks, I know, but it is true. Might be cancer, might be a bus, might be heart weakening at the age of 142, but something will eventually result in your death. And, perhaps even worse, the death of those you love. If that means you are weak, then we are all weak together, and there isn't really any point in making it look like one person failed more than another in their quest to live forever.

Why not just say "She died from leukemia"? Or if you like making the disease the fault, "leukemia killed her." Or if you need another person to blame, "the doctors failed to come up with a cure because of research budget cuts so blame the president for her death." Or whatever you feel like. But be direct, and unless she died because she drank a big cup of leukemia and then ate a sandwich of weakness, do not say things that make it sound like her fault. Cause you might be next, anyways, and how would you like to be remembered? As weak and succumbing? Or as a human who led a good life?

An Ultimate Dichotomy

It seems popular to divide the world into dichotomies. This rings especially true when I think of people talking about forces at work: Good vs. Evil, light vs. dark, black vs. white. Though that last seems to have fallen out of favor in America due to racial tensions, those dichotomies are the common ones. Heaven vs Hell: how many stories pit these two forces against each other? Light side of the force vs. the dark side. It's common in so many stories.

Usually goes something like this: “There are two forces at work in the world, in competition, in constant struggle. Both trying to get the upper hand. You are needed!” Or the main character, or some random prophecy making you the dude/chick who will unbalance/save everything. There's a new wave of stories helping teens feel special. The teen in the stories is odd, stands out in a society of conformity. And they don't know why! Turns out, they are special! They are the special son of a Greek god. Or the only one who is not part of one group but all three. Or has a special taste for vampires. Or whatever. It puts them into the conflict: world vs. this group, and this group equals me. Makes me very important.

I digress.

Because it's not the teen stories that I'm thinking of, but the dichotomy. Good vs. evil, light vs. dark, cold vs. heat. But what is often said of these things? That one is in existence, and the other is a void. Evil is not an entity in and of itself, some say, because then we'd have a counter point to the Creator. Instead, Evil is an absence of Good. Just as cold does not exist on it's own, but rather is an absence of heat. And dark simply means there is no light there. You can't shine a dark light, or make a darkness, all you can do is block light. You don't make cold, you remove heat until things freeze. So it seems evil does not create, but rather is what happens when goodness goes away.

So what does it mean then to say that there are two forces at work in the world? If evil is just an absence of good, how can it be a side in the ultimate struggle of whatever? Perhaps we mean that on one side are those who are filled with good, and on the other are those who lack it. But then it is a spectrum, so how good or un-good do you need to be to be on a side?

Or perhaps we're wrong to say that evil/cold/dark do not exist on their own. Yes, we can only make them by removing good/heat/light, but we do measure those things. Light has lumen, heat has temperature. If we say it is only 1 kelvin, we are not saying we removed X kelvins of heat. Because there is no absolute heat or light or goodness measure. So how much have removed? Or how much have we prevented? Perhaps we can only conceive of these elements coming into existence by removal, but perhaps their existence is there already, since we measure them not as a removal, but on a scale.

Or perhaps we're thinking of the wrong dichotomy. If indeed each of these dichotomies exist of one thing, and the absence of that thing, then perhaps the ultimate This vs. That is Existence vs. Non-existence. Powered by entropy, shown itself in conflict. So the states of being could be measure as Tranquility vs. Conflict. We can measure both of these separately. The more tranquil, the less conflict. The more conflict, the less tranquil. But unlike light and dark, we can have both at the same time. I can be tranquil in my mind, as I ponder my wife and our relationship, while also stress and in conflict with the morons who are making me late for my flight home. I can have both.

I have heard it said often “peace is more than the absence of war.” War exists. It is not a lack of peace. For I can have lacks of peace that do not make war. Additionally lack of war does not make peace, for I can have an oppressive government, or people starving, or people struggling to live, even with no war.

Into the formless void, the Creator, who was ever in tranquil, peaceful communion and relationship with the triune self, spoke Stuff. Earth, water and land, stars, light and dark, sun and moon, night and day, animals, plants, people. Into the chaos of Entropy and the Nothing, the always existent Someone spoke and made Something. And the Nothing has been trying to get even ever sense, injecting conflict where there should be tranquility, motivating us to uncreate the creation.

Movie Thoughts: Monsters University

I have a soft spot for animated movies. Unfortunately, most of the ones in mainstream consumption are aimed at kids, and called "cartoons." This means usually they don't give much fodder for thought. Or the thoughts are pretty routine and obvious. Monsters University, however, dealt a bit of a different dish.

Not an entirely different dish, mind you. Pixar does make their films for a younger audience, though I think they are also catering to us older folks in a way that many other animated films do not. Yet, since they know kids are a major portion, there still tends to be a similar formula:
Main Character is some kind of outcast
Main Character rises against all odds
Main Character succeeds, no longer being outcast.

The general theme of many kids movies seems to be this: you don't have to fit in to be cool, everyone will love you anyways. And whatever it is you want to do, you will be great at it! Especially if you don't fit the mold of what we think great is!

And the Harry Potter books/movies highlighted another somewhat common element: it's ok for the Hero to break the rules. So since you are your own hero, and everyone is a hero, go ahead and break them! Dumbledore will make your team win by default, because after all, no one likes those snake guys. They are jerks, and jerks always lose!

SPOILERS AHEAD!

Monsters University deals up a nice change to that. Mike is clearly not a scary guy. And at the end of the movie, instead of turning out to be scary, he turns out to be, well, not scary. A total geek. In that brief moment where he digs deep, finds his inner monster.... Sully cheats. Mike doesn't actually scare anyone. And this is true to life: no matter how much you want to, there are some things you just can't do. Digging deep and believing in yourself just isn't always enough.

And Sully cheats, getting kicked out of the school. It doesn't matter that he meant well. It doesn't matter that he confessed, rules are rules. And when Mike breaks into the door lab, same thing: expulsion. Doesn't matter that he discovered a new way to do energy, he risked his own life, and that of everyone else (or at least that's what they believed since they thought kids were toxic). No Dumbledore to save them.

The last lines from the Dean are great: You both taught me something, and I will be open to new things in the future. My eyes have been opened! But that doesn't change your situation.

In the last words, however, is encouragement. Sully tells Mike, you might be a horrendous scarer, but you are far from ordinary. And Dean is telling them something as well: you might have failed here, but that doesn't mean you don't have greatness ahead.

Consider all the famous successful people who never completed major degrees. Consider the people who rose out of nothingness. While being a genius, or a stud, or filthy rich, or having a master's degree, sure does help most of us get by, it isn't the only way to do things. But rather than digging deep and believing you can do something you can't, and then judging yourself by the failure, find what you ARE good at. Mike was no good at scaring, and Sully was no good at making connections with normal folks, but with the two working together, they made an unstoppable team.

Don't rely on Dumbledore to come bail you out. Don't rely on everyone hating the jerks, and siding with you instead at the last second. Instead, find your own strength, and use it.

Kickstart 2013 Year Review

This year, I discovered Kickstarter! They recently made a page that shows the year in review. Some interesting stats!

Baby Journal: Day 175

Dear Diary,

My Caretakers seem to have lost their minds. Again.

I started noticing some time back that they would ask me the same questions, over and over. I would be letting them know that my diaper needed changing, and they would say, "Baby hungry? Are you hungry? Do you need to eat? Is the baby hungry? Hungry?"

Alright, first of all, no, I'm not hungry, I'm dirty! Pay attention. Secondly, I heard you the first time! Asking me a dozen different ways doesn't change the answer!

This has gone on for some time. They seem totally unable to grasp the concept that repeating the same thing to me ten ways doesn't change reality. If I don't want the elephant toy, I don't want it! That's why I keep throwing it to the side, you know?

Recently a new madness has unveiled itself. They have started making odd hand gestures with many of the words they say. I have noticed repetition here. Perhaps they have decided that verbal communication with me is something beyond their ability, and are trying a new form? Not sure yet. I will attempt repeating some of these silly motions back to them, and see what happens.