Eat Some Blueberries.

“But what,” badgers a relentless voice, “exactly are you doing out here? What are you accomplishing? What are you getting out of it? And what, oh especially what are you going to do with your life?”

The voice usually stops me. Knocks me down, kicks sand in my face. But this time, finally, I tell the voice to shut up. It’s a stupid question, what are you going to do with your life. Setting out to do something with your life is like sitting down to eat a moose. Nobody ever did anything successful with their life. Instead they did something with their day. Each day.

Sunrise is birth. Sleep is death. Each day is your life.

Let the moose run. Eat some blueberries.

–Paddle Whispers by Douglas Wood

Lent

The forty day Lenten season is a time of reflection and preparation for the death and resurrection of Jesus.  Throughout this season we have the incredible opportunity to be a part Christ’s journey.  This is a time for repentance as we remember Christ’s suffering and as we ourselves take up our crosses.  Traditionally people spend this season fasting, praying, and practicing acts of love.  These are all outward practices that encourage us to turn inward and recenter our lives on God.  We need Lent.  I need Lent.  I know that I need Lent and yet, I am not very good at it.  Every year I plan to fast from something or take up a new spiritual practice.  I identify that I need this time but year after year I seem to struggle with the follow through of my Lenten commitments.  Despite good intentions, my participation in these things always seems to be lacking.  So, how do I get more out of this season?  I want the following forty days to be more than just midweek services of Holden Evening Prayer and denying myself of chocolate.   Hebrews 10:22-24 is a great place to start as we begin this Lenten season.

Let us draw near to God with a sincere heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled to cleanse us from a guilty conscience and having our bodies washed with pure water.  Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for he who promised is faithful.  And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds.

I want this season to be an incredible time where I am pushed beyond comfort and comforted beyond reason.  This is our chance to draw near to our God, as we struggle alongside her son and anticipate Easter Sunday.

When rocks talk

A few weeks ago I ventured into Chester Park for a small walk in the woods.  While jumping from rock to rock in the creek I noticed that one of the rocks had some writing on it.  The rock said "I pray God's will be done."  I smiled a bit and wondered to myself "what is God's will?"  Before I could think anymore on the topic I noticed a second rock that said "love each other."  What a beautiful reminder.  Thanks for the message rocks!

As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you.  Now remain in my love.  If you obey my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have obeyed my Father's commands and remain in his love.  I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete.  My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you.  Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends.  You are my friends if you do what I command.  I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master's business.  Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you.  You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you to go and bear fruit- fruit that will last.  Then the Father will give you whatever you ask in my name.  

 This is my command: Love each other. 

(John 15:9-17)

All Are Welcome...

This week we made the difficult decision to kick an individual out of our house.  He has been very connected to our Catholic Worker community for much longer than most of us and has created deep friendships with the community members.  He has found a home away from home within the walls of our house, Olive Branch (a house of hospitality for women and families experiencing homelessness).  For the last few months he has spent a significant amount of his days chatting, sipping coffee, and napping in our living room.  It has been a joy to get to know him and hear stories of his days with the New York Catholic Workers and Dorothy Day herself.  The difficult part of this situation is that there is another side to him, a side that is often inappropriate.  Because of mental illness this gentlemen requires much attention and his presence in the family house was becoming concerning for community members and guests.  After many reminders of appropriate conduct and hours attempting to organize meds and doctors appointments it was decided that it would be in the houses best interest if he only come to Olive Branch for our weekly muffin Sunday and special holiday meals.  So we sat him down, and we told him that he is no longer welcome here on a daily basis.  This entire situation has got me thinking about hospitality and some of the limitations that we have here. Daily we turn people away on the phone or at our front door because our house is full but it has been very difficult to turn a way a person who we have developed a friendship with. 

Recently, this gentleman has been very focused on Christ's return.  While talking with him he will interrupt, no matter what the topic is, and ask questions like "Do you think Christ is ever going to come back?" "When?" "Where?" "Will we recognize him?" and "Do you think that I am Christ incarnate?"  As strange and abrupt as these questions may be, they have been an incredible and difficult reminder that "whatever we do for the least of these, you do for me" (Matthew 25:45).  This is a biblical theme that I focus on a lot and yet I have forgotten again.  Thankfully, due to the strange conversation topics that this gentleman presents, I have been reminded, yet again, that I need to identify Christ in all people.  The Gospel reading this Sunday at church was very fitting for this situation.  We read about the disciples arguing about who is greater.  Jesus sits them down to say "whoever wants to be first must be last of all and servant of all."  Then Jesus takes up a child and shares that "Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes not me but the one who sent me."  The pastor went on to share that the Gospel reading reminds us that we are all worthy of God's love,  When we welcome those who society recognizes as lonely we are welcoming Jesus' presence. When we are able to recognize Christ in others we will be able to stop seeking status and begin God's hospitality.  The opening hymn also helped to get this point across.  We sang the song All Are Welcome. I needed to hear this song and the third verse (I think) seemed to relate perfectly to our current situation.

Let us build a house where hands will reach beyond the wood and stone to heal and strengthen, serve and teach and live the word they've known.  Here the outcasts and the stranger bear the image of God's face...All are welcome.

So, how do we welcome all?  How can we reach out to help this man and other outcasts?  What does God's hospitality truly look like?  Will we ever be able to identify that this man's face truly bears the image of Christ?

“Come with me by yourselves to a quiet place and get some rest.”

So they went away by themselves in a boat to a solitary place.

Mark 6:31b-32

Another WCB Summer

I couldn’t imagine a better way to conclude this year of adventures then another summer at Wilderness Canoe Base.  I am very excited about summer number two of guiding trips in the Boundary Waters.  I have a deep love for this place and I cannot wait to share it with even more people this summer.  Last week we broke our staff up into three different groups and went on a four night staff trip.  My trip started off with a 515 rod portage to Paulson Lake and we spent our first night on Tuscarora lake.  We then paddled on to Cherokee Lake where we spent nights two and three.  We all enjoyed having a quiet layover day full of napping, swimming, paddling, and laughing.  The following day we ventured along the Frost River and made our way up to Little Sag.  Our final day we woke up at four in the morning and paddled all the way back to Camp on Seagull Lake.  I had a blast on our trip and loved seeing some lakes that I had never been to.  We did 56 portages in all.  Staff training has come to an end and our first group of campers arrive tomorrow!

Our theme for the summer is the upside down story.  We will be doing daily Bible studies with our campers focusing on some parables.  While working on my programming I have fallen in love with the parable of leaven bread.

“What shall I compare the kingdom of God to?  It is like yeast that a woman took and mixed into a large amount of flour until it worked all through the dough.”       –Luke 13:20 & 21

As I planned this Bible study I began to think about what I know about the kingdom of God.  One of the first things that I thought of was the line in the Lord’s Prayer that says “thy kingdom come…” Martin Luther explains this line in the Small Catechism by saying that “God’s kingdom comes indeed without our praying for it, but we ask in this prayer that it may come also to us.  God’s kingdom comes when our heavenly Father gives us his Holy Spirit, so that by his grace we believe his holy Word and live a godly life on earth now and in heaven forever.”  I love this description of God’s kingdom simply because it reminds us that God’s kingdom always has and always will surround us.  God’s kingdom exists without our participation, the baker has already mixed it thoroughly into the dough (and how great is it that Jesus uses a female baker as a surrogate for God in this parable!?).  This parable suggests that the kingdom enters the world as its creation.  The kingdom of God is forever with us, it is mixed in with everything that we do, and similar to yeast mixed into dough it can never be removed.

I hope that you experience the Kingdom of God this summer, no matter where you are.

“For by him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things were created by him and for him.  He is before all things, and in him all things hold together.” –Colossians 1:16 & 17
 

Compassion

I just finished reading a book called Compassion: A Reflection on the Christian Life by Henri Nouwen, Donald McNeill, and Douglas Morrison.  This book has quickly become a new favorite and I would like to encourage you all to check it out!

This book challenged me and left me feeling inspired to continue to explore what it means to live a life of compassion.  I learned a lot from Nowen, McNeill, and Morrison's writings but the funny thing was that as I read their book I almost missed the perfect examples of compassion that have surronded me here in Swaziland. 

"The word compassion is derived from the Latin words pati and cum, which together mean "to suffer with." Compassion asks us to go where it hurts, to enter into places of pain, to share in brokenness, fear, confusion, and anguish. Compassion challenges us to cry out with those in misery, to mourn with those who are lonely, to weep with those in tears. Compassion requires us to be weak with the weak, vulnerable with the vulnerable, and powerless with the powerless. Compassion means full immersion in the condition of being human. When we look at compassion this way, it becomes clear that something more is involved than a general kindness or tenderheartedness." (Page 4)

This week one of my friends here in Swaziland had a still birth.  Over the last few days I have witnessed their family and friends gather around this young couple to mourn the death of their unborn child.  Last night a dozen or so people gathered at the father's homestead to mourn.  This may be a cultural tradition but it is also provides us with a glimpse of the fellowship of believers that we read about in Acts 2.

Yesterday, one of the gogos from Timbali saw Titi (the father's sister and mother's best friend) crying about the situation.  I don't know if this gogo knew what Titi was crying about but upon seeing Titi's saddness the gogo instantly engulfed Titi in a hug and starting whispering a prayer into Titi's ear.  This is compassion. 

"Many people tend to associate prayer with separation from others, but real prayer brings us closer to our fellow human beings. Prayer is the first and indispensible discipline of compassion precisely because prayer is also the first expression of human solidarity. Why is this so? Because the Spirit who prays in us is the Spirit by whom all human beings are brought together in unity and community. The Holy Spirit, the Spirit of peace, unity, and reconciliation, constantly reveals himself to us as the power through whom people from the most diverse social, political, economic, racial, and ethnic backgrounds are brought together as sisters and brothers of the same Christ and daughters and sons of the same Father.

To prevent ourselves from slipping into spiritual romanticism or pious sentimentality, we must pay careful attention to the compassionate presence of the Holy Spirit. The intimacy of prayer is the intimacy created by the Holy Spirit who, as the bearer of the new mind and the new time, does not exclude but rather includes our fellow human beings. In the intimacy of prayer, God reveals himself to us as the God who loves all the members of the human family just as personally and uniquely as he loves us. Therefore, a growing intimacy with God deepens our sense of responsibility for others. It evokes in us an always increasing desire to bring the whole world with all its suffering and pains around the divine fire in our heart and to share the revitalizing heat with all who want to come. But it is precisely this desire that requires such deep and strong patience." (Pages 108-109)

Death is very common in Swaziland, in fact this is a nation with one of the lowest life expectancy rates.  A third example of compassion I saw yesterday was seeing another friends response to hearing about the recent death.  He knows a few of the family members but does not directly know the Mother or the Father of the baby.  Despite not knowing them or even knowing much about the situation he was moved to tears as we arrived at the homestead and saw the mourning family members.  His response to death, especially in a place where death is so common, was compassion.  Once again on this trip I found myself reminded of 1st Corinthians 12:26.  "If one member suffers, all suffer together with it; if one member is honored, all rejoice together with it."

"The great news we have recieved is that God is a compassionate God.  In Jesus Christ the obedient servant, who did not cling to his divinity buy emptied himself and became as we are, God has revealed the fullness of his compassion.  He is Immanuel, God-with-us.  The great call we have heard is to live a compassionate life.  In the community formed in displacement and leading to a new way of being together, we can become disciples-living manifestations of God's presence in this world.  The great task we have been given is to walk the compassionate way.Through the discipline of patience, practiced in prayer, and action, the life of discipleship becomes real and fruitful." (page 130)