The Chaos of Christmas

Christmas was a bit disappointing this year.

 

Maybe it’s just that I had good, warm memories of last Christmas.  Last year (2009), was our first Christmas as a family (with Davey Will) in Cambodia, and we had a special time of celebration with Sopheaktra’s family.  Plenty of gifts under the tree for everyone.  I was finally healthy after about a month of on-and-off illness.  It was a great season.

 

This year, I don’t know.  It just wasn’t quite the same.  Because so many of our extra resources have gone into the ‘big Christmas present’ called our house, we didn’t have a lot extra this season to put a whole lot of presents under the tree (though we did well enough!).  Our get-together with family was on Christmas Eve, and people were just getting off work, so we got off to a much later start than expected.  Sopheaktra’s sister and her family also moved into their own home this year, plus just had a new baby, so finances were tight for them, too.  Having two toddlers in the family (Davey Will and his cousin) only added to the chaos, as they each seemed to be more interested in the presents the other one received – and they expressed that interest quite vocally and emotionally!  Our Christmas morning got off to an interesting start, with a policeman at our door.  It turns out he just wanted to get a copy of my passport, since we’re new to the neighborhood.  A minor hassle, but any encounter with ‘the system’ is a vivid reminder that social systems here in Cambodia are broken and often riddled with injustice.  So, yes, Christmas was just a bit chaotic this year.

 

I think one reason that Christmas can be so disappointing is that we have pretty high expectations of what Christmas ought to be.  I have a whole chain of wonderful Christmas memories to base those expectations on, and our (American) culture only reinforces what the Christmas experience can and should be.

 

But the chaos of this Christmas reminded me that it is those expectations that are themselves off the mark.  Christmas isn’t supposed to be a season of warm fuzzies.  Christmas is chaos.  Mary and Joseph didn’t put their newborn in a pack ‘n’ play.  They put him in a feeding trough.  Their baby was presumably surrounded by stinky animals.  They were soon joined by a group of shepherds, who may well have been stinky too.  I am positive that none of those shepherds – at any time – burst into a perfect solo of “O Holy Night.”   I’m reasonably confident that Mary and Joseph did not have any time to discuss the whole experience over mugs of hot apple cider and those marshmallow Rice Krispie treats.  And the whole picture is set in the context of the burdensome demands made by an oppressive, totalitarian political regime – the Roman Empire.  It wasn’t a pleasant holiday experience.  It was chaos.

 

And that moment of sheer and utter chaos transformed history.  It transformed me.

 

So, I reckon I can put up with a few minor inconveniences that occasionally fall short of my ideal of the ‘perfect Christmas.’  It’s not about getting the perfect holiday experience.  It’s about remembering the birth of our Savior in the midst of hectic, chaotic, high-stress situation.

 

So maybe a chaotic Christmas is just right.

 

 

 

Spinach and Chocolate Cake

When asked what the greatest commandment was, Jesus’ answer was twofold:  love God (with everything you’ve got) and love your neighbor as you love yourself.  So, how many love commandments are there in this response?  Just two.

 

Some well-meaning interpreters of Scripture would tell us that there are in fact three love commandments here:  love God, love your neighbor, and love yourself.  They might insist, “Jesus tells us that we need to love ourselves in order to truly be able to love our neighbors.”

 

But I’m afraid that this interpretation, while probably well-intentioned, is mistaken – both grammatically and theologically.

 

For example, consider the instruction, Eat spinach as you eat chocolate cake.  How many commands have I issued?  Just one:  eat spinach.  I’m not commanding you to each chocolate cake!  In fact, there’s a good chance that I would prefer for you to STOP eating chocolate cake altogether.  But the command to eat spinach is based on a very good assumption:  the listener really likes to eat chocolate cake, and does so with eagerness!  In fact, the force of the command – as stated – depends on that assumption being true.  If I’m not sure whether the listener really likes chocolate cake or not, then phrasing the question in this way actually serves to undermine the impact of the command to eat spinach.  And to suggest that, when I say, Eat spinach as you eat chocolate cake, I really mean, If you don’t currently like chocolate cake, please learn how to eat it ravenously so that you can then fulfill my command to eat spinach with the same gusto – well, that’s just ridiculous, isn’t it?

 

By the same token, the very syntax of the phrase, Love your neighbor as yourself, must NOT be taken as a command to love oneself, implicitly or otherwise.  Jesus is making the very legitimate assumption that all of us really do in fact love ourselves.  NOT that we necessarily have the highest opinion of ourselves, since that is often not true. But we are passionately devoted to what we perceive to be our own best interests.  I’m no psychologist, but I would suggest that this understanding of self-love could hold true even to people who quite vehemently “hate themselves.”

 

So – we are already pretty well preoccupied with ourselves.  We don’t need another command to reinforce that.  We need to hear Jesus’ commands to love God first and love others with the same passionate commitment we give to our own interests.

 

And, yeah, eating more spinach might not be a bad idea, either.

 

 

 

Culture Shock and the Incarnation

This article was written for my ministry newsletter in July 2003.  I thought of it recently, because the same fundamental challenge remains – even after eight years of ministry in Cambodia.

 

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Immersing oneself in a new culture is not easy.  I just returned from a trip to Svay Rieng, a province in the southeast part of Cambodia, near the border with Vietnam.  I had the opportunity to go as one of the teachers for a regional youth leader seminar.  I am glad that I was able to participate, but I have to admit that the time was a challenging one. 

 

I have been here for over a year.  Though by no means a “veteran,” I am feeling more comfortable with the language, and feeling a certain sense of “belonging” here.  But culture shock has a funny way of sneaking up on you.  Among the nine people running the seminar, I was the only foreigner.  While I was able to teach my workshops for the seminar in Khmer, I am still far from able to follow the playful banter around the dinner table. So, instead of the warm camraderie I might have hoped for, I felt somewhat left out.  And the fact that some of my friends and colleagues seemed to enjoy teasing me – teasing that I couldn’t fully comprehend! – only made me feel worse.

 

I struggled with hurt, anger, and frustration.  “Don’t they realize how hard it is for me to be here with them?”  “Don’t they realize how much I’ve given up to come to Cambodia in the first place?”  “Don’t they realize that, even though I haven’t mastered the language, I’m not stupid?”  “Can’t they show me a little respect?”  Such selfish thinking only fueled the fires burning inside my heart!

 

Those struggles have led me once again to reflect on an awesome mystery – the mystery of the Incarnation.  When Jesus stepped out of the glories of heaven to enter a virgin’s womb and be born in Bethlehem with a feeding trough for His first crib, it was a lot bigger jump than a move from comfortable, affluent America to developing Cambodia.  He had to struggle with the mundane realities of life on this planet.  He had to sweat as the midday sun beat down on Him.  He probably had to eat food that wasn’t as tasty as it could have been.  He probably had to scratch a bug bite or two or twenty.  (I don’t actually know if they have mosquitoes in Israel!)

 

But the final chapters of that story were the worst.  He had to suffer the betrayal of one of his closest companions.  He had to endure the mockery of men who were not worthy to be in His presence.  And He had to undergo the injustice of being nailed to a cross and dying as a common criminal.  He could have said, “Don’t they realize who I am?”  “Don’t they realize how much I’ve given up to come here?”  “Can’t they show me a little respect?”

 

But He didn’t.  He endured it all.  And He did it for me.  I will probably never completely get past “culture shock.”  Instead, what I must do is constantly put my trust in the one who endured the “culture shock” of the Incarnation, so that I might enjoy the goodness that He has stored up for me.  And by His grace, I desire to keep pressing on to share that goodness – the joy of following the Incarnate One – with others.

Fences and neighbors

Growing up, I remember hearing the phrase “good fences make good neighbors.”  The phrase is actually quoted in the poem “Mending Wall” by Robert Frost, but the origins evidently are even earlier.

 

Hmm…good fences make good neighbors.  As I understand the phrase, it suggests that getting along well with your neighbors requires a clear demarcation of “my space” vs. “your space.”  Respecting each other’s boundaries, each other’s “personal space,” is essential for good relationships.

 

My Cambodian mother-in-law has said something using similar terms. 

 

Sometimes, when we’re tempted to get frustrated with our neighbors, she will say, “remember, neighbors are your fences.”  Wait a second, that’s different.  She’s suggesting that “good neighbors make good fences”!  What she’s implying is that the function of a good fence – protection and safety – can be provided by good neighbors.  If you have a good relationship with your neighbors, they’ll keep an eye on things for you.  You want to have good relationships with your neighbors, so they serve as your fence.

 

That strikes me as illustrating a key cultural difference between an American mindset and a Cambodian mindset.  The American mindset says, “respect my personal space and we’ll get along fine,” while the Cambodian mindset suggests, “let’s make sure we get along and I won’t have to worry so much about my personal space.”

 

Reading the wistful tone in Frost’s poem, I suspect he would have preferred the Cambodian approach.

 

 

Wants and Asking

It’s incredible to me that a two-year-old knows how to operate a DVD player.  Our son, Davey Will, loves to watch videos, and he actually knows how to put the DVD’s in the player and get them going.  It’s amazing to me.

 

Now, I still try to do most of the handling of the DVD’s myself, because our toddler hasn’t yet learned the proper way to hold them to keep them from getting scratched and all.  But I often let Davey Will pick out the video he wants to watch, and then I put it in for him.

 

But picking DVD’s can be tricky.  For instance, sometimes Disney DVD’s include not only the disc that actually contains the animated film, but another disc that has “special features.”  The discs tend to be decorated about the same, so little two-year-old eyes cannot discern the difference.

 

And so it is that my little boy has, at times, asked for me to put in the Jungle Book Special Features disc.  He loves the movie, the “Jungle Book,” and so I assume that’s what he wants to watch.  But when I go to put the right disc in the player, he gets upset.  He thinks that I’m not giving him what he clearly asked for.  Which, in reality, is true.  I know he asked for the behind-the-scenes documentary about the making of Jungle Book, but I’m pretty sure that’s not what he really wants to watch.  (He has watched it on occasion, though!)  So, as he’s fussing and rapidly approaching “temper tantrum” stage, I get a little bit frustrated.  In my heart, I want to say, “Look, I’m going to give you what you want, not what you asked for!”

 

And then I realize how often I can be like a two-year-old boy.  I can get so upset when God doesn’t give me what I asked for.  But maybe God, in His infinite wisdom, knows much better than we do what we really want.  And in His incredible grace He allows us to fuss and whine while He moves to give us what we want, not what we asked for.

 

 

Sex and Coke

NOTICE:  If you happen to be an attorney (whether working for Coca-Cola or otherwise), I freely admit that I talk about Coca-Cola in this blog entry.  I’m sure Coca-Cola and Coke are both trademarks, and this isn’t intended to infringe on that.  This blog entry is neither an endorsement nor condemnation of the beverage.  Just in case you were wondering.

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I really like Coca Cola.  When you live and work in a hot, tropical climate, an ice-cold Coke can be incredibly satisfying. 

 

It’s really a wonderful drink.  The acidic taste helps quench the thirst, the sugar gives some caloric intake, the caffeine gives a quick boost of energy, and the carbonation can make you feel full when the rice and whatever else is on the table doesn’t look terribly appealing.  It’s just a great beverage!

 

So, imagine that I have a can of ice-cold Coca-Cola.  And I think to myself what a wonderful beverage this is.  And I think further, that this beverage is so wonderful that 330 ml just isn’t going to be satisfying enough.  I mean, that’s only a good-sized glass worth.  So imagine that I round up about 15 glasses, each big enough to hold a can’s worth of coke.  And I take my single can, and divide it out evenly by pouring a little bit into each of the 15 glasses.  Then, I take a large pitcher of water and fill up each of the glasses to the brim with plain water.  Now I have 15 glasses of delicious, satisfying Coca-Cola, right?

 

Of course not.

 

I now have 15 glasses of slightly brownish water, and that’s about it.  If you ever tasted watered-down Coke (like when all the ice melts in your cup), you know how icky that taste can be.  It’s not satisfying at all.  In trying to spread out my satisfaction, I have instead radically diminished it.  It would have been much more fulfilling to simply accept the limits of my single can of the wonderful drink, and enjoy it in all its refreshing and satisfying purity.  Diluting it in an attempt to expand the satisfaction only destroyed it.

 

That’s God’s plan for sex.   In one sense, God’s intention to restrict sexual expression and fulfillment to the confines of the marriage covenant seems extremely limiting.  One sexual partner for life?  That’s it?  For many of us, sexuality seems to have so much more potential than that.  And there are SO many opportunities to seek for – and find – sexual pleasure in the world today.  It seems only rational to try to expand our satisfaction by seizing multiple opportunities for sexual fulfillment – whether that’s through multiple partners or just multiple websites.  But what we end up doing is diluting the pleasure that God intended, and diluting it in an attempt to expand the satisfaction only destroys it.  We are much better off to lovingly and gratefully accept the limits of a committed marriage partner as our sole source of sexual delight, and enjoy that pleasure in all its refreshing and satisfying purity.

 

 

 

Living into the Future

When you live in Cambodia, surrounded by a culture of those who are unfamiliar with Western holidays and traditions, even remembering when certain holidays ARE can be a bit of a challenge.  I mean, with Irish in my background, we enjoyed St. Patrick’s Day when I was growing up.  We ate corned beef and cabbage.  We drank green milk.  It was fun.  Now, St. Patrick’s Day can come and go without a trace!

 

That’s not as true of some of the major Christian holidays, of course, like Christmas and Easter.  The church here in Cambodia does remember those, although Easter is still a bit fuzzy.  People have asked me more than once when a holiday actually falls.  Here in Cambodia, Christmas is really all throughout December, and people don’t always realize that December 25 is the official holiday.

 

A while back, all this holiday-tracking made me realize something.  We usually celebrate a “holiday season” leading up to a holiday, and consider it finished when the holiday finally arrives.  The “Christmas season” generally kicks off around Thanksgiving, and lasts all month with party after party and all.  (Unless you work in retail, and then the Christmas season starts around Halloween or even earlier!)  But when December 25 rolls around, that’s the end.  People in the United States would probably look at you kind of funny if you invited them to a Christmas party on December 29, right?  The actual event marks the end of the season.

 

The same is true of Easter, and – in my home growing up, at least – of vacations.  The weeks and days leading up to our family vacation were a time of excitement and anticipation, as we eagerly awaited the great day of departure.  We weren’t nearly as excited when the vacation was over!

 

Why is this?  Why are we so excited leading up to a special event, and the excitement ends thereafter?  Why don’t we celebrate the Christmas season after Christmas?

 

I have a thought, and you can take it for what it’s worth.  I suggest this pattern of excitement exists because the joy of anticipation is part of our humanity.  We were made to live into the future.  We get excitement, joy, pleasure, and satisfaction in expectation of what’s coming, now what has already come and gone.  That’s just natural.

 

It’s not that the past is unimportant.  After all, remembering and celebrating the past is an important aspect of having holidays to begin with.  We usually celebrate holidays with traditions, which tie us to the past.  But when one holiday ends, we begin looking forward to the next one – because we are intrinsically drawn to the future.

 

I think this may be significant, because that’s the pattern of the Christian life.  We celebrate and honor the past, but we are living into the future.  We are made for the joy of anticipation of all the shalom that God has in store for us.

 

Happy holiday.  Whichever one is next.

 

P is for Parenting

Back in the day, I used to enjoy psychological tests.  Not the big, serious ones like the MMPI (which makes you feel weird just taking it, in my opinion).  But the more general, personality type of tests.  I remember taking tests based on the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator.  I recall finding out that I am pretty much an off the charts Introvert.  Not a surprise, if you happen to know me.  I also learned that I was a very strong “J.”  The J stands for judging, and is set in contrast to the P for perceiving.  One of the things I read is that J’s (like me) like to tie up loose ends and “have matters settled,” in the words of Myers.  P’s are more open to ambiguity, I guess, more tolerant of things being up in the air and untidy, unfinished.

 

Yeah, I’m definitely a J.  People chuckle when they look at my planner book, because I cross things off with a vengeance.  That’s such a great sense of satisfaction – getting to the end of the day and knowing that you’ve accomplished something meaningful.  Getting to watch an hour or so of TV at the end of the day, knowing that I’ve worked hard and been productive all day, is a great feeling for me.  I like for things to be done, crossed off the list, accomplished, finished.  I’m a J.

 

But I recently realized something.  One of the challenges I’ve encountered in my two years of parenting experience is that it’s not really a J-oriented activity.  Parenting Davey Will never gets crossed off my list.  Raising my son is never, ever, really “done.”  When I became a parent, I signed up for the perpetually unfinished task.  That’s the kind of things P’s are into, not J’s.  P is for parenting, I guess.

 

There’s no question that I find parenting Davey Will immensely satisfying.  But I am going to have to redefine my “job satisfaction” in this case.  I’m never going to have the satisfaction from saying, “Mission accomplished,” because there will always be more parenting work to do.  Parental satisfaction has to be more organic, more characterized by the quality of my relationship to him and the kind of person he’s becoming than by a set of tasks that can be crossed off as “completed with excellence.”  This will be a journey for this committed J, but it’s one I’m looking forward to making.

 

This isn’t any great revelation for experienced parents, I know. But I’m new at this.

Baby-Proofing

We know it’s important to “baby-proof” the house.  We’ve always understood baby-proofing the house as important to protect the baby.  We’re now entering a period where we have to think of baby-proofing the house to protect the house!

 

Welcome to the two-year-old boy phase! :o)

 

 

Faith and the Butterfly Effect

The idea of the "butterfly effect" is an intriguing one.  Popularly, it's the concept that a butterfly flapping its wings in China could cause a storm in the United States.  Scientists in the field of chaos theory call it "sensitive dependence on initial conditions."  The basic idea is this: objects and events are linked in a web of causality, and even a minor - minute! - change in one factor could cause a radically different outcome elsewhere in the "web."

 

There's an interesting exploration of the concept in the movie, "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button."  In one sequence in that film, the narrator "what ifs" about a series of incidents.  If any single one of the factors involved had started out slightly different, then a significant accident would have been avoided.  And, ultimately, the whole story of Benjamin Button might have turned out differently.

 

I guess you could say that I'm a beleiver in the Butterfly Effect.  And it helps me trust God more.  Let me explain what I mean.

 

I didn't go to church on Easter Sunday. I sure would have liked to.  It turns out that the days leading up to Easter Sunday would be the best days for me to take a ministry trip up to Kampong Thom and Siem Reap.  A week earlier, and one of the key people I needed to meet wouldn't have been there.  A week later, and we'd be bumping up against Khmer New Year, and again probably some people I wanted to see wouldn't have been available.  So I made the trip when I did, with my final responsibilities in Siem Reap ending on Saturday evening.  Now, I could have gone to church (somewhere) in Siem Reap, but I decided I would try to hustle back to Phnom Penh as early as possible and at least try to join in the fellowship lunch our Cambodian church was having after the morning service.

 

The bus usually takes about 6 hours from Siem Reap to Phnom Penh.  The earliest bus I could find left at 6:30am.  But then I checked into a 15-passenger van run by one of the bus companies.  It was supposed to be non-stop and they claimed it would make the trip in 4 hours.  Since it left at 7:30am, it would give me an extra hour in the morning, and still get me home earlier than the bus.  I shelled out the cost of the van (more than double the cost of the bus), believing it worth the price.

 

I have to admit that it did not escape me that this van was run by the "Red Dragon" bus company.  I've never been too eager to ride with a company with that mascot, as Revelation 12 does come to mind.

 

As it turned out, I was at the bus company's office bright and early on Sunday morning ready for the trip home.  I expected the trip to be non-stop.  I expected the driver to go at speeds that would contribute meaningfully to my prayer life.  And I expected to be in Phnom Penh no later than 12:00 noon.

 

As we began the journey, I realized that the driver wasn't going dramatically faster than a bus would.  Then, when we made a 20-minute stop in the middle of the journey, I noticed my frustration level increasing significantly.  I had made a bad choice.  I should have taken the bus.  It would have been cheaper.  It would have actually been more comfortable.  And I would have actually made it to Phnom Penh at about the same time.

 

As I inwardly seethed at this rather unfortunate turn of events, I thankfully remembered the Butterfly Effect.  If I had taken the bus, I would have saved money and been more comfortable.  But then the "initial conditions" would have been different, and who knows what the outcome might have been.  Perhaps - and this is a big perhaps, I admit - I would have been involved in an accident, or perhaps the bus had a pickpocket on it who would have stolen my passport, or...well, who knows.  That's the whole point of the Butterfly Effect.  It's really hard to imagine what might have happened if the initial conditions were anything different than what they were.

 

Here's where faith comes in.  I believe that Jesus is Lord of the Butterfly Effect.  If He permitted me to get on an unexpectedly slow and extremely irritating 15-passenger van instead of my usual bus, I have to accept that He's still got my best interests in mind.  I have no idea what the outcome might have been had it been otherwise.  But since Jesus is irrevocably committed to my well-being, I choose to accept that maybe this outcome - frustrating as it was - might have been a way of protecting me from something far more unpleasant.

 

As it turned out, I did make it for the tail end of our fellowship meal.  Time enough to eat some ham and dye a couple Easter eggs with my son.  And I got a good reminder that our living Lord reigns supreme over everything, even slowpoke vans and flapping butterflies.

 

 

 

Church and TV Watching

In other writing of mine (like my last entry on “missio café”), I have argued for a more participatory approach to corporate worship.  But that doesn’t mean there’s not a place for the kind of large-group, celebratory gatherings with which many of us are familiar, where dozens (or hundreds!) of people gather together (often on a Sunday morning) for corporate worship.  These kinds of gatherings of God’s people are significant, and there are many expressions of corporate worship which really can only take place in such settings.  Inspirational preaching, the use of dance and drama and worship bands, etc. – these things often only “make sense” in the context of large celebration gatherings.  So, how do we capitalize on the wonderful advantages of such a gathering without falling prey to the very real danger of participants in such a gathering becoming merely a passive audience?  This is a major concern.

 

My son gave me a clue to part of the answer.  Now, when we think of being a passive audience, there’s not much that is more passivity-inducing than watching TV.  It generally doesn’t require us to “engage” very much at all.  In fact, that’s one of the reasons I like watching TV at the end of the day – it helps me slow down my mental rpm’s before heading off to bed.  Let’s face it – when you watch TV, you’re supposed to be a passive audience.

 

My little toddler doesn’t seem to understand this.  It is very difficult for him to sit still while watching television.  When there’s music, he likes to get up and move.  When there’s not music, he likes to get up and move!  He likes to sing along to the music, even when his lyrics don’t even line up with the music on the TV, even when his lyrics don’t match any known human language.  Davey Will is active when he watches TV.  For him, watching TV is a whole-body, whole-self experience.

 

I would suggest that this is the way we should enter into our corporate worship.  Even if the particular format of the gathering (whether due to size, tradition, or whatever) seems to foster the “passive audience” response, we are committed to engage with that worship gathering in an active, whole-self manner.

 

Now, granted, much of what Davey Will watches is geared for small children, and so they include lots of colors and music and action.  But that’s another hint for us.  If the makers of LeapFrog and Blue’s Clues can take a passivity-inducing medium like television and make it a participatory, interactive experience for preschool children, certainly we can do the same with the church.  These shows are brilliant in their creativity.  But surely they are no match for God’s creative people!  Let’s move beyond the trite “turn to your neighbor and say, ‘God loves you!’” approach to “audience participation” and come up with some creative ways to make our large-group worship gatherings more like Blues Clues!

 

Passivity isn’t a concept my toddler understands.  It shouldn’t make sense to the church either!

Missio Café

The following entry is excerpted from my ministry newsletter.

Over the past several months, I have been conducting a class for some of the young leaders at our local church.  I have called the class missio, based on the Latin word for “sending” which is the root of our word “mission.” 

The theme of the class has been the mission of the church.  In the first section, we explored some of the themes in Scripture which help us understand that God’s mission encompasses all of life.  We as God’s people are to introduce His shalom into every sphere of human existence, demonstrating that Jesus reigns over all. 

Another major section of the course was on discussing what kind of understanding of the church is necessary to fulfill this mission, so we looked at a model of the church as a “missional community.”  One of the key points made in this section is that members of the church are not supposed to be a passive “audience,” but are instead active agents of mission.  But so often the church here (like the church elsewhere) puts enormous emphasis on the Sunday morning service, and then conducts it as a program that makes most people behave like an “audience.” I wanted the class to consider whether there might be alternative ways of organizing corporate worship in such a way that was more participatory and active.

So, we tried an experiment.  Based on some ideas I’d encountered in my reading, we worked together to organize an experience that we called “missio café.”  In one of the rooms of our house, I set up tables and chairs like a small coffee house.  We held the gathering one Saturday evening, and used candles for our primary lighting.  We had snacks and drinks available, because we wanted to keep the atmosphere informal and community-oriented.  The theme was on prayer, and we did a lot of experiential stuff to explore that theme.  We sang songs together on the theme of prayer.  We had a Bible lesson where I shared briefly, but also gave the participants opportunity to dialogue together about prayer and anxiety, and then we ended the lesson with a responsive reading which collectively asked God to take our anxieties from us.  We used instrumental and reflective music as background, especially while the participants explored different “prayer stations.”  These prayer stations included a place where they could write their anxiety on a piece of paper and then burn it in a small bowl, a “prayer wall” where they could write out their prayers directly to God, and a station devoted to the story of Hagar, leading people to think about how God hears and sees the needs of the marginalized.  We also had artwork around the room (created by one of the students) that suggested various social problems people could pray for.

Whew!  I told my students clearly:  I’ve never done anything like this before.  I had no idea how it would turn out, and I was nervous for about two days before the gathering!

But in a special, amazing way, God used that time to give young people an opportunity to interact with Him in an active, intense way.  It was an experiment, and I don’t know if we’ll ever do it again, but I feel so privileged to have had the chance to witness people entering into God’s presence in a fresh, creative way.

 

Re-Gifting

“Re-Gifting” is a euphemism, I reckon.  Taking a gift that you’ve received from one person, and then passing it on as a gift to another person.  (I highly recommend that you do not “re-gift” something back to the person who originally gave it to you.)  I suppose various communities and cultures have different standards as to the extent that re-gifting is appropriate.  Whether fruitcakes or trinkets of various sorts, the same object gets “gifted” again and again and again.

 

Last night, I realized something.  God is into re-gifting.  Not in the sense of passing on a gift received from elsewhere, but in the sense of giving the same gift again and again.

 

Take this computer on which I’m writing this entry, for instance.  It’s a really cool laptop.  Granted, it’s over a year old, so it’s not top of the line anymore, I’m sure.  But I really like it.  I enjoy working on it, and it serves me well.  It would have made sense for me to thank God for this laptop when I originally got it.  (I hope I did that.)  The provision of this laptop was a wonderful gift from God that I received over a year ago.  But that’s what hit me last night.  God didn’t just give me this laptop a year ago.  He re-gifts it to me every single morning.

 

Of course I assume that my laptop will be there eagerly waiting for me every morning, but that “ain’t necessarily so.”

 

The reality of this was driven home last night (a Tuesday).  Now, Monday evening had been our regular team meeting.  I remember being distracted during that team meeting by the sound of a whole bunch of sirens.  That’s unusual here in Cambodia, where emergency response systems aren’t what they could be.  I found out on Tuesday morning that there had been a serious fire on the north side of the city, and the report I read said that over 200 homes had been destroyed.  One young child was killed in the blaze.

 

Fast forward a bit to Tuesday evening.  Sopheaktra decided to go out with her sister and mom and niece to dinner (kind of a belated women’s day celebration), taking Davey Will with her, so I was at home waiting for my students to arrive for my evening class.  I heard a rather large commotion outside our house, and a short time later our doorbell rang.  I went to the door, and a young woman (probably a neighbor) told me to shut off our circuit breakers because a transformer down the street had blown.  I did that, then went outside to watch what was happening.  Sure enough, about a block down the street an electrical transformer was essentially “blowing up.”  It was sending out sparks as bright as a welder’s torch.  To my alarm, there were actually flames surrounding the transformer.  It was at least 100 yards away from my house, but I still realized the potential danger.  If those flames began to spread, the whole neighborhood could be at risk.  I was SO thankful that Sopheaktra and Davey Will were safely out of the area, and I called to tell them to stay away for the time being.  I mentally began making a list of the things I should try to collect from our house if we needed to evacuate.  (And, yes, the laptop was on the list!)  I knew, though, that I wouldn’t be able to get very much, and there was a viable possibility that we could lose most everything we owned if that fire began to rage out of control.

 

I was so thankful when the transformer stopped sparking, and someone was on a nearby roof with a fire extinguisher to put out the remaining flames.  Disaster averted.

 

The whole thing took less than half an hour.  But it was enough to make me realize what we could have lost, and I dropped to my knees in gratitude that God spared us the loss that might have been.  And that’s what made me understand that every morning I wake up with my wife and son nearby, with food to eat, with money to spend, with a laptop to use, etc. – every single morning all those things are new gifts from God.

 

I’m glad God is into re-gifting.

 

 

 

 

NOT IN THE LESSON PLAN

Sometimes, I confess, when I am teaching, I "get off" on a substantial tangent.  Usually the tangent is related to the lesson in some way, and often the rabbit trail is actually a worthwhile one.  But it still represents something that I didn't originally plan to talk about.

 

A case in point was the time when I found myself saying, "God's will is for us to have holistic sex!"

 

How did I get there?!?!?

 

I keep trying, again and again, to get my students to reject the Western dichotomization between body and spirit.  God has designed as whole people, He values us as whole people (hence the incarnation), He loves us as whole people, He redeems us as whole people (hence the resurrection), He wants us to obey as whole people, and He wants us to love others as whole people.  This is what I mean when I talk about being "holistic."

 

One way I encourage my students to think about this is through a set of rather silly questions.  First, I ask them how many of them know any corpses that they consider friends.  I have never had a student respond in the affirmative; I only get rather strange and puzzled looks.  I then ask them how many of them have friends who are ghosts.  Again, only strange looks, no affirmative answers.  A corpse is a body without a spirit, and a ghost is a spirit without a body - neither of which make for very good companions!  The only people we know and interact with are embodied spirits, or spirit-animated bodies.  In other words, we only know and love and communicate with and care for WHOLE PEOPLE - just the way that God designed us to be.

 

This line of thinking is what led me to my rather bizarre comment above.  I pointed out to the students that one of the major problems with pornography and prostitution (even fully consensual prostitution) is that they take a whole person and reduce her (or him) to something purely physical - merely a body as an object of sexual satisfaction and pleasure.  God's design for sex is to create a deep and intimate connection between two people - as WHOLE PEOPLE. Not just two bodies, but two whole body-and-soul people.  God's will is for us to have holistic sex.  That's one reason why it's so important to protect sexuality with the covenant of marriage - to ensure that the sexual relationship is not purely physical, but a whole-person union of heart and soul and mind, as well.

 

Satisfying our sexual desires by reducing people - male or female - to purely physical beings is ALWAYS degrading to their humanity, because God designed us as whole beings, body and soul, and His intention for our sexuality is every bit as holistic as we are.

 

 

An Eye-Opener

I’ve always been a little bit ambivalent about art.  On the one hand, I have always enjoyed the performing arts, especially theater.  But I can’t carry a tune in a bucket.  My Dad’s skill in drawing and painting must have skipped a generation (maybe Davey Will will get it?).  And there’s a whole lot of stuff out there that passes for “art” that is offensive or at least bothersome and troubling.  You can’t even do a search for Biblical art without running across all sorts of nude women, for example.

 

But sometimes you run across an “eye-opener” that makes you think art is worth a second look.

 

I was getting ready for a “project” of sorts for the class I’ve been teaching about the mission of the church.  I wanted our class to experience a new format of worship gathering, one that was more multi-sensory and experiential than the typical Sunday morning worship service.  I put a lot of thought into it, and the theme for the gathering was going to be prayer.  Among numerous other things, I wanted to set up a small “station” where people could read some passages from Genesis about the story of Hagar, and how God both heard and saw Hagar’s situation of need.  I wanted this to lead the participants into a reflection on the marginalized in their own society, and set aside some time to pray for them to the God who hears and sees.

 

I thought it might be good to include a painting of the story at this little station, so I searched for a painting online, specifically one that dealt with the desperate situation of Hagar and Ishmael.  I did find one that was suitable, but in the process I also ran across a painting by Adriaen van der Werff entitled “Sarah Presenting Hagar to Abraham.”  The scene is in a bedroom, and Hagar is partially undressed and looking shy and nervous.  Seeing that picture made me recognize – in a fresh way – the story for what is actually was:  a case of sexual exploitation.  Sure, the whole point was that Abraham needed an heir, and Hagar’s fertility provided a means to this end.  But that doesn’t diminish the fact that the means to that end involved a slave-owner taking her slave girl and forcing her to have sex with the master.  That’s sexual exploitation, and that’s what happened.

 

The picture, with its sexually suggestive air, captures an element of the story I never really paid much attention to.

 

I am used to using lexicons and grammars to exegete the text.  But never art.  That made this one an eye-opener!

 

(You can see the picture yourself here).