A prayer.

For the heart to work among the poor, God this I ask.
For the courage to stand for what is right, God this I ask.
For the spirit to lead those who come, God this I ask.
For the perseverance to continue working when I am tired, God this I ask.
For the rest that I will lack, God this I ask.
For the strength to make a difference, God this I ask.

Gracious and loving God, grant me the ability to see the unseen.
The ability to hear the unheard.
The ability to love the unlovely.
The ability to befriend the friendless.
The ability to understand the misunderstood.
The ability to serve the underserved.
The ability to feed the unfed.
The ability to comfort the uncomfortable.

Allow me to see Your light in the darkness, Your grace in the mistakes, and Your love in the hatred.

I pray that I may be their servant, that I may be as Christ to them.
I pray that I might have the grace to let them be my servant too.
For we are all pilgrims on a journey,
We are brothers and sisters on the road,
We are here to help each other walk the mile and bear the load.
Help me to weep when they are weeping; when they laugh, I will laugh too.
Help us share both joy and sorrow, until we’ve seen the journey through.

God of all, I pray that your love may shine through me on those I meet.
I pray that I see you on the street.

2013?

Today Senator John McCain – running for the Republican nominee for President – issued a statement saying that, “By January 2013, America has welcomed home most of the servicemen and women who have sacrificed terribly so that America might be secure in her freedom. The Iraq War has been won.”

2013? So the United States would continue to fight a “war” in Iraq for 4.5 more years if McCain became president? We’ve already been fighting this “war” for what seems like an eternity – almost 6 years.

McCain firmly denied that his statement concerning the end of the “war” in 2013 was similar to a time-table strategy for pulling troops out of Iraq, like his opponents Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton have. “It’s not a time-table; it’s victory.”

It’s no secret that I strongly oppose United States presence in Iraq. While I certainly admire and respect each serviceperson in the Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marine Corps who is currently deployed in the Middle East, I do not agree with the amount of soldiers the US has stationed in Iraq, nor do I agree that the “war on terror” is being “won”. While I wish for a world ruled by peace and justice, I do not see it coming about through the continued fighting in Iraq. The United States cannot and should not be the world police. President Bush and his administration blatantly went against the advice of the United Nations to with-hold from deploying massive amounts of troops to the Middle East. While I certainly hold out hope for a peaceful Middle Eastern state, it is wrong – in my opinion – to force an American style democracy onto a culture that does not operate in that fashion. We cannot expect the rest of the world to conform to American ideals.

I absolutely hate the thought of the continued presence of a massive amount of our armed forces in Iraq until 2013 or even later. While I don’t think pulling our entire military presence out will benefit the Middle East (since we have forced the people of Iraq into a state of dependency on our protection), the US needs to start withdrawing soldiers now, gradually.

I’m trying to appreciate art.

On top of my work and ministry with CSM Toronto this summer, I’m taking an online class from Campbell to help finish up my BA degree since I’m scheduled to graduate from undergrad in December 2008 – Art Appreciation. I’m not an artistic person – trust me, I’ve tried! But, this class is required as part of the general college curriculum, and I’ve put it off for too long. Anyways, I got my HUGE textbook in the mail today, and I downloaded my syllabus earlier this week. Thankfully, I can get a lot of work done before I get to Toronto, including a 5-page research paper which I’m going to start next week. The paper is supposed to be about an artist or artistic style from any era. After flipping though the text, I’ve chosen Albrecht Dürer, a German artist who lived from 1471-1528. I hope he’s interesting…his self-portrait seems brooding and deep enough.

A Prayer for Brokenness

So, in reading over my pre-training material for my summer with CSM Toronto, I came across a quote by Bob Pierce, founder of World Vision:

“May my heart be broken by the things that break the heart of God.”

While I’ve always had an affinity for the underserved, the downtrodden, the unlovely, I’ve never truly been able to express why I feel such a connection to situations and circumstances that have evaded my life as an upper-middle class white male. But, this simple prayer has shed light on my way of thinking, my strong advocacy of social justice issues, and my intensifying call into ministry. I can only hope that this prayer remains in the forefront of my mind as I serve in Toronto this summer, and really as I continue on my journey through life. May my actions of service be done so in the concern and brokenhearted cry of God for God’s people.

Sit down and stay awhile.

I’ve lately been interested in the concept of story and how stories shape and form a person within themself and the world in which they live. It’s fascinating to me how a person’s unique story is intimately intertwined with the stories of every other single person they have met. Our personal narrative is never just that – it’s never personal, and its never really a narrative. Unless we live in a bubble (some people seem like they do!), our lives touch and interact with the lives of countless other people. Each story meets another, and takes on elements different from its own. In many ways, our own tale is also not a narrative. This is because a narrative seems to imply a linear progression from start to finish. There is an initial scene, a climax, and an ending scene. But life is hardly ever like that, is it? Life is more like an epic story – one with twists, turns, reversals, progression, shortcomings, goals, disappointment, victory, and so on. Our interaction with one another doesn’t just propel us forward into a friendly or unfriendly future. Our interactions conjure up dreams, hopes, nightmares, spiritual insight, blindedness, etc. Pretty soon, you have a web of stories mingled together from across friendships, time, families, and groups. One story leads to another, which refers back to a different one, which pushes us to another story, which in turn reminds us of yet another tale. Isn’t this interesting?

I’m – as of today – 25 days away from starting my summer in Toronto. I’ve been reflecting lately on how story is going to play a large part in my personal ministry for the summer. I so desperately want to embody Christ in my actions this summer by loving, caring for, and listening to those whom society unfortunately deems “unlovely”. I want to be a caring brother, a loving friend, and a compassionate companion for those who need me most. I want to affect change. But, I also want to be vulnerable and become the one who needs love, needs caring for, and needs listening to. I want to find a caring brother (or sister), a loving friend, and a compassionate companion in the people I meet on the streets of Toronto. In effect, I want my story to be effected by the stories of others. I don’t want to come back to North Carolina, to Campbell, to my friends, and to my family and tell about my summer. I want to tell about Steve’s summer, Tina’s summer, Andre’s summer, Leslie’s summer. I want to remember the stories of each person I meet on the streets of Toronto and incorporate them into my life so that my story is forever changed. I think that only then – after having my epic take the twists and turns of social ministry – can I become an effective servant for God’s people. Only when I decrease the “me” and increase the “we” can I truly understand what it means to be in communion with the body of Christ, the Church.

In our woundedness, we offer healing.

Two blog posts in one day?! Aren’t you lucky.

I finished reading Henri Nouwen’s work The Wounded Healer: Ministry in Contemporary Society today. If you haven’t read this book, go to Amazon.com and order it now. I’ll wait for you to get back…

In this short read (it seriously only took me an afternoon to read the entire thing), Nouwen suggests that those called into ministry have a special role of being “wounded healers”, or those who “must look after his own wounds but at the same time be prepared to heal the wounds of others” (82). It’s a fascinating thing to think about – the fact that those called to serve others in the name of God must be willing to heal others through our own personal trials, downfalls, and disappointments. Through our experiences of hurt and pain, ministers to the people of God are able to offer hope as hospitality and community.

Nouwen says: “Making one’s own wounds a source of healing, therefore, does not call for a sharing of superficial personal pains but for a constant willingness to see one’s own pain and suffering as rising from the depth of the human condition which all men share” (88). The point is not to offer empathy because we have gone through the same unfortunate situation; the point is to offer compassion because we all suffer and we all carry a heavy burden. Once we recognize that we all share the experience of being wounded, we can begin to offer each other hope that we can all share the experience of being healed.

I love what Nouwen says the task of the minister truly is: “Perhaps the main task of the minister is to prevent people from suffering for the wrong reasons” (93). A minister is not a magician who wears a special stole to remove suffering from the world. Rather, a minister is a person who suffers along with the people he or she serves, but guides the congregation into a better understanding of their suffering. Too often we feel pain and heartache because our lives are based on false assumptions such that there should be “no fear or loneliness, no confusion or doubt” (93). The minister reminds the people of God that these conditions are part of our human life that must be dealt with in creative ways as the Church can so do. The wounded healer as a minister should not try to gloss over the dirty and painful side of existence, but use that beautiful part of life to offer both hope and redemption for a more fulfilling and rewarding existence.

I clearly don’t do justice to Nouwen’s book in this post. I don’t think I ever could. His writings (beyond just this book) are full of wisdom invaluable to any person. In the famous words of St. Augustine’s coversion, Tole, Lege! Pick up and read!

"I usually don’t eat asparagus."

(and now I’m smiling.)

it’s time for a geography lesson.

I know you’ve always wanted to learn the ins and outs of Toronto – just admit it! Well, since I do have to learn the lay of the land (seriously, I have to memorize the map of downtown), I thought I’d educate you on my summer home and new-found favorite place.

Did you know?…
-As of 2001, Toronto had become the most multicultural city on the planet, with 152 different languages and dialects spoken, and 49% of the GTA (Greater Toronto Area) population born outside of Canada.

-Toronto is North America’s 5th largest city – surpassed by Mexico City, New York City, Los Angeles, and Chicago.

-Yonge Street (which is a hopping place downtown!) is the world’s longest street, stretching 1,896km.

-Toronto has been rated as the most gay-tolerant city in North America.

-Toronto has the largest public transit system in North America, after NYC, and over 2.2 million trips are made on the TTC each day.

-There are over 125 museums in the city.

-Toronto is the 3rd largest TV and film producing city in North America after Hollywood and NYC. It is nicknamed “Hollywood North”.

-Almost 40% of the US population live within a day’s drive of the GTA.

There’s so much more to learn! I should be able to be a licensed tour guide after this summer!

the beautiful heresy (revisited).

For any of you who happened to read my blogs when I sporadically wrote them last year on a different site, you might remember a post entitled “The Beautiful Heresy” in which I wrote about my views of universalism. Well, after dinner and coffee with a new friend, I’ve decided to revisit this topic, because it is so beautiful in my opinion.

Stanley Hauerwas writes an amazing statement (that indirectly hints at universalism) in his Cross-Shattered Christ: Meditations on the Seven Last Words.

“We are told in John 1:18 that without the Son no one can see the Father. Von Balthasar, therefore, reminds us ‘when the Son, the Word of the Father is dead, then no one can see God, hear of him, or attain him. And this day exists, when the Son is dead, and the Father, accordingly, inaccessable.’ This is the terror, the silence of the Father, to which Jesus has committed himself, this is why he cried the cry of abandonment. He has commended himself to the Father so he might for us undergo the dark night of death. Jesus commends himself to the Father, becoming for us all that is contrary to God. Christ suffers by becomnig the ‘No’ that the salvation wrought by his life creates. Without Christ there could be no hell – no abandonment by God – but the very hell created by Christ cannot overwhelm the love he has for us” (97).

(Too bad I’ve been told Hauerwas isn’t as good a lecturer or a singer as he is a writer! haha.)

Isn’t this interesting? Christ creates hell. Without salvation, hell is unimaginable. But, Christ also eliminates hell. With salvation, hell is also unimaginable. Fortunately for us, Christ has both created and defeated hell in his salvific work. Only Christ (who was God made human) experiences the abandonment of God, as read in Mk. 15:34. But, not for long, because Christ overcomes the burden of death in the resurrection. Because Christ has both experienced the abandonment of God and has overcome it, he simply will not allow anyone else to experience such a hell as he did. Christ came to save us from such an abandonment. His love – God’s love – for the creation is too vast and all-encompassing to allow people to experience such a terrible fate as the total abandonment of God’s presence. Because that’s what hell is – the absence of God.

I don’t claim to know how God works, and I don’t claim to be right in believing in universalism. That’s why I titled this blog “The Beautiful Heresy.” I do think, however, that if God created each of us – black or white, gay or straight, Christian or Muslim, Republican or Democrat (lol) – in his image (an image of love), then there is no way God could abandon one of her creations. I do wish that our world could be one that is lived in the light and reconciliation of Christ. I think our global society could function on a much deeper and meaningful level if we all practiced the mercy and love that Christ demonstrated. However, we live in a pluralistic world. And we must begin to understand the fact that the two billion Christians in the world do not have a special status with God. God has created all of us. Why wouldn’t she redeem all of us? Why wouldn’t he love all of us to the point of abandoning the abandonment?

So, what then is the point of ministry? To share with people the love of God by service in Christ’s name. We so often overlook the ethical and practical teachings of Jesus in order to see the theology of the church. We have to remember that Christ lived and died as a Jew within Judaism. He didn’t come to create a new religion, but to reform the religion in which he lived. And the majority of the gospels tell of how he welcomed the sick, the stranger, the unlovely to his table to dine with him. He loved them as God loved them. He didn’t try to convert them into Christians. But, he did want them to live lives of service, acceptance, and inclusion. Lives that honored each individual.

Like I said, I don’t have an answer, and I’m not going to pretend I do. Universalism is a tricky business with little straightforwardness. But is religion straightforward anyways? It’s a beautiful thought, no?

It’s getting closer.

I don’t leave for Toronto until 3 June; and although that day seems so far away, it really is creeping up fairly quickly. It seems like just yesterday I was on spring break in Toronto working with my friends from Campbell. Now, I’m about to embark on a two and half month journey that will take me on a very exciting and unpredictable ride. I’m excited beyond words about this opportunity to serve the needy of Toronto as both a minister and friend (which are synonymous words, by the way). But, I’m also beginning to become a little anxious about the work I’ll be doing. I whole-heartedly pray that I can be an effective channel of God’s boundless grace and love to those who so desperately need a shoulder to lean on and a friend who will listen to their story. I strongly believe that we minister more profoundly by our actions than through our words. I can only hope that my work in the city reflects the hope and reconciliation that Christ brings. As Mother Teresa so aptly states:

Let us preach You without preaching;

not by words but by our example;

by the catching force, the sympathetic influence of what we do,

the evident fullness of the love our hearts bear to You.