Proclaim

Urgent: Ideas Have Consequences

2011-04-21T13:54:00.001-07:00

Philosophy—what about it?

It can make you pull your hair out. Or tie your mind in knots. Or shed light on your path.

Some say philosophy is over. These are the post-modernists of our time. There is no truth, they say. We all just grab some ideas that we like or that comfort us until we croak and that’s about it. No truth can be found.

Some say philosophy can give insights into what is really going on in the world and help us to shape a flourishing life.

Key Question One: what is the basis for any conclusions we adopt? For many the basis is no more than this. “What makes me feel good today?” The truth doesn’t matter. To each his own. The only “sin”—being critical of someone else’s ideas.

For philosophers like me the basis is what stands up to tough questioning. Are my ideas about things logically defensible (coherent). Are they inclusive (comprehensive)? Are they workable (pragmatic)?

Key Question Two: is there a reality beyond my own imaginings that I should pay attention to? Or is the universe whatever I would like it to be?

Examples. “I truly believe I’m not high and can drive home.” Result: sincere, but dead on the road.

“I truly believe I can cheat on my spouse and not hurt anyone.” Result: devastation for myself and my kids.

“I sincerely believe that when I die there is nothing more to it.” Result: Hmmmm….

“I truly think that if I am a good person, I’ll be OK if there is a final exam after death.” Result: Hmmmm….

Dr. Gus’s viewpoint: I had better examine everything with rigor, because the world/ the universe/reality is what it is, and my thinking either helps me to get in line with forces bigger than myself or I could be crushed. I could be sincere but fatally wrong. That would not be good.

Key Question Three: what is the nature of what is? I am in a universe that blows my mind when I think about it. I am going to die, that’s for sure. What is the wisest plan I can come up with for my life?

I suppose I could ignore it all. “Who knows the answer?”

But maybe that’s too big a risk. I, for one, want to think about the meaning of my life as a whole; about the value of my life when all is said and done and the lid of the coffin closes over me. About the purpose that I choose for myself: why am I here and why am I doing what I am doing? At my age I could be playing golf in Arizona or fishing in Florida every day.

Let’s call these big questions the MVP. Meaning. Value. Purpose.

Some say there is no MVP that is based in what’s out there. The universe has no MVP. That means there is no MVP to be discovered. Make up your own MVP. If this is the truth, then philosophy comes to a stop sign—a Dead End. Do what you want and hope you luck out by not being born in Bangladesh or Baghdad and not getting Dengue Fever or lung cancer or taken out by a drunk or a terrorist.

Others say the ultimate reality out there is packed with MVP. We are not just going, we are all going Somewhere. The meaning of life is to do whatever it takes to get in line with a Grand Reality that promises a hope and future. Values either support this quest or de-rail it. There is a purpose for my existence, for our existence. So what we embrace has eternal implications.

This is the big debate in philosophy. Not every answer can be correct. Either the universe is much ado about nothing (in the end when the galaxies run out of gas) or it is pregnant with endless life and value for us.

What clues, what evidence can we find in what little we have to work with here on planet Earth?

Science cannot resolve this, because science rests on philosophical assumptions that may or may not be true. Sorry—but that’s the way it is.

The Bottom Line: we need to think long and carefully despite our busy and often frenetic lives. That is philosophy in terms of the quest for truth and quest for MVP.

Give and It Will Be Given Unto You

2010-01-13T11:39:00.000-08:00

Each year in Kenya, I room with another happy bachelor (temporarily so and not by desire), Reverend George Mitchell, PhD. Many a Baptist Union church he has served in Scotland over the decades and is a man of God whom to know is to love.
One token of his esteem is that he does over 60 funerals a year. You see, George grew up with the toughs of Glasgow and he loves the common man and they turn to him, especially if they have not been the church-going type. They know he understands the edgier side of life and can speak fearlessly yet with compassion to those who have lost their way and need a Pilot of the Soul. And we all know Who that is.
We love him here at Scott Theological College. He is a silver-tongued smithy of words, often now enhanced by power point slides. He writes booklets that he sells to a small market of those he comes in contact with wherever he goes.
But the most endearing thing about George—did I mention also that he plays a respectable trumpet and has a fine voice—is that he does works of compassion all the time. It’s in his blood.
As he goes about Scotland, where he is a popular speaker, he advocates for the poor in Kenya. And people give him money and clothing to stuff in his bags and wallet for the needy when he comes each January.
Not that he’s perfect. Without his wife, Jean, he’d be at sixes and sevens most of the time. I know, I live with guy for three weeks every other year.
But he has a wonderful sense of humor and can tell stories without taking a breath for hours on end. It’s a fine tonic just to pal around with him.
Here’s what he did the last few days of this week.
He went off with Vundi to talk to the leaders of a local Anglican diocese about the biblical work ethic. You see people here just pray for rain when they could be developing local irrigation that could lessen starvation. At the end of his seminar he hands over 250,000 Ksh for an agricultural project Dr. Vundi is spear-heading to help the rural folk grow more food. George has touted this when people back home want to reward George for his ministry to them.
George goes down to visit the gatemen morning and often evening. He has a bag. Take some socks – or maybe a shirt. Here’s a bit o’dosh for you. “O thank you—I’ll be buying food with it today for my family.”
He goes out to the town football pitch (soccer field) to meet the coach and cheer the local kids. “Could you use some uniforms?” So he goes with the coach downtown and buys shirts, shorts, socks in bright colors like that of the Brazil team. “Now could you cut and collect some of the grass here to improve your field and feed some cows the college keeps?” “O sure, Dr. Mitchell, we’ll do just that.” Their eyes are big. They never dreamed they could have uniforms! “You look like Brazil now,” says George, “go play like them then!”
George has bags of ties and scarves to sprinkle about among the students and faculty and staff here. And some shirts and pencils, and dresses and even a suit or two. Whatever he can gather from folk or buy in the thrift.
Each afternoon a tap on the door signals the kids have come looking for a balloon from George’s pocket. “What do you say?” he asks with a broad grin. “Thank you!” they whisper.
Here is a man who teaches Hebrew and Greek, New Testament and numerous other courses in a college in Glasgow, now retired, who knows from his youth what it is to be in want and is doing all he can about it for others in need. He’s not wealthy himself. But people trust him to deliver the goods to the poorest of the poor as well as to needs of all kinds.
There’s a story about a guy in Wisconsin who was a fabulous fisherman. When others were skunked he always came home with something—every time. The local game warden asked how he did it. “Come on out with me and I’ll show you.” So on a day they put out into the middle of the little lake and let down the anchor. The man pulls out a stick of dynamite, lights it, and hands it toward his companion. “You can’t do that! The warden screams. Fishing by stunning them is against the law!!!” “Look,” says the other, still holding out the sizzling TNT, “are you going talk or fish?”
George is a guy who is always fishing. He is a wonderful talker you can listen to all day. But he walks the walk. For Jesus. For the least of these…. For those who are easily invisible as they stand to the side in the shadows while we fly on by on our important errands.
You will be fishers of men, Someone once promised. Are we talking? Or are we fishing? He’s holding out the sizzling stick to me—yes to me.

Going Home

2009-11-13T07:53:00.001-08:00

It is time to go home. One of my students, Suraj Lepcha, offers to ride along as Anil drives me to the Dehradun airport over an hour away. I am glad for the offer, since Anil knows about 25 words of English and I know 3 words in Hindi. Lepcha by contrast speaks good English.
Lepcha is one of the students who sat in the front row for 36 hours of lecture with his eyes bugging out and writing down every word, it seemed. He tells me how my style captured him, and the content filled his heart as well as mind. I have seen the philosophy bug bite a student here and there in my adjunct teaching experience.
So I ask him to tell me his story. Bu now we are choking on the smoggiest air since I arrived on October 22. Anil is dodging dogs, cows, bikes, trucks, and pedestrians in downtown Dehradun—as usual.
Lepcha tells me he is from Nepal. Obviously, he is oriental—but then several eastern states in India nestle against Myanmar. So he could be Indian.
How did he get to this college? Well, it is actually not that far in miles, since Nepal borders India and Tibet. He has a sponsor—a woman in Germany. He calls her Mum.
My curiosity goes up a notch. Tell me more.
Actually, I am technically an orphan. My father was an alcoholic and took his own life when I was three years of age. My mother then abandoned me. A teacher in a Catholic school gave me shelter and helped me go to school. But my mind was messed up. I started doing drugs and ruining my life as a young teen.
There are churches near where I live. Christians from Germany came to hold some meetings for youth. That’s how I became a Christian. But it was still very hard. Everyone always wants to know your family—who are your parents? What could I say? If I say I am with the teacher, they would say bad things, for they know he is not married. And obviously, my parents are not from Germany.
So I was lonely—almost an outcast. Then the Lord called me to serve him, and I came to this college. Mum pays my fees, but it is hard with no one near to belong to. I told Mum I want to study and get to the top.
She is so wise. She said that is OK, but pray for the Lord to show you what he wants for you. So I realized I was being driven to get recognized, and with that, acceptance and love. But now God is showing me a way. I want to go back to Nepal to the poor area I come from and start a school, since kids out there have little chance to get and education.
That’s so great, I say. Because that is a way to get a church started here in north India. Will that work in Nepal?
O yes. Buddhists and Hindus—and Muslims, too—want their kids to get ahead so they will not always live hand to mouth.
Lepcha is musical—playing by ear. He plays bass guitar in the NTC praise team. Lots of talent. He knows that music is a way to build a base. Most of the Christians in Nepal are young people—not too many of their parents have come to faith.
Lepcha has a keen mind, too. He says the course opened up something he had been yearning for, even though he didn’t know what his mind was craving. He is persistent, too. He asked good questions of me. And if I did not hit the target he kept on asking. In fact, he tells me he is like that, and some of his friends get tired of his persistence in their dorm sessions. He keeps pressing until his mind is satisfied.
By now we are well out in the country and the air is easier to breathe. I see a small control tower ahead on the left. The hour has flown by—except for Anil, who has to watch everything like a hawk. He has to pass slow traffic on this narrow, busy road—always a white knuckler for me. So I am glad to be distracted by conversation.
I am eager to have Lepcha stay in touch. I can perhaps encourage his potential. I think he will make an impact in Nepal in areas not yet touched by the Gospel.
I give him my card with the email contact. “I will have an email waiting for you when get to the USA tomorrow!”
We park at the terminal—if you can call it that. Just a low building with a scanner for bags and one check-in desk. Kingfisher Air has only two flights a day.
Just before I go past the officer guarding the entrance, I have Anil take a photo of Lepcha and me, my only Nepalese student so far.
Well, it’s time to go. I will trust myself to the worldwide airlines system, expecting it to deliver me to Logan in Boston in about 24 transit hours.
This is what is significant: A week before I left for India in October, I struggled with the feeling that I really did not want to go. But I was committed, so there was no question of not making the journey.
Looking back, I realize that something did not want me to come here—derailing this mission that seems, to my surprise, to have touched more students in a significant way than was true of my previous six stints at New Theological College.
But God helped me not to listen to that temptation.
So now I keep giving God a “smile offering.” I cannot get over the things he is doing here that he has shown me.
With a joyous heart, I’m going home.

A Marriage Made in Heaven

2009-11-11T04:13:00.000-08:00

The couple that has the house church in Dehradun (see earlier blog White Calvinist Preaches to Pentecoatal Indians) had me for dinner last night. We ate a bit early for them—8 PM. I told Sooraj that at home I would be thinking of stoking the fire and going up to bed about now.
His wife, Preeti, fixed a great meal. And this for a guy who struggles with most Indian food—not enough raw veggies and always pepper and curry a bit too hot in most dishes. But this was really good. The only thing that burned my virgin lips was some chicken bought at a market. Sooraj had asked that they hold back on the spice. They said OK. But it still left my lips tingling—a sensation not often felt since my younger days—but then let’s not go there.
So I felt really at home with these friends of several years now. I was teasing everyone. Sooraj said, “I like your sense of humor.” I don’t hear that much anymore.
We got talking about our families. I mentioned how I have three granddaughters in their mid-twenties and none yet married. Maybe I should put a marriage ad in the newpapers here and see if I can find someone. They need some help. The papers here have 4 pages with about 200 ads hawking the age, looks, caste, education and religion of women—and a few men, too. I guess the matchmakers here are not keeping up with their family responsibilities.
“Really? You have that in USA?” Sooraj asks. No – but we do have online match-making. Even one of my friends found a Christian soul mate wife that way—and they are very happy.
“Do you know any nice Indian guys who are Christians who might take a wife from the USA?”
He laughed.
But since we were on the subject, Preeti came in (wives serve during the meal, so she was not at table with us and the two kids), sat down and started bubbling over with her story.
She is a native of Dehradun, while Sooraj hails from 200 miles south.
She was getting into her mid-twenties. That’s when families do a full-court press to get their girls to the goal-line.
One prospect was a guy from a well-connected family. His mother was a politician and her father successful in his career. So they had means. Negotiations got under way.
Preeti’s parents said there was one obstacle—they had no money for the usual dowry. This is a constant concern in India. The girl should bring assets to the guy’s family.
But they were told that would not be necessary. Preeti would make a fine wife for their son. They need not anti-up with a dowry. Your daughter has a degree as well as advanced computer skills. She is a fine match for him.
So the engagement was announced. A wedding date set. And the couple were to start getting to know each other.
Now one must realize that an engagement here is much like in Bible times. Do you recall how Joseph, betrothed to Mary, actually had to take a public action when he wanted out due to her pregnancy? He resolved to do it privately—showing the kind heart he had toward her.
But in Preeti’s case there proved to be no kind hearts. The parents suddenly started making demands. Preeti’s folks would pay for the wedding and the huge feast that goes with it. They were to provide all the furnishings for the newlyweds’ house. When there was some hesitation over the turn of expectations the mother of the guy would call repeatedly and yell and scream why they were not willing to do as custom requires. Preeti’s parents were crushed—but had no way out since the engagement had been published abroad.
As Preeti, meanwhile, was getting to know her intended better, she began to have reservations—not just for her parents position but for herself. Her intuition sent up warnings. She found he was an alcoholic, for one thing. The future father-in-law is from Punjab—an area notorious for “accidental” burnings of young wives over dowry displeasure. She began to become depressed. Telling her parents her feelings she asked for them to break off the arrangement.
They did so. And all hell broke loose. Her relatives were shamed—how could you do this to our family name? And the guy’s parents loosed a torrent of false accusations about Preeti to the gossip mills. Preeti now crawled into a dark hole of despair. She thought, maybe I should just end my life.
At the time, Preeti was a Roman Catholic, so she knew where the answer lay although she was not truly converted. She began to call to Jesus for help. She had a Bible in the house that her father used to read from to the family. Only God can take her through this darkness. She starts to attend a brethren church nearby, with a pastor who preaches the Gospel. She is somewhat confused still and has the cloud of suicide in her mind.
The pastor’s wife senses her distress and invites her to come their home. The floodgates open in this safe place. She weeps for nearly an hour while the pastor’s wife just holds her and prays for her. Consolation and counsel follow. She gives it all to Jesus—whatever he has for her, even if she never marries.
In time she goes to work at the complex where the lepers have a cottage industry to support themselves, established by the Catholic church years ago. There is a young man who comes regularly to do outreach ministry to the people there—who have little contact and no hope for integration into society. He is soon to start a church next door where they can easily come. This is Sooraj, studying for ministry at New Theological College. They of course talk over lunch breaks and so on.
Some of their mutual friends see a match here. So one arranges for them to come to their home and meet in a proper way. Preeti is skittish, but agrees to come. Her parents even say it is OK for him to take her for coffee and talk there.
But Sooraj is extremely shy talking with a girl. “No—we’ll meet here,” he says.
So they share each other’s testimony. Preeti is careful to tell all the sorry business about her disgraced engagement fiasco. He expresses interest in her.
But Preeti has been burned—badly—by her ordeal. She is not sure. The trauma is still with her. She prays, asking for guidance. Sooraj is a believer. She will accept if God indicates. God seems to be saying “Yes.” Uncle George and Auntie Leela of NTC encourage the couple. “They will be right for each other.”
So the decision is made and a date set for nuptials.
Now preparation must go forward. Preeti’s parents will have to get everything ready. Lots of shopping for their daughter, lots of planning.
But Preeti cannot find it in her to take part. No shopping for her. She starts going to her room and reading the Psalms. She lights a candle to remind her of her need for light from above. For ten days she sequesters herself. She reads all 150 Psalms ten times during that fortnight. The candle burns out every time.
Wedding bells ring. She is putting on her veil. Still unsure, she keeps saying, “Lord, I am in your hands.”
And then it happens. As she and Sooraj start exchanging vows and rings, the joy of the Lord sweeps into her heart. A peace pushes all the darkness away. She is ecstatic. This is right!
Beaming now with animation, she has come home to the safe place in her Heavenly Father’s provision and in Sooraj’s love.
As Preeti finishes her story she is radiant before us. She is a beautiful woman, with a boy of 5 and a girl of 3. And they love the Lord so deeply and serve the poor and lowly with such devotion. He was 27 when they married, she 26. While they work on the campus now, they still minister to the people in and around the lepers’ home downtown, where I have preached several times over the last few years.
Sooraj asks me to pray for them before I leave.
As I walk the hundred paces back to the guest house, my heart is elated. God brings his people through their dark hours. She needed this trauma to get serious with Jesus. Once again, God brings good from the bad.
The heavenly Father arranged this union when earthly parents could not find a way. What a beautiful couple.
The meal was scrumptious, to be sure. But we feasted mostly on a heavenly food that nourishes not bodies but souls.

Give Thanks in All Circumstances.

2009-11-09T17:30:00.001-08:00

This admonition from the Apostle sounds well and good. But is it realistic, one is tempted to ask? Terrible things can happen for which one cannot be thankful.
True, but the command says to give thanks to God, not to be thankful for the situation per se. And we have to admit—St. Paul actually did this despite the incredible hardships he endured. It is not cheap advice that he is giving us.
Professor Solomon Bison invited me to tea today, where his wife, Ruby, told me of her bout with ovarian cancer. She was eager to tell me, since she knows I am a cancer survivor myself, having had prostate surgery in 1999.
She was diagnosed on June 17, the day before her birthday and scheduled for treatment the next day. Her friends unexpectedly came that same day with her gifts and they were able to celebrate before she had to leave on the train next morning.
But she was apprehensive, naturally, as I had been, praying, “Lord will I be OK or is this my time?” But in a dream that night God indicated he would be with her and she would survive. Something similar had comforted me ten years ago.
Tests soon showed that she had ovarian cancer. They would operate and take her ovary, several surrounding lymph nodes, and part of her stomach lining.
However as she went for the testing, she and Solomon were worrying about the expenses. If she had to stay in Delhi for tests and then surgery and recovery they would never be able to meet the costs. They decided to trust God for that and go forward.
She met a Christian nurse who told her about an experienced surgeon who was local and who made a fast track for her to see him ahead of four others waiting for a consultation. He assured her that her condition was treatable and he could do it more locally at half the cost—about 100,000 rupees.
Friends at the college here, even students, hearing of her need had contributed 50,000 rupees. They needed double that. They were encouraged that God would supply the finances.
A pastor came to pray with them and left an envelope with Solomon with the warning not to lose it or let the children find it since it had some money in it. After leaving the pastor phoned and asked, “Did you guard the envelope?” “O yes, but I have not had time to count yet.” The next day he got an email asking the same question. Expecting a small gift from the pastor, he opened the seal and counted. To his astonishment it came to 55,000 rupees, meeting their immediate need with 5,000 extra! God was taking care as promised.
She was set for an MRI. But as she was being prepped she coughed. The doctors asked about that. When she told them her condition, they canceled the MRI since if she should have a coughing fit during the procedure it would have be done again later, doubling the expense. Once again, the expenses were cut down for her.
The doctors operated to remove the ovary, some lymph nodes and adjacent parts of her stomach. Lab tests would later show cancer only in the ovary—very good news.
But as she was being brought out of anesthesia suddenly her pulse went to zero and her breathing stopped. The doctors rushed in to get her to a room with oxygen and so forth. Solomon was panicking. The doctors ordered him to leave the theatre.
During this time she was in a lot of pain, since she could not tolerate the usual painkillers. She was so exhausted from the long ordeal. Then a most unusual experience came to her.
When her heart stopped beating she saw a table with a line down the middle. Her body lay on the other side of this line while she was on the other. A voice called to her. “If you are tired, just come to me.” She knew it was Jesus speaking to her. “O, that would be so nice to rest and go into your presence in heaven.”
“Just come, then.”
She could see a long line of funeral cars leaving the West Gate of the college.
“But the people at the college will be so sad! And my husband and young children—who will care for them? God, I need to go back…!” She was shouting now.
Someone placed a hand on her shoulder.
“Ruby! You are back—you are going to be OK.” The doctor was gently shaking her shoulder as she opened her eyes.
The doctor said she was “dead” for several minutes—no pulse, no breathing. And then she got a weak pulse that gradually got stronger. In a short time she was out of danger.
The next day in the ward recovering, she could not sleep. Nurses urged her to get some rest. But there was a child in the ward who would not eat. His father was in tears, expecting the worst. Ruby motioned would the child like a piece of her banana. For some reason the boy nodded Yes. So he took a piece of banana and ate it. Then he asked for more fruit. “Don’t worry about your son,” Ruby said. “I have been praying and God has showed me he will be OK.”
A woman in the ward heard this and spoke to Ruby. “I have been so ill and prayed constantly to our gods and all they do is taunt me and make fun of me!” There was much anger in her voice. “The true God can heal you,” Ruby said. “Do you want me to pray?” “O Yes!” “I will ask my husband for a New Testament for you to read about the love of Jesus if you like.” So the next day a friend came with the Testament to give to her. She was so happy as Ruby shared with her about the One who cares enough to have given his life for us.
The time came for her and Solomon to take the train back home. By mistake, the one who ordered the ticket got the wrong day—the train leaving just at midnight. He felt so bad. But they went to the station anyway, hoping something could be worked out.
There was a car for invalids on this run. They asked the train guard if they could find a seat now in that car.
“You have cancer? I say yes, and your husband too since you need his help.” God was opening the way.
As Ruby went to the toilet she looked into the next car. There were two empty seats. “Come, we can sit here!” she exclaimed. Solomon was unsure, since this was a car reserved for women only. But somehow no one objected when they sat down.
As Ruby engaged the woman next to her in conversation, she began to recite all that Jesus was doing for her. The entire car was silent, listening in. Several wanted to have a New Testament to learn about this God who touches his children so tenderly yet so powerfully. So Ruby got to witness to a number of Hindus during the train ride. Hindu gods are demanding and often cruel.
“In all your ways—good and bad—acknowledge Him and He will direct your paths.” This is Ruby’s way.
Having cancer is not fun.
But Ruby is beaming as she recites her experience. She and Solomon have seen God’s hand again and again.
They keep giving thanks in all things.

Life as a Board Game

2009-11-07T02:53:00.001-08:00

In the Hindu worldview, all is One. Philosophers call this metaphysical monism of a double kind. All existence is both one in kind and one in number. All distinctions are merely aspects of the One.
As an analogy consider your own person. You are a single human being, not a conglomerate of several humans. Your playful side and your sober side are not two humans that take turns taking over your consciousness. They are two aspects of a single but complex being—namely, yourself.
But eastern worldviews emphasize the one and downplay the many. They hold that there is one ultimate being—Brahman—a world Soul, if you will. That means that, while indescribable in itself, it is helpful for us to think of Brahman as a non-material being, having no size or shape or location.
Human souls are understood as Atman. It appears to us that there are many such souls. But in the end all human souls are one soul—Atman. And Atman, in the end, is identical with Brahman. Hence Brahman is the only existing reality.
This is difficult for westerners to grasp. We tend to think there is a huge multiplicity of things that are distinct—related only by loose associations.
The task of each human being is to return to the One. We live now as fragmented beings, under the illusion that we are separate entities. And that brings suffering to us. Suffering arises when the individual person has desires that conflict with reality. If we could only achieve enlightenment, realizing that all is one, then would we would find release from this world of shadows and be lost in the One forever. The World Soul and our soul would be united. Our soul would not exist as such and our sufferings would end.
Each person, then, must work out his own salvation in his own way. All paths of redemption lead to the same destination—the One. When each of us takes a chosen path and follows faithfully, we will arrive at the same End. It is like getting to the top of the mountain by whatever path and the stepping off the summit and vanishing into thin air never to return—thank the gods! Atman in us has been united with Brahman. We as individuals are no more.
That explains the caste system. Each soul is struggling on the path of human life because it has not yet gotten to the top. And to come in touch with others who are lower on the path than you only means you go back five spaces. So those who are near the top do not want to touch those below as it means they have to start all over again from the bottom—or at least from a few spaces back.
Jesus taught an entirely different worldview. Each soul is a distinct entity created by God that will exist forever. Each person is forever unique. Each is related to God personally.
God, unlike Brahman, knows we are here and cares about us. God is able to give grace to those who want it and ask for it.
Life is like a board game, where the goal is to get to Heaven. When we land on the square of “Salvation” we are allowed to go directly into God’s presence, all debts cancelled. No more rolls of the dice are needed.
At that point we do not vanish into thin air. We find ourselves in the midst of a feast ringing with singing and dancing and the joy of relationships—first with our loving heavenly Father and then with each other. This takes place not in some vacuous cloud of nothingness but in a new heaven and new earth like the one we know now—only purged of sin and evil.
This is the meaning of grace—the unmerited favor of a God who loves us and wants us to enjoy His presence forever.
I, for one, am so glad that the ultimate being—God—is not disgusted with me because I am polluted with sin and unfit for his presence. I am so thankful that I do not have come back a million times to work off every sin that stains my soul. He is giving me an extreme makeover fit for His holy presence.
My board game faith says, Do not pay a fine, Do not pass go again and again, Do not bury yourself in houses and lands. Go directly to the Banquet Hall where the redeemed are celebrating the victory of the Lamb.

Hindu women and girls

2009-11-06T02:22:00.000-08:00

Two Roads Diverging

2009-11-06T02:07:00.000-08:00

In the Hindu worldview, all is One. Philosophers call this metaphysical monism of a double kind. All existence is both one in kind and one in number. All distinctions are merely aspects of the One.
As an analogy consider your own person. You are a single human being, not a conglomerate of several humans. Your playful side and your sober side are not two humans that have turns taking over your consciousness. They are two aspects of a single but complex being—namely, yourself.
But eastern worldviews emphasize the one and downplay the many. They hold that there is one ultimate being—Brahman—a World Soul, if you will. This means that, while indescribable in itself, it is helpful for us to think of Brahman as a non-material being, having no size or shape or location.
Human souls are understood as Atman. It appears to us that there are many such souls. But in the end all human souls are one soul—Atman. And Atman, in the end, is identical with Brahman. Hence Brahman is the only existing reality.
This is difficult for westerners to grasp. We tend to think there is a huge multiplicity of things that are distinct—related only by loose associations.
The task of each human being is to return to the One. We live now as fragmented beings, under the illusion that we are separate entities. And that brings suffering to us. Suffering arises when the individual person has desires that conflict with reality. If we could only achieve enlightenment, realizing that all is one, then would we would find release from this world of shadows and be lost in the One forever. The World Soul and our soul would be united. Our soul would not exist as such and our sufferings would end.
Each person, then, must work out his own salvation in his own way. All paths of redemption lead to the same destination—the One. When each of us takes a chosen path and follows faithfully, we will arrive at the same End. It is like getting to the top of the mountain by whatever path and then stepping off the summit and vanishing into thin air never to return—thank the gods! Atman in us has been united with Brahman. We as individuals are no more.
In Hinduism, however, the One can manifest itself to us in many forms, including gods who are demanding and often angry with us. As one woman said to Ruby, a faculty wife here who is having cancer treatments, the gods are making fun of us in our sufferings.
Thankfully the God who came to us in Jesus Messiah is not an abstract featureless being. He is one who knows us and cares about us and about all of his creation.
Suppose there is a house in your town that is rundown—an eyesore. The people in it are on drugs day and night and what goes on there is despicable. The neighbors want it demolished as it affecting their property values and is blot on the area. How can they have a safe and pleasant place to live with this squalor just around the corner?
Suppose that that house goes on the market and you find the money to purchase it. It is now yours. Now everything takes on a new prospect. It is now your mess. The stink and filth is still abhorrent. However you can now do something with it. It has possibilities. You start making plans for its future. You begin to delight in it—not for what it is but for what it will be when you are done with reclaiming it.
This is what God is up to. He has published his architectural design for what we will become.
I am so glad God is not disgusted with me due to the pollution of my sins, making fun of my misery. God delights in me—not for what I am now but for what he will make of me once his transforming plans are complete. I have a hope and a future. He is transforming me one step and a time.
God is disgusted, even angry, with those who are unrepentant, who want to continue in their ways, who are rebelling against the renovations called for in the plans. They choose degradation and delight in depravity.
But I have signed up for the new neighborhood and submit to what I must change to meet the entrance requirements. My personal therapy is paid for by the New Owner—as it is for all who choose to undergo the extreme makeover. There are two roads and I have chosen the one less traveled. But its narrow track leads to the Father's House.
The contrast between the ultimate destiny of those who walk in the dark ways of eastern philosophy and religion and those whose delight is to walk in the light with Jesus is striking.
In India the contrasts are starkly obvious. There is little grey area here. Darkness and light. The difference is unmistakable. God has called us out of our darkness and into his marvelous light.

Flunko, Flunkere, Flunki, Flunktus

2009-11-05T00:32:00.000-08:00

Herewith I cause my Latin teacher of yore to spin in his grave as I create a bit of Latin doggerel that I think expresses a mood that overtakes one when an exam has been a disaster. I do not recall if this came from the subterranean vaults of my deep (yea! now very, very deep) mind or if it was a byword of my mates at Roxbury Latin School (where I spent six very long years), whose motto is “Mortui Vivos Docent.” “The Dead Teach the Living.” (Now there’s a slogan for you!)
Lacrimosa. Another fitting word from the Romans. Yes—tears are threatening to overflow the dam that males have at the shores of their eyes. Lacrimossissima.
I gave a midterm yesterday and 90% of the class FLUNKED!
Incredible mishmash of clichéd concepts from mushy minds. If I had hair to spare I would sacrifice some to assuage my grief.
Any professor knows that a failure of that magnitude is a failure of the teacher as well.
I must consult my never-failing books of Helpful Advice. Two volumes in this set—What to Do and Don’t Do It.
Looking up What to Do I find an entry that says berate them roundly and apply the heat of public humiliation. Don’t Do It warns against rash remedies designed to merely make the teacher feel better. Hmm….
WTD suggests making them all come in the evening and re-sit the exam. DDI mentions that doing the same thing again expecting different results is the first step toward insanity. Hmm….
These volumes of advice are not going anywhere. As a sagacious philosopher, I can grasp that the two volumes are designed to negate one another on every point.
Thrown upon my own devises, then.

I know, I will tear down my exam morgue and build a bigger one, then say to myself, "Well done, you now have a superfluity of exam questions. Sit back, lay it on them again, and take your ease."
Yipes! That means I’ll have to grade another set of exams. Who am I punishing here?
Time for some deeper thinking….
Aha! I will cancel the second reading report (it tends to be meaningless copying of ideas from the textbook) and have them research answers to the mid-term and hand that in instead. That way they will correct their own mistakes, prepare themselves for the final exam, and make it easy for me see improvements. I will tell them that at least two of the questions will re-appear on the final. That should motivate them with a carrot instead of a stick.
Meanwhile, I will give a lecture on how to write ideas that form a logical argument, thereby helping to drain the mush from their swampy minds and harden some dialectical bedrock as they climb the hills of higher learning.
I am smiling now, wiping the tears away, and looking for better things.
As Gilbert and Sullivan once put it in an operetta: A Professor’s Lot Is Not a Happy One.
This marathon (a whole course in 12 days) is approaching Heart-break Hill. Take courage, my soul. There are many more tears ready to overflow the brim and wash your optimism away.
I’d give anything to stop that conjugation that keeps tormenting me….
Flunko, flunkere, flunki, flunktus….

JWG with Python

2009-11-04T20:47:00.000-08:00

The Sudheer Family

2009-11-04T20:39:00.000-08:00

J Gustafson preaching at rural church in India

2009-11-03T22:48:00.000-08:00

Rural church in India

2009-11-03T22:39:00.000-08:00

Rural church in India

2009-11-03T22:34:00.000-08:00

New Theological College

2009-11-03T19:48:00.000-08:00

To see where these blogs are coming from, check out the NTC website.

http://www.ntcdoon.org/

White Calvinist preaches to Pentecostal Indians.

2009-11-03T19:40:00.000-08:00

As new friends from the USA dress in their new saris and tunics to go to the college church, I don my old suit and wait for Sooraj and Preeti to pick me up.
Last time I visited the house church across from the leper colony, Sooraj perched me on the back of his cycle. Now he has a family and we go in his car.
As is typical, throw rugs have been laid down to cover the concrete floor in a room about ten feet by fifteen. People drift in to find a place to squat. I am given a plastic patio chair. Others here may look older, but I am the senior, for sure. As we start to sing, more drift in. Some sit outside the door as the space fills. There is a small dark-skinned old man with a suit that has not seen repair or cleaning in decades. Several worshipers are from the college, well dressed by comparison. Two older women are against the back wall. Preeti wheels out a heater that looks like a radiator and plugs it in. I guess she knows that the two old crones have not much to keep them warm during the two hour service.
Young children from two years to ten sit near the front. The younger have Bible story picture books to look at. They are mostly quiet and do not seem to disturb the adults.
A student from NTC gives a 15 minute Bible exposition from Lamentations 3. Every eye is locked on him as he drives the lesson home. Then it is time for music. By now there are perhaps 35 people covering every square inch of the floor.
In the corner at the front this same NTC student has a harmonium sitting on the floor where he squats. His left hand moves a bellows back and forth, while his right plays a melody with some alto and tenor thrown in. Preeti and Sooraj have tamborines. Another lad plays a bongo drum that sits in his lap. The songs are all in Hindi, of course. But a few have repeated alleluias that I catch on to. The crescendo rises to a nearly deafening pitch. Some begin to stand and clap. The little old man gets up to dance, bent at the waist, with his arms and legs moving almost like a step dance. Hands begin to rise in praise to the Lord. One father, about 40 years of age, rises and sings at the top of his voice, segueing into prayer. Others are now praying aloud, quieting only when Sooraj begins to sing out the next song.
Sooraj had told me on the ride to town that several people had just come out of Hinduism and were troubled by demons. This is very, very common. I know you may think this is unscientific. But then, you have not been here to do your own firsthand research. As for me, I have no doubts, I tell him.
Sure enough, one young woman of about 35, Seema, begins to pray and as she gets more excited her face begins to twist. She is standing now, very proud and agitated. She starts to leap a few inches off the floor. It seems a mixture of ecstasy and agony. Pastor Sooraj gets up and goes to her, placing his hands on her head and praying with much fervor. I cannot get the words. But I sense what he is doing. I lift my hands in their direction and call on the name of Jesus to cover this woman with his blood and deliver her from her torment. In a minute or two she calms, melts to the floor, extending backward until she is horizontal between two ladies squatting nearby.
Prayer requests are next. At least eight go on at some length about their needs. One older woman next to me is in tears. I learn later that there is sickness and trouble in her family. More singing. An offering bag is taken around by a beautiful 10 year old girl with a sweet smile—the kind you want to take back home with you.
Sooraj introduces me. I have preached here two previous years. I will sit while speaking, as they will all have their eyes on Sooraj anyway, since most will not understand my words. Besides, I am closer to their level, and that is important for eye contact.
I take my text from Romans 8. Once we were all untouchable to our Holy God. But He found a way to come to us, cleanse us, and call us his dear children. Paul went through all kinds of trials, just as these people do. Many have been rejected by their families or ostracized by caste and disease. Many have lost dear ones to premature death. India has untold misery almost everywhere you look. And Hinduism is a dark demon-ridden religion. But God has a future for us all. The sentences roll forth. God is helping me, I know it. Sooraj and I hit a rhythm. I started at 11:30. Now it is after noon. No one is restless.
I end by telling of a father who had one son, who feels the call to ministry at an early age. Family responsibilities prevent him from starting his ministry until he is about thirty. A powerful preacher, many miracles attend his ministry. But people turn against him and his work is cut down after three short years. Enemies kill him in his prime, breaking his father’s heart. His name? Jesus—the one whom the Father raised from the dead and has seated on the throne. He enables us to be children of his Father. He will wipe away every tear. We, like Paul, will consider all our pain and suffering as nothing—slight momentary afflictions—not worthy to be compared with the glory he has prepared for us.
Sooraj closes in prayer.
After the service Sooraj is counseling the young woman under oppression. We lay hands on her and pray again. I put my arm on her shoulder and she lays her head on mine and squeezes me real hard. I learn the details later. She came to Jesus and her family tossed her out, along with three children, ages 6-13. She has a sister who believes and was with her today. Her husband has nothing to do with her. She must fend for herself. And the Hindu spirits come from time to time to oppress and torment her. No psychological therapy is going to help this woman. Only the delivering power of Jesus can set her free. And she is coming more and more to peace of mind. She is not going back into the darkness, come what may.
This week we observe the 500th birthday of John Calvin. Some of his disciples today say miracles died with the apostles. Yeah—right!
“The prince of darkness grim, we tremble not for him. His rage we can endure, for lo, his doom is sure. One little word shall fell him.” Luther got it right in this Reformation hymn.
Today we saw the Prince of Peace drive back the darkness in one woman’s life.

Of Schools, Snakes, and Beggars

2009-11-02T07:34:00.000-08:00

Up and out early on a Saturday. Nine of us guests pile into to minivan taxis and head off for an adventure.
Our taxi driver is amazing. One drives with the horn in India. Either side of the road is OK if it is open. Now “open” is a vague term here. Oncoming traffic may be a bus or truck puffing along on its diesel smoke. Or a scooter carrying one, two, or even three if the last is a small child held in the mother’s arms, perched on the back like a gymnast who has mastered balance. Or it could be a bullock cart creaking along at half a mile an hour pulling sugar cane. Perhaps it is a bike ridden by a cripple who has rigged up wheels and gears so he "pedals" with his left hand. I do not mention a swarm of people walking on either side of the road and on the road, too.
So the driver honks as he approaches a walker, a bus, a motorbike, or a fruit and vegetable pushcart. Then he sweeps into the oncoming lane, guns it, jerking back into place as oncoming mirrors swoosh by with barely an inch to spare from hitting ours. It’s a sport, really. Riding shotgun, I concentrate on not hitting the brakes with my right foot—or sucking in my breath too loudly.
An hour of this brings us to a one-track lane hedged in by fields of 12 foot high sugarcane. And there it is—a two acre field with a bright iron gate, A sign on the arch says Krist Jyoti Academy. Jyoti is Hindi for “children.” Next door a 6 inch bore of water streams into channels flooding some rice paddies about to be planted. Egrets pluck insects. Crops grow 12 months here. A sugar crop and a wheat or rice crop.
The headmaster comes to greet us. I recognize the face. As we enter the small office room, I see another young man and a woman whom I had in my ethics class at New Theological College in 2006. They are running this school where there is no other school for several miles. We visit some classes. Kids all in a uniform dress, from teeny 4 your olds to the big kids in standard (grade) 7. If we enter, they all rise to face us and give a greeting. Soon some of our party are teaching them songs like “Deep and Wide” that have motions. Brooke (from Salt Lake City) teaches a lesson as the teacher translates. She blows bubble gum as an illustration of her points about the Pharisee and the Tax Collector regarding pride and humility. The teacher? He has no gum and blows no bubbles. At the end each child gets a piece of bubble gum.
In an older class we get all the kids in the center and sing and dance “The Hokey-Pokey.” It’s a way to learn some English—left foot, right foot, shake, turn about.
We learn how successful this ministry can be. All castes must be together. Some parents start coming to the startup church. They know their kids will learn the Lord’s Prayer and study about Jesus in history class. But they don't care. It's a better education than the public schools. In the after school program for kids in public schools there is more freedom to teach Bible and Christian beliefs.
They are praying for funds to put on a second floor so they can offer high school also. $50,000 would do it.
Santosh and his wife serve us a meal they cannot afford. Santosh does not eat—he is fasting. We pray for them—they lost a special needs daughter in July at age 7. Grief is still close to the surface, as are the tears.
“Lord, show us how we can help them,” is our prayer as we wave goodbyes.
In a few miles we turn off to a Dalit village of snake charmers. These untouchables have old suitcases and woven baskets on a platform. Each has a snake inside it. An older boy drops a dark plastic bag on the ground and starts pulling out a reptile. One foot. Two feet. Three, four, five, six, seven! A python slithers around. The brave among us have our photos taken crouching by the black and white animal, touching his beautiful skin. He ignores us pretty much.
Next a cobra raises its hooded head from a basket. The charmer waves his hand near. Hiss and strike! Someone says it has been de-fanged. Still—it is a fearsome specimen.
Sam passes some money to the handler. But an old woman is staring at us and shouting angrily. She doesn’t see the money transaction. When she turns she is satisfied and calms down.
After that, it’s Haridwar, (God’s Door) a holy site where several million pilgrims are expected in a few weeks to celebrate a Hindu festival. Hawkers and stalkers are in the crowds. Girls about 7 to 9 are bumping us and pointing to their little dishes for money. We scowl and say no with a firm voice. Uncle says that if you give anything you will be mobbed like bees around a hive. Besides, they are pimped by handlers who take the money for themselves, feeding these urchins only enough to keep them working.
Our women are taking photos of bathers washing away their sins in the sacred Ganges, while the guys are trying to form a safety ring around our photo-snapping ladies. We spy three young men casting hungry eyes upon them. We do not stay long.
Pradeep has been shooting movie footage all day for the college. We get back to our cars and cannot find him. Needle in a haystack time. Sam calls his cell phone. No longer in service. Sam calls his wife back at home. Gets new number. Uncle calls and Pradeep answers. He is only a few yards away panning the crowd and sees Sam and Uncle in his lens.
Off we go. Past the little monkeys lining the road in the forest preserve. Begging is good for them as Hindus get merit by feeding them. Sam tells us of riding through here once on his bike when several trees were down blocking the road. Elephants push trees over here on the road since the tops do not get hung up in the over-story. They know that they will come to the ground where they can eat the leaves. Unpredictable beasts. It takes courage to wait for a chance to pass by them. Sam has managed to bypass them various times—but not without a rise in blood pressure.
Roads are packed—and it is not pilgrimage time yet. That’s India—people everywhere in the cities and larger towns. Uncle says India's population is far more than the official tally. Perhaps 1.2 billion souls. 460 languages and people groups, hundreds never reached by the Gospel as yet.
That’s why we serve him. That’s why we’re here. To rescue some from the original serpent who still holds so many in darkness. We must pray—more. We must give—more. The church is starting to rise to the challenge here, the densest population of unreached in the world.

Back to School

2009-10-30T00:07:00.000-07:00

Having a bit of unexpected flex-time, I decide to join Doug Johns in auditing a class having to with implications of the Gospel for Indian society and culture.
I am a tad late getting to the classroom. The windowless doors are always closed as classes begin. So I had to crack it open to be sure I was in the right place. Yes! The professor nods for me to come in. I do so and try to slip into the nearest tablet arm.
But—this is India. Doug Johns is in the front row and he stands to his feet. (Most of us do it that way—what a silly phrase!) The students rise. I motion them to sit down. No way. Two jump up to find a better chair for me. They cart it over and motion for me to sit there. I do so. Only then do they all sit down again.
Within a few minutes in comes another pastor—Tim, from California, and his “sparkly-braces” 14 year old daughter, Sheridan. They had been delayed—someone wanted to greet them along the way. Again we all stand. Two students rush to the empty classroom nearby and cart two chairs in for the guests. In a moment or two, all settles down again to the lecture.
I later asked Doug why he had jumped to his feet as soon as he saw me peering in from the hallway. “O—I just noticed what happened when the professor came in and copied the protocol!” I must say Doug is a study in quick learning.
Now the lecture is resuming.
He is asking what pastors and churches are supposed to do.
Win people to Jesus, they reply.
What about the culture at large? Not our focus.
Professor Samuel points out that the culture affects the individual believer so deeply that that cannot be our only focus. He illustrates his point by asking about what Christians put in Christian magazines when advertising for a husband or wife. All the students know the answer.
“Mr. and Mr. X seek a wife for their son, 24, with traits X, Y, and Z. Applicants must have a good appearance, age 19-24, who (among other things) is a firm Christian and high caste.” (The same for ads seeking husbands.)
Is this scriptural, he asks.
No. But the point is made. Individuals may be converted to Christ but they are still shaped by the culture—in this case a caste based culture. So we must study the culture if we are to serve the Gospel faithfully.
Another example shows that even good intentions can often hinder the Gospel if the culture is not critically examined.
Some Christians seek to reach out in Jesus’ name to a rural village. What do you need, they ask the villagers, who caucus and agree that they could use a better road and a well. The women have to walk several miles each day to get water. So they show Christian charity and improve the road and bore a well.
A few months after completing the project they return to see how things are going. Families of low caste living on the edge of the village are still walking miles each day for water. How can this be? The village leaders explain. We cannot drink water from a well that is used by those low caste people who clean latrines and haul away garbage.
Despite good intentions, these Christians had not done a critical analysis of the culture. They had not talked to the low caste members of the village at all. But they were following Jesus, who put the rights of the poor and oppressed at the heart of true faith. But the church in this case unwittingly favored those in power who oppress the poor.
Another example.
Well-intentioned missionaries from Britain came to India many years ago and built schools and hospitals, thinking that it would trickle down to all the people. But for the most part it served the upper castes, making things worse. Today Indian Christians own vast amounts of land and thus are wealthy enough to do much for the downtrodden. But the churches look like the culture—class separated from class.
An example of how land value can soar in value here. This college was built on land that was then a mango orchard. They purchased about 20 acres in 1986 at a cost of $5000 USD per acre. Now an acre here costs $500,000, a 100-fold increase in 23 years.
And just as in the USA, pastors can build big churches with palatial buildings and obscene salaries while the poor grow ever more desperate.
Professor Samuel bears down on his final point to justify this course in Church and Culture.
Social structure needs to be part of our concern along with individual conversion lest the world keep us in its mold to the discredit of Christ. The mission of Jesus and of the Apostles required a commitment to transform the culture not just save the individual. There can be no discrimination of rich and poor, educated and unlettered, male and female, elite and commoner. The epistle of James alone makes that point indelibly clear. “God chose the poor of this world…to possess the Kingdom he promised to those who love him. But you dishonor the poor, while the rich drag you off to court and speak evil of that good name which has been given to you.” James 2:5-7 “You must never treat people by their outward appearance, saying to the wealthy ‘You take the best seat here’ while telling the poor man to sit on the floor by my feet.’” James 2:1-4 Such discrimination is evil. Yet we allow it in our assemblies even today.
These future leaders are not going to find it easy to stand against centuries of caste that curses their nation. The great Ghandi knew caste was evil but in the end even he refused to stand against it, for he deemed it necessary to keep India, India.
To its credit, when this college starts a school in various towns in these hills where the Hindu gods reign supreme, it presents a different application form from other schools. Applications ask for the name, address, income level and religion of the family enrolling their child. But they have struck out the box that asks for “caste.” Some parents write it in themselves since caste is crucial here. Such a form is returned to the parents. The Christian school wants to be blind to caste distinctions that dominate the Indian mindset.
Parents often ask if their child will have to sit next to a low caste child. They do not like this. “We do not consider caste in this school. We follow the Christian God who loves all equally and does not allow such distinctions.”
Since the Christian schools are excellent in comparison to the competition, even Hindu families accept the policy that does not guarantee their child a privileged position.
So they are going through what the USA experienced when our schools were integrated some fifty years ago.
“Save souls; transform society.” A worthy lesson for church leaders here in India.
It’s good to sit and listen to a fine lecture and to meditate on how Christians in America need to model the Kingdom of God in which there is neither religious or secular, make nor female, privileged nor poor, for all are one in the Lord.

My Children

2009-10-27T20:30:00.000-07:00

This is now my seventh teaching tour to India. I suppose that makes me a veteran. That word means the Old One. On this campus I am by far the oldest, with the venerable founder, Uncle George, a distant decade and one half behind me. So Uncle G and Dr. G, as we are called, represent the wisdom that comes from long experience. Such as it is….
Perhaps you wonder why everyone in authority here may be referred to only by his initials but always has a title of some sort. Indian tradition insists that any one with grey hair who is “somebody” has a title—doctor, pastor, professor, etc. The founder and his wife are honored with the title Uncle and Auntie. I wonder if the reason is that Uncle’s surname is Chavanikamannil—quite a mouthful. In my case, Gustafson is to their ears just weird. So it's just "Uncle" and "Dr. G."
Now—getting to the point.
I sometimes meet students who were in my classes years ago. Two of them bring joy to my heart—Kalpana, recently married, and Dalmesh recently blessed with a child. Each of them regards me as a father in the faith who added value to their education. It is very humbling to think that this poor kid from Boston could have an influence on a few young adults in India.
I understand now why the aging apostle would four times refer to the younger generation as “my children.” Check it out in the letter of First John.
Scene One
Kalpana and her identical twin sister, Archana, were in my ethics class here five years ago. Married to Bonny a month ago, Kapu (her childhood nickname) and her handsome husband were feted last weekend here on campus, where Kalpana, being a faculty kid, had grown up since age eight.
Before leaving for their ministry in Delhi, Bonny and Kalpana came to say goodbye to Uncle G. As we chatted, she mentioned a few things that she still remembered from the ethics class. I asked her if the class had been of any benefit in real life. What could she say when set up like that? Still, her positive answer seemed sincere. Bonny is an wheeler-dealer evangelist type. He was given a few minutes for his remarks at the reception. After a minute of profuse thanks to all the family and friends, he couldn’t help but segue into an appeal. He sounded just like Billy Graham did in 1950. Passion. “Why are you here in Bible college? To get adulation? To have a secure income from a church? To please your parents? Or are you willing to die for Jesus in the villages and towns in these Christ-less hills? Close your eyes. Raise your hand if you will here and now re-commit yourself to God’s will.” That sort of thing. He was not about to lose an opportunity even in a setting where everyone is a Christian heading for ministry.
Back in Delhi he has found ways to get the message into schools and colleges and even the public square by featuring musicians. It reminded me of Soulfest. He gets a rock band into the huge malls in Delhi. Everyone gathers around for the music. Then the stars tell how they got out of drugs or whatever because Jesus rescued them. Amazing! In a place where a preacher would be clapped in jail a “rock star” can give his testimony between sets. He has a radio talk show. This guy is a dynamo for the kingdom. And our Kalpana is there to reach out to women and girls. They are actually planting churches and starting schools for slum kids—in the style of St. Paul: that by all means I might win some.
The time with them flew by. I asked them if it was true that they met on Facebook. Bonny blanched and was about to defend his honor when Kalpana, having sat in my classes for two weeks, just laughed and said they had been true to the Indian style of courtship—the parents are central, not the Internet.
Uncle George invited Pastor Doug and me to join a circle of prayer, laying hands on this beautiful couple and commending them to the care of our Lord as they lay down their lives for Him.
Yes—cast your philosophical bread upon the waters and it will come back to feed your soul later on.
Scene Two
Waiting for supper yesterday I decided to walk in the gardens here in the cool of day. The sun had just gone to its rosy-tinted bed. The moon and Mars were holding hands in the purple of gathering dusk.
I chanced on a figure walking toward. As he drew close enough to recognize, I (miraculously) had his name come to the surface.
“Dalmesh!”
“You remember me!”
“O yes. You sat just to my left in the front row in class two years ago. I remember you well.”
The reason I recall this so vividly has to do with his story.
He was one of the first to enroll here from the caste know as Dalit. They are not perhaps the lowest of the low in India. But they are definitely among those who used to be referred to as the Untouchables.
That designation comes from the rules of the caste system. People are born into a caste on the basis of their deeds in past lives. The law of karma says you pay for your good deeds and your sins. Low castes are to serve the higher castes. If one does this without complaint, what goes around may come around in a future incarnation such that you rise to a higher level. If not, your soul could go down a notch or two. After a million cycles you may climb to the top caste, check out, and find release from the curse of re-birth.
As a result people in the Brahmin priestly caste must guard their purity. They do not pollute themselves by contact with Dalits like Dalmesh. They will not deal with him. And he is required to take care lest his shadow fall on them. National Geographic had a telling article on the Untouchables of India several years ago. It will horrify you when you read it.
So Dalmesh had come to the college here to study for ministry. Christ makes no distinction of gender, ethnicity or class, as we all know—we are one in the Lord.
Do you recall how hard it was for the apostle Peter when God in a vision sent him to meet with and even eat with a non-Jew named Cornelius? Peter’s first cry was one of horror. “Not so, Lord, I have never eaten anything unclean!” But God says we are not to regard as unclean that which he has purified through Jesus Christ, the universal Savior.
Likewise Dalmesh was finding it hard to find open acceptance here. Sure, everyone is Christian. But we all carry our cultural baggage, too.
So when I was lecturing on the ethical demands of the New Testament regarding total equality in the church, Dalmesh was nodding while others shifted nervously in their seats. He added a touch of reality to our discussion. It was a teachable moment.
Other faculty later told me that Dalmesh has been completely integrated into the life of the college.
And now here in the dusk of a day in October, he beamed with joy as he told me was now married and living in the faculty block of apartments. His wife had a boy by Caesarean section and they were told not to have more kids. But they are pregnant again and trusting the Lord, the Great Physician.
The aged apostle remarked how his children have an advocate with the Father so our sins are forgiven. He warns them that the end is coming near and we should display courage under pressure. Then he shifts his term of endearment to “my friends.” He admonishes us to love one another, to guard against false prophets and false gods.
Most of us never know what effect we have on those around us. Sometimes God opens a window to us to see how seeds have grown and produced a good harvest.
Thanks be to God.

Doug Defies Death in Dehra Dun

2009-10-26T20:33:00.000-07:00

The sun is slipping slowly toward the horizon. The air is sweet and still.
“Would you like to visit Dehra Dun, Doug? I am going to the Centrum to buy a new cell phone and you could see the sights downtown,” says Uncle George, our host. I think I detect a bit of slyness in his broad smile.
But Doug sees none of this subtlety. He nods his head, “all eager for the treat—his face is washed, his clothing brushed, his sandals clean and neat.” (Apologies to Lewis Carroll here.)
We buckle up in the tiny van, Johnson the driver. Uncle George and I are in back. Doug is in shotgun—to get the full effect of the terror he is soon to experience.
The Shahastrada Road to town is busy. Cows and dogs, people walking along the edge, cycles zipping along, cars, trucks, and buses. Johnson weaves noisily through the traffic, sharpening his skills for what lies ahead.
As we near downtown Dehra Dun, tensions mount. The ever present honking of horns rises in a great crescendo, like the squawking of a million seagulls at a landfill.
Uncle George repeats an Indian slogan—you can drive without wheels, but not without a horn.
Here we are at a parking lot, where we dicker over which patch of dirt we will occupy among the crazy quilt “patterns” of lined up vehicles.
On foot now, Johnson eases us into the fray as we jostle our way along the edge of the pavement, all the sidewalks being crammed with packing boxes, goods for sale and shoppers browsing at windows. Uncle finds his shop, where he will spend a half hour selecting his new cell phone. In this period of time he relates later how the clerks (in the upstairs of this hole-in-the-wall shop) sold five or six phones. The Indian economy is brisk in places like this, helping to float the world economy while Uncle Sam struggles.
Doug Johns and I stand on the sidewalk. Some kids are watching a flat screen TV at the appliance store. Smack Down is on—that totally fake stage play featuring brawny “wrestlers.” I will say to their credit that it is obvious they have practiced their stunts and grimaces with diligence. This shop, Doug notices, is about five feet wide and tapers about 20 feet to the end of the building. It has goods hanging from the walls, lining the aisle—enough to fill a spacious section in an American mall.
I turn to see that Doug—this Presbyterian pastor from Canada and once a pastor at West Congregational in Haverhill—is trying to photograph a telephone pole. He shakes his head. “I’ve never seen anything like this.” A rats nest of wires sprouts from the top, lining off in every direction to deliver power to the sprawling cubbyholes below.
Meanwhile on the street moves a steady stream of everything imaginable. The din of horns is deafening. Some must turn in this jungle of flotsam to head off on one of the five roads that converge here. Cars, cycles, and trucks lurch a few feet to gain a few yards, like a running back churning his way downfield. It is dark now. Some have no lights—but why let that bother you? We have been here nearly half an hour and there has not been one break in the flow of traffic—none. It’s like the waters of Niagara splashing noisily toward the plunging falls.
Ah! Here’s Uncle with his new phone in hand—finally.
“Would you like to take a few minutes to see the bazaar across the square?” I notice that sly grin once again.
“O yes!” Doug says.
“OK, just stay right behind Johnson!”
Off we go. Into the white water of traffic we plunge. Johnson has a long stride. So I fall in behind, trying to match his steps. Thread your way through the jungle. Cyclists honk as we cut them off. Our hands push the cars back, so to speak. I learn to walk across the traffic while brushing against the rear of the vehicle ahead, since other motorists, miraculously, seem never to actually strike the read end of whatever is in front of them.
Why not wait for an opening, instead of taking your life in your hands like this, you ask? You will stand on the curb forever, that’s why.
We make it to the bazaar—a street blocked to cars and buses. I take a deep breath. It’s wall-to-wall people on foot, but we have cheated death to reach this oasis of safety.
But wait. Where is Doug and Uncle George? Ah! Here they come. Doug, are you OK? His pink face seems a few shades paler. He is shaking his head, wide-eyed.
“I’ve never seen anything like this! I can’t believe we made it through. This is unbelievable. I’ve just defied death on the streets of Dehra Dun. No one at home is going to believe me!”
Maybe you won’t get to tell them about it, say I, helpfully. We have to make it back across. What’s the chances of our doing that?
After gawking at the street vendors roasting peanuts or selling treats, backed up by gaudily lighted shops with wares from “Bangles Galore” (sounds like an Indian city 200 miles to the south) to trendy outfits (western styles are invasive here among the younger set) to rugs and house wares—you name it.
Well—it’s time to defy death one more time. Can you handle it?
“Is there a choice?” Doug asks.
Actually… no. What goes east must go west, unless we wait until midnight and walk 6 miles to the college.
“Now you have experienced India.”
Uncle smiles that satisfied sly smile again.

Potus Bumpus

2009-10-26T04:03:00.000-07:00

POTUS BUMPSUS
This is not a phrase from my faded memories of five years of Latin at the Roxbury Latin School in Boston. No. There we learned, as our first day’s assignment in grade 7, that God would never bump us, because He was Pater Noster, qui es in caelis…. Our Father in heaven.
This was another father— of planet earth—POTUS, the President of the United States, aka Obama the Magnificent. Air traffic control apparently closes all airspace anywhere his celestial chariots move—whether Air Force One or a hovering helicopter. Sort of the secular equivalent of Ezekiel’s creatures with all those eyes above and below along with six sets of beating wings.
Make no mistake, I am for the utmost protection of our president at all times, whether he is attending the United Nations or just taking Michelle and those bouncy girls of his to dinner and a Broadway show.
Hearing of the delay at Logan airport I rush to the desk at Gate A6, worried about missing my flight out of Newark to Delhi. “No problem, Sir,” she says, “it’s only for half an hour—you should be fine.” Whew! I would hate to spend a whole day in Newark waiting for the next non-stop to India. If POTUS bumps us for only 30 minutes, I can handle it with aplomb—whatever that means.
At the gate I meet a clone of Ross Kuehne (my son-in-law’s brother)—same face and beard, same quirky voice, same twinkly smile. He scans my ticket and bids me have a nice flight.
A mere 14 hours later I am in New Delhi. Five naps to the good keep me in a cheerful humor. BUT….
In India there is a new line as we exit toward the baggage belt (as they term it)—a counter with two guys wearing surgical masks! They take a form we had filled out on the plane asking if we’d had shots (for H1N1 swine flu). Are you coughing? Are you sneezing? I squelch a quip rising to the surface about the Seven Dwarfs and me being Dopey, not Sneezy.
Not until later did Doug Johns ask if I had seen the body temperature readout? No, I hadn’t—you’re joking. “No, there was a digital readout of your body temperature taken by infra red, to see if you had a fever!” Wow! Not a bad idea, since everywhere this plague is scaring health officials.
Now Doug is a long time friend—a Presbyterian minister from Ontario. Daniel, the host from New Theological College, and I waited for an hour after his plane from Toronto had landed and were about to give up on him, when he sauntered out of baggage belt area with a big red bag. Seems like someone had taken his bag off the carousel. He waited until only those sad pieces no one wanted had gone by him several times, before he wandered to the far end and saw his bag on the floor about to be hauled to Lost & Found.
Soon we were off in a taxi for the Southern Hotel—a nice clean place, where we bedded down at 1 AM just in time to be finally asleep when the wakeup call came from the front desk. We had no time to spare for the breakfast that came with our $55 tab. John Varghese whisked us off in the predawn smog toward the train northbound to Dehradun.
It’s always enlightening to read the complimentary newspaper that comes with one’s ticket on the Shatabdi Express—that’s the name of the high class train—old but way better than the cattle car-like trains for the average Indian.
News item. Several teenage Muslims boys are in court for “love jihad.” Their strategy is to profess love for a non-Muslim girl, get her to marry if she will just convert to Islam. (This is real easy, since all you have to do is sincerely profess that there is no God but Allah and Muhammad is his prophet.) At least it’s non-violent. It reminds me of “flirty fishing” that one Boston area cult practiced in the 1970s, where sweet young things would use their charms to lure guys to their cult meetings.
Item. A woman in Sudan has refused to pay a stiff fine for wearing “indecent trousers” and no headscarf. Since it was her first offence she would suffer only 20 lashes in the public square. Later someone paid her fine, keeping her out of jail for a month’s sentence.
Item. An editorial claims that the much-ballyhooed Muslim population explosion is overblown. The conventional wisdom is that in many societies Muslims have about a 2.8 birth rate as compared to non-Muslim birth rates of 1.9 in Europe and 2.0 in the USA. If true this would mean Europe would be taken over by Islam within 20 years and the USA within 50. This editorial claims that the birth rate in most Muslim nations is about 2.1 or 2.2, which results in no loss or gain to speak of. How do you what to believe any more?
At the college now we settle in to our comparatively luxurious accommodations in Uncle George’s house—he is the founder of the college. I meet the dean to cover details of my teaching assignment. It’s not what I was expecting—as usual. But it’s no problem—an Introduction to Philosophy course I have taught over 400 times. 35 students.
I better get busy catching up on sleep. I need to have a fully –charged battery: POTUS MAXIMUS, c’est moi. Otherwise I’ll be bounced from the Flat Earth Society (of London notoriety) to the Flat Brain Society.

April Showers

2009-01-23T17:48:00.000-08:00

Getting back home is a coy process. I wander around the campus in Kenya basking in warm clear air. I have a lunch made up of leftovers---mango, a soft-boiled egg, some delicious salad provided by Kim Okesson. I bag the leftover jam, hard tack, hot dogs and mango and give it to a man who lingers in the shadows of campus life. He has a lean and hungry look. Later as we leave the gate he is there waving his thanks. He is hungry a lot of the time, I’m sure.
At 6 PM we give the goodbye hugs, pile in the college van-truck and leave after 17 days on this lovely college community—an oasis of God’s people.
Over the road once again the shakes, rattles, and rolls - in, out and around lorries that stir up dust adding to the haze of the setting sun.
The plane is off on time—11 PM. It’s eight hours of dark flight to Amsterdam. I go through the checkpoint after trying a couple of wrong ways on revolving doors. I must be sleep-deprived for I normally negotiate these mazes easily.
I am to proceed to Starbucks as a point of rendezvous. But there are two in the concourse. I pick the larger one. It’s 6 AM. I watch two guys wash and squeegee windows surrounding the coffee shop. Soon the staff come to fold all these windows away like a folding wall. Folks are soon queued to get a cup to jolt them awake. I find out later that Starbucks is not permitted in the city, only the airport. The Netherlands wants to protect its hundreds of small shops.
I nod off a number of times. 7 o’clock and no hint of dawn. Its overcast—let’s call it rain. In Machakos showers like this would cause much rejoicing to save crops. But here it is just depressing winter. Occasionally some flakes will fall here. But they will not even whiten the ground. So it’s not a cheery scene. UNTIL….
It’s nearly eight, the time of rendezvous. I glance behind me—and there she is. April Joy Gustafson smiling like the sun. She waves, we give a bear hug—and all is changed. April showers her cheer with a bright smile and sparkling eyes. How did such splendor ever come from the likes of me? I know, I know—a much larger gene pool.
She has a coffee while I tell of my adventures. Then it’s off to the train to Amsterdam and the long walk to the hostel.
April decided to volunteer here for the staff of a Christian hostel. Scads of mostly young people float through this city, many of them coming to look for work. They come from all over Europe and the world. April and the staff give listening ears and quiet witness while serving meals and housing these transients. She takes her turn cooking and doing other housekeeping work. The staff lives in a house a five minute bike ride away, while taking turns by twos to sleep in the hostel as law requires.
Speaking of bikes. This is bike city. Thousands in public squares and along the streets. In the rain, on they go, holding an umbrella in one hand and steering with the other. There are bike lanes here in many places. April says she once saw a guy balancing a comfy chair on his head while pedaling away through the traffic. It's as aamzing to me as the African women who walk miles with a 50 pound load on their head.
A 20 minute walk in the rain brings us to the hostel where I meet staff from UK , Czech, and other countries. We sit in the dining area, where I put my gloves and shirt on the radiator to dry. Wish I dared take my pants off and do the same—they are pretty damp. April tells me of their daily Bible explorations and how some have professed faith—three being baptized not long ago.
I decide this is good place to change underwear, put on my Henley and otherwise get real about the cold weather in my near future. I head for the men's room.
Now dry, I talk about April's plans, her passion. I find she is really insightful about life, what it means to follow Jesus, and how she can invest herself in kingdom work. She is a woman of prayer and seeking the will of God. I remind her that when she was a kid one would never guess that she would become a people person and adventurous enough to live 10,000 miles from home and be comfortable with it all. She even plans perhaps to go back to her work in the Great North Woods taking college freshman out on backpacking and canoeing trips for another summer. And we talk of her going with me to India next fall. This is the time to see the world and listen for the whisper of God’s Spirit.
It’s time to head back to Schiphol Airport. This time, even though it is now barely drizzling, we take the trolley. An obliging guy on the train platform snaps a photo of us. I mount the train to the upper deck and wave down at her as the car pulls away.
What a profound joy to see this bundle of joy I once held in my lap with her two cousins when they were just a few years old—now a grown woman with a world focus. And above all, she thinks her grandfather is cool. Does life on this side of glory get any better than that? And to think I have four other grand-daughters just as wonderful. (I’ll speak of the three grandsons another time.)
It’s January. But April showers have fallen on the soft earth of this heart.

A Day with the Family of God in Kenya

2009-01-18T19:44:00.000-08:00

Out on a Sunday to the broad hills of valleys of the countryside southeast of Scott Theological College. George and I chat with Dr. Vundi as he races and crawls (depending on the road surface) toward Mukandawi.
On arrival Pastor Elijah greets us. His English is really good as he studied in Winnipeg for several years and has kids in Canada and the USA still. A son is in the US Navy.
A constant in African Inland Churches (the denomination Scott Theological College serves) is that the pastor and any guest preachers meet with the elders (all male) in the small room behind the sanctuary before the service.
Actually, the service has begun as the youth are doing a number before the congregation as they trickle in. The service begins a little before ten and will last until 1 o’clock. Its not a spiritual fast-food affair where you check in, fuel up, and check out like an air terminal. It is the event of the week and the families will relish every minute. More like a tailgate party indoors with all the neighbors.
I am an unexpected fifth wheel, with George the touted preacher. We all are briefed on how the service will unfold. We are on for a greeting, a duet, and George for the message from II Timothy 1.
The choir soon is doing its number. Thirty men and women in an African song about Adam and Eve. Swaying, shuffling, clapping, turning and bowing, with a lead singer and the oft-repeated chorus. A chap next to me and George on the bench whispers the general theme. It’s a long story that resonates with the hardships of life and of God’s grace in Jesus.
Meanwhile some folk just arriving come up to the platform area where George and I are sitting and put down plastic bags with goods inside. From previous experience I know what this is about. George pokes me when he sees one black sack has eyes peeking out—there’s a hen wondering why it has been deposited here. It gives George a suspicious look as if to say “What are YOU staring at—I’m just a lowly chicken in a plastic patch.” Later a second chicken-in-a-bag is placed beside it.
The youth choir sings. The women’ chorus comes next, followed by a song by a dozen or more widows of varying ages. Then approximately 25 men step out to do their part.
Soon the Boy’s Regiment is marching down the aisle under the command of a 13-year-old who barks orders. They do a military drill—real smart, too—that includes singing, parade rest, about face and all. A wee guy about two wanders up and stands between their legs imitating the drill. Priceless! All of this takes place before the platform on a section of the concrete floor that is about the size of the small parquet dance squares we see in restaurants and banquet halls.
Congregational songs are mixed in. An elder goes to the podium with an old-fashioned ledger book into which the notices for the week have been hand written. He reads through the list. Some papers are passed to him with late announcements.
The offering is on this wise. Are you ready? A young woman comes up and starts singing alone. First the pastors and elders file to the table that has four wood boxes with a sliding top attached to a 12 inch wooden handle. George and I follow the nod given us and join the queue. I slip in a bill. Next come the choir members and last the congregation, which by now (an hour and a half into the service) has swelled to about 300. We learn later that the congregation is growing so that they will have to enlarge for the second time so they can accommodate about 500-600. You can hardly have multiple services in sequence, can you, when things go in a single stream from 9:30 to after 2 PM?
Next the bags on the floor are tended to. A guy holds high the contents so those in the back can see. People without cash have brought produce—today it’s mostly mangoes—to be bid on by others. A big ripe watermelon goes for a good sum. Some teen girls take the bags to the purchasers and fetch the money up to the treasurer in front. There a few men’s neckties. Last they unclothe the chickens (one of which poops on the concrete floor) and have some brisk bidding. It’s not long drawn biddy wars here. Just a half-minute while two of three make offers. Soon the birds are placed, like orphans, in a nice family—with good references I suppose.
George and I go up to sing a duet. It’s an old piece I haven’t sung for decades: I Would Like to Tell You What I think of Jesus. It’s a bit rough when you have no rehearsal, but we get a big round of claps.
A prayer or two is mixed in to the order of worship. Then I give greetings from Ellie, my kids and grandkids, the church people. Later the pastor makes a point of a couple enjoying over 53 years of wedded bliss. I mentioned that I had left America under President Bush and would return under a son of Kenya, President Barak Obama. They all cheered. This is so huge in this country.
George now preaches a good simple down-home message about young Timothy who had advantages qualifying him for ministry even though he was young. He had a godly family background, good training under Paul, and gifts of the Holy Spirit. Vundi translates for him.
At the end George makes a presentation to the church from folks in Scotland who send money when George speaks about the church in Kenya. This is quite a few thousand shillings to enhance the widows’ ministry. (You know that HIV-AIDS has left even a lot of younger women widows.)
The pastor says he will report to George how the money is used. I know that some of it will be put into buying some ovens so there will be a way for them to sustain themselves by baking and even selling some breads and cakes.
George then comes up front for a reciprocal gift – a hand carved ebony elephant from the nearby Akamba woodcarvers. Photos snap as the woman in a bright red outfit makes a short speech.
I look at my watch. About 1:30 PM. Things will be winding down now, I think.
But the pastor comes down the aisle and starts speaking about grace. He turns every few sentences to tell George and me the gist of what he just said. He asks a question. There is a hand raised in the back. PTL. Then there is a second. It dawns on me. This is the altar call. No music, no tricks. Two young men come down front. The people are cheering. Pastor leads them in the sinner’s prayer. He asks me to come and pray for them. (Most people under 30 know English.) Then he signals for an elder and two women (whom he told me later he just picked on the spot) to come and say a word to these young guys. It’s beautiful to see their exhortations. The congregation extends their arms in their direction as prayers are made for them. More clapping. One of the men takes the mic and tells his testimony. He had gone to Tanzania to hear a band and have a few drinks. On the way back he had to walk part way and was met by a lion. He prayed that he would give his life if Jesus rescued him. After a tense few minutes the lion ambled off. He was here to make good on what Jesus had done for him. The other lad had been into drugs and his family had been praying for him. He finally turned himself in to the Great Physician.
A final song and prayer and the service ended—after 2 PM.
And you know what? I was refreshed and elated and exchanged greetings with dozens of people – kids, youth, men, women, old folks. We all KNEW we had been in the presence of Jesus, the Savior who lives and still changes lives.
We stayed with the pastor, elders and women leaders for a coke and some bread before packing up to go. And did I mention that George and I will be opening a fruit stand tomorrow? Many of the auctioned mangoes were given to us as a thank-you. George will give many of them away to the gatemen with the hungry mouths to feed.
En route home we stopped at the pastor’s house, where his wife, Grace, and last-born, Esther, had a good meal prepared in a lovely home. Cows were in the cattle shed. Planted trees lined the driveway. Flowers bloomed at the front entry. A nice modest home for Kenya countryside.
To me this is the church being pushed by the winds of the Holy Spirit rather than a model of church growth. Fueled by vital energy rather than budgets. And this is happening all over Kenya, all over Africa, all over India, South America. I am seeing an apostolic freshness here that I wish could be bottled and exported to Europe and America.
Why go to church of a Sunday for a Macdonald’s Happy Meal when you could stay for a multi-course feast and linger with the family in the Father’s House?

The Oven

2009-01-17T00:24:00.000-08:00

When the rains waken us at night here we get excited and thank God before turning over for a few more winks. This is the second day of decent rains. I would guess we have had two or more inches by now and it is still showering regularly. I pray that each inch will save a few million lives here as crops recover. So many live right on the edge in Africa.
The odd trio of adjuncts (George Mitchell of Scotland, Nancy Crawford, and I) had our assigned meal at Dr. Vundi and Lillian’s place last evening.
It’s one of those places you love to go. Big welcome. Joyous atmosphere.
Vundi is a BIG guy – I would guess 6’3” and 260 pounds. He is really dark and I wonder how intimidating he would be in the line next to Vince Wilfork of the Patriots! But he is a gentle giant. He has been a pastor and still goes out weekends to preach. He is on faculty here also, teaching homiletics and pastoral theology.
Lillian is a quiet but cheerful woman who has a bright smile and can surprise you with some humor. Their daughter Tina is a student here still. I had her in class last time. She is bright and a joy to banter with. Later her brother Mark would get in from Nairobi. He was a typical teen two years ago. But when he arrived, in strolls this tall young man in a smart pinstripe business suit, smiling like he had swallowed the canary and had the world by the tail. Impressive.
The meal was superb. Tender chicken, mashed, mixed hot veggies, soup-like something or other. So we laughed and told stories and carried on famously for an hour or so over the meal.
But the highlight was a trip to the kitchen. It’s an old but modern small kitchen with the usual range, sink, small refrigerator, counters and cupboards. Sitting on the floor was something new—an oven that had cooked so much of our meal, especially the cake now coming up for dessert. The cake was like a pound or sponge cake with a sweet taste and crusty top.
But it’s the oven that was of interest. It was made entirely of scrap metal and resembled a sort of oversized camp oven you would use outdoors. You could make one with some casual tools and some iron and sheet metal in a day. Inside the large door (that slanted on the angle of a bulkhead door) were two racks for the food to be cooked or baked on and at the bottom a 10” by 10” drop box where you put the fuel. In this case a few lumps of coal glowing brightly but with no leaping flame. There is a damper system to regulate heat.
Lillian has mastered this simple appliance as skilled cooks readily do. With a pass of her hand inside she knows whether it is hot enough for a cake or some bread or even a chicken. And the unit produces comfy warmth on a rainy evening in a place where houses have no heating system—save for a living room fireplace that looks nice but cannot throw any meaningful heat. And in hot weather you just pick the oven up and set it out on the porch.
This simple technology is something Vundi is producing for his community development work. A number have now been made and given to widows—who often have no means of livelihood in this society. The unit costs about $80.
In Vundi and Lillian’s work, they give these ovens to a widow and teach her to bake for herself and to sell in her village. Seems pretty slim for us. But for them it is a huge step toward some income that means their survival.
Earlier in the day Lillian held a workshop for some nearby widows and they baked and decorated a birthday cake that was still sitting proudly on the living room table. Two layers with flowers and words made of icing. Somewhat short of perfection, but a great first try. These women will probably make some money baking for neighbors and local shops. Young Tina entertained their kids while the moms had their Home-Ec lesson. You know how many single women care for kids often their nieces and nephews when HIV-AIDS has taken its toll.
This is what Dr. Vundi is trying to do for community development—simple things, but things that work and have very low startup cost. He holds workshops to teach pastors how they can encourage their people to provide for themselves with a simple oven and some basic crop-growing tips. He sells improved strains of corn that grow twice a high as the local stuff and yield 10 times more often with less water.
Some pastors have to be convinced that this is part of a good ministry even though it is money-making. The book of James is his text. It is harder than you think to convince leaders that it is spiritual ministry to help people with their material needs.
Later Vundi showed me his new website. This is big for him even though it is just a beginning. I suggested that he should add a “Donate” button. People in the west would love to send $80 to provide an oven for some widows in a rural village. He is thinking about that— he wants not to seem mercenary. “It’s not for you—it’s for the people in need,” I encourage him.
This is a family that realizes it is not enough merely to understand the world but to change the world. Karl Marx made that his motto and blew it by using the force of government to impose it from the top. We know the sad result of that. But Vundi is doing it voluntarily from the bottom up.
You might encourage him by checking out the new website. He said you can Google Vundi and Lillian and find it. (He was obviously pleased with their presence on the worldwide web.) Or try grassrootsdevelopmentproject.com
And pray, too. The district officials are pleased with his efforts because it benefits the people and makes them look good. (Politicians!) But one pastor, when he found out there was no money in it for him, tossed Vundi out and would not allow him access to the people of his church. Can you believe it? Thankfully this is rare. But I could tell Vundi was hurt by this.
God is perhaps stoking his oven for those who callously keep bread from the mouths of the hungry. Made God help us all!
Sometimes I wonder how the Lord can be so long-suffering with the lot of us.
Meanwhile families like that of Vundi and Lillian keep plugging away.

Three Tidbits

2009-01-15T06:54:00.000-08:00

Scene One
Three of us block professors go together to a staff home for dinner daily. Nancy Crawford is a Wheaton College graduate and has a PhD in psychology. Dr. George Mitchell is my pal from Glasgow, and myself.
Last night we climbed an outside staircase to the apartment of a newlywed couple—Elias and Chepcha. They were married one month ago to the day. We celebrated that first milestone.
She is not a looker—but what a cooker! “Mom taught me well,” she says. She only said about ten words the whole hour we were there.
Chicken – tender! Mixed vegetables. Potato salad – different. Chapattis, of course.
We three were all tired from grading exams all day. We hoped the conversation would take care of itself. It did.
Nancy knows the protocol—she lives in Nairobi. So she smoothes out all the right things to say, while George and I chime in with comments and smiles.
We ply Elias with questions, as he is now teaching apologetics here. He was one of my students some years back and went on for a philosophy degree. He was also teaching at a Scott satellite school in the north. It has about 40 students now, who no longer have to uproot and travel far south to this campus. Elias has also done live satellite radio programs. He would give some teaching on the Gospels or Psalms and then take calls and answer them. Not only was this live and unrehearsed, but the radio staff would go home and he would be running the whole station at the same time. Guy must be pretty good, that’s all I can say.
This reveals some of the fruits of the laborers here at Scott – a college only 47 years old but having a huge impact. We find Scott graduates in leadership and in teaching positions all over Kenya (and neighboring countries, too), often starting churches and schools in the toughest parts of the land. That includes urban Nairobi with all its crime to very arid outposts to the north where white folks seldom last long. We told Elias that he “has done us proud” as his Mwalim—Teachers. The little we do God multiplies in surprising ways.
Scene Two.
After chapel each morning we all take chai. A single cup of sugary tea and milk that is standard all over Kenya—maybe all over Africa.
George usually heads for the tiny refreshment kiosk next to the chapel after he has taken his chai. He likes to buy a Sprite and sit in the shade of the mango tree to jaw with students. He told me that yesterday there was a middle-aged man there just standing about. It’s someone we see from time to time on campus. He is not a worker here so far as I know.
George notices these people on the fringes. So he asked this man if he would like something to drink. “Yes, please,” came the reply. “Would you like a slice of cake to go with it?” “Bread,” he replied. The girl tending the kiosk sensed what was going on and found a bunch of slices of bread to serve with the drink. The man took it, went to the bench a few feet away. The half-loaf of bread was gone in a matter of minutes. Right in our midst, George had found one of the many in Kenya who are on the edge of deep hunger and he provided him that basic food—daily bread—for this day at least.
Scene three
A knock on the door this afternoon while I am grading my daily quizzes. I suspect it is couple of kids looking for George and his daily handout of balloons.
No—it is two of my students asking for a visit. Patience and Stella. Patience is a slim vivacious girl with fine features and a lively way about her. Stella is quieter but the smile is just as broad. Stella wears a leg brace that bespeaks of polio. She walks slowly with an awkward gait. But she is always cheerful.
They want to know my grading system for the midterm they just got back. So I explain.
Patience recently asked a teacher why he had a PhD degree but had never studied philosophy. He did not know. So I explained to her the medieval trivium and quadrivium division of academic subjects and how everything not theology was philosophy on those days. So that’s why biologists and English professors get a Doctor of Philosophy degree. I can tell she will explain to him with great relish.
I ask them what they think they will be doing in ten years time. Patience is going to go on for a master’s degree and go into ministry as a pastor, even though she may have to study part-time while supporting herself. She says that Scott is very much harder than the Kenya universities. Scott graduates are taken by the universities without an entrance exam because they know Scott grads typically take up to 10 subjects at a time when the average university student is struggling with the standard four. “We have to write papers here all the time, so there is no big challenge for us at the universities,” she boasts. Small college—but big reputation and big impact. The faculty here—now almost all nationals—is doing an outstanding job. So our church’s investment here over the years is well placed.
Stella wants to serve “somewhere in the world as a teacher.” She has a call to go overseas as doors open to minister the Gospel. “Maybe even the USA,” she says. I think that would be great. Here is a black woman, unpretentious, with a handicap, who would not seem a threat to anyone anywhere. What a great potential she has to go to the Muslims, the Hindus, the tribals in Africa, or to the lost in Europe or America. God has given her a great vision.
They apologize for coming “without an appointment.” I thank them for letting me get a glimpse into their eager desire to serve the Lord.
Our God knows what He is doing—outwitting the wise of the world every day with the likes of the least of these that the world mostly ignores.

Fish or cut bait

2009-01-14T20:16:00.000-08:00

Each year in Kenya, I room with another happy bachelor (temporarily so and not by desire), Reverend George Mitchell, PhD. Many a Baptist Union church he has served in Scotland over the decades and is a man of God whom to know is to love.
One token of his esteem is that he does over 60 funerals a year. You see, George grew up with the toughs of Glasgow and he loves the common man and they turn to him, especially if they have not been the church-going type. They know he understands the edgier side of life and can speak fearlessly yet with compassion to those who have post their way and need a Pilot of the Soul. And we all know Who that is.
We love him here at Scott Theological College. He is a silver-tongued smithy of words, often now enhanced by power point slides. He writes booklets that he sells to a small market of those he comes in contact with wherever he goes.
But the most endearing thing about George—did I mention also that he plays a respectable trumpet and has a fine voice—is that he does works of compassion all the time. It’s in his blood.
As he goes about Scotland, where he is a popular speaker, he advocates for the poor in Kenya. And people give him money and clothing to stuff in his bags and wallet for the needy when he comes each January.
Not that he’s perfect. Without his wife, Jean, he’d be at sixes and sevens most of the time. I know, I live with guy for three weeks every other year.
But he has a wonderful sense of humor and can tell stories without taking a breath for hours on end. It’s a fine tonic just to pal around with him.
Here’s what he did the last few days of this week.
He went off with Vundi to talk to the leaders of a local Anglican diocese about the biblical work ethic. You see people here just pray for rain when they can be developing local irrigation that could lessen starvation. At the end of his seminar he hands over 250,000 Ksh for an agricultural project Dr, Vundi is spear-heading to help the rural folk grow more food. George has touted this when people back home want to reward George for his ministry to them.
George goes down to visit the gatemen morning and often evening. His has a bag. Take some socks – or maybe a shirt. Here’s a bit o’dosh for you. “O thank you—I’ll be buying food with it today for my family.”
He goes out to the town football pitch (soccer field) to meet the coach and cheer the local kids. “Could you use some uniforms?” So he goes with the coach downtown and buys shirts, shorts, socks in bright colors like that of the Brazil team. “Now could you cut and collect some of the grass here to improve your field and feed some cows the college keeps?” “O sure, Dr. Mitchell, we’ll do just that.” Their eyes are big. They never dreamed they could have uniforms! “You look like Brazil now,” says George, “go play like them then!”
George has bags of ties and scarves to sprinkle about among the students and faculty and staff here. And some shirts and pencils, and dresses and even a suit or two. Whatever he can gather from folk or buy in the thrift.
Each afternoon a tap on the door signals the kids have come looking for a balloon from George’s pocket. “What do you say?” he asks with a broad grin. “Thank you!” they whisper.
Here is a man who teaches Hebrew and Greek, New Testament and numerous other courses in a college in Glasgow, now retired, who knows from his youth what it is to want and is doing all he can about it for others in need. He’s not wealthy himself. But people trust him to deliver the goods to the poorest of the poor as well as to needs of all kinds.
There’s a story about a guy in Wisconsin who was a fabulous fisherman. When others were skunked he always came home with something—every time. The local game warden asked how he did it. “Come on out with me and I’ll show you.” So on a day they put out into the middle of the little lake and let down the anchor. The man pulls out a stick of dynamite, lights it, and hands it toward his companion. "Toss it out and start fishing." “You can’t do that! The warden screams. Fishing by stunning them is against the law!!!” “Look,” says the other, still holding out the sizzling TNT, “are you going talk or fish?”
George is guy who is always fishing. He is a wonderful talker you can listen to all day. But he walks the walk. For Jesus. For the least of these…. For those who are easily invisible as they stand to the side in the shadow while we fly along by on our important errands.
You will be fishers of men, Someone once promised. Are we talking? Or are we fishing? He’s holding out the sizzling stick to you and to me.

The Way Sunday Should Be

2009-01-12T05:56:00.000-08:00

An inauspicious start. I am to go out to a village church to preach and teach today – Sunday. I did not bother to look in my date book because I was sure the time was 7:30 AM. At 7 Benson Gitchui and a student of mine (also Benson) drive up. I am still having some breakfast. Thankfully George invites them in for a cup of coffee. That gives me 10 minutes to finish, put on my tie and jacket, grab my study Bible and jump into the car. I excuse myself by thinking this is Africa not Germany—where everything has to be PRECISE! (And don’t mention The War!)

Benson knows this southbound section of the Nairobi-Mombasa Road. Where it is finished off he goes 70 mph; where the road is still the gravel washboard he can average a skillful 15 mph. A tank truck is creeping along watering down the choking dust.

In a half hour we are turning off the highway and onto dirt tracks. Everything is super dry, so we’ll not be sliding around on the turns or wallow in mud at the creeks.

We wind up and down, surrounded by dry farming shambas. The maize is knee high and ready to tassle out. But if they do not get rain soon all will be lost. The papers here warn of starvation for up to several million Kenyans. The price of grain is shooting up while people have little income to buy it. Businessmen are accused, in some cases, of profiteering. It is a dire mess! And the papers say wealthy countries are leasing land in these poor countries to raise food to be exported home. South Korea is in Madagascar. Ukraine is going to lease out a million acres or so. The new colonialism some are calling it.

Soon we are at the church—a plain rectangular building with a metal roof with a bit of colored glass in the windows. Benches and chairs, a few platform chairs, a table or two at the front. Can seat, I would guess, 250 Kenya style.

Joshua’s wife, Josephine, greets us and her girls serve us rolled chapattis and tea.
The pastor’s house is modest, with a kitchen, living room, and four bedrooms, one of which they use for storage. Did you know that a typical kitchen up here in the rural hills has nothing in it save for maybe a chair. There is no electricity here. Food is prepared on the floor using bowls and some pots—not much different than we would use if stopping on a wilderness trail somewhere to bed down and fix a bit of grub.

Joshua tells me that his wife (I had to ask him if she had a name) was also pastoring a small church in Salama. She has to walk for one hour over the hills to this town and then back after the service. Salama means peace and is home to a Muslim community with a small mosque at the center of the shops along the road. From Salama we later will see the Mukaa orphan home on the distant hilltop.

“We have time to see the river,” Joshua tells me. It is about a ten-minute walk. Sounds good to me. A little stroll before we sit for hours in the coming service—nice. It is sunny and warm, but not hot. Off we go.

We greet parishioners—"chuch membahs"—as we go. They are in their yard having breakfast before heading for church.
The rolling expanse of hills would normally be lush green this time of year. But dryness makes it all pastel. It’s not severe yet. So we are praying for some rains to come soon.

It’s downhill on a small road where goats nibble on hedges and plots are lined with sisal plants. That is the common boundary marker surveyors look for. If one tries to move the boundary (as is stealing land) the roots persist for a dozen years and the surveyors will go by that to settle boundary disputes.

At the bottom of the valley we see a dam about 30 feet across, built by “Wilson,” the white man who bought several thousand acres here a century ago. This impounded water and got the people through the droughts. Today there is a tiny trickle coming through the pipe. Below are huge boulders giving way to a pool of greenish water. A boy about 8 years of age is there. When he sees us he strips off his shirt—maybe hoping we will want him to show his prowess. I notice his green shorts have holes worn through the two back pockets and about ready to fail altogether. You see quite a few people with clothes just a thread away from rags.

Joshua shows us the shrine where tribals still offer sacrifices in times of drought. Like, I mean, animals. And the sand that keeps washing down from the hills is there for the taking. But you will suffer if you sell it for money—or even think of selling it.

Along the highway, Benson Gichui had said that there was a sacred tree right where the road had to go. But the tribals would riot it was touched. They found a creative solution. Someone went to the tribals and said that he heard the tree talking—in many languages, not just Kikamba—even the American language and that this would bring havoc to the tribe. Thus sowing fear in their minds, they agreed that this tree was a threat now and would have to be destroyed. So the road crew cut it down. You can see the trunk bulldozed off to the side of the road. Like Dagon headless in the temple of the Philistines.

Back to the watering hole. Goats are coming down to slake their thirst. Wild animals come at night. Joshua urges me to look down a narrow cut in the rocks. No water is seen below. But it is there. He says that boys will jump between these narrow rocks and fall nearly 40 feet into the darkness where the water is and then find a way to clamber out at the lower level. Very dangerous. The fathers warn their boys never to go near this place. Too dangerous! They know, because they jumped into the blackness when they were boys.

Now it is time to return. It’s all up hill. By now the sun is high. I have no hat, no sleeves to cover my arms. No water. The average Mzungu my age might have heat stroke or worse. I make it back and later lecture them that they need to think of what white-skinned people are facing so that they can provide what is needed to preclude problems. Yes—they admit. We should have thought of that. “Tell your wife (Josephine) and the ladies—they will remember!”

At 10:30 the service begins. 50 younger folk in deep blue shirts and black skirt or trousers start the slow shuffle, singing and motioning to the rhythms. I like it! They fill 5 files of about 12 people in front of the platform. They choir director is playing tapes with 3 live bass players and a keyboard guy. Electricity comes from a small generator down the hill snaking a 50 foot extension cord. Prayer by a layman lasts 10 minutes with most of the congregation standing before the Lord. Announcements. Offering. Songs by a trio of teen girls. A song by the ladies’ choir. This is GREAT! I notice the distant clock says 11:45. Then 12:15. I am introduced and start preaching after 12:30. “How long do I have?” I ask. “As long as you need.” O—this is a preacher’s heaven!
I choose the same text as in chapel at Scott: Deuteronomy 34 – Moses’ last hike up Mount Nebo. But since I have several Scott people here I cannot just repeat the message. So we talk about age of those God uses. Moses in 120 when he finishes his work gathering a throng of ex-slaves into a people. St. Paul was mid-sixties when he finishes his assignment upon a cross in seven-hilled Rome. And Jesus was half that age when he accomplished the redemption of the world on the hill of Calvary. Age and length of service mean little. Being faithful to God’s call is everything.

It’s starting toward one o’clock now. The men and boys exit so the women and girls can have their Sunday School time. We assemble under the sparse shade of an acacia tree. I request to face away from the sun in the best shade they, remembering Dr. Goldberg’s warnings about skin damage. What to say with little warning? Ephesians 5 on husbands loving their wives; children honoring parents. It’s all about giving, not getting. I pause for questions. You can tell they are not used to this. Finally a white whiskered Mzee asks what he can do for grandkids who are far from God now. At the end of the day he would come to thank me and we posed for a photo. Precious.

A man about 30 asks what he can say to people when all think they have the truth and do not need to come through Jesus. All the religions and philosophies of the world insist that one come and serve their god first and then maybe Allah or the spirits or the ancestors will do good to you in return. But our God stands alone in serving us unconditionally by doing everything for us first—including dying for us. Then He invites us to come and surrender our lives to His kingdom. Our God makes the first move and gives us the gift of faith so that we can come to him. This makes Christianity not a religion so much as a relationship. This is foreign to Islam and every other religion.

Now it is time to back to the building as the ladies are now finishing. As they adults and wee ones leave about 70 youths fill the front benches. What can I say to them? I start with a verse from Timothy and improvise from there. They actually listen! One 16 year old asks a question. Ten another question.

By now it’s after 2 PM. We are done. Now that’s doing church!

By three we are eating a meal with the elders at the pastor’s house next to the church. Chicken as tough as gristle in a thin soup. Chapattis, of course. Rice, Sukuma Weekie—a dish of cooked greens that has sustained poor people for months when there is nothing else to eat. It’s name derives from “that’s what you make do with the rest of the week when the good food is gone.”

As we leave pastor Joshua has us pick up Josephine and their two kids to make a brief side-trip to an acre of land he bought a few years ago and is having a stone house built. But prices go up while money goes down. So it is just shy of the roof and interior finish. When they can move in, he can drive to his church and drop her off in Salama, saving her two hours of “footing.” Churches are proliferating in Kenya. Joshua will get land to start another congregation to accommodate another several hundred people closer to their houses and shambas (small plot farming). Scholars call this explosion of the Gospel the emerging Southern Church—in Asia, Africa, and Latin America. It’s a pleasure to see a bit of it with my own eyes.

Back to Scott. It’s 6 PM That’s a typical Sunday for folk here. I admit I am tired. Who was it said, “my feets is tired but my soul is rested?”

I am late for supper at Shadrack and Milcah’s place with colleagues George and Nancy. They ask about Ellie and the Drapers. Personal ties with people 10,000 miles apart, yet one in our Lord Jesus, the Messiah, who came for us when we were all dead in our sins and without God, without hope in the world.

Now we walk in the light as He is in the light and have fellowship one with another.

She was beautiful, spots and all,

2009-01-11T07:52:00.001-08:00

Today was Saturday, our day of rest. Just a few quizzes to grade and then the faculty could go play. And play we did. You see, on Sunday is out to the churches to preach and mix with the rural folk. Stressful for a outsider. But that’s tomorrow….
At a ranch even bigger than the Bush ranch in Crawford, TX.
23,000 Acacia Acres. About 15 miles north of Scott. But with the washboard they use for a road it takes 55 minutes to get there. It’s typical African plains, with sparse groves of acacia. Did you know there are scores of varieties of acacia trees? Neither did I.
Three of us went early for a guided wildlife tour with a trained guide (all for $15 each). We saw the usual—giraffes, wart hogs, eland, Oryx (not common elsewhere), zebra, wildebeest, tawny eagle, lilac-breasted roller, and various antelope species, to name a few. And the rare Geranock (Sp?) Looks like a short-necked giraffe. We were in an open top land rover so we could get photos without shooting through glass. It was a warm day with a gentle breeze—no clouds.
But the highlight was my cheetah. You will see me with her in a photo when I get a chance to download my camera.
She was beautiful, though a tad overweight for a cheetah. Most cheetahs are bone-showing thin because hyenas hang out near them. When they make a kill they have to pause to catch their breath and the cheeky hyenas snatch the prey. But my cheetah was orphaned at age 3 in Somalia and ended up here on this Kenya ranch, fed on beef once a day, and kept in a compound at night. She may live to be 25—ten years more than in the wild.
Soon the guys say to save our photos until she comes out. One puts a collar around her neck—but no leash. “We don’t need a leash. If she wanders off we track her with the radio. But usually she stays close by. Just don’t make any sudden motions."
Out she comes. She sniffs us. First Jack and Karen Mitchell. Then me. Really glad I shaved and washed up this morning. She goes to lie in the shade of a thatched shed. We go up one by one to bend down and groom her coat with a brush the handler hands us. Photos are snapping. I am last. And—are you ready for this?—she licks my hand! Maybe she senses we are the same age for our species.
You can feel her black spots. The fur is different somehow. She yawns. Look at those fangs! And did you know cheetahs do not have retractable claws as most cats do? Neither did I. She lies back on her side. Stretches. I guess she is getting bored, for she ambles a few yards to sit on a mound to look out over the plains. I notice she is looking northeast—in the direction of Somalia, her homeland.
The guide now bids us come into a rickety barn that has been there forever. It has some thatch, some tin roofing. Unbelievable. It's got dozens of antique cars and cycles. A bit dusty, sure. But there is a Rolls, a T-bird, a hand-crank 1920s Ford. And that cream colored one? That’s the one Meryl Streep rode in while filming “Out of Africa,” the story of Karen Blixen. Motorcycles going back to the thirties. A couple of creaky bicycles, too. And the walls have wood shelves holding all manner of ancient auto parts. All out here on the plains of Africa miles from any decent density of population to enjoy these treasures.
I turn to go back toward the entry. And who is walking at my side? Ms Cheetah, of course. I think she likes me. That’s understandable. I tell her she’s the only cheetah for me. I don’t want her howling to the full moon next week about my cheetin’ hart. Maybe she mistakes me for a hartebeest. I have a hard time reading the minds of females of all species. I’m thinking of adapting an old Swedish song—“cheetah, my hand-lickin’ sweetheart—I’m crazy nuts about you!”
Meanwhile, back at the ranch, a lunch awaits us.
Wives and kids have arrived for a buffet under a thatched roof pavilion. All food guaranteed safe for western stomachs. A garden salad, spinach quiche, and cold cooked asparagus spears. Course One.
Go back to the hot table. Mixed vegetables, roasted potatoes, and breaded fish. Course Two.
Then to the custom-order chefs. They hold a 10 inch black skillet. Pour in oil. Add what you like. I choose onion, mushrooms, sun-dried tomatoes, fresh diced tomatoes, chopped garlic, braised Hamburg, green peppers. He mixes it over the flame, adds spaghetti. Mmmmm. Course Three.
Course Four. Repeat Course Three, smaller portion.
Course Five. Repeat Course One, smaller portion.
Course Six. Repeat a tiny Course Two.
Since it is Jack Mitchell’s birthday (yesterday) we all get hot apple crisp with ice cream. Course Seven.
That’s the perfect number. I know when I have had enough. No over-eating for me, nossiree!
Disclosure—I did not eat again that day until Kim Okesson and little Anna came to our house with hot muffins at 8 PM. A little glass of milk with the two smallest muffins (George is out so I ate one of his while it was hot, as I’m sure he would want) and I am ready for bed and sweet dreams.
Anyway—we talked out there while the kids chased Frisbees and watched monkeys. I dozed off quite a few times. A professor’s lot is not an easy one! We took a photo of the seven of us who are Wheaton College grads. Then over the washboard home. I managed four catnaps during the ride home, too.
Sweet dreams for me tonight.
She was beautiful—spots and all.

In the family way

2009-01-09T20:57:00.000-08:00

It is well-known that Kenyans are into family in a big way.
Kenya has one of the highest birth rates in the world. Children are good gifts of God. More is better.
The back drop for this is a cultural history in which old folks are supported by their kids. So a bigger 401K is better than a small one.
This norm is changing now due to westernization. It may not be good, but the developing nations of the world are copying the rich and powerful nations.
I’ve seen this in small ways myself. When I first came here in 1992 women all wore skirts and dresses. Now in the big cities you see more western outfits. Technology is all imported. Computers are now commonplace in schools like this. Everyone has cell phones.
So rural bush life, while still the norm for millions of people, is shrinking like the glaciers on Mt. Kenya. So the birth rate shrinks for urban people who don’t need a quiverful of kids to support them in their dotage. And while all matters having to do with intimate relations is hush-hush, that too is beginning to change.
Since sister Lois Draper and Bob served here as teachers (Ukamba Bible College) twenty-five years ago, our extended family has adopted a Kenyan family that was living hand-to-mouth just a step away from a thatched roof hut.
I united Peter and Gladys in marriage here in 1993, standing under some trees in a local park. In 1984 Peter had been a teenager who came looking for work to help his widowed mother and four siblings survive grinding poverty. They were living in a couple of mud sheds like you might have in your backyard for garden tools.
A few weeks ago Peter and Gladys saw their 5th child—a boy—added to their family. Their first-born was named after me, giving me special obligations to the family welfare. But modern values are coming to the fore now, as they ask us how to help them ensure that this boy is the last-born. This may seem obvious to us, but it signals a huge shift in mindset for a Kenyan couple.
This is the family that received my big ugly red suitcase I mentioned in the first blog. Paul Mbandi, now the dean here at Scott, met Peter in Nairobi yesterday to transfer this and some cash to Peter.
Peter phoned my hosts here three times wanting to speak to me. After classes were done for the day, I managed to get back to him. He spent five minutes expressing thanks for what we had done. He had called his sisters, who now are working in Nairobi where Peter does ministry, to come and share some of the blessings.
What was in the suitcase? An outfit for an infant boy. They had already dressed him in it to go for his first check-up at the clinic. It had a cuddly lion that Ellie found in Target a week ago. It had 50 T-shirts of adult sizes that said something about Methuen, MA. It had some socks and a pair of trousers and stuff that I would never wear again. To us it was nothing. To them, a treasure. Some of those T-shirts will go to the poor that make up Peter’s tiny congregation eking out a life on the edge of a big city. The rest will be on the backs of this large extended family, not merely a means of keeping warm but as a pledge that somebody cares about them. “A T-shirt given in the name of Christ will in no wise lose its reward.”
And Ellie had sent some money to get Gladys and the baby out jail—I mean hospital.
You see the family here has no assets. No cushion. They live as Jesus did, praying for daily bread.
When Gladys went into labor, they went to the hospital. Without money they were not about to let her into the “Inn.” You can’t blame them, really. How can you run a hospital in a big city where most people are on the edge economically? The government has no safety net for these indigents.
So Gladys sat in the lobby about to explode. Peter said he hung on like a bulldog for several hours (!) insisting they had to take his wife in, prepayment or no. Finally—like the unjust judge—they relented. She delivered a bouncing baby boy.
Getting in was tough. But how to get Gladys and the baby out? After more than a week of a mounting bill, the shillings Ellie sent for them got into Peter’s hands and he paid them off. They all went home rejoicing.
That’s how it goes for the marginal in Kenya.
Marginal? Actually Peter is better off than most. He has a university education and a seminary degree as well. He preaches with a simple loudspeaker wherever he can. He has a few dozen converts who are poorer than he. He and Gladys give out of their poverty to those in need. Some days they do not eat because someone else needed the food more-to end their days of hunger.
Sure the Kenyans often have their hands out. Sure they often make choices we think are a bit reckless. But they are dodging their way through life as best they can.
And these dear brothers and sisters pray for us because they hear that there are layoffs and bank failures shaking our way of life. They know what it’s like to face uncertainty. Yet our troubles are nothing compared to theirs. For us it’s a couple of lean years. For them it’s a permanent condition.
So Gladys will go to the family-planning clinic to make sure this does not happen again.
Yeah—right! Just like our politicians will make sure we don’t have another economic collapse.
For us as for our Kenyan family, the Lord and the family of God is the only sure foundation.

He sees the baggage when it falls and hears me when I call

2009-01-09T06:42:00.000-08:00

Washboard done! Circling small airport parking pads for an opening, we find no room at this inn. I hop out and go to the entrance indicated. You see, I can’t go in by the regular entrance for I need to show my passport to get to the inner sanctum. I explain to the attendant, who pats me down manually since this is not a general public entrance with full service scanning—it’s for employees.
Someone directs me to BAGGAGE, where I approach a smartly uniformed young woman on duty behind the counter. “I am so sorry, but I have someone’s luggage that went with me all the way to Machakos last night. It belongs to David Dewese.” She lights up. This will get one item off her docket. “I will call him now so he knows it has come!” It’s barely 7AM But I know young David will not resent this call. “Please apologize for me,” I say, “for he is likely a brother in the Lord doing ministry here for two weeks.” From her smile and nod I can tell she is a Christian. She points to the area where lots of neglected luggage is strewn over a patch of red concrete floor. “Your bag is over there.”
I am so grateful to God when I hug tight this beat-up old friend that has shuttled my stuff into the belly of many a plane and doesn’t seem to resent those duct tape patches.
Now for George Mitchell. He made it! We see his wee bald head bobbing about near the carousel. He waits. People come out through customs in a steady stream. An hour later and George is still inside. We can see him now going to the BAGGAGE desk to file a claim for missing luggage.
He has a rare tale to tell when we start on the road home.
In Scotland this winter there has been a plague of flu so resistant to medicine that thousands are ill. The pilots for his flight couldn’t make their assignment. It took an hour or so to find replacements. So when the flight got to Amsterdam it was so late that George had to fly down the concourse mazes to catch the plane to Nairobi. He made it. But obviously the bags did not. Ole George had to make a second trip to the terminal a day later, but did retrieve his stuff—crammed with dresses and shirts and ties and balloons and pencils, etc. that folk back in Scotland donate for him to distribute to the poor here.
Next morning he is so happy that his joy awakens me. He has a change of clothes now! And his own toothbrush! So he is washing up whilst singing basso arias from Handel’s Messiah. “For He is like a refiner’s fire and shall shake the heavens and the earth…,” rolling along like a winter wren, singing the scriptures. It could be annoying. But somehow I find it beautiful.
If Jesus were here now He might tell the parable of the Lost Luggage. “Rejoice with me, I have found that which was lost!”
God has seen two of his sparrows falling to the ground without their proper underwear and sox. And from heaven He has heard their cry and seen to it that not a bag of lost luggage is neglected. I think He knows the number of suitcases that are circling the globe in these flying tubes we call jet planes. And we have our stuff.
All is well that ends well, they say.
Sometimes it’s just “All’s well that ends.”

To good to be true

2009-01-08T04:30:00.000-08:00

After a superfluity of hugs and handshakes at church this morning, I am ready to go on my 8th excursion to Scott Theological College in Machakos, Kenya. Ellie came with me in 2005 and it was a disater for her. So I left her weeping inconsolably at the door as Jim and Zach Herrick whisked me away to Boston. She makes a huge sacrifice, stoking two wood stoves to keep the frost off the windows in Haverhill while I head south of the equator where summer sends the mercury to 80 degrees each day. But her new book is getting good reviews, so she can think of that with satisfaction. (Go to www.eleanorgustafson.com to read all about it.)
NorthWest Airlines gets me in to Schiphol Airport in Amsterdam at 8:05 AM, so I have some time to wander about the terminal before emplaning for Nairobi. I ask where Starbucks is so I’ll know where to meet April on the return flight in 3 weeks. I didn’t see Starbucks with my own eyes, but the friendly espresso girls tell me the direction. I’ve no time to go that far in the great spidery arms that these airports are. But at least I know it’s there.
Maybe I’ll have an ice cream, meanwhile. Ah –no, maybe not. $4 per scoop. And they will not fool me again. Some years ago when Ellie and I were here to visit her cousin and family (stationed in Europe with the U.S. Army) we got ice cream in Amsterdam. I kid you not—the scoops were the size of melon balls—you know the kind you use to scoop out cantaloupes back in the fifties? My cone with two scoops was gone in two bites. About the same amount of ice cream I shamelessly lick off the bottom of a decent size ice cream bowl. Sure, the stuff here is Haagen Daz. No better quality anywhere. But I could hardly TASTE it, let alone enjoy a close-your-eyes-and-smile tryst with whatever flavor it was. So today I just nod and wink at the kiosk and keep on trolling my carryon behind me.

Ah! Check “USA Today” for football scores. Too bad about Tony Dungee’s Colts getting sliced out of the post-season in sudden death overtime. But that’s what makes sports so popular. Anything can happen.
It’s now 9:30 A.M. and the sun is just coming over the horizon here. Where am I, the North Pole? No wonder Europe has fallen from its place in the heavens. Think how depressing this would be, year after year. Light is good! Sunlight is better! Then I recall that I am at the same latitude as Labrador.
Snoozing a lot en route, the trip over the Saraha desert goes by quickly. At Jomo Kenyatta Airport in Kenya the flight is on time and I am soon in the Visa line. Been here, done this before. But are these Kenyans are s..l..o..w. The nationals clear their queue quickly so I am waved over. Pay my crisp 50 USD and I have only baggage to handle now. (BTW, fellow bachelor-for-3-weeks George Mitchell came only with British pounds this year and had to go to exchange to get dollars. This in Kenya a former British colony and part of the Commonwealth!)
I grab a trolley (free use here) and look for bags. I canna’ believe it! There’s my ugly-as-sin red bag with all the Methuen shirts Ed Platz donated already on the carousel. And my black case next to it. This is to good to be true! Usually I have to wait until the last for my bags—you know, first on last off. Someone is smiling on me this trip! I grab them both, get waived through bag inspection (sigh of relief—they won’t hassle me over the new camera going to Deborah Brown’s friend Dalmas).
Look around for a familiar face or at least a sign with “Gustafson” on it. Bingo! There is Douglas Kaloki, the Scott driver, with his brother. We are loaded up and on the road in minutes, heading to Machakos.
The road is unbelievably BAD. It’s being re-built, so 60% is base—no hot top. Wash-board city. Any blood clots lingering in my legs from 15 hours of sitting in the Airbus are being shaken and pulverized. Almost feels good—almost.
By 11 we are dragging my bags into the cottage here. It’s lovely at night. The black, black sky shows stars an arm length away. The big dipper is low in the sky as I am in the southern hemisphere now. God is too good.
Then it happened. A reality check BIG TIME (for me, anyway.) I open my black bag and find strange contents! O NO!!!!!!!!!!! I should have checked it. I have another’s bag and mine is back at the airport! Bonnell’s are still up. I check with them. They call the airport—no luck with their cell phone. Joseph Ndebe’s lights are on—we’ll go there. He tries the airport, since we now know the owner’s identity from his Bible. He’s from TN and is here for a few weeks working with Baptist youth in Nairobi. At least he is not off on a safari to the boonies!
I’ll go back with Kaloki at 5 AM as he goes to fetch George Mitchell coming from Scotland. But—can I sleep with this uncertainty? I had been reading in a devotional about trusting God always, even when worry is almost excusable. So I relax as best I can to get a few hours of napping before I’m off over the washboard again in quest of MY STUFF!
Will our hero’s luggage be waiting at the airport?
To be continued….

Go West, Old Man, Go West

2008-11-15T06:24:00.000-08:00

“Life’s a long journey in the same direction,” said some philosopher long ago. And for me, the direction is west.
I had preached my sermon at chapel the day I had to catch the train. I took a chance on “mountains”. I had already preached on Bones in the Bible, with some success according to feedback.
So I took as my text the last chapter of Deuteronomy. “Old Man Mose done gone up de mountin.’ His eye warn’t dim nor his strength abated. And dat is sumpin’ given he was 120 at the time.”
Nebo is almost 3000 feet above sea level, right smack dab in front of the lowest lake on earth—the Dead Sea. 100 miles north he could see a white patch—snow-covered Mt. Hermon over 9000 feet in elevation. But he could see Mount Tabor, too. He didn’t know it at the time, but that’s where he and Elijah would come back some 1400 years later to talk with Jesus before he started the last lap of his race with our race.
Moses saw Mount Moriah, where Abraham had won the test of faith when he raised the dreaded knife over Isaac, the son of promise. David would later take the citadel of the Jebusites there and make Jerusalem the forever capital of God’s earthly kingdom. And just outside that high place Moses had predicted that a greater prophet than he would come. That prophet would be the lamb that would, unlike Isaac, actually be slain for our redemption.
On the long lonely trek up the trail Moses must have mused on the promise that God would give Abraham a land, a seed, and a blessing for the world. The seed was now several million souls. They had done well on that part. But they possessed not a single acre of the land. Moses wanted at least to see it before he died. And God had said, OK.
So God took Moses and buried his body somewhere on Nebo—no one knows just where. I think Moses died content. And so may we if we trust God. You see, people don’t just croak like frogs. God sends for us—maybe with angels, I don’t know. But we don’t just die. It says, “precious on the sight of the Lord is the death of his saints.”
Meanwhile there’s work to be done. Moses perhaps sees the camp of the Israelite hordes a few miles from their first challenge. Jericho is the first walled city—the oldest one on earth. Ahead were lots of valleys to go through and battles to fight. But as for them, so for us, God is going before us. Since Jesus, the land cannot be the geography of Palestine—that’s way too small for the billions now in the kingdom. Jesus changed the kingdom to the places where God rules as king. And that is in the hearts of those who like Moses, leave the privilege and wealth of the world to seek for the city whose builder and maker is God. Hebrews 11 tells us what we are in for if we join the king. Really tough going. But worth every tear shed and drop of blood that we spill in solidarity with the tears, groans and blood of Jesus.
I had a good time preaching that one to those precious brothers and sisters who are going out to serve in India, come what may.
One of those is Ashish Kandelahar, whom I met five years ago. He wanted to go into the hills where Christ had never had a presence and start a church. He came to campus the day before I left and told of the school he has now with about 100 kids and several small house churches. Wow! His wife was a student of mine. Preema and Ashish have a year old girl and are just full of joy in the work far off in the primitive towns a six hour drive from the college. (Preema is no slouch either. She got one of the highest marks in all India after she finished New Theological College.)
I thought back on all these blessings as I took the 6-hour train ride through the darkness to Delhi. Upon arrival I wave off the red-turbaned porters eager to carry my luggage. I had no idea where to go if I had used their services. I am waiting for Premji to come into the coach to help with the bags. But he doesn’t come. I struggle to the platform and sit on a bench. It’s midnight. Thankfully there are a few souls nearby, as I have almost no money, no way to call the office, and the platform is not a friendly place to park for long. I keep telling myself he’s stuck in traffic. Every five minutes seems like a long time. I keep whistling in the dark, so to speak, to keep up courage. Half an hour later, sure enough, he shows up and we are soon in the little van and off to the airport.
I have five hours to wait. Not enough time to have gone for a room. So I snooze, do sudokos, and snack on some nuts and an apple I took along. I’m thinking lots of people would think me nuts, floating in a faraway land like that. But in due time I am on the flight. And—I got an upgrade! Whoo-hoo! One of those larger seats. And by the window. I found out that when you wander to that forward galley usually forbidden to us peons, they have juice and snacks and chips and real fresh fruit that you can just help yourself to! And I do. I never knew how well these wealthy travelers made out. I wonder what its like upstairs in First Class?
I’m by the window, too. I get to see the barren land of Pakistan, Afghanistan, and the other “stans.” I could see tiny squares on the dry hills that marked settlements—far from any roads it seems. Snow-capped ranges in the distance. Beautiful!
But what’s this? My seat mate is an Indian who works in London. He tells me he goes back for month each year to visit family. He thinks India is the most beautiful place on earth. I choose not to challenge that. However, he is antsy. Restless? Man—he was all over, hoggin’ the armrests. Jumping in my window seat went I went to the lavatory. O well—he was pleasant and I did doze off a dozen times for about ten minutes. After all, I had been up all night.
We flew over the Netherlands. It was fairly clear by then, with the morning sun slanting in under the clouds. We had early morning sun for 8 hours, the pace keeping the full moon on the horizon for hours as we chased it westward. I waved at granddaughter April Gustafson living now in Amsterdam. I doubt she noticed. But it was a nice gesture. I’m all for gestures!
And as I write this at Heathrow (London) I have been up nearly 40 hours with a flight across the ocean still ahead. I expect Ellie to be at Logan with chauffeur Jim Herrick. She never comes to see me off—only on return. As they say, absence makes the heart grow fonder. Wait ‘til I get home from my trip to Kenya next January. She’ll probably hire a brass band!
As I sign off the blogs for this excursion of four weeks, I thank all for their prayers and thoughts. My heart is full. God, as usual, does wonderful things that make it a joy to venture forth, doing a tiny bit in the sweeping events that will come to a crescendo when the King comes back.
So whether we die on Mt Nebo or whether God takes us from bed in old age, we are the Lord’s. Meanwhile—we have work to do, knowing that in the Lord our labor cannot be in vain.

In the Wilderness

2008-11-12T03:03:00.000-08:00

Nearly four weeks of listening to Hindi and I think I am finally figuring out a tiny bit. Not only do I recognize “Yeshua” as Jesus, but I can pick out a word here and there and guess what the prayer or the conversation is about.
For example, in chapel today the congregation was invited to mention requests to add to the list given by the worship leader. I stood to ask prayer for friend Debbie in Virginia who is very ill and whose doctor has disappeared due perhaps to legal difficulties. As sister Hemlata took the cordless mic to offer the prayer, I could hear when she said “sister Debbie” and knew that my request was presented before God. It was no trick—she said “sister Debbie” even though she was praying in Hindi.
Getting home after chapel, I went up to the upper room to make my bed. Yes—even I have some admittedly minimal standards. Egad! An inch of water on the marble tile floor and the sound of H2O going down a drain. But obviously not all going down the drain. Throw rug saturated, bedroom filling up. Since a plastic supply pipe had burst downstairs just the other day I knew where to look. Sure enough. A hose busted open and hot water flooding. I turned the shutoff, found a broom and started sweeping out onto the balcony.
Soon I heard Uncle George downstairs and shouted to call the plumber guy. Meanwhile I shut off all the other lines in two other bathrooms before going downstairs. Here’s a maintenance guy now—plunger in hand. Uncle is talking to him about “pipe-kay” and “replace-kay” and “leak-kay.” Bingo! My Hindi just went from 5 words to at least 50. Never mind Rosetta Stone. Just take a word that is used for technology or education and add “kay.” I can now point to the ed building and say “class-kay” and the cook will know I can’t stop for lunch now because I have class. “Exam-kay” is the next word I’ll try out. That should strike fear into all hearts. It’s my way of combating that nasty put-down that goes like this.
“What do you call a person who can speak three languages?” Trilingual. “Two languages?” Bilingual. “One language?” American!
Now get set for a terrific segue.
In life our supply pipes can burst and leave us floundering in a flood or drained dry in a desert.
That’s what our chapel senior preached on today. She took her text from Luke 4—the wilderness experience of Jesus.
I don’t know how this well-worn text can keep bearing fruit. How many sermons have we heard on the temptation? How many have I preached? Quite a few.
She reminds us that if we follow Jesus we will have the wilderness experience. We will be in the desert and tested to the max. After all, our baptismal commitment will be tried just as Jesus’ was. There’s no other way to refine and deepen our faith in God.
Not by chance, it is the Holy Spirit who brings us into the wilderness, knowing full well that our Accuser will meet us there. We will suffer weakness due to hunger and thirst. Without testing our faith is shallow. James and the other apostles say the same thing many times. “Count it all joy when you come under trials.” Are you kidding? Does that make sense? No—unless you have decided to follow Jesus, expecting that the Holy Spirit is the One who leads you into all these unpleasant situations. Why is it so hard for me to learn this? Is it God’s will for you to be going through the wringer? Answer: absolutely yes. God has ordained it.
“Turn these stones God has thrown at you to something that will benefit you.” The Accuser of the brethren (and sistren) points at all these stones God puts in the path. It’s like hiking Mount Lafayette last spring. My old limbs were getting tired yet ahead of me were more ledges and piles of stones I had to negotiate. Ever feel like quitting? Sitting down in tears saying it’s too hard—I can’t go on? That’s life in this world for the Christian.
So Satan suggests we turn those stones into something better. You’re hungry for change. Take charge. You can avoid these cold stones that block your way. You can think of a way. Maybe it’s a relationship that won’t yield to your will. Maybe it’s opposition or some temptation you cannot overcome. It could be a lot of things that God has allowed into your life that is just too much. But Jesus says, “Let those stones remain stones. I’ll provide in God’s way for you. Don’t give up.”
Satan suggests that the world God once controlled is now his. “I’ll give to you, if….” Wouldn’t it be easier to accept that and go along to get along? Just bow to me and I’ll give you your share of the world’s rich treasure of power and pleasure. Just do it my way and you can do it your way. So much easier.
And the Accuser is not totally lying, either. It is easier. The way of the cross means suffering and loss of the most painful kind. But Jesus knows Satan is tempting us with a short-term relief that will be paid for in spades in the end. No—we’ll worship God though we are going through hell. Better to go through hell now than to be in hell forever.
Lastly Satan whispers for us to put God to the test. Put out a fleece. Do something drastic to see if God really cares about you. He’s got angels at his command. What good are angels if you don’t call for them? Force God’s hand. This is really a call for us to manipulate God. Make him show up for us when we think the time is right. Doesn’t work that way, says Jesus. The heroes of faith of old suffered long and hard but would not cave in. Hebrews 11 recounts their wilderness experience.
So Jesus won the victory in the desert place and went on to live an easy life. “Victory in Jesus!” Wrong!
Here’s the challenge that came to me.
Try to think of one period in the life of Jesus when things got better for him.
I come up blank. His holy life was wholly in one direction: bad to worse. No exception. Hated in his hometown. Pestered by people more interested in health and wealth through his miracles than in his call to repentance. (Make no mistake, we would have gotten tired of this Galilean preacher whose mantra was repent, repent, repent.) Misunderstood by his disciples, maligned by his colleagues. Even the triumphal entry was tinged with sadness because Jesus knew it was just euphoria of a fickle crowd looking for a Son of David who could knock off the Roman Goliath for them. Holy Week was one holy horror after another for Jesus.
And Satan keeps whispering, “Don’t you deserve better than this?” Come over to my side. Go get that divorce. Go for the money and ease. Give in to the lusts every person has—it’s just being human. The Accuser often uses modern counseling as a tool to pry us away. You have your needs. You deserve more. Take it into your hands—God will understand your disobedience. He’s forgiving, isn’t he? What’s one more going to hurt, when it can give you so much relief?”
I get to the bottom line. Am I going to follow Christ into and through this wilderness or am I going to climb out of this canyon where I am so thirsty and hungry and in pain and just relax in the Devil’s Playground?
The speaker asks us to close our eyes and think on all this. I decide I am going for the gold, with the strength God offers. I am going to follow him right down the trail of pain and deprivation and suffering and even death. He told me upfront it was going to be like this. It’s the only way there is—straight through the wilderness. Embracing the pain as he did. That’s what it means to take up the cross, to deny myself. The other way is to seek to save my own life. The result is to lose it.
I’m asking God to sustain me in the desert experience, trusting in what he deems best.

Does HQ Know What Going on Down Here?

2008-11-11T02:57:00.000-08:00

Will someone please tell God?
I’m sitting once more in morning chapel, absorbing the quiet reverence the community here observes, wondering what the Lord will say through the next student preacher. I muse on how the disciples took Jesus aside once to give him some practical advice. I must confess I have been tempted to the same foolishness now and again. After all, does he really know what he's doing? Especially in areas where we think he might tweak his strategy a bit to the left or right? I cannot remember the specifics off the top of my head, but my impression was that Jesus did not take kindly to their counsel. Was that when he told Peter to stop being Satan’s mouthpiece?
Anyway, the preacher and translator take their places at the pulpit to call us to prayer and preparation for the Word. Yikes! They are both women! How can this be in a society where only high caste women count for much? She is dark-skinned—low caste.
Will someone please inform Headquarters? Women are supposed to be silent in church. And a preaching role for females is definitely contrary to proper theological grasp of the New Testament.
And look at the text she takes! It’s Hebrews 10:26-31. This is one of the most challenging passages for those of us who believe in the sovereignty of God in regard to salvation. People who truly know Christ are not supposed to fall away into divine retribution.
She probably has a weak grasp of the text, right?
Wrong! She is rattling off Hebrew and Greek terms in a way that indicates she has done her homework. She refers back to Hebrews 6—another troubling text for Calvinists like me. It tells of how those who are enlightened and have tasted the gift of salvation and the powers of the age to come cannot be brought back to repentance because they are crucifying the Lord all over again.
The text in Hebrews 10 only makes it worse. Those who make a conscious choice to keep on sinning (about salvation by Christ alone) put themselves under God’s judgment. It is well deserved because they trample the precious blood flowing from the cross. They bring upon themselves a “fearful expectation of judgment and the raging fire that will consume God’s enemies.”
She bids us to examine our hearts to see if we are just going on autopilot or are truly repentant for our sins and mistakes. God knows the heart. He is ready with mercy. But we must be sincere in our repentance.
She asks us to stand for the benediction and grasp our neighbor’s hand as we stand in the presence of the God who searches hearts.
Why does God pour out his power through such a humble and, some would say, unqualified vessel as T.G Pushpam?
Uncle tells me later that her dark skin tone signals her origin. She is a low caste—one of the many untouchable jatis in India. But God has gifted her. She will serve with Wycliffe translating the Bible into a language in the remote northern hills. India has over 400 languages!
One thing that brings tears to my eyes (as a far possible for a guy) is to see the interactions here. People are fellowshipping warmly together from groups that Indian society says should not be talking together, nor sitting together, nor eating together, nor worshiping together. The caste system is a pernicious curse. But here the curse has been broken. We are all the same before our God, who created of one blood all the ethnicities of the earth. If you want to see a miracle, this miracle of grace is huge. We are “one in the Spirit, we are one in the Lord.”
On second thought, do not alert HQ. Jesus knows what he is doing.
As I think about this college I shake my head in amazement. It is only twenty years old. But God has raised it up in a forbidding environment here in North India. Thirty full time faculty give second to none education in Bible, theology, music, missions, and culture.
Uncle George, the founder, stands amazed that a kid from a poor family in Kerala could be used for such a ministry. He gave his life to Lord at age 19 and was called from political ambition to ministry. Attending Fuller Theological Seminary in California, he became an officer in Ted Engstrom’s “World Vision” program, designed to help the orphans in Korea after the war there. World Vision has become one of the premier Christian relief ministries in the world.
But George Kuruvilla Chavanikamanil felt a call to return to India—to north India. He resigned his position and shared his call with some friends who soon formed a board to see what could be done.
As he traveled about looking for a place to start a training school, he and his nephew came to the Dehradun area. Land here—as in most of India—is very costly. India, as you know has about one billion souls on land about the size of a third of the USA.
As a fundraising tool one of the board members suggested making a model of the college they were dreaming of. He needed a sense of the “lay of the land.” We have no land as yet.
So he said he would pray that the Lord would help him think of something appropriate. This is where God shows up!
This man had never been to India. But he produced a model of a future campus. He placed it in a flat area with a small hill to the right of the proposed buildings. The hill had a series of terrace-like “steps” that made a height of land.
As George and his nephew Babu explored leads, his wife Leela was praying with church folk back in California that they would find five or more acres of land at half the going price, $25,000 the limit. But land here is more than that for a single acre. Nevertheless, they prayed.
The searchers at last came to Dehradun but nothing materialized. They were about to go elsewhere. They prayed, “Lord, you have to show us the way—we are out of options.”
That day they were told of a local man who had heard of their search for real estate. He sent word that he had a mango orchard off the Kulhan Road that he was willing to sell—the trees were dying and he could get no profit from that land. So George and Babu went out to look. It was nearly dark. They couldn’t really see anything. Unpromising. They went back to the hotel. Babu joked: Did you see any hill, Uncle?”
In the morning the two sensed that the Lord wanted them to go back and look one more time. As they came through the brush to the edge of the dry riverbed they could not believe their eyes. There was a terraced hill across the riverbed. George and Babu raced ahead of the others to stand on this hill and claim it as an answer to prayer. It was exactly as the architect 10,000 miles away had sculpted it on the model!
Price? “It is no good to me--$25,000 and its yours.”
This was the first of many unusual answers to prayer, resulting in a large campus training several hundred young people for evangelism and missions in a very hostile region of India. More of that another time.
I sense that I am living for these weeks on holy ground, the gift of a God who answers prayer in astounding ways.
And by the way—the mango trees all began to thrive once the deed was registered.
I think Headquarters knows what it is doing.

Of Oil and Water

2008-11-10T05:10:00.000-08:00

You should hear the student preachers.
This morning another senior gave his 15-minute exhortation, taking as his text Psalm 133. Seemingly a ho-hum 70-word poem by King David. What can come out this, the last Song of Ascent? Sure—it’s about unity among the pilgrims coming from all corners of the land to the great festival in Jerusalem. But what can we squeeze from this old lemon that’s relevant to 21st century Christians?
The young man hinted at allegory. O my, thought I—not an auspicious start. But then he skillfully noted that this is a poem, a song, and should be understood accordingly. What does David intend by the poetic license he uses with these striking images of oil on the beard of the priest and dew on the snowy peaks of Syria? To us, oil is oil.
We know Bedouin tribes used oil to replenish parched skin—the ancient equivalent of Oil of Olay. So the image of it running down from head to beard to collar makes some sense. That’s the part exposed to the sun. Sort of like us in winter jumping into a cozy bubble bath after a day on the icy slopes.
But here the Bible scholar earns his keep. You see, the emulsion used was a special concoction of oil and spices from the secret recipe of God himself. It was not to be used except to anoint priests. Exodus 30 details the sacred formula: myrrh, cinnamon, cane, cassia to be blended in specific proportions by a perfumer to anoint the Tent of Meeting and its utensils, as well as the priests. It is not to be used for any other purpose. It is a Holy Blend. The harmony of God’s people is thus holy and unique in a world torn by divisions of nation, creed, caste, race, and language.
The dew of Hermon to the peoples of Palestine was a pure and perpetual source of life, feeding the streams that nourished the plains below. Mount Zion in Jerusalem to the south is arid in comparison. Mount Hermon is lofty; Zion is lowly. But the poet imagines the life-giving action of the perpetual moisture of Hermon falling on the people of God as they gather to worship. There the Lord commands life to flourish—life forevermore. In that life humans come together as one before the Living God.
Our preacher now sends the arrows to the mark—straight to our hearts. India is wracked with divisions hard for us in the USA to grasp. While we have discrimination lingering in the background, here it is in your face every day. Caste and color count for much here—it’s the curse of thousands of years of Hindu worldview. Poor and uneducated people have little hope of deliverance from their grinding condition. Gender bias is stronger here also. You see it everywhere—so obvious.
Sad to say, it is present in the churches, along with doctrinal divisions. This is not what God intends. By creation God made but one human distinction: man and woman. None besides. Yet we have a thousand divisions in society and even in the body of Christ. We must get rid of this ungodliness. The connection? The spices lose their individual identity as they meld into the fragrant composite. The two mountains become one in the single mountain range whence the life-giving waters flow, replenished from the dew that falls from the heavens.
The Duke of Wellington, a century or more ago, went to the altar in church to receive the sacrament of the Lord’s body and blood. He came down the west aisle and knelt down to receive the host. At the same time a poor peasant came down the east aisle and knelt. Someone touched the man and whispered for him to arise and wait until the Duke was served. But Wellington, grasping the intent of the touch and whisper, grabbed the man’s hand so he could not rise. “We are all equal here. Stay where you are.” His words carried to the congregation and thus are known to us.
As we rise for the benediction, he asks us to hug the person to our right and left while saying, we are one in the Lord. Now this may seem easy. But for some in this audience it may be a stretch to actually act out across a socially ingrained barrier to that degree. Sitting next to someone not your background and speaking to him or her is one thing. Touching them with an embrace of unity is another.
But the dew of Hermon was among us this morning. “How good and pleasant it is when brothers and sisters live together in unity!”
Sitting in the “seat of the skeptical”—the backbench faculty, I notice that even we hardened old warhorses are actually moved. Good preaching informs the mind of new things mined from the Word of God. But it must also move the heart and energize the will to reach for a new level with God.
Well done, senior preacher!

Food for the Soul

2008-11-09T03:45:00.001-08:00

Today is Sunday. Up early, shower, breakfast and I am waiting for Joel Joseph, a lecturer in Old Testament at New Theological College. He has invited me to go to his church beyond the southwest side of Dehradun at Jamunkhata. I have suit and tie and, most of all, my Bible—the big one that I could preach from for a lifetime if need be.
He comes 25 minutes late. He was trying to call me about the delay. I was out here enjoying the morning sun and waiting for you. No problem. “Oh, by the way, would you bring the message this morning?” Again—no problem.
You see I am experienced in these venues. I have learned, first in Romania then in Kenya that a pastor is expected to have something at his fingertips with no notice. That’s why I told Dale Brown, when he asked me how much warning I needed to fill the pulpit replied, “Fifteen seconds.” During the time it takes to walk up to the platform, I’ll have something come to mind.
As we wait for sister Debbie Sudheer (Professor of English) I begin to thumb through, coming across John 4—the woman at the well of Sychar. That will be good. On the hour ride (it’s 30 miles) I have time to jot a couple of notes on a bookmark.
At 8:45 AM the roads are sparsely dotted with walkers, bikes, scooters, cars and trucks. Surprising, since Hindus do not have a day for worship. It’s every man for himself, so to speak. Joel tells me most offices and all government installations are closed Sundays. I assume it’s a holdover from the British Raj of previous centuries.
We drive by the prestigious Military Academy, equivalent to West Point. The grounds are beautiful as I peer through the gates. Dehradun is also home to dozens of colleges and universities. Reminds me of Boston in that way.
Now the road is narrowing as we turn off to a side track. Fields of sugar cane. Mango groves. Here is the little church building on a tiny plot of land. Joel tells me that the owner of the rice fields and mango orchard to the rear is willing to sell as much land as the church wants. And they need land to move a small orphanage into the site as the building they rent further down in the town is having the rent doubled. The kids are distinguishing themselves in school exams, so there is demand for the school to grow. The new land here will be sold them at a discount. But it’s still about $50 grand an acre.
We park, slip off our shoes and go in. Two NTC grads (in the one-year ministry certificate program) have the place open already. He introduces me to one man who came out Hinduism and is an evangelist. Not by profession. He just helps people in need, prays with them. The locals respect him and he wins some to Christ. I sit up front on one of the few chairs. Around 10 people start to drift in. Singing and an opening prayer get us underway.
The men all sit on the left, women on the right. By 10:30 the young man with guitar is getting things going. Joel moves to the drum set. The volume rises, everyone clapping. There is a woman in front near the wall. Joel had told me she was a Hindu. When she converted, her husband kicked her out and her family shuns her. There is a movement going on as we speak in much of Hindu India protesting religious conversion. I guess there is freedom of religion as long as you don't change - stick with your heritage. This woman cannot carry a tune or stay on key. But there’s nothing wrong with her lungs. She is soaring off pitch to a crescendo of praise to Jesus. In a while she will be doing like jumping jacks and raising her hands. You can see Jesus is all she has. But obviously he is enough. The rest of the now 50-60 worshipers are really into it, too.
I cannot grasp a word, with the exception of "hallelujah." That word is the same everywhere in the world among Christians. But I am smiling with joy. How can you help it when you know the background of these people?
It’s after 11 now. Time for testimonies. One young woman mentioned Special Olympics and special needs as she rattled on. Some words are just grafted into a language from English. After the service she greeted me in English, so I asked her what her testimony was. She works with disadvantaged and handicapped children. She mentioned that she is praying for her Hindu family—she is the only Christian. So we paused and I prayed with her about that.
Joel told me later that another testimony was from a sharp guy about 35 who tries to help poor kids get an education. He was praising God because someone has donated a laptop to one boy, enabling him to get into a technical college.
Now it’s my turn. Joel interprets. I bring greetings from the family back home, our church, and all USA believers. Then into John 4, using one verse. (I have 30 minutes, but half of that will be Joel’s translation into Hindi.) Jesus said to the disciples, “I have food to eat you don’t know about.”
The upshot is that there are two groups Jesus is dealing with. The woman at the well, who has had a troubled life and is probably the target of gossip about town, on the one hand and the disciples—Jewish guys not at all comfortable going through this land of the heretics: Samaria. But the second class—the local people, get the blessing—coming to know that Jesus is the Messiah. The disciples are all hung up about food and why Jesus won’t eat, since they knew he was exhausted from the journey. Jesus has something that has suppressed his hunger and energized his weariness. He has gotten through the defenses of woman in need. He has the joy that comes when God turns on the light in a searching soul.
The more orthodox disciples just get annoyed about hanging around that place for another two days. So Jesus has crossed many barriers to reach us in India and the USA. We are now one in him. We belong to each other as we work for the kingdom until we sit around the table above celebrating the victory of our wonderful Savior.
This is so precious to me. The music was a bit loud for my ears. The floor was cold to my stocking feet. We were there going on three hours and I could grasp almost nothing. But I didn’t care. I was in a place where faith was real. I could feel the intensity of their attention. They wanted to thank Jesus and hear his word and pray for each other. Rough around the edges, yes. But perhaps as genuine as any worship on earth this Sunday in November.
After the congregation leaves, we go upstairs to the small apartment. There three guys have their base for ministry. Just a kitchen and couple of bedrooms. They are cooking rice—in an old-fashioned pressure cooker I haven’t seen since my childhood. A veggie sauce (dall), some chapattis, yogurt, and a plate of sliced red onions. Nice meal.
Joel asks me to pray before we go. This little congregation has already spawned several small daughter churches in the area. It’s hostile territory here. God seems to be ignoring that. PTL
So it’s back through the city. Lots of clogged roads now. Time to put a bag over mt head and just pray.
I think I understand what Jesus said in that text.
"I have food to eat that you do not know about"
Satisfied, though tired. A blessed place to be.

Grinning Like an Idiot

2008-11-07T21:15:00.001-08:00

Why am I grinning like an idiot?
There is no reason for it. It’s sort of like when you get the giggles and can’t stop even though the stimulus is long past. Still—it’s a pleasant experience. As Norm Kuehne often says, it’s better than a kick in the head.
Maybe it’s the setting.
Today as I sit on the balcony upstairs in Uncle and Auntie’s house with the mountains of north India surrounding, the setting is about as perfect as it gets. Wall-to wall sunshine, hardly a whispering zephyr, temperature caressing me like a perfectly drawn bath. The college is off on a picnic miles away. No hubbub coming from the road up the hill with its hectic buzz of traffic and its construction sites. So I sit here with devotional book in hand (its has a gentle leather smell), looking at nothing in particular, and grinning from ear to ear—out loud, so to speak.
This is not me. My mind always races here and there like a squirrel on steroids. So to have my mind alert but calm is a treat. I can almost see the smile of God. Sense his nearness. God is my Father in heaven, my mighty protector and warrior king. But today I am just his friend. The kind of friend you often just sit with, looking into the fire or gazing at the clouds, not needing to say anything. Just being together, that’s all.
Maybe it’s the guy in me. You recall the story of two guys who spent the evening watching the game. The wife comes home from time spent with “the girls,” full of chatter and laughs. “Did you have a good time with Ned, dear?” Yup. “What did you do?” Nothing, really. “OK – talk about anything interesting?” Nope. We just sat and watched the game. “O, I’m sorry….” No—it’s OK—we had a great time!
So here I am smiling, having a great time. God isn’t saying much. I’m saying less. Great time. I can’t stop smiling out loud.
There’s a tree a few feet away and the balcony puts me about half way up. It is broad-leaved, but the branches come out in whorls like pine trees do. Half the leaves have dropped by now. Here comes a bird the size of a cardinal but grey with blue accents and a perky crest. Sits there in the sun just singing. Sparrows and a warbler like bird groom the twigs, while a squirrel splays himself head down on the trunk, soaking up the sun on his back. He is so well camouflaged you wouldn’t see him if he didn’t move. Seems like I’m just another creature motionless in the shade of the balcony. I am hardly breathing.
Here comes that idiotic smile again. Good thing no one is taping this.
A hundred meters away a score of boys is grooming a flat bit of ground—apparently for an alternate playing field. I can barely hear their quiet banter. A pair of girls walks off toward the chapel building, their saris adding a splash of color against the distant hills.
I’ve been here half and hour now—God and I—just being friends. There I am—grinning again!
I am feeling good, too. Rested. No aches and pains today anyway. I have no urgency, no deadline for the day. That helps. Even so, to be at ease like this is a rare gift. I’m not even worrying when it will leave me, though I know it will. Once again God will become my commander-in-chief and I’ll have to strap on the full armor and go off to battle. But that is not troubling me. It’s part of the rhythm of our life in Christ.
There goes another leaf spiraling to the ground below me. A big bee buzzes around my head—noisy little guy.
I pick up the red leather Guide to Prayer. Two quotes catch my eye. “It is so hard to be silent, silent with my mouth. But even more, silent with my heart. There is so much talking going on within me. It seems I am always involved in inner debates with myself, my friends, my enemies…, my colleagues and my rivals. You, O Lord, will give me all the attention I need if would simply stop talking and start listening to you.” Henri Nouwen in A Cry for Mercy.
“Jesus’ relationship to his disciples was that of friendship, chosen friends; he was rather critical of familial ties. His friendship transformed their lives….” Ann Carr.
Maybe that’s why I am smiling so unabashedly. He’s a friend.
Even after the resurrection Jesus took the stance of friend. Those two who were walking dejectedly on the road to Emmaus from Jerusalem, where all the horror had taken place, found a new friend walking along with them, talking current events and Scripture. The three decided to take a room at the inn and to have a meal together. No big deal. Happens all the time in our travels, doesn’t it?
But there was something strange yet familiar in this new friend. He was such an enlightening conversationalist. You just loved to exchange ideas with him. But what is it about him—so familiar yet not? Then he prays over the bread, over the wine. Bingo! He’s gone. The two stare at each other in stunned shock. Silent. Not a word passes between them. They just sit shaking their heads, grinning from ear to ear.
“So God imparts to human hearts the blessings of his heaven,” wrote Phillips Brooks.
Troubles of tsunami proportions lie ahead. But for this hour, this place—peace on earth, goodwill to the friends of God.
I’m still smiling ear to ear, grinning like an idiot, sitting on the balcony with our mutual Friend.

Simple Things

2008-11-07T01:18:00.000-08:00

We are in chapel again. Our speaker is from Sri Lanka originally, But he was a student here in Dehradun many decades ago at Doon Bible College. Later he got a PhD from Fuller—as you may know the seminary home of Uncle George, our sainted founder, and of myself and many friends.
He took the mic in his hands so he could wander a bit as he spoke. He made some comments in sympathy with the students, recalling the 1000s of pages he had to read each 10-week trimester and the 20 page research papers, that sort of thing.
He lit a candle on the pulpit as an object lesson for his remarks on John the Baptist, likening our ministry to the wax (our gifts and talents given through the image of God in us), the stand (our character), and the flame that burns for the Lord (our passion for ministry lighted by our love for people.) Twice he had us doing hand gestures to underscore certain points about leadership in ministry.
He sprinkled in some jokes and used a light touch. Students were definitely with him and applauded after the benediction.
I saw something of myself there. And frankly I did not like what I saw.
What a contrast to the plain earnest proclamations of student preachers we have been sitting under these past days. No gimmicks, no cute stuff, no studied tugging on the audience. Just from the heart, in stilted English. No shooting from the lip. No trying to impress.
I know this man is a true servant with years of accomplishments here in India. But somehow God failed to move my heart. In fact, God told me quite plainly—you are that man in some respects. So my unease with him was in reality unease with myself. I can easily give a good sermon. But that does not mean I have been used of the Holy Spirit.
I am reminded of a parallel.
Leo Tolstoy, that superlative Russian novelist (War and Peace; Anna Karenina, etc.) remarked about the effect music had on him. He was a guest at a grand evening with the nobility. They had dined on the finest in a magnificent setting. A live chamber orchestra had performed the latest Beethoven masterpiece—brilliantly executed and applauded by all.
Traveling home by carriage, Tolstoy passed by peasants harvesting grain. As they bent their backs to their work they were singing a folk song to keep their rhythm. As the sun lowered in the west, soon to mark the end of another day, they sang their way through the hours, toiling by the sweat of their brows.
It struck the great author how moved he was by their simple melodies, hovering pure and clean in the hazy air, in contrast to the busy almost tortured cacophony of the great Ludwig van Beethoven, the toast of every European salon. He found in the peasant song authentic beauty and even truth that moved his soul towards them and towards God. Beethoven may have been an impressive showman of what man can do with sounds and rhythms. But something profound and even ethereal came to his heart through unaffected music, conveying emotions of universal brotherhood.
Tolstoy has a point. It came clear to me in contrasting the polished Fuller grad and the eager students. Some messages are powerful through cleverness; others through the Holy Spirit.
St. Paul, undoubtedly a gifted orator, bypassed his talent when he went to the great city of ancient Corinth. Here’s how he put it.
I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. I came to you in weakness and fear, and with much trembling. My message and my preaching were not with wise and persuasive words, but with a demonstration of the Spirit’s power, so that your faith might not rest on men’s wisdom but on God’s power. I Corinthians 2:2-5
I had heard a well-executed message by a real pro, but left flat, and thinking in a way that I may have heard myself. Lord save us from our gifts and talents. God is working on me, and I am thankful.
Item: I am also thankful a safe return from a cycle excursion to Grace Academy.
As we were at morning tea, Shivraj offered to take me with him to fetch his 6 year old (I can tell cuz she has no front teeth) from school about noon. Otherwise she has to wait for the bus and get back at 3 PM. “You have a helmet?” I ask. “O Yes.”
So he comes on his Prisma to pick me up. “A helmet?” I ask. “We only need one for the driver as the law requires.” OoooooK.
“Hold these,” he says pulling four books wrapped for mailing out of the mesh on the back “seat.” So I hop on, holding the books in one hand and using my best knee grip from Ellie’s college horsemanship class of yore. Off we go.
Pretty tame, as top speed with me on back is 25 mph. We only had to lurch off pavement once to avoid a triple passing play on the opposite lane. I’m thinking, “If anything happens I know I’ll be a grease spot.”
“We’re going the back way to avoid traffic,” he shouts over his shoulder. Real nice drive on a posh private road, free of debris and smoldering trash piles. As we slow for the Speed Breaker (bump, to you) I can read the markers we pass every 100 yards. George Everest headquartered his survey work here in 1846, when he measured the highest of the Himalayas. Makes sense—Mount Everest. Another marker says something about 20 years of trigonometric measuring. He started at sea level a thousand miles south and triangulated from there.
Shivraj parks at the academy and disappears to find his little one. Other parents are picking up kids—all on scooters or bikes. One goes by with a pint-size kid clinging to Dad’s back like a monkey on its mother.
Here’s little Smriti now. “Say hello to Uncle.” “Hello Sweetie,” says I. She grins. He turns the bike around. Sweetie is on the gas tank in front of Shivraj, with her little backpack near the handlebars. I am on back once more, still clutching the books and the grip behind my seat. “Too much traffic to go downtown to mail the books. We’ll go back the same way we came.”
As we part, Shivraj asks if I would like to go again some day next week. Sure—why not?
Perhaps I should pray about it. Some of the weekend ministry teams were cancelled today. Hindu militants are now in this area—an incident a few miles away a few days ago. “Using wisdom”—that’s how the brass put it.

Zelophehad's Daughters

2008-11-06T06:31:00.000-08:00

I couldn’t believe it.
This morning in chapel the message is given by a senior student—part of the requirements for graduation. He announces his text from Numbers 27:1-11. It’s the account of the daughters of Zelophehad. How many sermons have we heard from this passage? For most of us—zero.
How is this going to propel him to the top of his class?
The hymn he chooses is “What a Friend We Have in Jesus.” Does he sense that’s about the only friend he will have at the end of his 30 minutes? And his prayer focuses on the comfort of the Holy Spirit for those most despised and rejected in society—soldiers, HIV/AIDS victims, homeless kids, widows, outcastes. I must say I am a bit nervous for him.
Then he begins to preach. Energy and passion. That’s as it always should be. Preaching is not a lecture on the Bible or its theology. There is a place for that, but not in the pulpit.
He lays the background by inviting us into the story. The congregation is no longer fidgeting. He is preaching as Jesus did—telling a story, a real life account, appealing to our imagination, painting a picture with words. The lessons will be embedded in real life rather than three abstract “points.”
The five daughters are descendants of Joseph, once the prime minister of the super-power of the day—Egypt. Their father has died without any male issue. And this is the basis of their rejection by the Israelites. You are somebody if you have an apportionment in the land about to be possessed. And that land is passed from father to son.
They come, in fear yet boldness as Esther would later do to her king, approaching the ageing Moses—a man not to be trifled with. Their case? “Our father died in the desert.” That means he voted No on the referendum about going up against the giants. He was no Joshua, no Caleb. But, to his credit, “he was not among Korah’s followers. He died in the desert for his own sin.” Korah’s clan had been cursed for open insurrection against Moses, and thus against Yahweh. Yet the people were rejecting these daughters as rebels who had no standing—no right to an inheritance of land, assuming their father had taken part in that rebellion. In other words, society was telling them their plight was all their fault—they deserved it.
“Our father had no son. Give us property among our relatives.” Cheeky women.
In those days other nations acknowledged that the king owned all the territory with his favorites serving as landlords. No one dared claim acreage as his own. Israel, by contrast, was ahead of the times. Their king was God Almighty—he owned everything. And God decreed that all his subjects should have a piece of land they could call their own and thus live in dignity and independence. And every 50 years, if property had been bargained away to pay debts, all of it should revert to the original owners—the Year of Jubilee.
Moses decides to ask Yahweh, God Almighty, about it. The answer is shocking. “Give these fatherless and brotherless sisters property among their father’s relatives.”
The preacher has us engrossed; his word painting is gripping, even though his English is at best so-so. The story is sweeping us along.
Next he applies it to Indian society, where women, if poor, are nothing—often treated as mere sex objects. Children are street kids. Low castes are dirt. The church must stand for these, for God favors their rights to an inheritance of Indian soil.
Then his conclusion. Always end with a story within the story if you can.
“When I was a youth, my Mom and I went to a church service for New Year, invited by some Christian neighbors. We came home late and went to bed. About 3 AM I awoke at the sound of crying. Arising, I followed to the sound. It was Mom. Dad was beating her. “Are you going to choose this Jesus or your family? Not both—choose!” But she could not reply. She was unconscious. I said to Dad ‘What you are doing is wrong.’ But he turned and said he would kill me. I expected I would not see the sunrise again.”
“In a few days my father’s wealth began to fade. He soon lost the house and we had to rent. His business collapsed. Soon he was down to 50,000 rupees. But when I decided God was calling me to train as a pastor God changed his heart. Dad provided half of all his assets—25,000 ($12,000) for my fees and boasts to everyone that his son is going to be a pastor.”
As we bow in prayer we hear a soft reprise of the hymn, What a Friend We Have in Jesus. “Do thy friends despise, forsake thee? Take it to the Lord in prayer. In his arms he’ll take and shield thee. Thou wilt find a solace there.”
We rise for a benediction.
Today’s daughters of Zelophehad populate so much of India and the nations—rejected like so much rubbish by the world. But Yahweh says, “What they are saying is right. Give them an inheritance among their Father’s relatives.”
It’s matter of justice. And God is watching.

Doubts and a Dead Dane

2008-11-05T16:46:00.000-08:00

This about how a dead Danish philosopher came to my rescue. He was kind of an odd duck—as Danes tend to be. This is how it came to pass.
One of the women students came up after class and confided, almost in a whisper, as though she were hesitant to say it, that she had—brace yourself—doubts. Gasp! My first thought is “What have I done?!?!?”
Evidently she was sharing with the girls—oops, women—in the hostel some questions that the philosophy class had stimulated. They were telling her not to doubt things. Just believe. We are supposed to believe. So, was she wrong to have these doubts and questions?
What to say….
Then the melancholy Dane, as he was called, came to my rescue.
The odd duck I refer to was Soren Kierkegaard who was writing his brilliant essays about 100 years ago. He had some aspects of genius, even though his life was a bit, um, shall we say, different?
He was raised in a Lutheran home that was very strict and even dark. You know—sort of Wuthering Heights dark, if you have read that Bronte novel. He fell in love but would never bring Regina to the altar because “he was unworthy of her.”
His dad had a secret never talked about. A sin. Though never mentioned, it dominated the mood of his youthful home. Sin was bad. You were a sinner. God was not pleased with you. All that sort of existential pain.
And Kierkegaard is acknowledged to be the founder of that movement in philosophy known as existentialism. Life, for the Christian, is wrestling with God like Jacob. Or even more, like Abraham, toiling up the mountain with Isaac—the most precious gift God gave him in his old age. The only begotten of Sarah through whom all the promises would be fulfilled. And the lad asks a question.
“Father, I am carrying the wood. You have the fire and the knife. But where is sacrifice?”
You know the answer. But how can you tell the boy he is to be the target of the knife of sacrifice? Now THAT is an existential moment. No glib theological answer is going to cut it. Can you imagine Abraham saying something like this?
“Well, son, you see God is sovereign over all things, even the things we cannot understand, for His ways are not our ways neither are his thoughts our thoughts. So God has told me to kill you. Maybe he can raise you from death, for our God is an awesome God and nothing is to hard for him. Besides, Romans 8:28 says….blah, blah, blah….”
Of course you can’t go on a theoretical excursion into the mysteries of the divine nature. The kid asked an honest question. He deserves an honest answer. No bull.
In fact, no lamb, not even a couple of birds. Say something, Father Abraham!
OK. Here goes. “God will provide the sacrifice, my son.” That may be true but you know it’s not full disclosure. You just pushed it off for an hour or two.
Now stick with me here.
Abraham is in a heck of an existential situation. Theology is nice when you are sitting around with friends having tea. But actually LIVING with a God you cannot see (no idols allowed) in real life is incredibly stressful. We all know how the story turns out. But can you imagine being Abraham?
So Kierkegaard dismissed the smug theology of Lutheran Christianity and showed what real faith demands. It’s not yawning through the Apostles’ Creed once a week. It demands wrestling with confusions that have no pat solutions. A Christian walks with God in fear and trembling.
Getting back to what I am going to say to my student.
The opposite of faith, says Kierkegaard, is not doubt. Doubting, questioning, wondering if the Gospel makes sense, is essential to robust faith. The Gospel is too good to be true. Think about it. The God who created and sustains every atom in a universe this size, cares about a speck known as planet Earth? More—he cares about a handful of bipeds who have poked their fingers in His eye? He himself becomes one of these ugly creatures? Dies for them? Makes them his beloved children and invites them to live with him forever? C’mon! This is crazy. Who wouldn’t have doubts?
The contrary of faith, the Dane said, is indifference. Faith is something you decide to embrace. It is a self-made care about these matters. It is not theory. It is the heart of your life. Am I, an individual toiling up the mountain of sacrifice, going to will myself to believe that God speaks and that Jesus Christ is the savior of the world—more, is MY savior? That is the existential question. And it must be answered in the midst of struggle, disappointment, and anguish of soul.
So I confess to her how often I go down Doubt Lane. The disciples did, too. When people were going away from Jesus and he asked the Twelve if they too were going to take off, the answer was “To whom shall we go—you have the words of eternal life.”
Nor did Jesus berate Thomas for his doubts. He gave Thomas what he needed to satisfy his understandable skepticism about a dead man come back to life.
So it’s OK to question, to doubt, for it prods one to think more deeply and in the end to worship more profoundly. The real danger is when we don’t really care any more. We just go back to the petty pleasures of life and give up wrestling with God.
The final question is not theological. It is this. Am I, a specific person in a specific time and place, walking with the God who loves me even though I cannot understand his ways?
“Where is the sacrifice, Father?” The answer is not “Shut up, I’m your Father!”
The answer is, “Come, touch my hands and my feet, and be not faithless but believing.”

This and That

2008-11-04T19:38:00.000-08:00

Item: Today’s Hindustan Times ran a story that cuts close to home here. It happened in greater Dehradun—a city of several hundred lakh (that’s thousand to you) where this college is located.
Members of the local HVP—a pro-Hindu party with elected officials and substantial support, set upon a priest and some Christians. While the men escaped by fleeing, the mob broke into the church and confiscated literature. The photo of the church showed it unfinished. Just undressed brick walls and a roof, some windows and doors.
As usual the charge brought to the police is “converting Hindus to Christianity,” by promising money and other benefits. The police refused to do anything—the Indian constitution allowing multiple faiths.
So the mob took matters into their own hands, burning the literature and ransacking the church. Ugly—but no loss of life. Not yet.
K.J. Kuriakose, Director of Student Ministries, mentioned this at tea time. He urged students to be respectful when engaging local people, witnessing in discreet ways. He was not saying to mute the Gospel but simply to use wisdom and tact. No one seemed too concerned.
That’s remarkable to this American. Parents are not rushing here to pull their kids from the college and whisk them to safer sites as most of us gutless Americans would do. It’s just a risk you take when you are in the trenches for the King. As Patrick Henry put it, when advocating the much lesser cause of American independence, “Is life so dear or peace so sweet as to be purchase at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God!” We used to sing “Onward, Christian Soldiers.” But that concept has been spiritualized now. No one of the Christians I know at home is really ready to put life and limb at risk. Are we wimps or what?
Christians here are prudent, of course. But they are not about to cut and run. Run for temporary safety, sure. But they do not quit the battle zone. As said some days ago, we can learn a lot from these believers.
Item: I notice no overweight Indian Christians here. Well, not zero. A few middle-aged women and an occasional man may be 10-15% over ideal weight. No young people or children are, however. I have never seen a single obese person in all my travel in India. So what’s up? Is it genetic? The expense of food here? A social expectation? All of the above? Yet their diet is starchy. Lots of white rice and sauces. Maybe the hot spices in their curry burns the calories. I don’t know. But it highlights something really bad in the USA. Our self-indulgence mostly. We have a hard time “just saying No” to any craving that comes over us. Relate that to my earlier question about why we ignore Jesus’ call to “fast and pray.” We’d rather enter into temptation, it seems. I was struck with this at morning tea assembly here. The students get a cup of chai. The faculty gets in addition a single Ritz cracker. No one goes back for seconds, either. Be content with what you have seems to be the Scripture verse in force here.
Item: Yet this is no paradise, either. K.J. displayed a key ripped out of a keyboard, ruining the instrument. These are hard to get out, so it was no accident. He appealed for respect for the property used here in God’s service and hoped that the person responsible would own up to it.
I talked later with Jacob Joseph, the music professor about it. He said that someone in America had given him gift money when he was studying there. (He has a degree in music from Southern Baptist University in Texas. He is also doing a D.Min. at Gordon-Conwell. I recall his visit to West Church a few months ago, checking out our worship team.) He used the money to buy 3 good keyboards for the use of students here. Naturally he is very distressed.
NTC’s music program is unique among colleges here. And they are attracting real talent that will be a powerful ministry asset for the churches, I’m sure. Music is the universal language.
Item: Professor George Oomen greeted me last morning by the moniker assigned me by Uncle George the first year I came here: Dr. G. He asked if I knew what that conveyed in India. I had not clue other than no one on this continent could pronounce Gustafson. (I recall allowing the youth of our church to call us Mr. and Mrs. G when we came to Haverhill in 1959. It avoided hearing our name mangled all the time!) No, no, he said. “Gee” is a word used here to denote respect. (Maybe it is short for guru or something.) Dr. G has a ring to it here in India!
Hmmm... “Dr. Respect….” Hmmm….
Fuhgedaboudit—it ain’t gonna fly!
Item: Solomon’s Psalm. I had forgotten that the Psalm that closes Book II: The Prayers of David, son of Jesse is attributed to Solomon. It sounds a bit like Solomon. A bit self-congratulatory, bordering on arrogance. He is sure he is ruling for God, bringing justice to the crushed and prosperity to the kingdom—getting tribute from tribes and nations far and wide. Nations will bless the ruler in Jerusalem because he gives the credit to God, “who alone does marvelous things.”
How unlike our nation’s attempts to raise the downtrodden and bless the nations. We conduct our good intentions under allegiance to an abstraction—a humanitarian ideal of liberty and justice for all. Solomon, with all his flaws, did it in the name of Yahweh. “ Praise be to his glorious name forever. May the whole earth be filled with his glory.” Psalm 72:19
As I post this the presidential election is about to be declared. It’s nice to be a continent or two removed. No phone calls! No hoopla! Like the old days when we all went to bed and saw the outcome in the morning newspaper. (You know something, there was life before TV, good life. I was there then.)
No matter who, things are not likely to change much. And most of the changes will only make things worse. Defeats will be touted as victories. Declines declared to be advances. Lies lauded as truth. Depravity masked as liberation. It will be ballyhoo of substance.
I remind myself I am only loosely invested here on earth. I have two clear duties, come what may. One is to trust not in human power, wisdom, or values, only in Jesus Christ, the only King worthy of allegiance. A second is to pray for those in authority over us that we may live in enough peace to get the message of deliverance and hope to those who are seeking a better way than anything this world can offer. This in spite of our leaders, for the most part.
I am rejoicing with great peace of heart. God has everything under control. Everything.

Election Dread

2008-11-03T16:35:00.000-08:00

November 4, 2008
Election Day starts a half-day earlier here in India, where sunrise comes before midnight arrives on the east coast of America. So I get 36 more hours to worry, to hang by my fingernails?
Waking early and still in bed, I turn to prayer. This is a critical time for our nation, perhaps a defining time.
It’s stressful for me, because I love the USA. My uncles, cousins, and my brother served in WWII. As a kid I saw the Gold Stars replace the silver stars in windows in my neighborhood—stars for families whose sons would never again sit around the Sunday dinner table to talk and laugh as families do. “For God and Country.”
In those days every school day we listened to our teachers read a Psalm and pause for prayer before we all stood with hand over heart to salute our flag and pledge our allegiance. Something was ingrained in me then. Something that still insists I vote in every election, even if by absentee ballot.
I do not believe in prognostication. But I will admit that when the RED Sox went down before that team in BLUE (Tampa Bay) I wondered if that meant the blue states would take the coming election. Then when the red uniforms of the Phillies knocked off the blue uniforms of the Rays, would that mean the red states would be victorious? I know, I know. This is nonsense.
So here I am in India. Here the US presidential election is not paramount. Terrorists are killing scores almost every week somewhere in this country—not to mention the murder of Christians. That’s what the headlines are about—life and death, literally.
Like the Psalmist who was wracked with anxiety over what was going on around him, as the wicked seemed to get their way, I too went into the House of the Lord, so to speak, and got another perspective. (Read Psalm 73, and note verse 17.)
Can I by being anxious add an hour to my life span? If my hopes are not realized, should I be in despair? If my hopes come true will that make much difference?
As I lay in the pre-dawn darkness God began to remind me of our position as citizens of his kingdom. This world is not my home. I am in it but not of it. Does God care who wins an election and takes earthly power?
Perhaps he searches for motives more than results. Where are our hearts? Either way, God is in control, working his plan. And we know that plan is for the good of those who love him and for the destruction of all earthly powers and opposing heavenly dominions.
So now I have a broader perspective as I pray for “Election day USA.”
The long-range prospect for the kingdoms of this world is not good. Judgment is promised for a fatally flawed human race. We have it coming. We have mocked justice despite the worldwide chatter about the oppressed. Violence is rampant. Sin abounds.
As I muse on these obvious truths, I am in contrition. The problem is not really “sin out there,” but sin within. The question is existential. It is not “why is the world such a rotten mess?” It’s “why am I contributing to that rotten mess?” The problem is not them but us.
There was no hope for me personally aside from the mercy of God. I know that full well. There is no hope in our world at large aside from the mercy of God. As a species on earth there really is no hope for us. We have a spiritual cancer that may be suppressed for a while. In the end we’ll succumb, no matter how we try to ignore the symptoms. No one is going to win this human race. None of us get out of life alive.
So I understand that God is not mocked. We sow; we reap. Our cultures of death will end in death. God is on track as he promised. It’s not as though God has not forewarned us. The Bible outlines it most distinctly. Just read the epistles at the end of your Bible. I, for one, can see it coming.
I guess you could say my expectations are low.
How society treats the powerless is a test of its goodness. We do not protect our own babies, even when they are born, unwanted but alive. We give them a blanket and then toss them in the trash when they expire. We do not do justice for those in prison, for those in economic straits, for the ill. Rather than care for them personally as communities of faith, we commend them to the tender mercies of a government program, faceless and impersonal, so that we can get on with our projects and pleasures. We’d rather “pass by on the other side.”
Wealth obsessed, we as a nation have forgotten God. Pleasure crazy, we have perverted our souls. Why should God stay his hand—his “terrible, swift sword?” Our God is marching on.
But God is not an American any more than Jesus was a Zealot. Who wins elections and takes political power in this world is of little account to God. No final solution can come from this election. Don’t get your hopes up, I say to myself. I am not invested in this quest for power.
So I sing not the songs of Zion in this foreign land. I am to pray for whomever rules over us, as our Lord commands. But even as dark clouds gather on the horizon of history I will not fear. I will pray. I will serve as long as God permits.
I will not be red. I will not be blue. I will be walking in the light of the kingdom that is my true and final and blessed dwelling place.
But did I vote? Yes.
Go and do thou likewise….

Bones

2008-11-02T02:12:00.001-08:00

How can a two-hour worship service be so satisfying?
After a not-so-great night—my Suez Canal a bit rumbly—I dressed my best and ambled to the Chapel just before 9. It is the Lord’s Day.
It all begins with a song or two, followed by an exposition of Psalm 122. That psalm is one of fifteen Songs of Ascent, probably used on pilgrimage to Jerusalem by Israelites going up for the annual festival. It speaks of their delight in God, thanking God for the privilege of being in his presence. Our leader exhorts us with excitement to let our joy be known. To let our thankful hearts overflow.
Next the music team comes to the high platform behind the pulpit stage. I recognize the leader as one of my students. He has some Asian features to his face, and a huge smile. For 30 minutes we segue through songs in English and Hindi, contemplative and exuberant. Saving my strength I am sitting, but he soon has the congregation on their feet, expressing their joy. Then it calms down to more introspective tones.
Following this the leader asks for people to stand and say their testimony or prayer requests. Two gophers with wireless mics get to those who speak one after the other so there is no awkward waiting between. Requests for ailing parents, for one who met with a car accident, and thanks for the girls who were stricken with food poisoning two nights ago and are doing OK now. Soon a brother in the congregation is requested to offer the prayer, which he does in Hindi.
Next it’s the offering. The “plates” are actually stainless rods about two feet in length with red velvet pouches on the end—like the ones we have in our antique collection, not used in over a hundred years.
Children are dismissed to kid’s church. And I am in the pulpit. It’s 10:15. We have already been in God’s presence over an hour. My message will be 25 minutes. But with the translator it will use up more than double that time.
I had selected the theme of bones—something I had never thought of preaching on.
But bones in the Bible are significant. We know our bones will outlast any other remnants of our bodies. And we want them to be placed respectfully in an appropriate place. We are people of a particular time and place. Ruth told Naomi, “where you are buried, there will I be buried,” when she chose another people as her own. Joseph, though he lived over 100 years in Egypt, insisted his bones be brought back to the land of his people. He may have lived in Egypt but Egypt was never his home. Do we resonate with that?
Jesus took on the flesh and bone of Mary, even though his home was in another world. Yet he came to unite us with himself. After the resurrection he assured his disciples he was not an apparition: “see, a ghost does not have flesh and bone as you see I do.” As we become part of His Body we no longer belong to this world. We insist that on the Great Day our bones be brought to our new homeland. As Hebrews puts it, they could have returned whence they came but they sought a better homeland—a heavenly one.
The first mention of bones in Scripture is in Genesis 2. After the Creator anesthetizes Adam, he makes Eve out of the same DNA. “This is great – she is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh.”
Adam went into the darkness of a deep sleep and came out with a bride!
Jesus went down into the darkness of tomb and came out with His bride—the bride of Christ.
I Corinthians 15 describes this in some detail. We shall all be changed. But we’ll still have flesh and bones, now glorified, grafted to our Lord himself. And of course Jesus, according the remarkably inspired Psalm 22, was poured out like water, tongue sticking to the roof of his mouth, able to count all his wasted bones while others mocked and gambled for his stuff. Yet not a bone of his was broken, despite the fact that Roman soldiers routinely broke legs to hasten death. He made the ultimate sacrifice. Therefore God exalts him above every name, and we get to sit alongside on the throne he alone deserves. He will not forget his bride, the church.
Just as a band of brothers in a military unit, no matter how fierce the battle, promises to leave no man behind, so our Commander in Heaven leaves no one behind.
Bones and all, we shall be forever with the Lord in the new heaven and the new earth.
I give a benediction. The gathering begins to slip quietly away—another Lord’s Day done—spent in the sweet presence of the One who loved us and gave himself for us.
So here I am now, in Uncle George’s house, having been able to eat a modest lunch of rice and veggies. I sit in the sun in my T-shirt with one of his devotional books. I seldom enjoy such long periods of solitude—many hours at a stretch. It’s a beneficial change from the frenzy that life is at home.
Workmen are here working on the walls, digging a trench with pick and adze. For Hindus this is just another day to do another day’s work. Very little machine work here. More laborers are in demand and more mouths fed by hand labor. The clink and clang of their tools, along with leaves falling from the thirsty trees, provides a pleasant patina for meditation.
While this is no Egypt, I am not truly at home here in India in the final sense. I say to myself— “when God sends you aid, take these bones back whence they came.”
In New England I was born, there shall I be buried—awaiting the trumpet call for the final leg of our journey together.

Fast and Pray

2008-10-31T07:39:00.000-07:00

If you got the news, more tragedy rocked India today. Blasts killed close to 100 innocent people in various targeted areas. The Hindustan Times had it all over the front page.
What an appropriate day for the fall semester Day of Fasting and Prayer here at New Theological College.
I have been part of several such days. The first was in Kenya about 10 years ago. When I returned from Scott Theological College that year I hosted a similar day at our church. We had a wonderful time. But, like every prayer effort we attempt as a congregation, it went nowhere.
The rest have been here in India. I admit it is easy to have such a day here where we all live in one campus. Classes are cancelled. What a gift. Here’s how it went down.
After personal devotional time in at home the chapel opens for the day’s events.
I tuck my Bible and a devotional book, published by Upper Room, that I found in Uncle George’s library under my arm and amble along the walkways to this new building that sits on the height of the campus’ acres. The sun warms the earth as it lifts over the rugged hilltops a few miles to the east.
Palm and mango trees host birds that seem to be enjoying the sparkling air. Bougainvillea is in bloom, along with marigolds and many more flowering annuals, as well as those plants with showy leaves.
I am one of the first, not realizing that the service will start about an hour later than a class day chapel service. No mind. Who could help but enjoy pulling a chair to the window, with the sun warming one’s back, and praising God for the mountains to the north, its tiptop houses white in the morning sun? They look like teeth that have been treated to a whitening process.
I have been asking God to show me a text for my Sunday morning sermon, now just two days away. After thumbing here and there, as usual something starts to click and Scriptures lead one to another. It will have something to do with bones, I think. But that’s for another day.
I rise to take a few photos of the breath-taking scene. What a location for a house of worship! We can see in every direction.
Wait! What’s that catching my eye? A 5-inch lizard scoots along the window ledge—a ledge that goes around the whole perimeter of the room, probably 500 feet of it. Zoom the Canon and snap a shot.
I recall the Scripture that speaks of how lizards live in the palaces of kings, doing their share of house-cleaning, I suppose.
I hear something tapping on the windows. It’s a jay-like bird clinging to the frame of these metal windows and tapping gently here and there. Are they sharpening their beaks or just being playful? I hope the shot comes out—they flit about energetically. They may not be sparrows in the taxonomical sense, but they have made a nest for themselves even near the altar, as the Psalmist noted 3000 years ago.
The worship team assembles yards away to get instructions from Professor Matthew, who is leading the first session. Men, women, faculty, and their families are drifting in.
Once again—silence. Beautiful silence. No tapes playing. No whispering let alone talking. Heads are bowed, Bibles open. I sense the presence of God.
Matthew and the translator take their places at the pulpit. Quietly we begin. He previews the day. We’ll be praying the ACTS sequence. We will break up into small bands of 7 or so by turning our chairs at the right time. We’ll spend 15 minutes in pure Adoration of who God is. After a song we’ll focus on Confessing our own and also corporate sins. Then it will be time for Thanksgiving. Supplications will come in the afternoon.
The time flies by.
Then the worship music team leads us in another time of singing—mostly Hindi songs, but a few English—Shout to the Lord, Above All Kingdoms, Blessed Assurance are among those I can do more than hum along with. But humming is fine, too. It lets me watch this community swaying to the music or clapping to the beat, raising the occasional hand. Pretty much like home—so far.
I think how privileged I am to be adopted as a member of this band of believers.
We leave for an hour break. It’s half ten.
Coming back, we are ready for the preaching service. Professor Thomas Cherian, an Old Testament scholar, begins his hour long exposition of Joshua taking the city of Jericho. It’s a slow start, and he is struggling to get into the English mode. (I don’t know how these folk switch, usually with fluency, from Hindi to English. By the time he is twenty minutes along he is getting his rhythm. He is applying the text to our situation, too. And while some of his exegesis is a bit of stretch, he makes four points as the walls come tumbling down—the first walled city Joshua captured with 30 still to go. God can bring down walls that seem too big for us to conquer if we trust and obey.
It’s a standard type of sermon, really. But as we are running toward the one-hour mark, he kicks for the finish line. His voice is elevating and quickening its cadence. Soon he is praying and exhorting us to cast our troubles onto the Almighty and to believe for healing of our fears, our disobedience, our aliments and our sufferings.
Now the congregation begins to pray aloud, crying to the Lord. It’s not chaotic, mind you, or edging toward excess. I feel caught up, but not more than you would expect from a philosopher and congregational Calvinist minister. Up until today I have been perhaps more expressive in chapel than most of these charismatics. Today, however, they pull ahead of me and show their stuff.
Now don’t get me wrong. This is not over-the-top Pentecostalism by any means. Nothing like the questionable shows you see on religious TV. But they are showing their love in an enthusiastic way.
Time for 2-hour break for private prayer and rest. No food has touched lips so far.
I will confess that I had a Wasa bread at the earlier break and a small breakfast at noon that I fixed myself. But then, I’m in a strange land trying to keep well enough to do what I came for without chancing a problem. I prayed about it and got what I took to be a green light. Full disclosure here.
The thing that impressed me most about the morning, however, were the prayers of confession in our group, mostly faculty. Not shy about asking the mercy of God on our many offences and compromises. Why is this so rare back home?
At 2:30 we are back for the communion service, presided over by Professor George Oomen. He is wearing a collar-like shirt and using a prayer book as well as his Bible. He gives a brief homily from the I Corinthians, exhorting us to eat and drink worthily. I find the crafted wording of his comments beautiful to my ear and heart alike.
The attendants come up to help. Four men on one side; four women students on the other. The first holds a plate with bread pieces, the second a tray of cups. We file down the center aisle, beginning with the front rows—men to the left, women and faculty to the right. Take the bread piece. Drink a cup and return it right to the tray. And move away in a circle.
But here is the unusual part. Rev. Oomen has explained that there is a voluntary foot washing to remind us of what Jesus did for his disciples in John’s Gospel chapter 13. We had already left our sandals under our chairs.
In the side sections to right and left of the main auditorium, chairs have been set by twos, facing each other, with a basin in between. A towel is on the arm of one of the chairs.
As I stand waiting, one of the girls motions me to a chair. I see no partner moving with me. But I sit down. The man who appears at this station is Simon Samuel, the principal of NTC. He smiles, kneels down, pouring water from a pitcher over my feet, then drying with the towel. This man is a top scholar and godly man whom I respect greatly. I sense how the disciples might have felt when Jesus himself stooped to this lowly service.
I do the same for him. We rise, embrace with joyous smiles and return to our seats.
As we are coming to the end, it is time to greet one another with a holy kiss—men to men, women to women. (This is India.) So we all mix about, embracing the way you see people in the middle east do when heads of state meet together.
Now its time to go down for tea—this time everyone gets a large semi-sweet bun to break the fast.
As I am walking back to the guesthouse I muse on the beauty of this refreshing day spent with the Lord and his dear ones.
At home we have lost the art and discipline of fasting and praying, even though Jesus commends it. Why is that, I wonder?
I have only a possible answer.
Our brothers and sisters in India, China, Iran, Arab countries, Africa and other like places are under obvious attack by the enemies of Christ. To stay true to the mission to love their enemies they seek a deeper level than most western churches do.
When we get to the place where bombs are killing believers within our borders and mobs are torching churches, then perhaps we’ll become faithful to the Lord in this matter.
For Jesus did say, when asked why his disciples did not fast, that they would fast when “the Bridegroom” was taken from them. Hence the early churches fasted as well as prayed as a matter of course.
What a shame that we are so weak on corporate prayer and totally absent when it comes to corporate fasting.
These brothers and sisters have a lot to teach us.

What A Friend

2008-10-29T22:57:00.000-07:00

Come, walk with me this morning.
I had a good sleep last night. How about you? For a week I have been fighting sleep starting at about 7 PM—like you do when driving late at night and your eyes keep fending off micro-bursts of sleep. Last night I gave in and “went under” at 8 PM When I woke it was still pitch dark. I listened for sounds that would clue me what time it was. I didn’t flash the light at my watch for fear it would show 1 or 2 AM as it had other nights. So I lay there listening for clues. Diwali fire crackers (still the wee hours), the wren in song (close to dawn), or the early traffic out on the Kulhan Road. No sounds at all.
Nothing.
I hate to get up when it’s the middle of the night, don’t you? It re-starts your brain so that it’s hard to get it back into sleep mode. But there was no putting it off. Up. "Heigh ho, heigh ho, it's off to go I go." Consult the watch. 5:30 AM! I couldn’t believe it. I actually slept nearly 10 hours!
So let’s go! Find shoes. Take key. Sling the stretch cord around my neck. Out the door.
The hills are etched against the sky to the east, north and south. Look—there’s Orion’s famous belt. We must be looking southwest. It’s cool but not cold. Walk faster, we’ll warm up soon enough. I flex the squeezers on the end of my exercise stretch cord. Keep those hand and arm muscles toned. Use it or lose it. At my age if I lose it it’s not coming back!
Night lights on the buildings blink off—must be dawning. Lights in the Women’s Hostel appear. Its 6:00 now—time for their corporate devotions prior to breakfast.
Wash up. Dress up—long sleeve shirt today. Breakfast at 7:15. Grab a Bible. Over the ups and downs of the men’s walkways (girls take a different path and enter the Chapel through a different stairway to sit in the women’s block of seats) and into the new chapel.
Not a sound can be heard even though there are already over 100 present. This chapel is so huge compared to the first chapel, which is now used for music classes. If they roll in more plastic “Walmart” arm chairs over 1500 can be seated, as for a graduation.
Not a sound as we sit in the faculty/staff section and read from the Bible or meditate upon the rising day.
A bell sounds a single tone. The music team files onto the platform to pick up their guitars or to stand at the mics for singing. The speaker and his interpreter take their stations at the pulpit.
This month the seniors are doing the services by turns. A tiny video cam stares at the podium. The ministry professor will do a re-run in preaching class later in the day. But now we are here to worship not critique.
He begins—as they all do—thanking the professors, his sponsors, the founders of the college—but he does not mention his parents. He also thanks his fellow students, since as a freshman he felt lonely and now he has seen how many have befriended him. (This is significant—hang on.)
Our preacher, after we sing “What a Friend We Have in Jesus,” announces his text from John 11, the raising of Lazarus from the dead. His sermon is Jesus as Our Friend.
Do you notice how hard it is to get his meaning? English is his second language and he has a long way to go. But having every sentence paused by the rhythm of the translator gives us time to dig out the words from the sounds we have just heard that pretend to be English. God must be helping us, because we can follow his train of thought.
His simple message reminds me of the one I preached as a candidate for the pulpit at West Congregational Church on October 25, 1959—Christ, Our Redeemer the title. So also our speaker has the three obligatory points early pulpiteers are encouraged to adopt before they get experience enough to be more creative.
Jesus is a friend. Jesus is a good friend. Jesus is a mighty friend—three points.
Jesus loved Lazarus, Martha and Mary. He was always welcome in their home as a haven from his stressful ministry. Martha loved people by action, serving them. She goes out to the edge of town to meet Jesus as he chats at the gate with the elders. Mary, the shy contemplative who loves by listening, has to be sent for. They all meet at the tomb, along with scores of neighbors gathered to help the sisters mourn.
Then the shortest verse in the English Bible—John 11:35. (In confirmation class at the Swedish church back in 1945, I recall how cousin Harry Carlson selected that verse when the pastor told us to come with a verse of our choice memorized next week.) “Jesus wept.” Jesus truly cares. He weeps not out of sorrow like the other mourners, but out of anger that death should despoil life when God created us to live endlessly in fellowship with him. Yes, Jesus is a good friend.
Then he raises Lazarus from the dead and restores him to his sisters and neighbors. Jesus is a mighty friend. So when we go through sorrows and sufferings in life we know he has not abandoned us. “What a friend we have in Jesus, all our sins and griefs to bear. What a privilege to carry everything to God in prayer.” He has us rise for a benediction. We are dismissed.
We have been truly blessed, don’t you agree? Sure, this word was plain, even homely. The speaker is a beginner and stretching to deliver his word in English. But God has spoken to our hearts.
Did you like his bit of humor? Always a good thing in any sermon.
This mullah is arguing with his wife at an ever-increasing decibel level that all the neighbors can hear. He demands she change her ways or he will divorce her. (Muslims can divorce a wife by simply saying three times, I divorce you.) A friend knocks on the door and is invited in. “How is everything going with you? How is the wife?” the visitor asks. “Just fine, thank you—everything is fine.” He tells his wife to prepare a cup of tea for their friend. “You are divorcing me, so get yourself a new wife and have her make your cups of tea!”
As we break up, I notice that the faculty and staff are not signing the attendance register today. The side desk is empty. There has been a bit of sickness going around so maybe the staff woman didn’t make it to chapel with the book. Last night four girls were stricken with stomach bugs—probably from some Diwali festival food brought in from off campus. In a few hours they were OK. We queue at the stairwell. (Can you imagine if there were an emergency how 1500 people would get out using two single-file stairways?)
I see Simon Samuel, the principal, and remark on the sermon. Did you catch what he said about the preacher’s background? This student had been brought as a small child to a Hindu temple and offered to the god. He was raised by the priests and never saw his parents again all during his growing years. He still suffers from the scars of abandonment, for even when he located his parents no relationship was ever established.
So when he preaches on Jesus, Our Friend, the community hears a profound testimony. There were tears in some eyes, Simon says. When he urged us to remember we have a mighty friend in times of sorrow and even death, he is not mouthing a platitude. The friendship of Jesus and of the community has changed his life. He now belongs to a Father who will never abandon him to some god in this world. He now has a beloved community of brothers and sisters who support him.
We descend the stairs in a thoughtful mood.
Once again God has spoken through the lowly ones. The more homely and halting the messenger, the more powerfully the grace and glory of God shine upon the hearers.
God chose Mary, not some princess, when he came into our world. He chose to send to us a Savior via a peasant home in a hamlet, not a grand villa in upscale Jerusalem. He still speaks through halting speech to arrest our attention, not the slick oratory of the teleprompter.
God knew I needed to hear that. What about you?

Terrors of the Night

2008-10-27T16:44:00.000-07:00

Terrors of the Night.
When you are away from home it’s the nights that get to you. Sleep patterns are askew.
Especially during a Hindu festival week. No noise ordinances here. Not that the night firecrackers were overpowering. They were just relentless—like a toothache that is not that excruciating but it just won’t let up.
On my early morning walk the day previous I noticed the crescent moon coming over the mountains just before dawn. Must be new moon tomorrow, I said to myself. I did not have the wit to know that many cultures center significant events around the new moon. Tonight I figured it out—at 3AM. All day yesterday crackers were banging away, echoing off the hills that circle the college in a green crescent opening to the south.
Stumbling out of bed I fire up my trusty MacBook to call up Wikipedia from the digital deep. Ms. Wiki had this to say about Diwali. (Or Divali – have you noticed Indian speakers of English pronounce all v’s as w’s and vice versa?)
"Festival of Lights," where the lights or lamps signify victory of good over the evil within every human being. Diwali is celebrated on the first day of the lunar Kartika month, which comes in the month of October or November. In many parts of India, it is the homecoming of King Rama of Ayodhya after a 14-year exile in the forest, after he defeated the evil Ravana.[4] The people of Ayodhya (the capital of his kingdom) welcomed Rama by lighting rows (avali) of lamps (deepa), thus its name: Deepavali. This word, in due course, became Diwali in Hindi. There are many different observances of the holiday across India.
Firecracker Concerns
Nowadays there is a significant growth in campaigns on creating awareness over the adverse impacts of noise and air pollution. Some governments drive to keep the festival less noisy and pollution-free. The Tamil Nadu Pollution Control Board has banned production of crackers with noise levels of over 125 decibels.[14] In survey of UP Pollution Control Board, it was revealed that the emission of smoke was found more in the light illuminating fire crackers. Levels of SO2 (Sulphur dioxide) and RSPM (respirable suspended particulate matter) was found marginally higher on Diwali day. Crackers, which use large quantities of sulphur and paper, spew out sulphur dioxide and charcoal into the air, also lead and other metallic substances are suspended in the air causing respiratory problems.[15] Considering these facts, bursting of crackers is prohibited in silent zones i.e. near hospitals, schools and courts.
Notice it does not mention theological colleges nor monasteries. Just over the wall from this house there is a Tibetan Buddhist monastery. So we are not in a quiet zone. “Good over Evil—my foot! Robbing a man of his sleep!
OK. No problem. It’s not much different from Fourth of July back home on Liberty Street where the Mahoney’s next door light the sky for an hour or two—except here there are only “bangs” with nothing to see in the night sky. And they go on for hours—in many homes and hovels of the Hindus surrounding us. Background noise all day and into the night. You’d think you were in a Los Angeles gangland.
Then the neighbors all went to bed, I guess. The noise stopped and woke me up. That’s a strange phenomenon—but it happens. At home I hear the refrigerator every time it stops, but not while it’s running. Bizarre.
So what goes through the mind in these night watches?
Let’s start with prayer. OK – but I’m not trained as a monk, so that lasts only a few minutes.
We move on to people. Nice. People back home like you. Family. And then there is my wife, the idol of my life, singing, “Roll a ball a bowl a penny pitch.” You’re too young to remember that silly ole top ten tune from last century. But my brain is idling and things like that pop up from the depths of one’s depravity.
I think how my dear Ellie is facing the stealthy encroachment of winter in New England all alone. Heavy frosts creep into her garden each night to nip another rose bloom. She is stoking fireplace and wood stove, hauling wood from the porch. All my jobs, piled onto her sagging back while “her man” is basking in Indian summer in his shirt sleeves and T’s.
How come I am smiling now? I should be feeling guilty. But I’m not as good as I should be at guilt. More depravity, I guess.
Ah, Ellie. Whatever things are noble and praiseworthy, think on these things the Good Book says. So I think….
Her new novel, already in the womb of the publisher and scheduled for a C-section the first of the year, brings to mind scenes from the life of King David as she so colorfully portrays him—warts and all.
I meanwhile am lying alone in bed. I should be in bed with my mate-with-the-icy-feet. Another opportunity for guilt—but it doesn’t quite break to the surface. I recall her portrayal of David when the old guy was my age, shivering in what would be his death bed. They had to bring in the young Abishag to be the king’s hot water bottle. That sounds good—but my hot water bottle is a continent or two away.
I begin to muse on age—a cheering thought. We all try to deny it. Botox, face lifts, emoluments of all kinds, enriching the entire vanity industry. Go on. Spend your money—it won’t stop the ravages of time.
My mind goes one more step down into the cellar of the soul.
If Ellie were to write a sequel to her David novel (The Stones), I wonder if Abishag would show up? What became of that girl who warmed the dying king? My drowsy mind comes up with a poem Ellie can use to portray the once ravishing Abishag as she suffers (as all protagonists in novels do) rejection and sinks into a tragic last chapter. Her cruel husband looks at her at his side in bed. He’s no king, but he is a guy. And all guys (in this sequel’s view) are the same, right?
Turn to the last page. He is looking at her as dawn breaks after a dark and stormy night.
“What becomes of Abishag/now that she’s a shriveled hag? She no longer warms my bed/Better off if she were—DEAD!”
That’s a true-to-real-life ending if ever there was one. I can’t wait to see how Ellie will build up to this immortal climax in Bible novel II! Maybe she can title it “The Pebbles.” Law of entropy in one hot water bottle’s life and all that….
See what I mean by the terrors of the night?
And you, dear reader, are the beneficiary of this diseased mind, the Phantom of the Guest House. Blame Diwali.

The Light of His Presence

2008-10-25T00:49:00.000-07:00

Why is it one sometimes senses God’s presence more palpably in a special environment?
People do differ on how they relate to God most powerfully. I recall a sermon series by pastor David Midwood on the various pathways to God. For some it is through prayer. For others it’s activity—doing a service for others in God’s name. Or it may be through music and the arts, and so forth.
Being one whose primary orientation to life is through ideas, I find awareness of God difficult. Often I envy those who seem close to God without any apparent effort—they breathe God in as easily as their lungs take in air.
But when I am in a close-knit believing community, as I have been the last few days, God seems to “be there” in an almost palpable way. For me, orientated to reality mostly by intellect, this is refreshing.
As Pascal and others have noted, it is hard to find God by using your head. Proving God exists simply gets you to another idea of God, not to God himself. God is not an idea, even though we humans all have some idea about him.
(Now before you tune me out, give me another few lines, please.)
As you likely know, I have been teaching philosophy for forty years. Philosophy tries to give an intellectual formulation to life—a worldview. A worldview is a set of ideas that makes sense by explaining what is real and what our place is in that reality. A good worldview provides a reasonable, though incomplete, understanding of the human condition enabling us to make sense out of our life experience.
Some can live successfully never thinking about the worldview that lies under their outlook on life, guiding them in their decisions. They just live. They don’t much think about living. That sounds appealing to me when ideas constantly whirl around in my head.
But in philosophy classes we have to bring all this to the surface so we can look at it and make adjustments. Sort of like the surgeon who pulls half your guts out to have a look and do repairs. Only he puts you under so you are not aware of what he is doing. Worldview repair requires you operate on yourself—consciously. Painful!
(Are you still with me? I know I’ve lost most of you by now. Ah well. C’est la vie.)
The biggest question humans ask has to do with God. If God is, that has got to be the ultimate reality that frames everything else. If God is not, then everything is on a different footing. So how do we know?
Many of my online students are skeptical of God’s existence because “no one can prove” God exists. The proof they are referring to usually is some kind of tangible proof, scientific proof. They would believe if they could see God. Absent that, God is just an idea we have imagined for some reason—a crutch in a scary world, a leftover from our ancestors’ superstition—that sort of thing.
(Now be patient. I will pull this all together, I promise. But you have to hang in there with the other 20% who are still pulling on the oars, 80% having clicked off to watch TV.)
To ask to see God is like asking to hear a color. It doesn’t make any sense to come at it that way.
God (if God exists) is not a physical thing (corporeal as philosophers would say). God is an incorporeal spiritual reality. He has no size or weight, for example, any more than the thoughts you are now thinking have size or weight. (Learning lots of new ideas does not make you gain weight, even though we speak of heavy thoughts.) So of course we cannot see God as we see the moon or “see” an atom.
God is known through spiritual awareness. This is tough for many of us who live in a materialist society. (Jings! As I wrote the last sentence the electricity went out here! Scared me, too. I felt for a second like the kid who kicked the light pole in New York City the same instant that the famed blackout of the entire northeast USA occurred back in 1970-something. “What have I done?” Thank God for laptops! And sunlight. Although we haven’t gotten God into our worldview yet.)
Where was I? Oh, yes.
God can only be experienced by spiritual apprehension, not sensory experience.
We know God as we know the mind and heart of another person. We cannot “see” another person, only their skin, so to speak. While the senses may be the medium through which we enter into their presence (words spoken, gestures seen), who they are cannot be a physical “thing.” (Here come the lights back on! Is Someone playing games with me? Cut it out!)
No one can see an idea. Even though ideas must be shared through some physical medium—perhaps bytes or marks on a page, the bytes and marks are not the idea. To ask to see the idea with your eyes as you see the marks of writing on this page is silly. Your eyes see the marks that make up the words but when you “see” what I mean (the ideas) it’s a different kind of seeing. A book has no mental content as such. The story is apprehended by your mind. You cannot see the story by peeking into the book’s pages. You have to grasp the story in a “spiritual” sense. “Romeo and Juliet” exist even though no one ever spoke with them physically.
Here’s what I am driving at.
God has made himself known to me here in north India in a fresh way. He is spirit—a person who exists in himself. And God exists also in those whom he indwells. Not all of God, of course, for God is infinite in his immensity, as theologians phrase it. But God is there in the hearts of those who love him, just as air exists in those who breathe.
(Those blasted lights just went out again. Aaaargh! I can no longer see my notes. But I can still “see” my train of thought.)
So if one wishes to experience God, he opens himself to God by spiritual means. Prayer/meditation is perhaps the standard avenue to God.
For me, however, I find I am in the real presence of God by visiting him in this community of his people. This theological college, hard by the foothills of the Himalayas, has some 300 souls concentrated in a compact five acres of land. All of them love God and are filled with the Holy Spirit of God. I am experiencing God through this high dosage 100-proof distillation of the life of Jesus in the hearts of his people here. The invisible Christ is mediated through the visible Body of Christ in this place. It is not the entire body of Christ, but it is Christ nonetheless, similar to my connection to all earth’s atmosphere through the tiny sample that I breathe.
In any healthy portion of the Christ-community the reality of God is experienced. God dwells in the hearts of his people, just as the ancient prophet observed millennia ago. But I say “healthy” because the body of Christ on earth is a work in progress and suffers spiritual maladies. Some of these are hardly noticeable to us, sort of like when we have the sniffles. Others are moribund, torn by deadly conflict that infects the community in question. In fact, some such congregations are pruned away in the end-amputated, if you will.
I know that this community of Christians at New Theological College, as every other Christian community, is not without impurities. It has members who are in process, who are more in doubt than indwelt. They hopefully are seeking. But they may not be there yet.
Notwithstanding, if my philosophy student wants to “see” God, go to a community like this one, where God’s Spirit is dwelling. Focus not on the imperfections or on those who are mostly still searching for a relationship with God. When you visit a church look at those who have walked a long time in the presence of God. Listen to their conversations one with another.
You will see and hear God’s presence, though not with perfect clarity. There will be static in the transmission. But you will experience God. You will see. You will hear. And through the medium of sight and sound you will become aware of God, who is seeking you out all the while. But you must be sincere, not cynical. Jesus said, “Blessed are the pure in heart—they shall see God.”
(The lights just switched on again as I was typing those last thoughts! Hmmm...)
So here I am in an empty house on a quiet Saturday, alone with God in a semi-monastic setting, set apart from the bustling world just a few miles downhill. It is a gender-blender monastery, because the sisters and brothers live in the same community. Many of the older ones are married and have children. All are walking in God.
It's a bit like the concentration of energy in a sports arena. Almost everyone is a fan of the team and the team spirit can be overwhelming. As we say, you can almost cut it with a knife.
It’s refreshing for person like me to “see” God’s presence so manifest here. I close my eyes and can sense the reality of God’s nearness.
Thus we taste and see that the Lord is good. Someday we shall see our Lord and God “face to face.” We shall know him fully even as we are fully known by him.
Meanwhile we treasure days like this when God is not behind the clouds of our often-stormy lives but shining brightly on us.

Orissa bloodshed

2008-10-22T17:22:00.000-07:00

I hoped, in coming to India, to get more insight into the well-publicized unrest in the state of Orissa (pronounced o-REES-uh) where rioters have attacked Christians. The Times-Nation of Tuesday, October 21, 2008 had a news report and a commentary on the situation.
“Communal riots battered Orissa government on Monday rejected (an archbishop’s) demand for 300,000 rupees for the reconstruction of damaged and demolished churches…saying giving grants to religious places was against its secular ethos.” Also opposed was a request for paramilitary protection of NGO workers who distributed relief for victims of the violence.
A women police team had also arrested a suspect in the rape of a nun, but the state government refused the demand for a probe into the matter.
Background: In August Swami L. Saraswati had been killed. He had been a vocal campaigner against the “illegal” and allegedly forcible conversion of many in the Pani community to another religion—Christianity, still perceived by the masses as a foreign religion. This sparked a reaction by the Kandhas community against Christians, even though the murder was carried out by Maoists, who more recently killed a dozen people in Chhattisgarh.
The commentary blasts the government for in-action, not only in this recent case, but in 1984 Sikh riots, in 1992 Mumbai riots, and in the Gujarat riots of 2002. In Orissa 107 churches were torched starting on Christmas Day last year, followed by descration of Bibles and statues, and burning houses in “pre-meditated and well-organised attacks” that left at least six dead and thousands homeless. “Victims were mostly tribal or Dalit, poor Christians.” The gangs were local Bajrang Dal activists responding to the Swami’s preaching about “wiping Christians off the face of Orissa.”
Analysis.
Friends here are providing me some insight on this.
The Bajrang Dal is one of several activist wings of the Indian Hindu party, the BHP. BHP is a missionary movement within Hinduism. They have many fronts in the USA funded from India. Many of these fronts are yoga centers that appeal to the desire for stress-reducing techniques among many Americans. Meditation and other eastern methods of spiritual development are often (not always) provided by this Hindu missionary movement.
The Dalits are low caste Hindus—the untouchables. The Hindu caste system requires them to do menial tasks that would pollute higher caste people working their way up the re-incarnational cycles to liberation (moksha) where the soul no longer comes back into this world of suffering but becomes swallowed up into the impersonal ultimate being, Brahman, much like a drop of water losing itself in the ocean.
Two ideologies oppose this class exploitation: Christians and communists. The latter attack it via violent overthrowing of government policies. The former address it by acceptance into the body of Christ. The constitution of India allows for conversion if it comes from “within” the person. Many of these Dalits are now responding to the Gospel of love and convert by their own choice. The irony is that the Maoists murder the Hindu preacher and the Christians take the hit. Why?
As usual, follow the money. Businessmen and landowners find their cheap labor diminishing. This is a threat to their hegemony over the economy. Since religion and life here are inseparable, the Swami blames Christianity for inveigling these hopeless low caste Hindus into apostasy. “It’s the economy, stupid.”
The Gospel is the new Mosaic call—“let my people go.” The Hindu desire to cleanse Orissa of Christians is at bottom a move to maintain their economic and political power against two threats—the classless vision of communism and the Christian vision of a brotherhood of all people. Whether the agents trying to change this millennia-old system be godless or godly, the bottom line is the same—the slaves are seeking their freedom.
This insight fits in well with one of the papers in the theological conference I am presently attending at New Theological College, calling for the church to make an impact on issues of injustice. In India the issues are women’s dignity, extreme poverty, freedom of religion, as well as the curse of caste. The first century Christians cared for the oppressed. There were no poor among them in those days. And they salvaged infants the pagans left to die in the dumps outside Roman cities.
They paid a price for their compassion then. The same is true now. There is still a high price Christians pay in many nations today—hatred, beatings, exclusion, death.
Christians are opposed in many places around the globe for their beliefs and their empowerment of oppressed peoples. We see some of this in Europe and Canada. Will the USA be next?
Some say yes.
It’s hard to argue against that answer, for true Christianity speaks against powerful elements in any society—elements that wish to use political power to suppress speech, control thought, monopolize morality, and eventually to coerce behavior.
I am by nature an optimist. But I have to admit that reality keeps chipping away….
All I can say is “Thank God for God and His promise to sort this all out in the end.” Meanwhile, it is not pretty. But then, we were warned up front that following the Way of Jesus would be persecution and hardships.

From Delhi to Dung Cakes to Dehradun

2008-10-22T02:06:00.001-07:00

Ah! Delhi at last! A smooth swift flight, aided by 120-150 mile tail winds.
Indira Ghandi terminal is shiny with newness since my first arrival some years ago. Whisked through customs with all my bags in possession. Yes – quite a contrast with Continental that got my bags to me 3 days after I had been at the college last year, washing underwear every day.
At the end of the ramp where dozens of tour leaders and hotel go-fers hold signs with names of travellers. I know my man—John Varghese.
But he is not there. Probably stuck in traffic, even though it is 11 PM Delhi roads are busy 24/7.
Then the mind begins to embroider on the delay. Did I tell him the right day of my arrival? The correct flight number?
Suddenly I realize what a dunce I am. I am not the ugly American. But I am in the running for the most naïf American. I have no phone number. I have no address of the Delhi office. I have no address of the college 200 miles north. In short, I am informationally naked in a country of a billion souls. I’ll have to sit in this terminal forever, possibly. This is the time when even an atheist begins to pray, think I.
Do you recall how long 20 minutes can be at a time like this? Other parties meet their hosts. The hall is mostly empty. What have I done?
But as I am thus justly berating myself, the big smile of the young Varghese gleams in the distance. “So sorry! Have you been waiting long? We got into traffic.”
John, needing to meet Uncle George (founder of New Theological College) at 1 AM, hands me off to Premji. We disappear into the perpetual haze of Delhi. You can see a mile or so but as through a dry smoggy mist.
Speed bumps are doubled here on some highways. You have to stop and crawl. And some potholes stop us also – which is something when you are driving with the horn, changing lanes (3 cars/lorries abreast on a two lane road), and coming within 6 inches of the rear cheek of the car ahead. It’s like those scary amusement park rides only there are no safety controls under the surface. 35 mph feels like 70.
A new wrinkle since last time as Delhi seeks to improve its safety records. In places tiny yellow lights flash on either edge of the highway. They are randomly timed. So it looks like the lights on little kids sneakers—or perhaps like those tiny blinking light on Christmas trees. But what good is that when trucks and cars and cycles (both motor and pedaled) are honking their way through the hazy maze? One Vespa shoots by—no lights at all. A grey ghost snaking down the highway. Thankfully the guy on the back is wearing a whitish shirt. Sort of grey, actually, like everything else.
Since Uncle is coming I am taken to the Southern Hotel. I understand nothing of the conversation Premji is carrying on at the desk. Soon my bags are picked up and we go into a minivan. Thank God Premji is going too. Off down dingy streets with little pavement, many dogs, and a few sacred cows. We stop at a small lighted sign on a sad-looking building. “Perfect Hotel,” it says. How can these guys lie so brazenly? I sign in, ask for a 5:30 wakeup call, go up a teeny tiny elevator. The man opens the door.
Viola! A small but immaculate tiled floor room and bath. Thanks be to God. With only 4 hours until the wakeup call, I’m off to dreamland and a surprisingly decent sleep, given that my circadian rhythms make it mid-afternoon. The time is 10.5 hours ahead of EST
At 6:15 the boys are back for me. John loans me 1000 rupees against the 1650 charge. I have no clue how much that is in US$. Uncle George is in the van and we are soon on the Shadabti train north. Keep a sharp eye on the luggage on the overhead rack—thieves.
At last I relax, sort of. The sugar fields and dung-cake lots speed by. Every seat is filled, Thankfully I am in a window seat. Hot tea and a biscuit will be followed by a small egg omelet, white bread and jam.
Life is good!
P.S. “Dung-cakes?” You ask. Here’s a lesson for you home-schooling parents. In India cows are sacred. They wander at will, even in huge cities. You best not kill one—even by accident. You would be accused of more than being a party-pooper. You could be fined for such offence against the sacred—if a Hindu mob didn’t kill you first. (This has happened!) Hence lots of raw material for a cottage industry. The end product of their grazing is dumped liberally along rail and roadsides. Low caste people (including women and kids of every age) dig clumps from the steaming piles and shape by hand cakes that look like a thick Aunt Jemimah buckwheat pancake. Left in the sun to dry, the baked goods are then stacked on end against each other to form circles of dung cakes. The piles spiral up as volume increases until you can have bee-hives several feet high or platform squares with several hundreds of this commodity. The market is always brisk for this low-cost fuel that the poor use to cook their rice. With globalization we may yet see these on pallets at Walmart and Home Depot. Whaddya bet?

Off and Flying!

2008-10-21T04:03:00.000-07:00

Sunday, October 19, 2008.
I have not been kidnapped, shot at, nor even harassed—a great trip so far! But now that I have made it safely to Logan airport, I am going to have to leave the good ole USA.
Pete Hurn—that once and future racecar driver—got me to Boston without incident. (Of course, I had to tell him what lane to merge into whenever. He drives real slow for a former racer) Thankfully the busy highway to Boston had about six cars on it. Good thing the Red Sox are playing away on this the last day before the World Series or this place would have been crazy.
I don’t know whether to be glad or sad to be flying to the other side of the globe with the Sox up for their last stand against Haverhill’s Carlos Pena and crew. You see I started following this team long before Red Sox nation was invented. I went first when there was a “Ladies’ Day” and Mom took me to see the Sox play for half price—probably 25 cents. The Red S beat the White S of Chicago something like 19 to 3. I thought all the Red Sox games would be like that, being only about 10 at the time. That was the year Ted Williams was back from World War II, Pitcher Dave “Boo” Ferris went 25 and 6, Johnny Pesky was at short, and they won by a dozen games over the (I hate to even say it) Yankees. We were the greatest team in baseball that year and played the Cardinals in the series. Then it happened—the first time, but not the last time. We were one out away from the championship and managed to blow it!
That scarred me for life. The wounds went deeper in 1967 and on through the whole century as the curse worked its evil magic on our darlings.
Now we’ve had a championship or two. And once again are one game from sudden death. And my old syndrome slices through my psyche like a hot electrode hooked up to my most sensitive nerves. So maybe its good to be 40,000 feet over the Atlantic when the final out is in the books. I’ll read about on the Internet next week, since the stupid British papers will just have football (Soccer) and tennis and all those wimpy European “sports.” What’s wrong with those people? Maybe that’s why the Pilgrims came to New England—to think up some decent sports!
Anyway, Pete got me here safe and sound. I must say I sort of was hoping he’d pull of a couple of 180’s on the highway—you know—since it was so empty of vehicles. But I understand—he’s getting old just like all of us. Only some are getting more old than others. It’s a shame, when you think of it. I hope I’m over the Atlantic when I get old, so I won’t have to watch my final inning on national TV….
Anyway, Pete peeled rubber making his getaway from Logan, while I snaked my way through the labyrinth of airport protocol. I was so proud! I had printed my own boarding pass before leaving home, with my seat picked out and everything. So I expected to whiz through to the gizmo that takes your x-ray once you take your shoes off? Not so fast! There was a shorter line for us advanced techies. But we still had to hoist the baggage onto the scale and have our passports and visas checked out.
But wait! I axshully learned something. I had a small bottle of water in my carryon – four tenths of an ounce or something like that that gets a pass at security in Europe and India. But not here. O no! As luck would have it, I chose a line where the man was leaning back on his stool with no customers. I said, “You look lonely.” He gave me a look and waved me over to his conveyor belt. Soon he’s telling me I have a water bottle. Verboten! But since my line is empty, he reverses the conveyor so I can take it out. What if I drink it and send it empty? YES! So a few swallows (even thought they do not a summer make) gets me at least a bottle I can fill up on the other side. I thought that experience might be useful to one of you should you follow these labyrinths to the wide, wide world. So I have my bottle! And I fooled ‘em, too. There were a number of molecules of H2O still in the poor sad little plastic I now consider a true friend to be treasured forever. I’m looking for a bubbler now to give the little guy a drink. So I’ll sign off for now.
(8 hours later….)
Heathrow airport, near London. We got here early due to a tailwind of up to 150 mph. A bit spooky to be the only one going through another checkpoint, most of my fellow travelers having detoured to Thai Air. Here you do not have to open your computer case as you do in Boston. But you do have to remove your belt. Mine is black. In the terminal all the shops are dark and gated. It’s not quite 5 AM. No signs of life, except a TV showing early news, plus a couple of window washers. So I stretch my cramped legs wandering the long ramps to 25 gates. I am so bored I find myself reading message boards.
Did you know that in 1946 Heathrow was a tiny hamlet with a few lazy “tents?” It had a small airstrip that sent out a few hundred flights per year. Now it covers 3000 acres, has 4 terminals, and services more travelers than any other in the world. It employs about 68,000 workers, serves 2500 sandwiches a day and sells a bottle of whiskey in the duty free an average of every 7 seconds.
Well, that’s a lot more than I need to know. So on to another lounge. At least now there are dishes rattling and sleepy tellers at the exchange counters. All the TV news is about the recession and how it’s going to be rough until 2011. Jings!
But in truth only God knows—and He is not telling. I guess I’ll have a slice of prune bread Ellie sent along. That will keep me going.

Getting AWAY!

2008-01-14T15:17:00.000-08:00

It’s a longer than usual day when you wake up in Eastern Time Zone and go to sleep in Mountain Time. Haverhill, MA to Mesa, AZ

So we were all packed by Saturday afternoon, Ellie and I, whittling our stuff down to Papa-sized case and one Mama-size, and one Baby size to check in, with two carryon bags. I swelled with self-confidence as I checked-in with Continental and printed our boarding passes. We were ready to go at the next crack of dawn! It being early January, it would not be all that early. Our goal was to leave right from church for our adventure.

“I’ll skip up to Manchester to watch the New England Patriots play the Jacksonville Jaguars in the division playoff game.” says I. Rachel, Naomi, Leah, Ryan and I relax to watch it on High Def TV. But with the Patriots going for a no-loss season, having achieved 16-0 record in the regular season, “relax” is not the word. I left at half-time for home, hoping to hear the game on radio. But As I went to bed the game was not over. I was awake some time, nervous about the outcome, until I convinced myself they would win 31-24 and fell asleep. It turned out they did win, 31-20.

Up at 5:30. Down to church to warm up the organ for the three services. I would leave after the first hymn of the 11 o’clock service and head for New Hampshire. The plan went well. Except that I was walking out with Ellie when I noticed I still had my organ shoes on. A bit awkward to mosey to the front of the church as nonchalantly as possible, thankfully Pastor Brown is still making announcements, to slip into my street shoes and squeeze along the east aisle. I tap Jackie Chechowitz on the shoulder as I go by, wishing I could see this old friend after the service. But not today. 11:15 we drive by our house and on to Kuehne’s, arriving before noon. The day is bright, with a few horsetail clouds heralding a 10” snow storm promised tonight.

Manchester NH airport is so new it looks like we are the first to use it. The plane is small. I can barely stand tall in the aisle. We fly over the Tree Farm in VT within minutes of takeoff, it seems. An hour in Cleveland (where the rain is mixed with few snow flakes) I stand with a couple of football fans in the doorway of a pub watching the NY Giants score the opening touchdown against the Dallas Cowboys. They would go on to edge out the favored Cowboys and advance to the league championship game next week. Soon we are above the clouds again, chasing a red sky west to Phoenix.

No snow here! Our rental guy selects a cobalt blue PT Cruiser for us. Cool! Even dude!

Plug in the GPS we took along. We are so with it.

“What did you say, Ellie?”

“It says turn right in 50 feet onto Liberty Street!”

I guess this el cheapo unit we bought last summer won’t fire up as soon as you plug it in to the car outlet.

Thankfully we can call Jim Bruening on the cell phone and get directions the old fashioned way. In less than 30 minutes we are at their house in Mesa.

As we all know, you pick up with old friends where left off—even if it’s ten or 30 years since you last met. Jim and Laura had kids the same age as ours (3 and 1) when we were at Fuller Theological Seminary in the late fifties. Jim and I went off to work together every week for a couple of years doing building janitorial services in La Habra and Whittier, CA At midnight (eastern) we turned in for what we really came out here for—twenty nights of sound sleep away from all that floods our lives each day at home. Peace at last!

Buenos noches, amigos! (y amigas)

Heading Home

2007-11-19T11:14:00.001-08:00

Heading home, I must thread my way through a tangle of traveling threads. Life is never dull going west from India.

Usually I take a 5 a.m. train out of Dehra Dun that gets me to Delhi about noon. Since the Continental flight to Newark is listed as departing at 11:55 p.m. that means a long hangout in the Indira Ghandi airport. It’s not a bad airport but it’s dull as dust.

Hearing that there is a train leaving at 8:45, I ask if that is doable. Why not? Not knowing why not, I say “Why not?” That’s how you learn stuff. Let me tell you.

First of, not all trains here are equal. In the USA an Amtrak train is what it is—a string of various cars, mixing coaches with sleepers with diners with baggage and so on. In India, having more rail miles than any nation in the world, you would think that trains would be state of the art.

Ah, ……. No.

India’s roads are stuck in the 1950s. Totally. No interstate highways. Only in Delhi and only this decade, Delhi is getting a few overpasses to help the flow of traffic. So people move by bus and by train. Train is the better way, of course, since you do not have to stop at every intersection, as a bus must.

The poor people ride in what look like cattle cars. Filled with benches, you can squeeze a hundred or more people into each car. But it’s basic. No cushions, no fans, much less AC, just a cut above Hitler’s death cars that carried Jews to the final solution in the 1940s.

But the first class trains have seats that recline, a tray table, and a steel holder for your gratis litre of cold water. There are fans and even AC, plus hooks for your jacket and overhead baggage racks. You get some food in the ticket price, too. I think it is OK bordering on “nice,”

But the 8:45 train has no chair cars. All berth cars.

Scene I.

So picture this. A compartment open to the aisle, with two cushy seats facing each other. Fastened above your head is a drop-down “bed: platform", with a second above that. So when you sleep (and you do on many runs, for a Christmas trip home for my colleagues is a three days and three nights journey on the rails. That’s for a distance of 1000 to nearly 2000 miles in some cases, such as going to Kerala where Uncle George and most of the faculty hail from.) So there is no definable space that your ticket secures for you. No reclining. No personal tray tables.

OK I can handle this, right? Yes…after a fashion.

You see, my ticket is for “seat” number 1. In that compartment, however, is a couple with three kids, one an infant. She looks imploringly at me. “Would you mind taking the other seat we had to purchase at the far end of the car, so our family can sit together?” I cannot say No to that now, can I?

But my “handler” (for whom I thank God constantly) knows things are not that simple in India. “We’ll have to look at that seat and check with the ticket master first.” (He knows that another family may already be there and possibly spilling over into all available space.) But the adjacent cubicle has a woman who speaks up right away. “I have a ticket for a companion who could not make the train, so please take this space.” Sounds good. I agree.

Now just wait a second before you breathe a sigh of relief with me. This is India. It’s not going to be that simple.

This white woman is obviously from the USA, probably East Coast. She has a shaved head and is dressed in Tibetan Buddhist outfit—you know, the one with the maroon scarf thingy. I naively think she has the whole compartment bought up and that I will sit on one bench seat and she on the other. Looks OK. We go for it. I find out the she is of Jewish roots (non-practicing) and New York City area. At age 8 she thought of suicide because life, as she had it explained to her, “sucks and then you die.” So what’s the point? Then she heard about Buddhism. It made some sense. So now, in middle age, she has a resident visa and has been in India three years at various centers studying the ancient texts. She even is learning Tibetan!

Now across the aisle there is a narrow bunk parallel to the side of the train with a middle-aged Indian woman perched there. The attendant comes around with pillows and blanket-sheets so we can stretch out if we desire and catch some zzzzzzzs.

Chatting amiably, we suddenly are invaded by a family getting on at Haridwar—a favorite holy shrine for Hindus—who have the other seats in our vicinity. Of course, if we were all sleeping they would have those four upper bunks, plus the one over the lady across the aisle. They have as much baggage as the Clampetts would’ve had going home from their first visit to Disneyland.

Onto the upper berths they pile a zillion duffles and “onion” bags marked “walnuts” and shopping bags from the Indian gift shops. They want the woman to move off somewhere else. (I only get snatches as this is going on mostly in Hindi with occasional lapses into English.) She is not moving. Decibels are rising. Gestures are more menacing. I would guess this family is a higher caste than this woman and thinks they can bully her.

My companion is really a Jewess from NYC disguised as a Buddhist nun. She is not to be trifled with. And she knows this culture well, having lived here for three years. She starts to shout at them. “Why are you yelling and threatening this old woman? She has the seat she paid for. She has an injured knee and needs to stretch out. You are so rude. You Indians are not nice—I’ve had enough of you people throwing your weight around. You leave that woman alone!” After five minutes of this, the family backs off. Now they want to sit on the lower bench where the nun has her sheet and pillow.

But Mrs. Nun is ticked. No. You will not sit on my shelf. I am going to lie down. You go on the upper bunks you paid for. One of them looks at me imploringly, with his arm on his 8-year-old brother. Can we sit on your side? “O sure—why not?” So finally the dust settles. The nun lies down. The upper bunks are lowered (BTW you cannot sit up on that bottom bunk now unless you are under four feet in height—you bump your head on the bunk above.)

Mrs. Nun has a palm pilot and state-of-the-art cell phone (she has access to money, I’m sure, as she dropped the tidbit that she had given a bundle to one of these monasteries.) She is talking aloud—putatively to me, while she calls this one and that one because this train is running late and she will miss her connection to Andra Pradesh (a state in the south of India) and will need a driver to pick her up in Delhi and take her to a guesthouse she frequents, call the 100 monks who have already left the monastery for the overnight trek to the place they intend to pick up their benefactress, etc., etc.) For relief she spars with the Indian family, running down India as an intolerant ignorant country—you get the picture.

Meanwhile she is astonished that a philosopher like myself knows little about Buddhist philosophy. I ask her to tell me what she has learned. She makes a few stabs at it, showing me a copy of the scriptures she is studying—a sort of interlinear Tibetan and English version.

She is telling me about karma and how over the course of many lives you can work your way to enlightenment when the things of this half-real world no longer have an effect on you and you are released to become one with the One. Meanwhile, on the calls she is making she is twisting people’s arms to do her favors and using all kinds of bad words when the tech people on her Mobile Office help desk don’t know English, and so forth. She reminds me of what they used to call the Ugly American. “This lady is working up a huge pile of bad karma today,” I think to myself. “She is going to go around and around for along time!”

What a relief when after nearly six hours of this, my colleagues from the college’s Delhi division rescue me at the end of the line! I had started to answer her question (after my listening to her for a couple of hours) about what I believed. I got off a few ideas. But when I started to tell why I followed the Way of Jesus, she pointed to something out the window, changed the subject and dropped back into the Land of Complaints and Curses.

Next year it will be the early chair train for me. Even a cattle car if need be.

Scene II.

Out of the crowded station. Just recall if you can a scene in some old flick about the British in “In-jah” pushing their way through mountains of beggars, coolies, porters, and rickshaw drivers. That’s what it's like.

Now my two friends, Premji and Martin, are struggling with my big bag, loaded with books bound for the USA. The extended roll handle was busted by the baggage-smashers on my outgoing flight so bag cannot be rolled, especially on the stairs that get you over one platform and onto another. The small handles are not placed for two people. So they limp along like the Two Stooges, bag akimbo.

In the Land Rover we debate the prospects for my day. Go directly to airport. Do not pass go. Do not collect $200. Spend 10 hours in Jail at Indira Ghandi International. Or, go to Premji’s, take a rest, re-pack to meet airline weight requirements, and head for the airport later, shortening the wait to three hours. No contest. We’ll take the latter.

At Premji’s I am in the real India. No polished hotels, limos with unformed attendants, or gleaming Taj Mahals. Here is a neighborhood reminding me of Boston’s North End in the 1950s. Dust in the streets, dogs barking, and a kid driving a bicycle tire down the street with a stick. Cycles pass the slower ‘bike-shaws’ taking a couple downtown. People walk to the little convenience store across the street.

Up a narrow winding concrete staircase to the second floor (called first floor as it is over the ground floor) apartment. Premji’s wife, Lizy greets me with a big smile, showing me her sons, Blesson, age 6 and Ben, age 3. “Cup of tea?” “O yes—that would be welcome, thank you. But first I could use a toilet.” It's been seven hours since I left the Guest House.

I am pointed toward the balcony that overlooks the street. Wondering just what I will find, there is a door openng to a room about 4’x 5’ that has an opening in the floor about 12’x18” It is lined with china porcelain, slanting toward a 4” drain. An “Asian” toilet has no moving parts to fail as in western toilets with tanks and ball and cock gizmos and flappers. I came. I saw. I go-ed. (How do you say that in Latin?) Dip a quart cup into the pail of water, slosh it in, and we’re done. No muss, no fuss, no cuss!

The apartment, as in most tropical climes, is all concrete with terrazzo floors. Jambs and doors are wood. The living room is about 8’x11’ and has a table and small fridge on one end and a couch and coffee table on the other. The two bedrooms are about 8’x10’ with plywood platform beds that you can shift around or stack against the wall when the house church comes to meet here. One or two cabinets for your stuff and that’s it. Kitchen? 4’x7’ with a sink, counter-top 4 burner black gas cooker, a couple of cabinets on the walls. Basic. So in this flat that is about 400 square feet, including the balcony that has a tiny washing machine and some lines to string your laundry, this family of four lives and hosts their church.

I love it. They are low-profile and neighborhood based. A girl about 17 or 18 comes in – Ermela. She is all smiles. I get my camcorder to capture scenes in the street. Across is an apartment with a woman doing wash, kids playing at cricket on the rooftop. Below is a man with a big 1890s flat iron pressing some tablecloths. A shop has bakery sweets. Another has a big stack of in-the-shell roasted peanuts. All on the “sidewalk.”

A couple of kids below see me waving. Ermela takes my camera to shoot me signaling them. They wave back and start to show off.

Then that cup of tea. It has an appealing flavor that seems new to me.

I have torn a tote bag and need to re-pack it. But Martin takes it and disappears. A half hour later he returns on his motor scooter with the bag sewn up. How much did you pay the man? 10 rupees. That’s twenty-five cents? The patch doesn’t last the whole journey home, but it helped.

It’s getting toward dusk when an awful racket starts in the street. I grab my camera. Out of an alley come 6-8 guys with snare drums beating. Behind are a dozen plus women with lamps lighted (flames, no less), followed by a few dozen marchers. “What’s that about?” I ask as they fade up the street. “O they are going to the temple to worship the sun god as they think that in winter when the sun is weak you can do puja (offerings) and get the sun to smile on your life,” explains Martin.

After Ermela leaves Premji tells me she is a high caste Brahmin girl who has started coming to the house church. This type of house ministry happens by the thousands in the cities of India. Keep a low profile. Hindus make trouble if they think you are converting anyone. Smart plan.

Scene III.

Time to head out. Driving in Delhi makes one feel like you are in some kind of competition. A blend of demolition derby and dodge-ems.

Martin tells me his story. As a teen he was playing guitar in the gothic rock band. Really extreme – slouching toward Satanism, when he found Jesus. His buddies still hate him for deserting. Feeling God’s call, he went to NTC and got a theology degree. He was in my class a year or two ago.

Now Martin is Punjabi. The state of Punjab is unique in India. Some five hundred years ago the Muslims were getting heavy-handed there. One Guru Nank formed a new religion, borrowing from Islam and Hinduism. He opposed the brutal caste system and the oppressive aspects of Islam in order to create an active religion that would fight for the rights of the oppressed. Sikhs are the guys who wear that turban of folded cloth that looks sort of like a bike helmet. They have proved themselves good warriors. And—Punjab is the only state in India that is neat and clean! So Martin begins to pray about where God would place him, hopefully in Punjab.

The Lord impresses on him the verse about going with the Gospel from Jerusalem to Judea and to the ends of the earth. Great! He will start in his Jerusalem—Punjab. However, as is common for these students, he tells some faculty and asks them to pray and give their assessment of this word from the Lord. They do just that. Some days later they tell him that he is to go to India’s “Jerusalem.” That would be the place last on Martin’s list: Delhi. A very tough adjustment. But Martin goes. He is now content ministering through his house church and reaching out to orphans and the poor as well as to the well off.

He reminds me of his interest and skill in philosophy. He wants to get a masters degree therein so he can be an apologist. I decide to give him a copy of my Quest for Truth text. He is thrilled! So I give him three more copies for some of his NTC pals who also have been bitten by the gadfly of philosophy and are taking higher degrees.

We have now spent over an hour and one half dodging cars, bikes, three-wheelers, lorries, camels, and pedestrians to complete the 25 miles to the airport. It’s “Goodbye until next fall!”

Scene V

A blue uniformed young man sees me alight from the van and fetches his trolley for my book-laden bags. No line this time. So in no time I am safe in the “system” of international air transport. We leave Delhi at midnight and chase the moon west all night. 15 hours later I am flying over Chester, VT where our family has a 350 acre tree farm. We land at dawn in Newark. I call Ellie once my cell phone gets recharged. She has just returned from an early grocery run. By 11 a.m. I am in my hometown—and proudly so. The home of the 2007 World Champion Red Sox and the New England Patriots.

I thank the Lord for guiding me through all these “advenchas” and getting me safe into Ellie’s arms and into Jim Herrick’s car for the ride to Liberty Street.

The old song’s sentiment is so true. “There’s No Place Like Home, Sweet Home.” Be it ever so humble….

Praise God, I am a bit humbler now than when I left. And that’s a good thing.

Thanks for your prayers.

Nightmares

2007-11-15T04:28:00.000-08:00

Apres moi, la deluge!

These famed words were uttered by the most powerful king of France when that nation was at its zenith of opulence and prestige. Le roi, Louis Quatorze. For you in Haverhill, that’s Louis XIV. As you know, within a generation heads would roll and France would never be the same.

Lying in bed when one awakens early can set free the sheep one counted as a sleep aid earlier to gambol around the fertile pastures of the mind. The issue from these sportive rams and ewes can be freakish—like the little girl in the news here last week that had 4 legs and 4 arms due to a very rare form of Siamese twinning. (She had one head and could control all her limbs. So when she awoke from the 30 hours that various teams of doctors worked on her, she looked around for her missing limbs! But she knew her jubilant parents as soon as the anesthesia wore off. Wonders never cease. But I digress.)

A Scripture came to mind in the darkness that disturbed me somewhat. When the disciples were standing in awe of Herod’s Temple in Jerusalem (they gawked like any country boys would in the “Big City”), Jesus gave an astounding prediction. “You are impressed, are you? I tell you not one stone will remain upon another—all will be reduced to rubble!” Of course the boys couldn’t believe anything like that could happen. I mean, how could it? This was the sacred Temple Mount where Solomon built a house for Yahweh, where David had taken Mount Zion a thousand years earlier, and where Abraham may have “sacrificed” Isaac. The city was protected now by the mighty power of Rome. Yet we know that within their lifetimes Jesus words would be fulfilled, resulting in the unthinkable. God would allow pagans to plow the ground up, abolishing the Mosaic sacrificial system forever.

Ho-hum! We all know this is true. But that was then; this is now.

How nearly impossible it is for us to imagine the impact of this event on the psyche of the Chosen People in Jesus’ time.

The dark thought that came to me is this. We, too, shall see an equivalent in our own time. (Now I am not a prophet, nor the son of a prophet. While not an orchardist like the prophet Amos, I am merely a maple-tapper. So I claim no divine inspiration here.) But still, the “signs of the times” are faintly outlining our future. And it is not reassuring.

Look at the lovely buildings we worship in—and are in danger of worshiping. Our local churches. The grand cathedrals in our great cities from Boston to New York to D.C., not to mention the empty magnificent wonders in Chartres and Cologne.

Islamic true believers boast that they intend to have the USA under Shari’a law by 2050. I’m not sure there will be a USA to dominate by then. Informed people speculate that the house of cards know as the global economy could easily collapse, either by its own weight or by some dirty bombs detonated by suicidal fanatics in a key city or two in the financial world. Or it could be a pandemic virus that wiggles out from the frantic efforts of scientists who work to control such threats, battling more resistant strains every year it seems.

Can we face a modern version of “not one stone upon another?” Gone will be the Christian mega-industries that pump out videos, music CDs, books and Bibles. Gone our comfy meeting places with those inspiring sounds systems and computer-enhanced worship experiences. No more mighty choirs supported by awesome organs and orchestras. No more grandiose mega-conferences or cruises with the Big Bugs. No more plush colleges and impressive foundations. I’m not saying that will happen. But it could happen. And possibly sooner rather than later.

How ill-prepared are we for such an event. We laugh at how in the 1960s people built backyard bomb shelters. But maybe we have just been spared so far by God’s grace. But we know from history that God will not forever strive with rebels.

Observing our counterparts here in India I realize that we can survive and even prosper when all that we take for granted is stripped away. We can meet under a tree or in a house. I imagine what would happen if we had to meet in our houses. In the USA many of our houses could easily hold 50 people. Think how much more personal and powerful the people of Christ would be in such a setting. No spectator attitude. No “What am I getting out of this Preacher?” kind of thinking. Lean and nimble will be what’s needed then. I wonder if we can start preparing our minds and hearts for such a time. The church is stagnating under the stifling affluence of the west. At the same time it is thriving in the “disadvantaged” world of China, India, Pakistan and Iran. The stories that trickle out to us here in India cause me to take heart. We do not need all the stuff we “need.” We only need the Holy Spirit.

O my! Still dark. I’ll try to go back to sleep and see if the sheep of sleep can come up with something a bit less solemn.

BLAT! BLAT! BLAAAAAAAT!

WHAT is that???!

Well, we are cheek by jowl to a Buddhist monastery here where the guesthouse is located. Some monk is blowing on a tuba, sounds like. Only he has ZERO embouchure. His lip must be a flaccid as an inner tube. This goes on and on and on. Well, it’s no worse than the monk who chanted on two low pitches all day one day last week.

Maybe I can tune it out and slip back to dreamland.

Maybe not. Toss. Turn. Toss.

There’s the morning star, slowly ascending over the mountain range. Now I know what time it is—about an hour until its light enough to see colors. I surmise that first light lasts until one can see colors. Then it is dawn. But I really have no clue how these subtleties are defined. Sunrise – that’s precise. I notice that when the sun rises over the mountain east of my window that its point of lift-off has come noticeably south—in just 15 days.

I’m up. Out for a walk up to the where the road drops by switchbacks to a river flowing down the valley. Awesome.

This day will go fast. Read some term papers, give the final, dive into grading. I guess it will be mostly nightmares all day long.

One bright spot. Babu’s wife, Lalee, is fixing a lunch for us. Some lunch! Six dishes with the best chapattis I’ve ever had, plus dessert and tea. The tea was lemon. I asked what made it different. She puts a few fresh lemon squirts into each cup. Mmmmm!

Before most of you read this blog I will be in Tunnel of Travel. After breakfast on Friday they will put me on the train to Delhi. A long wait at the airport. A long night en route to Newark.

Then dawn again in the USA and home by noon. God is good.

See you in church.

A Trinity of Saints

2007-11-14T19:54:00.000-08:00

Without being too clever, I’ll tell of three men whose stories I heard in the last half a day.

The first is the Principal of the New Theological College, Dr. Simon Samuel.

I enter there house—one of the nicest on campus (he is the principal and must entertain visitors, after all) where his wife, Mercy, is preparing our dinner with the help of her domestic. The two children, a boy of six and a girl age two, are making pests of themselves and driving us a bit crazy—but no more than any kids of that age. The supper is too my taste, as Simon has a tender stomach himself and avoids really spicy stuff. We have rice (of course), chapattis, goat meet fixed with something really, really black—might be mushrooms and some sauce? Who knows? Who acres? Just try it. It’s good! Some fried potato (I’m sure in my honor), plus lightly sautéed fresh beans, carrot and the like. Some green salad, plain yogurt, and leftover cake from the last night’s all-college-community 50th Birthday bash for Dr. Samuel. The cut on the girl’s finger—helping mom in the kitchen—seems to be staying bandaged. So soon after we sit and talk.

Now Simon is a modest man but with great gifts for this college. It seems he came from a very poor background. His father at age five lost his father, leaving him to mostly to fend for himself. It made him very tough, even though he was slight of stature. Simon and his brothers and sisters grew up in a village in south India to which there was no real road. No electricity. The boonies of India. His father tried to open an iron shop with a few rupees he scraped together. But the supplier cheated him with shoddy goods and the venture failed at once. So Simon, being the oldest and bigger and stronger than his father had to assist with whatever hand to mouth work they could get. So here is a typical day for him in the late 1960s.

Up at 3 a.m. He and dad put water in what we would call an Indian spray pump that goes on your back after you pump up pressure by hand. There is pesticide mixed in so they can treat the rice fields they have. It has to be done in the dark as the neighbors do not take kindly to pesticide wafting around while they are cooking and washing outside their “houses.” Simon is knee deep in mud and water. His father goes to the far end of the field and lights a faggot so Simon will know the direction, since it is pitch black. Simon sweeps the area in front and to each side with this concoction as he heads toward the light. Try not to think of the snakes and other creatures of the night that frequent these paddies. In an hour or so he makes it to the other side.

Please realize there is no OSHA here. Simon is sucking in the fumes and mist. Once it was so strong he collapsed unconscious. But you—and the family—have to eat. Even worse, for three years running great rains came at harvest time and took everything downstream. But his father is hardened by life and never lets it get to him.

So the next plan is to sell some plantains. Cut bunch and start walking to market at 3 a.m. It is 8 miles. Plantains are heavy. Simon is bigger so he carries the larger bunches. At dawn he leaves his father at the outdoor market and walks home.
Now he heads off for school. This is another long trek—about 5 miles. That’s not so bad except the path goes through Marsh #1. Simon removes his clothes and sandals, piles them on his head and wades through. Re-clothes himself. Soon comes to Marsh #2. Same drill. Then on to school. Same thing going home. No wonder he is the only child in the family to persist through all grades. The rest dropped out by age 10 or so.

Getting home in late afternoon it is time to chop wood for the fires. Cut split, stack. All with an axe. Simon’s mother is, in his words, “a woman of prayer.” Despite the hardships he is being taught about the Lord. His younger brother runs off to join the navy at age 17. His father dies. So Simon is left with a mother and sister to care for. Fortunately, the Indian family structure is helpful here as some uncles help out as they can to keep the family afloat.

Somehow Simon goes to a Bible college, finds the born-again experience, and is called to ministry in northeast India. These are oriental people living in a tribal village with no store, no post office, no electricity. Simon teaches them the Gospel for two years. But he is becoming more ill as he cannot fight off the effects of bad water, poor food, and loneliness. If an army truck comes through, maybe monthly, he might get a letter. But maybe not. He is living in a hut. Health forces him to go back home.

In time he meets Mercy and they are married. He goes for higher degrees, even in Great Britain. He finds he loves to give lectures after he is aksed to fill in for someone ina New Testament class. Simon is fluent in English as far as reading and writing goes. But he has never spoken in English. Yet his tongue has no problem giving the lecture. He now senses his calling in life.

The Lord is indicating he should minister in north India. He replies, “Lord, you have to take care first of mom and my sisters.” In a few years his younger brother, now home from the navy, is selected for a job and can send some money home. His sisters find husbands and can care for mom. He and Mercy come north to teach. Soon he meets Uncle George, just starting this college. They are fast friends within hours. He comes to NTC, teaches New Testament courses (and is considered a superior teacher) and assumes the principalship here.

So when students come with their problems, all discouraged, Simon listens. Then he tells his life story. Generally they leave encouraged that God can see them through if they persevere as the Scripture enjoins us. This is Saint #1.

The second is T.S. Sam.

I was served breakfast today in the apartment of Sam and his wife, also Mercy. (How come Americans have not thought of that name for a girl?) The food consisted of a “pancake” made of rice flour that rises over night and then is cooked on a skillet. It looks like a giant sunny-side-up egg for shape, with a mound in the middle where the yolk would be. Only it is lace white and sweet to the taste. Over it we ladle a sauce with hard-boiled eggs. I like it.

I ask Sam about his siblings. He says it is a sad story.

When Sam was about five, his father palmed off him and his younger brother to a Catholic institution as orphans. He disappeared without telling their mother what he had done. She prayed, asking the Lord to help her locate her children. After a few years she did find them and took them back.

But in India a broken home is a cause for shame. Not only was his mother unable to find work, she was ostracized whenever anyone inquired as to her family situation. And here people always ask about your connections, so they know how to treat you according to your station in the caste system.

Sam knew hunger to the point of starvation. They lived wherever they could find shelter—basically homeless. They managed to get a few chickens somehow and Sam would take them to a shop to sell. Owners would want to know who he was. When they found out they often figured he must have stolen the eggs. It made it very difficult for them to survive. But his mother was a Christian and taught her sons about Jesus. She never gave up believing that she was not alone.

Sam left home for the north when he was seventeen and found work where he could. A bright student, he managed to get an education, sensing the Lord was calling him to ministry. He did not get his theology degree until he was forty. But now he is married and has two daughters who are well educated and have excellent positions, one as a doctor and the other in business.

While the poverty and hunger was a sore trial, Sam says that the constant rejection was almost unbearable. He finally would tell people his father was dead just to stop the questions. For all he knew his father was dead. Not too many years ago he was able to contact relatives on his father’s side, but before he could connect his father did pass away.

Sam works in ministry here at the college as the dean of students, with his wife the mother of the 45 girls in the Women’s Hostel on campus. His brother is in ministry also in a city not too distant from here. It is a miracle fo grace that Sam has found wholeness such that he is a fine counselor healed himself of the scars of a terrible childhood. So when students come to him with their woes, he often tells his story. “When father and mother forsake me, then the Lord will take me up,” as the Psalmist puts it.

Sam is my Saint #2

The third saint is Wungyo Lungleng.

He is the student who preached his senior sermon this morning

Nagaland state. I can tell from his features that he is from the part of Asia that is closer to China and Myanmar than to western India. He explains why he is here studying to preach he Gospel.

In his home area Baptist missionaries came perhaps a hundred years ago when his ancestors were headhunters. There was no unity of peace or kindness in the entire region—just tribes fighting, raiding and eating their human prey. The people wore human bones for necklaces and kept the skulls of their enemies. To them the Christians came with the Good News of God’s love.

They learned the language and the customs. They ate the strange food and suffered many diseases from the water and the climate. They said goodbye to their dear ones, never to see them again in this life. They died in that village and are buried there.

What is the fruit of their sacrifice? Now the entire village worships Jesus Christ, as do surrounding villages. They live in harmony, ubnity and peace. Their entire life has been changed. Their culture has been transformed. All because they did not hold their lives and comfort dear to themselves but sacrificed all for Jesus and His Kingdom.

So, Wungyo says, he is here to prepare to do the same for those who have never heard the Message of Love in Christ. He is ready to leave his own people and do whatever it takes, for he too echoes the text of St. Paul. “I am not ashamed of the Gospel for it is the power of God for salvation for everyone who believes.”

By this time in his forceful and very energetic presentation I am between tears and shouts of joy. What a Gospel we are given to share. What a difference Jesus can make in hearts, in families, in communities, in the world.

So this is Saint #3.

I have been listening to something most precious. From people most precious to God and now to me. I am as a grasshopper in their shadow. They have passed through the waters and walked through the fire.

If Christians were fowl, these would be the deep diving sea ducks, the pelagics that brave the shoreless deeps of the vast oceans, or the wild honkers that slice the highest heavens on their far-sighted migrations. As for me? I am no more than a dabbler, quacking about in the quiet pools among the sheltering reeds, picking a bug here and there.

Hopefully I can learn to fly with them some day. Or, at the least, be a loon for Jesus—gavia immer, the most primitive of the bird species but nonetheless worthy of respect.

Gang Man Marries the Virgin Mary

2007-11-13T03:11:00.000-08:00

This is quite the story that I heard at the senior picnic here and that I promised to relate to you. Why the over-the-top title?

Well – I was thinking of “This Is the Story of Eddie Kuchichakakama-tozinary-tozinova-sammagamma-wacky Brown.” That old camp song we used to sing at Camp Fireside in the ‘60s is too frivolous for what I want to share. But this story, though true, is almost as hard to believe. (BTW – the Eddie of that song drowned, mostly because his name was so long. Maybe I’ll share it in a podcast some time. I’m sure you would be thrilled to hear it! (Bzzzz!)

This is about one of my current students here in India—John Luke Timothy. (Do not ask me why so many here have a string of first names—I dunno.)

And while JLT was a ganger, his wife is not the Virgin Mary. It’s just that she makes me think this is what Jesus’ mother may been like. Nicole maybe weighs 7 stone after a big meal. If I saw her among some kids at home I’d say she is 15. Her true age I do not know. Probably twenty—maybe. She has a sweet 6 month old boy named Ethan. Her father is a music teacher who also plays for the Milwaukee Philharmonic and other Chicago area orchestras. Nicole plays flute and is a ballerina, playing, among other roles, a mouse in the “Nutcracker.” How she got linked to JMT I am not sure. What I will tell you is how her husband came to Jesus Christ.

JMT’s father converted from Hinduism and became a street evangelist—a man who is bold for Christ among his people, making many converts. But he will not baptize a woman who comes wearing gold jewelry. And it’s not what you think—a literal application of St. Peter’s instruction for women of faith not to adorn themselves with gold and fancy hair styles. It is because JMT’s Hindu grandmother taught his father the symbolic meaning of all the bracelets, rings, and other ornaments that Hindu women wear. All of them allude to a Hindu god or goddess—of which there are millions. So it is a matter of renouncing false religion.

Scene I.

JMT’s father often prayed over his children and was sure God would call promising young John Moses to ministry. He, his mom and sisters were often beaten for their rejection of the Hindu way. This constant rejection caused JMT to hate Jesus. “His name has brought nothing but grief and misery to us,” he wailed. So as a teen, he joined a street gang and did drugs. He came to love blood—his own and others. Fearless, he would ride his bike straight at buses until they chickened out first. He was not afraid of dying. So he would be paid money to go beat up some family for someone. People he never knew. A hit man is what he was. But his Dad was still praying.

In fact, his father decided to send him to Bible college in the USA. He would enroll him in a school in Minneapolis so he would become the preacher he was meant to be, even though JMT hated Jesus.

In India one does not defy one’s father openly. So JMT has a plan to sabotage the enterprise. He will not sit the exam required for those seeking a student visa for the USA.

The day comes for him to go the embassy to present his papers as his father demands. Other students ask him how he did on the exam. “Didn’t take it,” JMT replies. “Then why are you waiting in line? You know no one gets a visa without a good exam!”

As far as human wisdom goes, this is all true. However we must keep in mind that beautiful Scripture phrase, “But God….”

As JMT inches to the head of the line he notices that some who got second or fifth on the exam are rejected anyway and go out with long faces. “Great,” he says to himself. "I’m home free."

JMT comes to the desk at last. As he does, the woman doing interviews asks an assistant to watch while she goes to the WC. So he sits down and shuffles JMT’s papers. “OK, these look good,” he says to JMT’s astonishment. “What do you mean? I didn’t take the exam, as you can see.” “Yes, I noticed that. But we can make exceptions here and there.”

BANG! Down comes the stamp. Visa granted!

JMT slouches out of the building with a long face. “O, you must have denied, too!” someone sympathizes. “No, you @#%&* fool—I was granted!”

Scene II

Our hero is now sitting in a fine house in Minneapolis. His father and he have flown to America to deposit the lad in the local “Bible Prison.” JMT figures he can find a way out—maybe he’ll just flunk out or break all the rules. He’ll figure out a way. His street-smart wiles have not deserted him.

“John, if you want you can use the pool any time,” suggests the host.

How many pools this big are there in India? JMT decides, “Why not?” So Mr. Fearless gets into his shorts, bolts out his bedroom sliding door and dives in.

I should perhaps say that JMT does not swim—at all. He does not know that even private pools in American can be deep enough to take a diving board dive from Mr. Big’nTall, the owner, probably a son of one of those former Norwegian Bachelor Farmers.

JMT is on the bottom and not coming up. I know what to do. I’ll crouch on the bottom and push up. He breaks the surface and gulps air before sinking like a stone. Repeat and repeat. “How long can I keep this up?” he wonders.

Plan B. Crawl along the bottom to the shallow end and walk out. Bzzz! The pump is circulating the water at a vigorous rate. JMT gets nowhere.

Plan C. Panic. Yes – for Mr. Fearless. Like so many others he sees his life flashing by on “warp speed forward.” If I die now I will go to Hell. Notice how he hates Jesus but still knows his father’s beliefs!

Plan D. “Jesus, save me! If you save me I will die for you!” This is a version, I suppose, of the foxhole prayers common in military combat.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch so to speak, something (I wonder Who?) prompts Dad to check on his son—something is wrong. He and the host get up to search. Dad goes to the bedroom. Not there. Patio door open—he heads for the pool. The water is placid. As he turns back toward the bedroom, something (I wonder Who?) prompts him to look again. He sees JMT at the bottom, motionless. Crying for help, he and host get JMT out. The host works as a local policeman so does the CPR thing. Jesus has saved JMT! Maybe that's why they gave him Moses as his middle name-pulled out of the water.

Scene III

JMT at the Bible college. It’s another day—the day when doubt always comes from the Enemy. JMT needs some “proof” that Jesus is really in all this. After all, the policeman revived and he never claimed to be Jesus!

“Jesus, I need you to speak to me! I'll pray for four days. If you speak to me, fine. If not, I’m going on back to the gang—the only life I really know.” (Remember this young man is fearless—back to his old self.)

Following his father’s austere devotional practice (he gets up as Dad did as a Hindu, to pray at 1 a.m. and again at 5 a.m.) JMT fasts all food, shuts himself in his dorm room, and chants incessantly, “Jesus, speak to me!”

Day one passes. Nothing.

Day two passes. Nothing.

Day three passes. Nothing.

Day four. He is still behind his locked door and tiny draped windows. Then—LIGHT. Blinding light. He sees two angels walking back and forth in his room. Suddenly, Mr. Fearless cries out, “Jesus, do NOT speak to me! Please! I will die for you!”

Is this for real?

Get this. On day five JMT finds he is using no bad language. Previously he could not say two sentences without curses. He has peace in his heart instead of the seething anger and belligerence that has been his home page for years.

Scene IV.

He studies to be a preacher. He finds he has the gifts of evangelism, discernment and deliverance. It scares him. But he knows God is building on his native assertive personality to make him effective for the kingdom. “I do not want to sit in one place as a pastor or do shows like TV evangelists.” He decides just to pray for doors of ministry to open back in India. After several months he gets a call. “Could you come to our church and help revive the people?” Another soon follows. “Could you come for deliverance meetings in our city?”

As he is traveling back to India God puts him next to an atheist who is bragging about how he is going to lecture in a big Indian university on why there is no God. JMT listens. When the guy runs out of gas, he asks “What about you?” JMT relates his story. As the plane lands, Mr. Anti-theist says he is not sure now just what he will say at the big lecture.

Arriving at his first meeting, JMT is scared. He is a nobody. “What can this kid do?” He can read there thoughts. As he gets up to speak, a family comes toward the front with a very ill woman. He moves forward to pray for her. She is instantly on her feet, healed. Soon others are crowding to the front. (Remind you of anything in Jesus’ Gospel ministry?) One woman is mute. She has not spoken for years. Coming close, he touches her knee. “Do not touch me!” she says. He prays in Jesus name for the spirit to come out of her. It’s not pretty, but she is delivered and praises God. One is brought to him who is blind. He thinks of Jesus using spittle for blind people. “I can’t do that here!” So he shakes a bottle of water onto his fingers and touches the eyes. Sight!

Over time he has preached and healed in many places—though he cannot be more than 25 or so—“signs and wonders following.” He knows this is not due to HIS gifting. Only Jesus. And he knows that this type of ministry is usually found only in places where the Gospel has not come previously.

Scene V

As JMT goes back to his home city, he is warned twice. Once by a stranger in a conference in the USA, who came to him, saying, “I have a word from the Lord. You will die for Jesus.” Back in India another person came to him with the same message.

But home he must go. Once there an old gang buddy comes to see him. In an instant the whole gang is there, grabs him, stuffs him in a car and drives off. “We are going to kill you! No one leaves the gang and lives.”

“Dear Jesus, I will die for you as I promised. But help me if you can.”

JMT is shown that the driver’s mother is in trouble. “Hey, Raji, what’s this with you mother?”

Shut up. We are going to kill you!

A minute later. “Raji, there is something wrong with your mother….”

Shut up, I said. We are going to kill you.

Third time. “Raji, please tell what is wrong—I will pray for your mother if you take me.”

He sees a tear roll down Raji’s cheek.

At Raji’s house, JMT prays and the Lord heals her! Raji wants what Jesus can offer. Soon JMT baptizes Raji. And one by one, all the gang become believers.

I know this is hard for some of us in the sophisticated west to believe. But I sat on the mat with JMT and his bride and baby for an hour, looking him in the eye, sizing him up, reading his heart as best I could. He wants to work with the youth of India. He wants a challenge, not an easy life.

John Luke Timothy—fearless for God.

How Nicole could yoke herself to a man who knows he will die some day for Jesus is a testimony to her commitment. I know she is not the Virgin Mary. But evidently she has submitted. “Be it unto me according to your will, O Lord.”

And I fully expect that some day a sword will pierce her heart as it did the mother of Our Lord.

But this is India. This is the “end of the earth” Jesus sends us to.

This is what trusting Jesus, King of Angels, is all about.

A Theological College Senior Picnic

2007-11-12T01:48:00.000-08:00

Remember the Sunday School picnics of yesteryear? How about the freshman college outing? Or, if you graduated Wheaton College (as Ellie and I and our three bairns did) the Senior Sneak?

Well, please do come with me for the annual senior-faculty picnic in beautiful North India.

It’s 8:30 a.m. and we are streaming through the Iron Gate by the guardhouse of New Theological College, heading toward three buses waiting on the paved apron at the edge of the road.

(BTW this college is named, not for anything “new,” but for its original benefactor—Luther W. New, Jr., who made an unexpected fortune when minerals were discovered on his land in South Carolina. This wealth changed his humble lifestyle not one whit, so that his widow, Janie Fountain New, driving their old Chevy to the day she died, gave maybe a million to get this place off the ground. She was a down-home southern lady who came for the original dedication ceremonies here, featuring World Vision’s founder, Dr. Ted Engstrom, Uncle George, et aliis. When brought to the mic during the proceedings the officiant made the mistake of asking her, spontaneously, how she felt about the marvelous occasion. She replied, to the astonishment of all attending, that she was as happy as a mosquito at a nudist colony! I know this account is reliable for it came to me from the mouth of Dr. Timothy Tennent of Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary.)

Sorry for the digression!

Back to the bus.

Here come the men students, in casual clothes for the most part—even a few baseball caps. And here are the women students in their ubiquitous saris—same as they wear for church, for class, for shopping, for working in the gardens, for sleep for all I know. Each seems to have just one outfit as far as my two weeks observation goes.

The day is beautiful, though boring this time of year. The sun comes over the mountains into a cloudless sky every single day, runs its arcing course through the heavens, past a few wisps of cloud, until the going down of the same as a red ball sinking through the distant haze. No wind, no storms, no rain, no nuttin. Just a benign 80 degrees every day. Life’s tough.

I am invited to ride with head of the college, Simon Samuel, his wife Mercy, their two small children and a domestic. It’s a mini-mini van about the size of the cargo end of my Expedition, with the two women and two kids in the one back seat, Simon driving, and I in the shotgun seat (which is on the left side of the vehicle here in left-driving India.)

Skirting the north edge of the city of Dehra Dun, trees soon surround us—not dense as they are in New England, but spaced some thirty feet apart with grasses between. The kids squeal, “Monkey, monkey!” They are all aglow to see these cousins of Darwin—macaques. To me they are nasty little creatures. Somehow I have never really liked monkeys. Don’t trust ‘em, I guess. They have a bad reputation. You see, one will jump out in front of you, startling you into a second’s hesitation. Then his compatriots will snatch your stuff in a twinkling of an eye. Simon relates how some did this to a few of the girls one year. The troop moved off a few yards and the head monk reached into the shopping bags and started tossing snacks to all his henchmen!

They are all over the roadside, the little beggars. Big ones are the size of a cocker spaniel. Small fry cling to Mom’s back, just inches from the roadway. Simon tells me that Hindus leave food along the road for them.

Now we go past a checkpoint where our bus friends are paying the tariff for all. We park in the shade of the trees and walk through the cow-discouraging turnstile (which is bent and no longer turns so you had better not be fat unless you are tall enough to just let your legs go through the gate.

A beautiful rushing river runs through sluiceways with terraced edges so bathers can walk down into the waist-deep waters. I look around for the picnic tables and benches. Oops! This is India. Mats are unrolled and spread on the dried up grass. I will be on my butt all day. Along with everyone else.

First it’s game time. Two lines of guys and girls. The task is for each serially to run to the post where a faculty person stands and tell him the next book in the Bible, then run back and tag the next person. I am amazed that this is a great treat and feat for these seniors, who horse around and cheer and jump at each advantage their team makes.

Soon the guys decide to swim. They must have a change with them, for they go in in trousers and T-shirts. Balls appear adding to the fun of keep-away. Some are not going. It’s going to get ugly, I know it. Bodies are snatched, stripped of glasses and wallets, and tossed into the rushing waters. A few of the younger faculty fall victim. (Simon tells me later that another rule will go into the books for picnics—no faculty hazing!)

Meanwhile I am lounging on the hard ground getting better acquainted with Mrs. Principal and one of my students who has brought his wife and baby boy along. She is from Milwaukee, with Irish-fair freckled skin. Her husband, John Timothy, used to be a gang member in an Indian city whose name escapes me. She looks 15 to me. I think that was about how Jesus’ mother looked – without the freckles, I mean. I ask how her mother handles the first grandson being 9000 miles away. Does she shop and send stuff every once in a while. “No—every week we get a package of clothes or toys!”

I have a long conversation with John Timothy. I’ll relate the tale in a later blog.

At noon lunch is ready. We walk toward the natural section of the river, where a propane heater has been boiling river water. (It really is a fast-flowing clean-looking river some 20 feet wide and maybe a foot deep. Simon has taken his son upstream a bit to wash him off. There he met some cowherds. O great, I think! Cows upstream! They warn him not to proceed as there are elephants further upstream. O really, really great! Elephants upstream!

People queue up with a plate to be filled with rice, curry sauce, some yogurt and chip-style chapattis. I’m so glad Simon suggested earlier I bring some stuff to eat and they would provide some tangerines and an apple for me. I have my bottled water from the guesthouse filter system.

Watch it! Some monkeys are in the trees! Guys throw sticks at them. Even a tennis ball. This keeps them from any lightening quick raids on our lunches.

Now it’s time to go back to the main field for a “time of reflection” on times at NTC. My old bones are glad to be vertical for a while—and in more shade. (Yes dear, I did put on sun block as Dr. Goldberg directed me.)

This time is to last an hour or so. I find a banyan tree with a large exposed steroid pumping root that I can squat on. It’s like sitting on an iron rail. So when the testimonies start I go over to the friendly mat again.

Simon is on his feet. “What was your time like at NTC? Any good changes in your life? Any complaints you may have that we can learn from?”

Silence. Repeat the welcome to reflect and share.

Silence.

Finally one guy gives a humorous account of his first year and how green he was and how some took him under his wing. All in Hindi. So I get only a fragment whispered into my English ear. Four other men follow, two in English. The Principal next gives a long congratulations, including an apologetic for “decisions we have to take as faculty.” The tone is one of mutual respect. No women stand to speak. But that is the culture mostly. Actually they are bold at heart. These women will get into homes in remote villages where a man could not find a welcome. They will have fruitful ministries.

Now it’s time for a half-hour of games—badminton (no courts or nets here) and cricket-with-no-wicket. Mostly folks stand around talking. Then a plastic cup of tea.

I am asked to close in prayer. The buses move out.

As we pile in the car Simon spies a large black-headed monkey. He explains that this bigger monkey species leaves people alone yet terrorizes the macaques. The government is training them to hang around the parks to drive the macaques away.

They have a ways to go!

Hanging about talking all day. Kinda nice. But next day my joints will remind me that I am not used to sitting on mats for 6 hours.

Senior picnic, India style.

Pretty basic.

Pretty nice.

Jars of Clay; Earthen Vessels, Cracked Pots

2007-11-09T02:17:00.000-08:00

"We Have This Treasure in Earthen Vessels"

Now this is a handy quote, coming, as you well know, from the good Apostle’s pen. (More accurately, from the old squinter’s amanuensis’ quill.) The idea is that the deposit of eternal life through Jesus is, though priceless, secured only in fragile human hearts. Not exactly Fort Knox! In fact, our lives are so insecure in the face of life’s Hard Knocks that it takes the watch care of angels and the Holy Spirit himself to push back the Law of Spiritual Entropy that would let the treasure leak out in a trice. In my case, the jar of clay is likely a mere cracked pot. (No sniggers, please!)

Here in India I find extra time for meditation and prayer—is this an Ashram? You see, my one daily duty here is to make my bed—if I care to (which I do). It takes all of 35 seconds. Other than that, a hot breakfast is set before me a 7 a.m. and a hot lunch at 1 p.m., finished off by a hot supper around 6:30. Laundry? Just toss it in the basket and it comes back a day or so later, having been washed and then dried on the sunny line out back of the guesthouse.

I’ve been reading mornings from Hebrews chapters four and five about Jesus as High Priest. An office he could no more arrogate to himself than could the Jewish High Priests of old. It was a position awarded him by the will of the Father. Even though his was not a position in the Aaronic priesthood of Israel, where the High Priest went once yearly into the Super Holy Place (scary it was, too!) to offer atonement for the sins of the People, Jesus still had to prove faithful in his duties. This he did not by offering animal sacrifices (which could never atone for sin anyway, merely pointing to the Suffering Servant) but offering his own life as the Lamb of God that takes away the sin of the world. He is of the order of Mechizedek (King of Righteousness), that mysterious figure in Genesis who hinted of an eternal being, since he came from nowhere and disappeared into history as ephemerally. Thus Melchi-zedek is a type of the Eternal Righteous One. And get this: Abraham, the greatest figure in Jewish salvation history, paid this King of Salem a tithe of all his booty. This shows that there is a man greater than even Abraham—unthinkable though this was to Jews. So the writer supports the claim that Jesus Christ is the only true redeemer of sinners—those of us who are mere jars of clay, yea cracked pots.

Now why this Bible lecture, when these blogs are supposed to be a barrel of laughs?

Because in the context of India one can feel and touch the scope of our place in the world.

I see each morning a star high in the eastern sky as first light breaks. Early this week it was nestled close to the moon—much like the Muslims picture it in their icon. (They follow a lunar month, you know, and that’s why the holy month of Ramadan can come at any season of the year over time.) By yesterday the moon was a barely visible sliver far to the east of the star. Today it was too faint to show at all. But dawn soon comes and the sun rises behind the mountains, its brilliance hiding the moon, the stars, and the lights of the city on the mountain top a few miles above the campus. At the same time I hear blasts of fireworks celebrating a Hindu holiday as well as the blare of chants and music coming from the little Hindu puja shrines. A neighbor family living in the shadow of the college’s walls lights incense, puts out some food and worships one of the Hindu pantheon. I see the man squatting on the floor before the colorful photos of his god, bowing and swaying with the music praising Shiva or Kali, most likely. And the huts of the laborers camped next to the business building going up near the college have a spark of fire throwing shadows of the devotees beginning their day. And I think how in the two or three states of India's 28 that stretch from here south and then east to the plains, are home to over 400 million Hindus, not to mention the two billion souls in China and India and all the scattered races of our species clinging to life as best they can over the face of the earth.

This all gives me a sensation of the worldview a Christian embraces. We know we are on a tiny planet sweeping around a so-so sun lost in the billion stars of our galaxy, which in turn is merely one of billions of galaxies in the infinity of space.

Yet God knows we are here and actually cares about the jars and pots limping around Earth’s crust, fit only for the landfill. While God’s throne is in Heaven—far beyond all space and time I imagine—he has chosen to build his “Presidential Library” on this planet, where he will immortalize his administration’s accomplishments and display his kingly exploits. Of all the real estate out there, our Creator has chosen to call this home-away-from-home. You see His Son came to live here when He was in training to become the eternal High Priest, embedding himself with the clay vessels he intends to restore to usefulness and even to glory. When he is done, this will not be museum with Madame Trusseau's convincing look-alikes. It will be a living museum with reclaimed vessels proclaiming daily the praises of the one who came to rescue them from the incinerator to which they were headed. As Galatians puts it, “you are His masterpiece….”

So as I walk in the cool breezes of first light, with an eye on the moon and stars, I am stung by the realization that where we live Jesus still calls his “home-away-from-home.” I wouldn’t call it a vacation home—no way. It was more a place where he went to submit to the School of Obedience, the boot camp where he would go through something more rigorous than that of the Green Berets or Navy Seals. All of that necessary so he would not fail in his rescue effort.

And he knows my name! I live in a place dear to him. Fond to his boyhood memories. Location of his Greatest Feat of All Time.

So I care not whether you call me a jar of clay or a cracked pot—I’m in. That’s all that counts. He is not ashamed to count me among his band of brothers.

So while I am about to go to my assigned teaching duties here today, I have my plan. Three class hours. First I’ll lecture on family ethics. Then Shivraj Mahendra will come in the second session to talk about ethical issues in India (he has just published a book on the problem of pornography and sexual exploitation here), leaving the third hour for a look ahead to the term paper and the final exam next week. I’m really glad for Shivraj relieving me, since today is the day when my close cousin Paul Carlson will be buried in Cohasset and I am grieving my distance from this family event.

“My plan for the day….” I’ve been told God gets a good laugh when we tell him our plans!

After chapel, Anita, Shivraj’s wife tells me he is ill and won’t be able to come. O no! OK—I’ll ask Dr. Cherian to take a session—he knows just about everything going on in this country. Uh-oh! His secretary says he is in his own classes. Suddenly this cracked pot has all the water for the day trickling onto the ground.

Now what? I have no time to bone up on my notes from lectures heard other years on the "Indian context." I am a bit down inside. I have covered all the other material in the course. I’m just a hopeless potsherd sitting here baking in the merciless sun with an inner voice (is it Ellie’s or Eric’s) jeering “I told you before you cannot expect to wing your way through things!”

“But God….!”

This is one of my favorite phrases sprinkled through Scripture! When the Hobbitses all seem doomed, when the Lion lays slain on the bloody altar of Narnia, when the bars of steel are closing their deathly jaws on those who are unprepared, then out of nowhere comes the rescue.

Professor Francis, who is also teaching ethics to another class, comes to ask if he can be of help, as he heard I was looking for a lifeline. We decide to combine our classes in the conference room. He looks forward to my perspective; I look for him to make sense out of what church leaders face in India today. For two hours we improvise a discussion on topics spontaneously suggested by the 40 in the class. Result? Fantastic! Probably the best class I’ve been part of here at NTC. The students are engaged and after thank us both for a memorable experience.

To me it proves one of my life mottos: Why prepare when you can improvise? Why sweat it when God has a plan? (Ellie and Eric, you can stop rolling your eyes—please!)

And the bonus? No one can take any credit but Him—the one who calls this place a soon-to-be-renovated home and proudly calls us his brothers and sisters.

Jars of clay? Cracked Pot?

Who cares?

He came to us. And the rest—every day—is HIStory.

Against All Odds

2007-11-08T03:20:00.000-08:00

“The Time has come,” the Walrus said,
“To talk of many things—
Of shoes and ships and sealing wax
And cabbages and kings,
And why the sea is boiling hot
And whether pigs have wings!”

You immediately recognize this doggerel as from Lewis Carroll’s (AKA Ludwig Dodson, that old English mathematician who gave us Alice in Wonderland) poem “The Walrus and the Carpenter.”

My sister Lois and I numbed ourselves during the evening chore that fell to us as kids (washing and drying dishes) by reciting this poem in an antiphonal manner, speaking a phrase, stopping in mid-sentence or even mid-word, and waiting for the other to complete it and go on from there. Some six decades later, even though we cannot remember where we left our car keys, we can execute this flawlessly. (One small benefit from our step-parently masters who refused to buy a dishwasher. O! They weren’t invented then. No matter—they treated us cruelly even for those barbaric times.)

So what?

Well it’s an example of those trivial specks of lint on the dark suit of life that can be more significant than the obvious biggies we tend to focus on. One might, uncharitably, call it a kind of spiritual dandruff that can fall upon us from those who are head and shoulders above us.

You see, for Lois and me this is an elemental bond that time cannot weaken. It may mean nothing to others. It is nothing one would bother to type into a blog. But it speaks of something precious and personal. Something our older brother knows not of, since he was always off on some Jamaica Plain High School project requiring him to hunt for bugs under the garbage pail—or some such. Just a word or two of this poem from either of us spreads an entire landscape of meaning and memory onto the canvass of our consciousness.

What I am about to relate is an example of this on a grander scale by far, since it is woven into the fabric of a relationship with the Eternal One whom we are invited to call “Daddy.” (That’s what “abba” means in the Aramaic Jesus used to address his Father in heaven.)

You may recall from an earlier blog that I recovered my luggage due the airlines’ desire to make restoration for its sins of omission. But due to my own negligence I had lost my back-pocket diary for 2007. Lost in the black hole of India, the Mother of All Trash Heaps.

Try though I might to let this loss go and get on with my life, the thing kept intruding from time to time. It’s hard to stop kicking yourself when a little of one’s usual care to check and re-check while traveling was so unhelpfully lacking. Although I suppose it’s only a matter of time when the odds of doing something like that catch up with you no matter how good your record.

Did I say “odds?” Holy Cow! (A little more India influence there—sorry.) I don’t believe in odds. I’m a Calvinist for crying out loud! We don’t cry about anything, because we know there’s no use crying over milk spilt before the foundation of the world!

Ahem! To get back to the saga.

I am at morning tea last Thursday, November 1.

This endearing custom, likely a hangover from the British Raj, comes after the first two periods of classes. My guess is that someone noticed that even after two hours of scintillating lectures the students were still in a morning stupor and drugs would have to resorted to.

Now, the locus of this tradition has shifted since I first came here five years ago. We used to come down from our classrooms to a table that the staff spread before us faculty (I will not say in the presence of our enemies) with chai, plain tea and a plate of either Ritz crackers or Dehra Doon biscuits. Perhaps I should divulge that the classroom building is quite impressive with a large central atrium onto which four floors of classrooms and offices open. The opening is hexagonal. The effect is striking as one stands at the rail on any floor and gazes down upon fellow workers in this giant educational anthill, watching them scurry about with books and the like. On the ground floor (one dassn’t say first floor because here the first floor is the floor up one flight of stairs) the atrium had a sunken central square with two broad descending steps, which were designed, I presume, for potted palms and plants. That sunken feature is no longer with us. I would guess it was raised to floor level after some adjunct elderly faculty backed up a step with his tin of hot tea, and stumbled into the empty aquarium (it would have looked great with lilies and goldfish), breaking a limb or two and scalding himself to boot.

But now morning tea-time has been elevated to the new dining hall higher up the hillside, where there is a fine view of the Himalayan foothills alluded to in a previous blog. As one enters this marble palace, there are wash troughs to the side where one can remove the dust of the day before entering the hall itself. There is a tasteful but direct sign on the doors: DO NOT ENTER UNTIL BELL. Yes the old school bell is in use here still. And in these all-stone mausoleum-like buildings one can have an ear split and bleeding when, by mischance, you happen to be walking past it when the ringer asserts his finger. I have had the uncharitable thought that this guy—who comes out of his neighboring office—waits to push the button until someone passes by who, when startled by its ungodly scream, is likely to jump enough to set a new record for long-jumps. That would be someone like me, who lives in a humane environment where OSHA retired the shrieking school bell decades ago. How a country this poor can afford to add such an abusive task to a staff member’s daily duties mystifies me—ringing this monster every hour all day long.

So we enter the shining new alabastar city that gleams atop the hill at NTC. The student men line up at one station to fill a cup from the samovar (I exaggerate a bit here to add color—it’s only a stainless pot with a spigot handle), while the girls have theirs at a safe distance on the other side of the hall. Faculty still have their own station in the center (to ensure there is no hank-panky between the east and the west). Faculty get their traditional biscuit or cracker—not students. We use stainless steel cups with no handles, pouring in the steaming brew. In the USA OSHA would shut this down in fly-blink as these suckers can wick the heat in a nanosecond up to your dainty fingers grasping the top. So you make haste for the marble-top tables to set your cup and let it cool. When you can pick it up comfortably that is the sign that you will not blister your lips. Pretty clever.

You are wondering how I will get to the point? Read on!

As I stand in the queue one of the staff secretaries waves me to the side to announce some news. “A gentleman called to say he has your lost date book!”

Suddenly this woman is an angel, hovering over the plains of India, shining in heaven’s garb with a heavenly hosting singing “Alleluia” while trumpets sound and the dead are being raised, incorruptible. And we shall all be changed!

At least that’s the effect this Great Glad Tidings had on me. I was raised from the death of doubt and sad resignation to the joy Martha and Mary must have known when their brother was restored to them against all reason.

This may seem overblown to you. But this was so unexpected that I could scarcely believe what she was telling me. I asked her to repeat it—once more, with feeling.

“Yes, it is true. See, he has given his number and wants you to call him!”

Dr. Samuel, the Principal, spread the news over the loudspeaker to the assembly, saying, “Let us rejoice with Dr. Gustafson. I could see that he was troubled by this loss. And now the Lord has done what we said could not be accomplished.”

I took the mic to thank the assembly for their prayers, saying I would add this story to my Bible in Luke 15—the chapter about things lost, then found.

After several tries the office got me through to one Arun Prakash. “I am James Gustafson and have been told you have my lost date book from the Delhi train. Is that really so, and how can these things be, since I know no man who could bring such a thing to pass?”

It seems that Mr. Prakash is a Christian (Methodist) who is the executive secretary of a large charity for all of India. He travels this train north from Delhi so frequently that all the crew know him. His assigned seat was in car C4, seat 47. That was next to seat 46 assigned to me.

Mr. Prakash alighted in Meerut while I continued on to the end of the line at Dehra Dun. I had not spoken to him, as I was in less than a chatty mood after enduring 36 hours of travel with five hours fitful sleep in the YWCA in Delhi. I was reading and nodding off most of the five hours to Dehra Dun.

So when the train came to the end of the tracks, I put my carryon on the seat next to me—seat 47. Unknown to me, my date book slipped off the edge of the carryon and lodged on the seat somewhere. I never saw it. As Adi came to fetch me off the train and to the college car (an old 1950’s London cab) I grabbed his hand of welcome, reached back for my bag and made haste to get off. (We always wait for a college escort so we are not mobbed by ever-present sherpas eager to swing one’s bag onto their heads and earn a rupee or two.

As reported in a previous blog, I did not notice my empty back pocket until over an hour later when I arrived at the guesthouse. By then the cleaning boys would have swept the cars and tossed all trash into the Black Hole of Kolcotta. (This used to be Calcutta—back when Mumbai was Bombay.) Ergo – the Great Depression for moi-meme, the one who had never lost such an absolutely essential piece of equipage in over 50 years!

How did this needle in the infinite haystacks of India come back to me?

It was on this wise.

The crew boys knew Mr. Prakash sat in car C4, seat 47. He is their friend. Being a Christian, I imagine he actually looks at them with a smile and speaks kindly to them. “Look—there is Mr. P’s datebook in his seat. We’ll keep it safe and give it to him tomorrow on his journey back to his home in Delhi.”

Next day Mr P.gets this treasure in its worn out paper cover. He rifles through. He sees a professor’s card—from the USA. But wait. In yesterday’s slot is a fresh card from a John Varghese working for that Christian College in Dehra Dun. There is a cross on the logo. And a mobile number. This must be a brother in Christ.

And the rest—as they say—is history! John gives him the address and phone of the college. And here I am talking to this messenger of the Lord, thanking him profusely.

“Don’t thank me. It was the Lord who put it into my hand for you. I am but a fellow servant. Please, when you come next time, stay at my home in Delhi and we can get to know one another.”

As I hang up the phone, I sit—stunned. How can this be? In the grand cosmic scale of the Kingdom this is less than a fleck of lint on the dark suit, less than a scale of dandruff on the shoulder of the Body of Christ.

But to me it was—and evermore shall be—a token that God is indeed Abba. My Abba. “He knows my every need; he sees each tear that falls; and he answers when I call.”

As a child calls in the wee hours of the night at some smidgen of worry or concern, so when I called to him he came to restore such a tiny thing that means so much to a childlike traveler on a Kingdom Errand to north India.

“The time has come,” the Walrus said, “to talk of many things.” And to praise the Infinite for the infinitesimal.

Against all odds…. That’s our God and Savior—every day.

Adventcha

2007-11-06T03:10:00.000-08:00

Ad-VEN-cha: a quest involving a degree of risk with commensurate anxiety, often into unfamiliar environments where the outcome is uncertain. (Wickedpedia)

How I got started on this “advencha” relates to a commitment I made last year to return to New Theological College to teach Christian Ethics. “Been there, done that,” says I. So this one shouldn’t be a biggie.

Bzzzz! Wrong!

Just because Jim Herrick and Zach have ferried me to Logan International numerous times, just because I have used e-tickets before, just because I can sit for hours in those narrow seats, I am not immune from the vagaries of international mobility.

Just because I know exactly how much of a belt buckle I can wear through the scanner without prompting that dreaded “here-comes-the-wand” beep, just because I can get in a three mile walk in the concourse holding pen, just because I can make it to the European terminal without having to visit the onboard water closet, I am not a bit unnerved when I am told I’ll be on standby for an earlier flight to Newark that is scheduled to leave later than the later flight I signed up for, but that, as an international traveler I will have priority and they will keep a keen eye for transferring my checked bag. Somehow all these extra assurances evaporate whatever assurance I have.

I’ve done the non-stop Newark to Delhi once before in these aluminum tubes with sticks on each side, sucking up fuel in two engines definitely on steroids. This time it’s not so bad as I catch more and longer catnaps, able to tune out the cranky baby and the guy in 36B who coughs when all is still like a barking banshee.

Delhi – on time, no less, at 8:40 p.m. Through customs by 9:10– yes! Next stop – baggage carousel. One bag is mine,to which I had tied orange flagging tape to make it leap to the eye amid all its black cousins. I should meet my contact before ten.

Wait – until the last new bags come onto the carousel.

Wait - until they have gone around several laps.

Notice people grouping at one end. Ah! Bags that the carousel boys rescued from the endless karma cycle for bad bags and set out on the floor. No orange flagging visible anywhere.

Notice people at a counter, waving hands at clerks and filling out papers. “What’s this queue for?” I ask a young woman. “Our bags didn’t come with us! Here—fill out the form. They’ll get them to us later.” Continental Airlines may have mastered the non-stop to India, but the baggage seems to have a mind of its own.

I can check off the color and type of bag mine matches. I can describe what’s in the bag. "Address for bag to be delivered to." Dehradun—a well-known city of some hundreds of thousands. I have nothing written in my trusty date book as to the street and number of the college. I know it begins with Sa—and is a long name. I try to get the mental photo from my mental files, but the image is indistinct. I just put down New Theological College. Everyone in Dehradun should know where that is, right? The young man reviews everything. Then says to get it stamped at the kiosk over there—which looks a football field away, given the size-appearance of the officials. I make the hike. Get the rubber stamp (literally) and come back to hand it in. They give me a number to call if I have questions. Somehow this doesn’t smell so good. I head out, hoping my contact hasn’t decided I missed the flight and gone home to wife and kids. I don’t have his cell number!!! He is a former student—John Varghese. There are surely at least 3 million John Vargheses in Delhi alone. “Please God, I need help and I need it now….”

I head through the last checkpoint. Scores of signs with names scrawled on them greet me. No time to scan each one. No sign of John. I decide to go back and look at the faces holding the signs one by one when a hand grabs my arm. Being the only tall white guy in the arena pays off for once—it’s John. (Thank you, Jesus!) I explain the delay. He suggests we call the number I was given. My cell phone is out of juice, so he does the honors. Good, I am too tired to decipher Indian English anyway. He gets through! He gives them the street address of the college. I can relax. My clothes and course notes will come through intact I pray.

John and Martin Daniels (the driver) and I chat as we squeeze through the late evening Delhi traffic, breathing smog from a thousand curbside trash fires. John now has a month old son—his first-born. Martin has two young boys. I hope I’ll see them in the morning....

No way. We are not staying at the NTC Delhi guest house this time. No one does any more. Why? The Hindu neighbors don’t like these Christians bringing in foreigners all hours of the day and night—it’s a residential block of apartments. The front room office has been moved to the back bedroom so it cannot be seen when the front door opens. No sense waving the flag in front of these bulls of Bashan. Bad things happen in Delhi every day. Veiled threats have been expressed!

Here’s the YWCA. Basic one-bed hostel rooms. But super clean and very secure. I’ll gladly take it. I arrange for a wakeup call at 5:30 and for a boxed breakfast included in the fee - about $10. (All this is arranged by the NTC crew here – I need only send a check to Uncle George—if I wish—at the end of my trip!)

I wake at 3 a.m. to the sound of a cantor. I look out the window. Next door is the dome of a Sikh shrine, spacious, showy, and well lit. He has a beautiful voice I note despite my heavy eyelids.

I decide it would be prudent to open the day with an Appeal to Heaven. I need God to speak to me.

Now I don’t usually believe in the “close your eyes and see where your Bible opens” method of spiritual guidance. But, what the—oops! not the phrase I want—I riffle the pages of my deck-o-cards-size New Testament. Page 56 comes forth with the opening sentence as follows. “It will be like a man who was about to go on a trip….” Wow! This could be for me!

Jesus is giving his parable of the talents. You recall how the Fortune 500 guy gave money to three of his men to invest in the market while he was away. One more than doubled the money. Another saw his profits go tenfold. While one poor loser hid it under his mattress for fear of losing everything. (Must have been a day-trader in penny stocks.) So this is a blessing to me—I’m investing time on a long trip for the Master. Or is it? It’s all risky. Which guy will I end up being in this story? That’s the trouble with parables—the Rabbi has to explain everything or you can go terribly wrong. O well. I’m an optimist, I’ll expect that the worst is behind me. I pray the luggage comes through even though I am about to board a train that will take me six hours farther from Indira Ghandi International Airport where the luggage will hopefully arrive.

End of the line—Dehra Dun. Sweet. Like a home away for me. And here comes Adi to escort me from the train to the college mini-van. “Where’s your bags?” “Didn’t make it.” His nod says this happens from time to time. "You are not the first nor the last."

On the five mile ride (dodging cows and dogs that belong to no one) to the college we stop at a “Corner Store.” Adi gets me a razor to get me by. I can use bar soap to shave with for a day or two. I have one change of underwear, so I can wash something by hand every day and dry it on the line. I’m good.

Through the college gate. Up the drive to the guest house. There’s my private room and bath. The previous occupant seems to have gone to another continent with the key, but that’s a blip I can ignore. Now I can relax at last.

Bzzz! Wrong!

My date book—my brain—is not in my back pocket where I have worn it (or one like it) for over 40 years. I search the ten items in the carry-on three times. It’s not there each time.

“Adi! I must have left my datebook on the train! Can we retrieve it?” It has my phone numbers, my appointments, and lots of data essential to me if “something happens.”

Everyone agrees. It is HOPELESS. The train boys will quickly sweep everything into dustbins to ready the train for its soon return to Delhi. My brains are in a black hole of trash headed for the crematorium.

“It will be like a man who was…on a journey….”

So this is how the parable ends for me? “Lord, if it be possible….”

But realistically, I resign myself to the reality. I have lost an extension of my intellect, a wing of my inner library. Something is different this fifth trip to minister in India.

A colleague listens to my saga. “It may be that the Enemy is not happy you are here,” he suggests. “There have been others suffering setbacks recently, too.” (Job's comforter?)

“Good!” says I. “Let him be unhappy—I’m glad. Our God works all things for good because we are called by and for His purposes!”

Our God reigns!

Now, if only I can get some sleep….

To Blog or Not to Blog—that is the question.

2007-11-05T02:46:00.000-08:00

Here in sunny North India, I find myself tardy in my blogging obligations, but unrepentant.

You may guess that it is because of my lassitude—basking here in the semi-tropical sun. But you would be mistaken.

Despite the flowers, shrubs, and plants now blooming here in profusion, despite attractions of the swallows arcing overhead, the long-tailed shrike and the undulating archon bird, I have been reducing my sizeable shnoz on the proverbial whetstone, so much so that I have left not so much as to sneeze with, much less to gaze upon the majestic foothills of the Himalayas be-jeweled at night with the city set on a hill—Moosourie.

Now that my wandering luggage has come back to the Ark, yielding its lectures to my outstretched hand, I have worked tirelessly—yea, assiduously, to provide my protégées with syllabus, class schedule, and term paper guidelines.

Hence—now that the basics are in place, blog it is.

I have had, amid many severe trials, the pleasure of missing that great non-holiday: Halloween. (That word used to have an apostrophe in it—or am I mis-remembering?) But its spookiness has found me 8000 miles away. (That’s 12,000 kilometers for you friends in Great Britain.) You see, the campus here is again under construction. This time it’s the guesthouse—a 6-unit hostel, including the suite (two rooms) for the college founder, Uncle George, and his wife, Leelama.

Apparently there’s an ever-increasing number of guests that stay here for conferences, or as visiting faculty or chapel speakers, or even as visitors passing through. (You are always welcome to be in that number no matter what may bring you to India.) This is good. Very good. The west wall of the guesthouse now opens to a walkway that bridges a small ravine to the new wing. The concrete slab floors are held up with crookly hardwood poles until they harden. Looks kinda shaky, but at least it appears more reassuring than the bamboo scaffolding used in far East Asia. There is soon to be a larger suite for Uncle and Auntie, who spend a good fraction of their time each year here before returning to the USA for the endless rounds of fund-raising. And there will be four additional guest rooms as well.

However—here it comes, you say—my arrival must have circulated in an advance warning to the world. In yesteryears I have found a fellow-guest or two, and even Uncle “Founder” George was hear on my previous four visits for at least a few days.

This year—November 2007—no one. Not a living soul. “Home alone.”

And it is Halloween. I, like Scrooge, do not really believe in the holiday, nor have I the appropriate holiday spirit. And I too—like he—am to be visited by the spirits seeking to convert me to proper devotion to “those gone on.” as we used to say. All Souls’ Eve, indeed. Humbug!

The first to come is the Spirit of Darkness.

With a horrible SNAP the lights on the walkways and in the hall go down. They left me a tube light, but where is it? Ah—I feel it. I saw them twist the black top so the top would slide up and reveal the bulb in the lantern glass. But it’s not coming up. OK—I stumbled on the secret. But where was that switch?!?! There are some noises out there somewhere. Dogs are barking. I’m now feeling a bit tense as my jet-lagged alimentary canal is signaling “Urgent.” You can stumble in these all-ceramic cells. You can find yourself, in the darkness, sitting on the edge of the Asian shower sinkhole instead of where y—O, forget it—I’m not going there. Just as I think I have located the switch and can turn it triumphantly to “ON” there is a roar as the campus generator leaps to life, flooding the place with eye-squinting brilliance, since in your panic you had unknowingly turned all the wall switches you tried to their highest luminosity settings.

The second to arrive is the Ghoul of Noises.

This jet-weary troubadour has finally dropped off the ledge into sweet sleep, so much craved after a dozen catnaps on a twelve-hour flight and a six hour train journey that have served only to torment with the mocking memory of how delicious real sleep used to be. Then a wailing bugle call just outside the bedroom walls, cascading around the empty cavern’s concrete walls, floors, and ceilings. Now, I am a grown man who has spent nights in a plastic tarp on mountain trails (and whose honeymoon included a thankfully forgiven if not forgotten rain swept night on the slopes of Mount Moosilauke in New Hampshire in a leaky WWII army tent), so I am not a weenie! But this is new. Nor can I recall any of the phone numbers of the nearby faculty. So the phone on my nightstand is no comfort. I have no clue what creature may be clawing at the foundations, scenting a tantalizing snack on the other side of the wall. If it would only trumpet again perhaps I could triangulate and make out its nature. But only silence. My mind races through all the files stored in the basement of every living brain, hoping to find a match. So many files, so little time. Ah—there’s one or two. I decide (hopefully) it is a cow. They do wander at will in this country, being sacred and all. That’s what I’ll comfort myself with anyway. Now maybe I can try again to slumber—please. I drop off while meditating anew on the biblical phrase, “He owns the cattle on a thousand hills….” Most of them must be in India now….

The third to come is the Spectre of Spooks.

They are running water now. I can hear it hissing through the pipes. Is someone in the kitchen? I recall how I did not bolt the door to the guesthouse, not knowing if someone had a key to one of the upper rooms and would wake me from my hard-earned rest in the middle of the night. They could let themselves in, I had thought. Now I remember that my room is the one where the previous occupant—cursed be he—had absconded with the key. So my room is unsecured. And now some Hindu extremist is rummaging in the kitchen, likely looking for an additional backup for his knife and is now running water to whet the edge thereof! I slip silently off the bed, slide into my pants and sandals, ready to see if the way is clear for my Dagwood-Bumstead-style exit from the front door into the lane. Poking my head out my bedroom door, I see that it is barely dawn, and a worker is at the spigot out back filling a plastic bucket. He is covered with what looks like a pair of boxer shorts and is all lathered with soap! He starts dipping water as he stands on the concrete slab. He douses himself repeatedly. Hair and head. Shoulders and arms. Down the front of the shorts. Down the back of the shorts, then the sides. His work-toughened brown frame glistens in the last-quarter moonlight high overhead.

He is clean. I am not, having no luggage with fresh clothing. He is rested and ready for an 11-hour day on the wooden ladders and rough slab site. He has slept on a mat and is tough. I am soft and tired. Have mercy! Let a poor pampered wandered from the West get a break. Why can’t you people have a second cup of tea or coffee and come to the job site when the sun is up—like maybe noon?!?! O MY STARS! There comes his wife! When will their nearly-naked urchins show up?

Now I know how Scrooge felt when forced to surrender to what he once called the affects of “a bit of undigested beef or underdone potato.” But he was rewarded with Christmas and the joy of his nephew’s holiday dinner. This is no Christmas. This is Halloween. I’m home alone….

It’s just not fair!

Signing off

2007-03-22T02:34:00.000-07:00

Here endeth the postings of BLOGS on my trip to Greece. I can't wait for time to work up the photos and videos.

I had trouble posting these blogs daily, as internet opportunities were sometimes too expensive and sometimes non-existent.

So if you want to read the last few in sequence, you will have to scroll down the list of blogs and end up with the one on Patmos and Ephesus.

Thanks for reading my impressions. I hope you gained something of value.

Ephkharisto,
Jim

Patmos and Ephesus

2007-03-22T02:33:00.000-07:00

The wake-up call was early today. Dale and I ate with four senior ladies from the south. They leave their husbands every few months to go touring like this. One of them was a Mrs. Bradshaw. “She won’t tell you this,” one said, “but she is Terry Bradshaw’s mother!” She was 90+ but didn’t look a day over 80. If you don’t know who Terry Bradshaw is, forget it!) Disembark at 7:15. On bus #10 and off to the Grotto and Shrine of St. John.

There are but 3 towns on the island, home to 1000 people. Three grammar schools, one high school, and a theological seminary. So students go to Rhodes, Samos, or, more likely, Athens for university. Not much opportunity here besides tourism. They do have some agriculture and flocks of sheep or goats—but not numerous.

It rains here November through March. But no rain in summer, when tourism is highest. So they have tankers sailing in twice a week to supplement what water is caught in roof-run cisterns. Some day they’ll have desalinization, such as supplies this cruise ship with water you can drink safely.

St. John was exiled here as an old man, probably in his 80s, by Emperor Domitian. Exile meant one is stripped of all possessions and all rights and sent to slave labor in the stone quarries here.

Tradition has it that on the ship bringing John to Patmos a storm arose, sweeping overboard a young son of a traveler. John prayed immediately, and the boy was swept back into the ship. Several accepted the Gospel at once. It was typical in those times for people to be impressed with any Power that could produce results, be it pagan gods, sorcerers, soothsayers or whatever. (It reminds me of my evangelist friend, Dave Walker’s message, “What Has Your God Done for You Lately?”)

On shore the captain told the Roman official administering the island. He also believed and released John from his chains, giving him leave to live in a cave in relative freedom. Here John secured a scribe, Procopius, to whom he dictated his writings.

John had the appearance of Christ here, which terrified him, issuing in the Apocalypse, addressed to the churches of Asia Minor where he had been staying when arrested.

There is a church there on the slopes, next to a school. When we visited a service was in progress. A priest decked in embroidered and en-jeweled garments and mitre, splashed incense as the teacher and boys sang the liturgy. As you may know, Orthodox churches use no instruments—voice only. I circled twice to get more of the rich flavor.

It’s a long winding stone stairway—outdoors—to reach this little niche on the rock. We saw a flat stone where John would lay his head to rest and one he used to steady himself to rise up.

Contrary to what many think, John did not die here. After the assassination of Domitian, Emperor Nerva released many Christians. John then returned to Ephesus and died there—the only apostle to die a natural death at an age over 100. Some say 120. But most scholars settle on age 104. Life expectancy then was 45 to 55 years of age.

Bussing to the high point we were guided through the small church, with painted saints and bishops dating back many centuries in some cases.

At the very top there is “the best museum in the Aegean” displaying treasures such as the 3 kilo mitre wore on special occasions by the archbishop when he visits. (That is nearly 8 pounds of weight—a lot to have on your head for more than a short time!) There were also manuscripts, including pages from a Gospel of Mark made in about 490-520 AD. Another notable was a parchment portion of Revelation, 10th century.

One icon was a painting of Jesus (waist up) with a look of suffering that is quite moving. A young painter, Dimitrious Ephthalmousious (that’s what it sounded like to me) was rejected because his work showed too much emotion for the monks. They liked that “flat” style of iconography. Unable to find work anywhere in Greece, he emigrated to Italy and then to Spain. Spaniards could not master his name, so they referred to him as The Greek. Bingo! That’s why that icon had hands with really long fingers—El Greco!

As I write this in Dale’s and my cabin #4020 we are once again at sea, heading for Ephesus. When I get there I’ll be listening for what the Spirit has to say to the Church.

(Next day.)

“Save the best for last.” A good motto.

And that is just what happened this afternoon, Sunday, March 18, 2007.

The ruins of Ephesus lie inland about 3 miles from the shore. Yet in Paul’s’ time it was a port city. In 2000 years silt from the river has filled in a long flat plane that would make a fine airport if it were not for flooding in the rainy season. So the city is high and dry now.

Most of the ancient city was buried under 4 to 12 feet of soil until recently, It is still being excavated. A truly awesome scale here. A temple of Artemis stands on the highest ground. Then there’s an amphitheatre for the politicians, not far from their offices.

Aqueducts brought fresh water for this ancient city of 250,000—one of the largest of cities in Roman times, the largest being Alexandria (400,000) A system of clay pipes delivered water to the baths, where poor people from outside were required to bath in order to prevent the spread of disease. Houses had bathrooms with drains to a sewer system that brought wastewater to the sea.

A long avenue holds offices of professionals on either side, with gods on pedestals appropriate for the profession, whether lawyers, doctors, philosophers and so forth. Walking on marble steps that Paul and he early convert walked upon, we descend gradually to the hospital, indicated by the medical symbol of the ancient world with the two entwined snakes. Further down is a house built for Hadrian, with the head of Medusa on the keystone of the arch, guarding the house from evil.

Next is a junction where the great library stood, second only in size to that of Alexandria. All the scrolls have been lost to earthquakes and fire. It has four goddesses by the two entrances: wisdom (Sophia), destiny, ___, and knowledge (Epistemethe). An avenue heads north to the gymnasium (floors only), while the main avenue broadens to about 50 feet going to the Agora. This is about ten acres in size and would have had goods of all types from around the world. Our guide points out the corner where the synagogue is thought to have stood. Paul always preached in the synagogues first, before going to the Gentiles.

No wonder Paul spent several years here preaching in this vibrant metropolis, making many converts, whom he would later chastise for their wayward ways and factions. It may been the San Francisco of its time.

On a distant hill is a small fortress where Paul was imprisoned for his own safety during the great riot of the silversmiths, who saw their lucrative business going the way our buggy whip industry went after the switch to automobiles. He would be a prisoner most of the rest of his life, as we now know. Here was the beach where he said farewell to the church elders after the incident with Eutychus.

And to think that a few decades ago all this was under soil where goats and sheep were grazing for a thousand years. Ephesus was abandoned in the 10th century after earthquakes and other calamities sent the remaining inhabitants inland to the Christian Ephesus with a church built over the tomb of St. John.

And think of what one will see here a few years hence, when the 40% excavated becomes 70% or higher.

After a week following the footsteps of Paul one begins to feel and smell and look with new eyes—eyes that are old by two millennia.

The ancients were state of the art in their technology—much more advanced than I had thought. This was part of super-power culture of its time, yet Paul fearlessly brought the Gospel of Jesus to that world. Christian faith is fully up to challenging the power centers of any culture, ancient or modern.

To this short, balding, brilliant man I owe a great debt.

To Paul, the apostle to us Gentiles, we must say thank you.

Rhodes on St. Patrick's Day

2007-03-21T18:12:00.000-07:00

Saint Patrick’s Day, 2007. But no sign o’ the wearin’ o’ the green here. It’s all the blue of the deep blue sea.

Bouganvillias are in bloom, rich in that luscious color. The Island of Rhodes today. A place where St. Paul stopped briefly as he hopped, skipped, and jumped from Corinth to Jerusalem on what would prove to be his last visit to his natal land.

Bus with guide takes us 20 miles south to Lindos. We hike up to another acropolis, where there is an overlay of ancient cultures. The Hellenic ruins peak through via an outdoor set of stairs, barely visited. This ouwl have led Paul up to the temple of Diana at the top. It is bein reconstructed now, incorporating some original elements still extant. Once again, the view of the azure sea is stunning. There is also a Byzantine church with a perhaps 40 foot section of the walls still reaching for the sky. And lastly there is a fort built by crusaders in the 13th century.

It’s quite a hike up here. So Marilyn opted for the donkey lift that takes you most of the way up. Jackie decided she would take the trip down for 5 euros.

Well, the donkeys are not too thrilled about their lot in life. I take video of Jackie mounting the small brown beast. Behind her are a couple of women who really need Jennie Craig, if you know what I mean. The last one suddenly finds herself rolling off onto the ground. The saddle was unequal to her, I guess, and did an earthward rotation. Helped to her feet, she seemed OK. But she got her money back and took the walking path. I saw her sitting to catch her breath later. “Are you OK?” “Yes—just a bruise or two.”

Meanwhile Jackie is heading down. But they guy holding the rope keeps looking back and the other Mrs. Lard, whose donkey is leaning against Jackie’s for support, nearly pushing them off the trail—which in places is near the cliff and there are no guard rails.
I got down to the village first and filmed Jackie getting off. “You OK?” “I guess so—I’ll tell you about it in private after I get some coffee to help shake off my shakes!” A coffee/chocolate Nescafe later and she has regained some composure. Jackie is always jolly about things. This is no exception. But it could have been a real train wreck.

From the acropolis we can see a “lake” whose inlet from the sea is so narrow it’s not visible to us. Tradition has it that the ship on which Paul was sailing was being pursued by a vessel (pirates?) and managed to sail into this 20 acres “pond” until the other vessal was way downwind. That’s a new one to me. But—you never know….

Afternoon is free time. It’s but a five minute walk back to the bazaars, which are teeming with people. Jackie is looking for a rug for her living room. In one shop there is woman on a bench before loom, hand-weaving a carpet. It can take one or more years for her to complete one of the larger rugs. The show-woman presents several rugs that Jackie is interested in. A mere 500 euros for about 7x9. (Free shipping.) Gorgeous patters, colors. She takes a business card, needing to think about it. Kinda tough to return if it doesn’t go with the décor and the couch!
The day is topped of by a show of Greek dances by some of the crew. Great music. At the end a couple appear in wedding attire. They had been married on board by the captain a day ago. So she throws her bouquet here to eager wanabe.s. “Now for the wedding waltz,” the emcee says. “No! – play the _____!”

Well this couple was the best of show! Reminded me a flamingo dancing—you know the ones those pink birds do down in Florida. Same level as you see on TV dancing competitions.

All that was lacking on this St Paddy's Day was a Cranton blowing the conch shell. But then, this is Greece!

Cruisin'

2007-03-20T06:15:00.000-07:00

Cruisin’ with the big fish. My first time on this much floating tonnage. 1000 passengers. Countless crew. They take your passport away! I feel a bit vulnerable with just my photocopy. Dale took care of our passports, while I put baggage through what passes in Greece for screening. He assures me they put the documents in the ship’s safe.

We get a credit-card sized room key, which they scan every time you disembark and return. That way they know who, if anyone, is missing. First drill is to get your cabin’s life vest, put it on, and proceed up, up, and away to deck 7 and stand where they tell you. When all are in place, you are released. That’s it.

Sailing southeast from Athens, we sit in the sun on the deck. Teen girls are in the small pool—but not for long. It’s breezy and cool.

So this is cruising! Four dining areas, from buffet to elegant sit-down. Great food. I cautiously pick at a bit of this and a tad of that in my usual dainty fashion. Dale finds the small exercise room. Not me. Up and down four to seven flights will keep me trim. Lifts are available but slow. Cozy little cabin on level 4—about 20 feet above the water line. As we get out into the mid-Aegean, rollers will splash on our side, sending spray almost this high. But the ship barely rolls.

Dale uses a suction cup to fasten his GPS to our window. Speed says 25 mph. A little line shows our path across the islands, just like airliner maps.

In a few hours we are docking at Mikenos (MEE-ken-os) This small island is covered with stuccoed houses that are whitewashed twice a year, with deep blue trim for windows and doors—a striking effect in the sun and those turquoise Aegean waters. How they supported themselves before tourists started flocking to the islands 25 years ago is something to ponder. Windmills dot the landscape, which is sparse, like the hills of west Texas. Their sails are furled today, even though there is a stiff breeze. Meandering up the narrow streets and alleys, shops and house intermingle, almost all abutting one another. A road the width of Broadway in Haverhill winds up the slopes. Traffic is light.

I had been talking with Linda on the cruise deck earlier. She has a farm near Lousiville with llamas that help guard sheep. She raises vegetables and herbs for the farmer’s market. Sadly, she married poorly and is now divorced after some 20 years, with sons now in their twenties.

She wanted to go to the top of the hill to a chapel. Dale was eager to get some coffee, so I offered to go with her. The small structure was surrounded by houses except near the top. We looked for a road or path to it but found none. So we yard-whacked up the slope over a wall here and a fence there. With some creative effort we made it. There was no indication that anyone ever goes there. No road. No footpath. I guess its just a monument someone built in gratitude for some deliverance for the village. By now ,the sun is setting into the sea—a giant red ball. We find our way down by the road and alleys. Good fun; good exercise.

It is sooo nice to cruise through all the shops, knowing you are not going to buy anything. Most are small hole-in-the-wall businesses with clothes and curios and water color paintings and sandals and such. The same for coffee shops and sandwich places. No big plazas in sight. It’s delightful.

Nice place to visit, but—no—you would not want to live here.

Back to the ship. Time to go on cruisin’.

Marvelous Marble

2007-03-15T00:03:00.002-07:00

These Greeks were—and are—obsessed with marble. All the floors are marble. In bathrooms everything but the ceilings are marble. Stairs are marble. Everything here seems “marbelous” in our eyes.

Marble is wondrous material for building and sculpting, no doubt about that. And there is plenty of it in the mountains of Greece.

Now see if you can believe what George told us when someone asked how the ancients transported massive blocks of marble so many miles.

“The raw marble was quarried out in huge cylinders with some thing like rims on the ends. The skid roads were built with a groove (like a gutter) on each side. So when the cylinders were placed onto the road they would transport themselves by gravity from the mountains to the plain where Athens is located.”

OK. I’ll buy that. We think hese guys were primitive. But that's not at all the case. They were great engineers!

And it is a gleaming white marble here. So the sun glinted off the monuments with a dazzling brilliance that must have been overwhelmingly impressive. Plus the statues were painted, often with gold trim.

Yesterday we noticed another element that comes to Athens from mountains far away. Water. Sluiceways and aqueducts, some open and some closed run for over 100 miles from mountain lakes, coursing up and down the hills by gravity pressure, making this city’s water drinkable. And a lot of water is needed for the four millions living here in Greater Athens. It reminds me of waterways around Phoenix, AZ.

Now, the big attraction in Athens is the Acropolis—the highest point in the city, much as the City of Zion (Temple Mount) was to ancient Jerusalem. The gods always get the best spot.

And the mesa upon which the Temple of Athena is built is much larger than I would have expected from the photos we’ve all seen of this temple—more than 10 acres, I estimate. To one side is the first temple—a modest one built in the 8th century BC. But in the 5th century this grand temple was built, during the lifetime of Socrates. The chief engineer was genius enough to know that that the base needed to be slightly bowed in order to look straight to the eye, And he made the columns thicker in the middle than at top and bottom so that they would not appear to be leaning outward. All in marble.

There are cranes and scaffolds there now and the buzz of many workers as reconstruction goes on, using recovered stones where possible and new ones as necessary. The original temple was destroyed by the Persians in revenge for their defeat in the naval battle oif Salamis. (The general was told by the oracle that Athens could be saved by wooden walls, which he interpreted as ships. He built three oar-deck triremes that were much faster and cold change direction quicker than Persain sailing vessels. They also had a protruding bronze battering ram just below the surface enabling them to ram the enemy ships and sink them by the hundreds!) It would be left for Alexander to get the final word in as he swept through Persia and all the way to India, before turning back to Egypt, thus conquering the world as it was then known to the Greeks.

To the south of the temple area is an amphitheatre where the great dramatists Aristophanes, Euripedes and Aeschylus put on the blockbusters of the day. George opines that drama of that scale and quality was not seen in Europe again until Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre productions.

The north is the agora—sort of an outdoor shopping mall, not far from the court where Socrates was tried before a jury of 501 peers. This was not in a building but on what amounts to a public commons. Athens was a pure democracy—all the enfranchised citizens (adult male freemen) debated and voted on all the laws. Juries were chosen by a lottery where citizens had a certain color ball. Randomly certain rows of balls were chosen and those determined which citizens were on jury duty for that trial.

But our focus is on Mars Hill, an insignificant rocky knob less than an acre in size, above the noisy agora and below the Acropolis. Here philosophers and other idle rich got away from the noise of the market and did “nothing other than listen to new ideas.” Here Paul gave his famous address with this opening: “I noticed how religious you are when I saw an altar to the unknown god.” He told them who this unknown (to them) God was—this novel religion— much to their delight - until he mentioned the resurrection. A few believed, some wanted to hear more the next day, while most rejected it as nonsense. Thus Paul wrote that the Greeks seek wisdom while rejecting the wisdom of God as foolishness, even though in truth it is the power of God to salvation.

The rocks on Mars Hill are worn so smooth it was treacherous for those of us who ignored instructions to use the modern walkway. Our most senior man had to be assisted over the top to a place where we could safely stand for George’s expostulation. The wind was strong, with gusts up to 20 mph, against which the bright sun was no match.

After a bus ride of nearly two hours we crossed the isthmus to the Peloponnesus where Sparta once held sway. There is a canal 25 feet deep and 80 wide, dug a century ago to replace a portage of four miles over which horses once dragged small ships.

At Corinth we held another communion service at which Dale gave a moving message. Corinth is very much ruins, with only a few small “shops” still standing in the agora. The temple remains are few and have not been rebuilt. We saw where Paul would have gone to the synagogue and then to the magistrate. He spent a fruitful 18 months there doing awning business with Priscilla and Aquila. (Tents were made of skins by the soldiers themselves, so Paul's trade would have been in canvass-type goods for civilian use. A museum shows many of the artifacts. Again—more marvelous marble.

As we headed back, George gave us the surprise bonus which was not on the tour itinerary—Kenchrea (Cenchrea). This small port city is where Paul would have embarked to go to Ephesus in 41 AD. A church was built on the site of the wharves in the 5th century. But an earthquake toppled it some time later and it was never rebuilt.

The splendid works in marble, still showing signs of glory after more than 2000 years, all either in ruins or in mute testimony to a religion and way of life that has no pulse today. Marble, yes, but no longer marvelous. For the things that are unseen are alone eternal.

And this God that Paul preached about so long ago is present everywhere, in heaven and earth. As Dale said, your self cannot be found anywhere in your bodily tissues, yet you are present in every part nonetheless. So God cannot be found in any part of the universe yet is present in every part. We do not have to go to any lengths by means of religious ritual to find him, for he is present everywhere always. All we need to do is open our hearts to him and he will enter in an instant, just as air enters the lungs when we stop holding our breath. This is more wonderful than anything captured in marble.

“How wonderful, how marvelous and my song shall ever be.
How wonderful, how marvelous is my Savior’s love to me.” -- Fanny Crosby, 19th century hymnwriter

The Oracles of God

2007-03-15T00:03:00.001-07:00

Tuesday, March 13, 2007 breaks clear and sunny, lighting the mountains surrounding Karbala. Our coffee stop is nearly two hours down the road—a sparkling expansive hall with window walls on three sides. Pastries and lattes, even salads beckon us. But what I hear calling me is the ice cream counter. After nearly a week of fasting, I treat myself to a cup of delicious vanilla and one of caramel cream. If I were to apply for the ancient position of "oracle priest" this would be the inspiration of choice for me.

We are soon heading for the most famous of all the oracles of god: Delphee. But first our coach must climb a long series of switchbacks to traverse the ridge of mountains of Pindar. Rising far and high are many snow-laden peaks and cols to our north and west. Mountain villages are supported by the mining of bauxite, which, as you know, provides us with aluminium. There are summer cottages here, too, for many come from neighboring Bulgaria (a hundred miles north) as well a Romania and other European countries.

George explains that in Greece there are four levels of property purchase. 1. the house where you will raise your family and carry on your occupation or profession. 2. A summer cottage on the seashore. 3. A winter cabin for skiing. 4. Purchasing a house for your children when they marry. Since the first house is given you by your parents, you are free from that burden. Then when you are established in life and making good money you can more easily handle 2, 3, and 4. So your kids get a nice house - from you!

Delphi fascinates. Here’s what George told us.

A shepherd, grazing sheep high on the steep slopes here noticed that the animals acted strange every time they went by a certain place. (Psychoactive, I think we would call it now.) Soon people began to come to consult priests as a cult began. This was before the 7th century BC.

There’s no business like show business, they say. And religion here soon found that this was a sacred place. You see, Zeus released two eagles at the creation of the Earth. They flew from opposite directions. Their paths crossed here at Delphi—ergo, the center of the world—its navel (omphalos). A holy place where the gods could speak to men and reveal the future soon found international attention.

Emissaries would come from as far away as distant Greek city states and even Persia and Egypt, hoping to find out whether it would be propitious to go to war, for example. Over time new elements were added. A temple of Apollo was erected with a large statue of the god inside the temple. Only priests were admitted there, so there are no descriptions of that sculpture. Outside, an altar was built where seekers brought their animals for sacrifice. There was such heavy traffic that devotees waited several months before their turn came, except for one city-state (Iona?) that donated a building and went to the head of the line each time.

The priests would come to the altar before the temple and sacrifice the animal, often a bull, and then cut it up and roast it over a fire. If the smoke went up in a straight column it meant the prayer was granted.

Soon city states began to build treasuries to hold the money people from their city donated. This served as a bench mark for the currency, like a gold standard. The one for Athens has been reconstructed. It is about 20 by 15 feet, all marble. Some of the Ionian columns for the temple are still standing over 2000 years later.

The entrance where the worshippers began their ascent to the temple was lined with statues of heroes from the wars. Thebes beat Athens, so they got a dozen statues, then Athens beat another city and got their dozen and so on. There were scores erected along the first 50 paces of the entrance.

The female oracle would chew on leaves and sit over the smoke of the fire until she began to speak in strange tongues. Only the priests could listen and figure out what the message was. The poatrons waited fomr several nobnths for their answer. Meanwhile the Delphic priests had "reporters" out in the far countries gathering inetelligence to help craft their crafty prophecies and waited for thie spies to return with the data they needed. The final message was often ambiguous: the Greeks the Persians will defeat. Or, the king who crosses the Hyla River will destroy a great nation. It the latter case the king crossed only to find it was his great nation that was destroyed.

This oracle was so powerful that no one dared to attack the sacred site. That’s why states built their treasuries there. It was a neutral zone.

Every two years athletes from all Greece would come here to compete. There are ruins of the gymnasium, as well as a large stadium. By the way, the Greek word “gymna” means “naked.” Think of that when you go the gymnasium, (It also explains why deciduous trees are gymnosperms, if I recall.) These contests were held only every two years because it is a great distance from the various states. The Olympic games were every four years because Mount Olympus (Zeus' home is even more remote.

What is incredible is that in 1878 an archeologist came looking for the Delphic Temple. Coming to this remote site, he noticed that the foundation stones of some of the few houses here had inscriptions on them—in full view—that contained the word “Dephi” on every one, as they were records of the various prophecies given to various states. None of the locals paid any attention to these inscriptions! Soon the villagers were moved to other locations and excavations began, recovering these treasures that go back 27 centuries.

Of course the site had been abandoned after Emperor Theodosius, Christian, closed the place down in the late fourth century. In some locations basilicas were built on pagan sites. But this one was simply abandoned and fell to ruin.

We also toured a museum on the grounds where many of the statues are elegantly presented.

With all this excitement, time slipped by. We went for lunch at 3 p.m. I sat out in the sun and peeled two boiled eggs I pocketed at breakfast. We had our Bible study by Pastor Robin Jenkins before heading off on the two hour journey to Athens.

All societies try to find a way to peek into the future. But to the Jews were given the oracles of God and to no other. And mercifully, that God keeps the details to Himself.

It was well after dark when we pulled in to the hotel. The Acropolis was lit up about a mile away. But that story will have to wait until tomorrow.

Wake up! We'll Miss the Bus!

2007-03-11T13:53:00.000-07:00

“Quick, wake up—we’ve overslept and we’re going to be late!”

Dale and I scramble out bed to shave and shower. I had expected to be at the dining room first thing before all the good chow gets gobbled up. Now we are 30 minutes late!

Not to worry. What a buffet! Breads galore. Meat and cheese. Eggs, omelets, sausage, hot tomatoes, waffles, croissants, jams and jellies. Yogurt, fruits of all kinds, granola, coffee cakes, juices, milk, coffee, tea and on and on. Several of us stuff a boiled egg in our pocket for lunch.

It’s drizzling as we make our way to the bus. But two hours later we enjoy some weak sunshine and 48 to 50 degree temperatures.

But that’s not needed. We have lunch at the seaport of ancient Neapolis where Paul’s entourage docked and he stepped foot for the first time in Europe—about 47 A.D. Now it’s Kavala (renamed by the occupying Turks 500 years ago as a place where you changed horses (our word cavalry comes from that root) with 80,000 inhabitants. The “tarverna” has fresh sea food, plus all other Greek goodies. Mmmm.

The houses cling to steep hillsides, topped by a medieval fort with the Greek flag straight out in the wind. In the harbor we are sheltered as we watch fishing boats head out to the Aegean Sea.

It is Sabbato here—Sunday. All the stores in Greece still close for Sunday—one benign influence of the powerful Greek Orthodox Church. But restaurants and hotels are busy.

For our worship observance, the pastor of the large group we are with (St. Francis in the Field Episcopal, near Louisville) conducts a Eucharistic service by the babbling small river where St. Paul baptized the first European—a businesswoman named Lydia. It is unspoiled, a few dozen yards from a small church in a field next to a derelict Roman cemetery. There are five rows of stone benches on the bank, since baptisms are done here today.

We go through a beautiful liturgy of prayers, the Nicene Creed, Scripture readings from the Letter to the Philippians, book-ended by two praise songs—Seek Ye First the Kingdom of God and one I know but the title escapes me. (Should have eaten more fish—I ordered fish soup at lunch, thinking I was getting the smaller—and cheaper bowl, but only the more expensive one had actual fish in it!)

Pastor Robin gave a few well-chosen words, followed by the bread and wine. We filed over a tiny arched bridge to the tiny island in the middle of the brook to receive the sacrament and back on a second arched a few yards upstream.

At the small church, I lit a candle, which one then props into the sand in the marble stand and proceeded to the center. It’s small, with a baptismal font in the center under an exquisite dome showing the baptism of Jesus in the Jordan River. Our guide, George, explains how infants are baptized here. The priest spreads olive oil over the baby’s body, he immerses it in the water, having first cut a snip of hair from its head, representing the break with the sins of our ancestors. Then he and the godfather walk around the font showing the child to all the family and friends, rejoicing in a new life given to God. George is also a cantor and sings a sample of the liturgy enhanced by the acoustics of this marble sanctuary.

Philippi’s Romans ruins run across wild lands where sheep and goats now graze. We stand on the “stage” of the modest sized Amphitheatre—always built on a convenient hillside so the stone benches rise naturally. There are pillars and pediments lying about. Many are numbered and set on wood racks ready to be used again. They are restoring the area, using original and new marble blocks. They are linked together the same way as in Roman times—matching opposite slots are filled with molten lead, thus preventing shifting due to frost and earthquakes, to which the region is prone. (There was a 6.6 quake here in 1978.)

Nearby is the ruin of a Byzantine church, with part of the steps to the altar, an area of marble flooring, and a couple of columns standing vigil. The actual jail in which Paul and Silas sang hymns while awaiting their appearance before the magistrate has been dug out partially. It was small—fifteen by twenty feet. Hardly what the artists present us in those Sunday school lessons we studied as kids.

To get to the agora we have to cross a busy road, fortunately equipped with a pedestrian light. Going down a flight of steps, we find ourselves on the Egnatian Way, built for Roman armies 50 years before the birth of Jesus. Unused now, it goes for miles and is not only recognizable but also in good shape. The stones are still flat enough to take horse and chariot. We did not see any during the brief time we were there. There are acres and acres of foundations and even many columns—one for the prefects quarters and another large triad left from the ruined church which was raised on the site of the Roman court building where Paul would have answered questions about the riot he was blamed for.

I muse how Roman times were not that many generations ago. I have known people born at the time of our Civil War. Ten more links like that and we are in the ancient world.

Being here helps to vivify the way people like ourselves did their work, raised their families and carried on the affairs of state. In that setting somehow the Gospel was brought by an unlikely person of Jewish birth—Saul of Tarsus, now Paul—the “little one,” who walked his way along these roads, looking for synagogues so he could share the Good News first with his countrymen. But here there were not to be found the 12 men needed for a synagogue. So he met some women on the banks of a small river just outside the city’s northeast wall, probably doing their laundry along the banks. This was the edge of town where people on the edge of society gossiped about the latest news from Rome.

And Lydia opened her heart and asked for baptism into this strange new faith. Because of her we who come from European stock have come to follow in the Way of Jesus.

That wake up call is still sounding in the world today, not only in Europe and the Americas, but in Asia and Africa, where countless Lydias open their hearts to the same message St. Paul brought to these hills nearly two millennia ago.