We'll Be Right Back After this Message from God

God's country, right?

I don't know where we were. It was pretty. With friends at the wheel, I didn't pay attention. I was distracted by baby-white wildflowers which covered the landscape like a dusting of snow. We got out of the car and started walking a trail that reminded me of Africa -- red earth and green hills. But the horizon was pure Scotland, minus mortarless rock walls or yellow gorse.

Our Friends Chris and Patty provided the guidance and companionship. We hiked to the mesa and looked down at Millerton Lake and the San Joaquin River snaking into it. OK, now with my bearings secured I could imagine myself a Miwok seeing this scene for the first time. This isn't Scotland or Africa -- this is 30 minutes from my house and I have never been here. OK, 30 minutes plus two hours hike up hill.

Tina did really well. Her new hiking shoes worked out, and her sky blue hiking blouse danced up the trails wicking sweat away just as advertised. The afternoon sun illuminated her beauty and she glowed. It started to cool off on our hike back to the car, but the challenge of the trail soon made us stop to rest.

When people say they experience God in the countryside, it often makes us want to scream. God is in the face of an inner-city kid who is learning to read. God is in the alley that has just been cleaned. God is in the house that is being renovated by a hopeful couple. God is in the teacher who prays for her student who has to navigate gang territory to get to school. God is in the tired Dad who still goes to a community meeting because things are being discussed that affect his neighborhood. God is in the Mayor's boardroom, the prostitute's bedroom, the casino's back room. We don't have to go to the countryside, OK? He's in relationships, in suffering, in decision making, in the built environment, not just the created one. OK?

And OK, God is on the Mesa looking down at his handiwork. I needed the reminder. I need to do this more often.

800 Year-Old Words on Grief

Theologian Raymond Brown is famous for saying "All truth is God's Truth." By that he meant that if something is true, it doesn't matter who said it, whether Jesus or someone else. The spirit of Jesus lives in and expresses itself through people who have yet to discover the source of their wisdom. So, while I will always look first to the scriptures for help in dealing with the grief I feel over the untimely and tragic death of my pastor, I also pay attention to those who speak the language of the heart with insight and integrity. Such is the person of Rumi, the 13th century Afghani mystic. He wrote in Persian, often referred to God as his Beloved or Friend, and seemed especially in touch with the human experience. I could share many, many lines from his poetry that have helped me, but for now let me just leave this one short offering, there for any who would say the lines thoughtfully and prayerfully.

My heart, make friends with grief

And if you do, what luck!

Embrace it for your grief

Is the call your Beloved answers.

The Hebrew King David said something similar ...

the Lord is near to the broken-hearted.

So I am grateful for these simple, ancient affirmations, both from eastern cultures. One Inspired and the other Divine. Both consistent with Emmanuel -- God with us, in our time of mourning.

New shoes lead to new destinations

I have never been a backpacker. I did one major trip when I was in high school that nearly killed me, and ended a friendship with one of my buddies when we discovered just how we got on each other's nerves. Of course we were too ambitious -- tried to go too far on the HARDEST trail in Kings Canyon , carrying 65 pound packs.

When we started our family, Tina and I took the boys camping a few times, again in Kings Canyon (got to get back on the horse -- face your fears) but it never took hold as a lifestyle. I did get some good pictures of us frying the tiny fish we caught, and I pull them out occasionally just to remind our sons that I am not just some latte-sipping, art gazing, poetry freak of a dork. I am that, but I can stand by an open fire with the best of them, as long as I have fire-starter.

So when REI had an amazing sale, and after my sons fooled me into going by saying that REI was an art store called Really Expressive Impressionists, I went. OK, OK, it wasn't that bad. But I could not pass up a pair of hiking boots that were originally $200 on sale for $49.83. Which led me to buy another pair for an equally low price, because it was such a good deal. All for a guy who hasn't hiked in a very long time.

So we went hiking -- OK, walking really, but in the foothills by a stream, which makes it hiking in my book.

Which just goes to show that new shoes can lead to new destinations.

Which made me wonder, as I was rewarding myself with a latte, what new shoes does the church in Fresno need, that might lead to some new destinations for the gospel?

Boys Become the Teachers of the Man

As we all have tried to come to terms with the death of Pastor Jamie Evans, I have so often been at a loss for words. This is embarrassing for someone like me -- who lives by words. Embarrassing for a Dad, who would, eons ago, lay his hand on the shoulders of his sons when they were young, praying silently for just the right thing to say.

Because of this void during these sad, sad days, I find myself latching onto other people's words to stand in for me. A fellow leader says in times like this "we need to care for each other" and I repeat that to people who look to me for guidance. Another friend shares that depression is like a cancer of the mind and can turn a person into someone else at the end. This seems true, and as good an explanation of the tragic decision Pastor Evans made this week as any, and so I put it forth in candid conversations among people trying to make sense of such awfulness. These and many other words have rolled off my tongue like I knew what I was talking about. But in truth, my own mind is numb with the loss. There are no words. And so, I am grateful for those who are able to summon words of power in the midst of crisis. My son Joseph reflected on John Donne's taunting of death in Death be not Proud - -

for, those whom thou think'st, thou dost overthrow, die not

... and I was encouraged. The poet sometimes has an edge over the preacher in that the goal is not explanation, but consolation. That led me to the poet Dylan Thomas who said

though lovers be lost, love shall not; and death shall have no dominion

... and knowing he was referring to the resurrection passage of Romans 6:9 I was consoled. Death is not the end and will not rule. Then through some means which I don't now remember, my son Jameson reminded me somehow of the terrible hope in the midst of tragedy that sets the gospel apart -- that good can one day grow from this seedbed of pain. The right word at the right time.

So I have no words in this time. I guess I am OK with that. While it is true, as Kieth Webb sings,

I am like a mockingbird

I have no new song to sing

I just tell you what I've heard

I'm like a Mockingbird

... at the same time I realize its not always up to me to provide the right word. The words of others will do. But I'm not at a loss for them. Like colorful and soft gifts, they are dropping like blossoms on my shoulders. They have helped me work through my own grief.

The best of them have come from my sons. The boys have become teachers of the man.

Randy's Newest Book at the Presses

I am excited to announce the publication of my new book

Poetic Intercessions: Artful Prayers for a Friend.

This book took shape over a year’s time when I was praying for a friend who had had a stroke. Each week, I wrote prayers in poetic form and sent them to my friend. He was greatly encouraged by my having labored over these, by their creativity, and their potential usefulness for followers of Jesus as they pray for their friends who are sick. He has since fully recovered.

Artist Tiffany Cable did ten, monochromatic watercolors for the book, corresponding to several of the prayers. They are beautiful.

Then, amazingly, celebrated author and poet Luci Shaw caught a vision for this project and wrote a powerful foreword. I was really humbled by her affirmation.

It will be available at Harmon Press as well as Amazon, or through your local bookstore by order. But for those of you in Fresno, I will have a limited supply of both paperback and hardback at a more than 30% discount.

It’s at the press now and should be available soon. You can see a brief description at the following link: http://harmonpress.com/bookstore/poetic-intercessions-artful-prayers-for-a-friend/

Thanks for your friendship and interest,

Randy White

Poppy & EJ

I'm Poppy, I'm your Daddy's Dad

And you are my Grand Daughter

You make me very, very glad

I feel I could walk on water!

Lizzy Joy, you're so fun

Lizzy Joy, a gift of God the Son

Your Poppy loves you, you should know

He prays for you each day

He loves you when you're high or low

And so he'd like to say ...

Lizzy Joy, you're so fun!

Lizzy Joy, a gift of God the Son!

What I Can Do

I lay awake at midnight on my box-spring-of-a-bed in a Ghana hotel room, wondering whether the experience I had orchestrated was accomplishing its purpose. Because no one can be an expert on all cultures, all cities, all urban strategies for mobilizing God's people for transformational influence, I was overwhelmed with the complexity of the task. The task: leading three non-english-speaking students from China, a student from post civil-war Sierra Leone, a French speaking African from Niger, an Americanized Nigerian, a Tanzanian, a tri-lingual Canadian and five students from the U.S. in a dialogue where they would learn from site visits, from me and each other how to focus their ministries on transforming their cities. They were all so different, all coming from various degrees of ministry experience and theological training. With our Ghanaian hosts I had crafted a daily diet of teaching, dialogue and site visits to NGOs and churches making a difference in the city of Accra. I knew that I had done my best, but the goal seemed elusive at midnight, and sleep deprivation proved detrimental to faith at that moment. There in the quiet of my hotel room I kind of lost it. I wish I had remembered then what I recall now -- that is, the time I tried to have a serious manuscript Bible study on Habakkuk involving a gang member, a college freshman girl, a man convicted of murder but recently released from prison on a technicality, and a gray-haired member of a presbyterian church mission committee. "What the heck am I doing?" I asked myself at the front end. "There's no way this is going to work." But it did. Everyone learned something. In the end, it was also true for the group in Ghana, though it had its own challenges. Students have begun to make plans in their own cities. It's fun to see these emerge, even in their initial stages. It's fun to consider that these emerge from a dialogue I set up, rather than primarily from expertise I pass along. I know that my experience in Urban Ministry and Christian Community Development plays a role. But there's something else that is going on -- something that happens in the dynamic of a dramatic urban environment, the interaction of committed practitioners, and the prayers of saints from around the world that are laying the spiritual foundation for this kind of learning. I just need that perspective when I am staring at the ceiling at midnight. So I do what I can do, and pray that God accepts that offering and makes it more than it is.

He Could Have Been Dead

He could have been dead

But at 40 miles per hour

I couldn’t tell as our class sped past

His shirt the color of dust

Lay draped over his thin frame

In the gully beside the road

The cloud of debris kicked up by our bus

Settled over him

A burial in stages

One thin layer

One disinterested car at a time

But I did notice

His hand formed a pillow

A mat kept him from

Dissolving into the brown African soil

Resting, not dead.

Homeless Lord

You who had nowhere to lay your head

Should he rise tomorrow and

Shake off his earthen blanket

May he roll up his mat with hope

And find a new bed among the loved.

I give myself to a world where he can.

Help! I Cry Help from Ghana.

Help! I cry HELP from Ghana. If you can read this, HELP me celebrate an amazing day. I don’t want to let it be lost or just reflect on it alone. We took our 16 doctoral students from China, Europe, Africa and the U.S. to visit a micro lending institution in Accra that is taking lending to the poor to a new level. They provide loans to the very poor by taking the banking process to them, often in their shanty towns and mega slums. Mobile bankers establish daily visits to individuals to help them save in a very liquid, informal economy. Though savings amounts are small, they accumulate and provide a base for getting micro loans – enough for a sewing machine or a storage unit or a small stall in a market. Portable deposit machines record their savings and issues receipts. These loans, like most micro loans in the world, are made mostly to women, and the mobile bankers are mostly women. The repayment rate is 95%. Lives are being improved physically, and meanwhile, the staff of the bank has daily prayers with each other and their customers. Next week we will meet with a similar organization, this one more of a ministry, and spend time with one of the recipients of a loan. Our students are getting all sorts of ideas for their contexts.

But that’s not all. The morning began with Stephan de Beer of the Tshwane Leadership Foundation (TLF) in Pretoria, South Africa, who walked us through the essential disciplines of becoming Reflective Practitioners of Transformational Leadership. I can’t possibly do it justice! Stephan helped us become “imagineers” – those who can envision characteristics of a new reality for each of our cities around the world, and outline initial steps to fostering some of those components. Stephan called us to cry more for and shout less at our cities, and then called us to laugh with those among the poor who laugh – laugh, in the words of Cox, as the “last weapon of hope.” He helped us deconstruct the narratives that are told about our cities – Fresno is an armpit, Fresno will always be uneducated, Fresno is a nothing town, Fresno is dangerous – and construct an alternative godly vision that can give us practical guidance as to how we apply ourselves. Then he demonstrated what he had said by sharing what is happening in Pretoria through TLF.

There is so much more, but for now, just celebrate with me, won’t you? God has done something very fine today. And cities around the world will be different in the future because of it.

Randy's Twilight Zone

This is just too strange. Something in the Universe has shifted. Tina is reading and I am cleaning. OK I lied about the cleaning, but I needed that image to show you how the universe has shifted. Because Tina is sitting there where I normally sit, doing what I normally do. Except that she's added a nice twist by having popcorn at her side and is now making all sorts of annoying crunching sounds as she soils the pages of Mortenson's Three Cups of Tea with salty, buttery fingers. Makes me want to have four shots of whiskey.

Meanwhile all I can do is think of my little E.J. White, all 7+ lbs of her. I think that with initials like that she will eventually be writing children's books like Five, Fully Loaded Diapers or, what's sure to be a hit in Canada, No, Don't Take Me Ice Climbing.

Today I trimmed trees and vines (Tina tells me this is what normal people do on weekends), attended a funeral, bought some shoes for me and a frame for a picture of Elizabeth imitating Joseph's "yes, I swallowed the canary" look, re-polyurethaned my fireplace and mantle, took my first wife to dinner, ate cake at a neighbor's, watched another man trim a much larger tree, called my Dad on his 92 birthday, heard my 89 year old Mother tell me she loves me, bought a hat for my trip to Ghana next Friday, and listened to my first wife crunch. I don't get that many weekends home, so I packed a lot in. This was a good one, even if the universe has shifted. I could use a few more of these.

To Elizabeth Joy White - 7 pounds, 3 ounces, Dec 26, 2009

Elizabeth Joy, a beautiful name

E.J. White, an author? a poet on her way to fame?

Consecrated by God, a comfort in pain

Bringer of sunshine to a world of rain.

Born early this morning to Heidi and Joe. Mother, Daughter and Dad doing fine. Grandparents ecstatic.

Flight North

Its warmer above the blanket,

That cottony cover that shrouds the

Still sleepy coastline, over which I fly.

Below it, dawn’s breaking remains unknown,

It’s signal flare not seen.

But we have sliced a tear,

Shown it to be nothing as we rise toward the

Automatic cheer of the day’s beginning.

And now, as we leapfrog the blue-haired chain of

Seven Sisters, who stretch and reach for the

Reality above, I watch their timeless peaks pierce the shade,

Their craters catching the first amber rays,

Surrounding cinder cones appear as

Innocent dimples on the smiling face of a

Rested Earth.

Leaving hurts, but

This helps.

RWW 2009

When I am Gone

When I am gone

It is as if drought has struck

The creamy Buttercups that once blanketed the

Rolling contours of a

Softened soul

Give way to endless prairie

With only sage to pluck

A sad bouquet

Un-given

Each journey exacts a

Nameless toll

There’s life in the thirsty plain

Its true

But coming home to you

Is the hope of rain

Chesterton's Reminders

I found thee two quotes from G.K. Chesterton, my favorite English thinker from the last century (along with Lewis and Tolkien and Sayers and -- Oh well, I guess there are a few ...) on the subject of GRATITUDE — a good thing to think about during Thanksgiving:

When we were children we were grateful to those who filled our stockings at Christmas time. Why are we not grateful to God for filling our stockings with legs? ~G.K. Chesterton

I would maintain that thanks are the highest form of thought; and that gratitude is happiness doubled by wonder. ~G.K. Chesterton


The first one is just clever, and reminds us to get our priorities right during these holiday seasons. On that last one, I just love the idea that gratitude is “happiness doubled by wonder.” It works well for followers of Jesus, since we look to God in wonder over his indescribable gift, and are thankful for all his bounty.

But Chesterton also makes me grateful for those who use their minds in creative ways. He was amazing -- a journalist, playwrite, theologian, novelist, debater and overeater (he weighed 300 pounds).

Thank you, God, for your image embedded in humankind -- the swirl of your fingerprints are all over us.

The Tondo Trinity: Bat People, Drainage Dwellers, and the soon to be displaced

Visited the Tondo slum where millions of people are trying to cling to a life so precarious that any piece of infrastructure, no matter how crumbling, provides a piece of their survival strategy. There for we have what are being called "Bat People", those who piece together shacks that hang suspended from freeway overpasses. They cannot stand up in them, yet some have been there so long they've raised their kids. Having no land rights or access to land, they claim the air above it, baking from the heat of the cement and being rattled by constant traffic overhead. Some 150,000 per year come from the country to the city in Manila and and about 50,000 end up here. Or they end up here:

This is a drainage pipe under a road. We crawled inside and met a family of four who are living there, along with three other families have made that wet, dark space their home for the last two years. Crouching over as we listened to their story I could not stand up straight as the sweat dripped off my nose. The father had seasonal work, the mother had her hands full, the oldest daughter had just dropped out of high school because she didn't have the extra money needed for school projects -- amounting to about $1.50. Her future is turning on such a small hinge.

As I travel to observe these dramatic situations and help my students formulate strategies, it seems like there is a fine line between voyeurism and gathering the information, personal experience and perspectives necessary to be an advocate. I pray that my glimpses into humanity may lead to God's bringing of peace for this family and others in the cities of the world.

Have I become so strange?

In the Botocan community (slum) in Manila I visited Aaron and Emma Smith (he an American and she a Filipina that grew up in the Balik Balik slum that nancy Donat ministered in -- she as a little girl knew Nancy). They are Servant Partners staff who are living there incarnationally. I walked with them down a labyrinth of alleyways, over an open sewer ditch, past dogs and roosters, by dozens of children playing between rusting tin siding, sprouting in the slums like daisys in the cracks of the concrete. I sat in their two-room space where they live with their 2 year old son Zach who sleeps with them on the floor. They have running water and electricity which makes them slightly better off than their neighbors but it means a greater chance of them being able to sustain their efforts at planting a church over the long haul. The kids on their alley love them and kept peeing in out of curiosity.

Had my first ride in a Jeepnee yesterday, and also my first ride in twhat they call a Tricycle here, a motorcycle with a side car. I sat sidesaddle on the back and held on for dear life as my friend got the side car. It reminded me of the question Ray Bakke always asks: "what is better, a bicycle or a jet airplane? Answer: depends on where you want to go and who is with you. The same is true of ministry models and churches. No one size fits all needs and goals."

We also visited a house church in the Welfareville Slum, Block 37.1. This area was flooded in the recent typhoon. What a mess. What chaos. What amazing beauty in the lives of those we met. It was the worst labrynthine slum I have ever been in. Worse than Calcutta, worse than San Jose - CR, worse than Mexico City, worse than China. Trash burning, the black acrid smoke clogging the lungs. Shacks cobbled together -- housing made of trash. Thousands of illegal electrical connections.

We sat under a tarp covered area next to a shanty -- a space for the church gathered. At one point a woman shared her testimony in Tagalog. She and her son had been separated in the flood from the typhoon, and was missing for three weeks. He had just been returned to her. She herself was nearly drowned as she tried to cross a street to get to work. The raging waters carried her away. Because she missed work, she lost her seamstress job, and the $4/day wages. She was in tears with gratitude for her life and the life of her son, but in need of a solution.

That night I ate dinner alone, exhausted from the exposure, the issues, the discussions. I signed my bill for the dinner and realized what had just spent could have fed her for five days. As I travel to the slums of the world, I am more troubled, not less.

As we ended the service with songs and prayers I told the women gathered that our students had come from around the world to visit them because we heard that Jesus (Hesus) was in their midst, in Block 37.1, and if they loved one another they would see him. I aid they are not alone, that people all over the world are praying for them. Their warm smiles and attention told me that they felt encouraged, but I continued to be troubled. Had I over-spoken? Did I promise too much? Weren't these words easy for me to say? Nevertheless, I felt it was right.

From there we went to a mega church that meets in a mall. They are reaching young, affluent youth. Thirteen services, the latest media, lots of energy. It might be said that they are reaching a constituency that no one else is through their methods. But I left with the question, "what does reaching mean?" I hope their vision of the church includes the poor I had left earlier that morning.

I felt empty. I wondered, "have I become so strange that I cannot enjoy worship among the comfortable? " God help me if I am becoming judgmental. God renew your church to include justice for the poor.

My Search for Sex Workers in Manila

So we walked along Quezon street in Manila tonight, horns blaring, sewer vents stinking, nervously picking our way across crumbled concrete hoping to run into young women selling themselves. Our Samaritana guides rehearsed what we would do. They would make the contact, we would step back and pray. Before long we came upon a group of people gathered on a storefront porch out of the rain, some sleeping on cardboard mats, others preparing for the evening ahead where they would trade sex for money, where little pieces of them will die one customer at a time. Only, our guides introduced the girls to us directly and asked us to pray for them directly. The group of leaders from Myanmar that I was helping to lead were deeply moved, and began to tell me that they had never seen this kind of ministry before, one like Samaritana that reached out in friendship with these young women, invited them into relationship, provided job counseling and assistance, medical care. They prayed with fervor, and began talking about what it would take to start such an outreach in their cities. In the end we prayed for seven women, Jenny, Janette, Nancy, Vanessa (who started taking drugs recently), Sherry, Carasita, and Camille. We prayed for a 15 year old girl. And we prayed for the committed women who led us. Oh God, have mercy on your children.

Typhoon's impact increased by human sin

The vision from my hotel room includes this building that has collapsed from the recent Typhoon Ketsana in Manila. This is but a tiny example of the devastation that residents are still dealing with in the aftermath. Now, even two weeks later, the waters are still creating a glut of piled up trash, and sludge. Typhoon Parma followed Ketsana and is still parked over the north of Luzon dumping meters of rain on a fatigued population. But here's my question: Is this an act of God, as they say? Well, of course. It's a natural disaster, right? Rain is God's territory.

OK. I'll give you that. But there's more to the story of the 250 people who lost their lives in the flooding. Rain is an act of God, but not the choices that city planners made about how to handle the rains in historic flood basins. That corruption, greed, and lack of moral leadership that led to those deaths is man's specialty. Government abandoned the role of stewarding the commonwealth of the people, caved into commercial interests, cut costs of projects that could have led to better draining even thought the engineering was there. And worse yet, God's people who are in key positions in government have been taught that their faith is best expressed in praying over their meals and sponsoring office prayer meetings, rather than shaping more just policies in local government. In fact, many of them have been taught to separate religious belief from political involvement.

But we are called to seek the well-being of our cities (Jer 29:7), to invest ourselves in them. That's what I have been doing here in Manila. My students are learning about the relationship between Christian ministry and city planning -- learning about how to help the church contribute to more just policies, the alleviation of suffering, and the stewardship of God's creation that we were meant to tend. Pictured below are students from Myanmar, Brazil, the Philippines and Nigeria working together on a plan for shalom in their cities.

May God use our time in Manila to create cities of God across the globe.

Profile in Courage

Ray Bakke has said that some things in history have been just too difficult or too dangerous to do, so God has called a woman to do it. Such is the case of one of my DMin students, Po Ming of Hong Kong. She lives in the Kowloon City district, a space with thousands of poor that many in Hong Kong stigmatize and avoid. Here in Costa Rica where she is studying in the program I am teaching, you see her reaching out instinctively to children in the Los Tables slum of San Jose. It is an extremely dangerous area we visited and served in, and you see her loving children on the spot where there had just been a murder last month. Po Ming came from a difficult family situation growing up, but broke free and came to Christ, who has now called her back to the very kind of environment she had left. She planted a church for the urban poor of Hong Kong, and now is part of an NGO that reaches out there. I don't know whether I am teaching the class, or she is. I know that I am humbled by her courage, and so sad that most what she does is invisible to most of the world. But there is One other who sees, and I know that there are tears of joy in his eyes tonight too.

Red Light Prayers - Part 2

After having spent this night with my students on deserted Costa Rican street corners in conversation with young transvestite men who were selling themselves, the haunting words of Octavio Paz pulled at me.

I am a man: Little do I last

And the night is enormous.

But I look up:

the stars write.

Unknowing I understand:

I too am written,

at at this very moment

someone spells me out.

They were men but their names were 

Nicole and Jasamina,

Alejandra,

Stephania and Erica. 

I will not forget them.

The bondage they are in, like the city corner they inhabit, is a

Dark and cavernous abyss,

An empty anonymity.

But I knew that God knew who they really were, knew their stories, felt their pain and alienation, was loving them even as they were.

I knew he was tracing the letters of their real names in stardust,

In the tail of some comet,

Was longing that they come to know their true identity in Christ, longing to free them to be loved with a pure love, as he intended. 

It's 1am but I wonder if I will sleep tonight

Knowing that they are still under the night sky, 

Praying that they will look up.

Red light prayers

Your prayers are appreciated tonight as I take a group of Bakke students to support a ministry that reaches out to women who are practicing prostitution as well as transvestites, all of whom hang out in the parks in downtown San Jose, Costa Rica from 7pm to midnight. Obviously, because of language barriers and lack of expertise, our participation is via prayer and whatever interaction we can foster through translation. We want to communicate hope and grace. Our prayers will rise through the glare of neon red tonight, heard by a God who is not scandalized by the poor choices of his children, nor passive toward a system that often forces such choices. Senor Jesus, nececitamos su ayuda.

Transformation Tracker

Many times we don’t get the privilege of seeing the immediate fruit of our work. But when we do, it is so encouraging. Perhaps you remember that I spoke into the lives of some African leaders in Ghana in January. They came from six different nations, including Sierra Leone, which has just emerged from a decade of civil war. One of those students was Warren Fornah (pictured here), a pastor and Christian leader in Freetown, a city of 5 million in Sierra Leone. As a result of our time together he feels called to use his position and influence over about 200 churches to help his nation and city repair the social fabric that unraveled during the war, leaving many physical, psychological and spiritual scars. He feels the church has a special role to play.  I just received word from him today that he has introduced some of the material I designed to help leaders in a city understand its identity (from chapter 20 of my book Encounter God in the City: Onramps to Personal and Community Transformation (IVP 2006)) to the main council of churches in the city – the one that helped to negotiate the truce between the government and the rebels. Warren reports that this material has, in his words, “immensely helped the council even as the process is on. The findings are gradually coming up. The exercise is quite exciting and helping to create a new paradigm for the entire council of churches in Sierra Leone.” I ask you to share my amazement and joy as some feeble effort I have made is producing a human harvest out of proportion to and beyond any skill I have – glory to God. I pray that thousands recovering from that civil war will benefit by a church newly equipped to understand and address the needs of the city of Freetown. And I pray for Warren as he presses ahead on the long road to recovery in Sierra Leone, for his perseverance and struggle.

Woman Married for 30 Years Smiles at Photographer

After 30 years

It appears

All my fears

All her tears

Were worth it.

We spent our 30th Anniversary in Yosemite watching for signs of hope, signs of the spirit, things that represented a world larger than the life we have created with each other. What an irony - with all the grandeur of Yosemite around us, we found them in the small things, the delicate black and white Monarch and the eager Robin. 

Maybe we needed the reminder that even in the world of marriage, its the small things -- the kind word, the laundry folded, the mess picked up -- that contain the largest messages.

We still enjoy being together. We're friends. It doesn't have to be Yosemite. Sometimes we rendezvous in the frozen food section of Save Mart. 

Still, it's hard to beat lunch at The Ahwahnee Hotel, and a quick hike around the valley floor. Celebrate with us! 

No mental energy so you get pictures

I have no energy for blogging right now, in case you haven't noticed. Its been a long time. So, for now, maybe a picture will do. It says, "we're still here, we're generally happy, and that's a very nice tree."

Prayers Go Up

In Ghana I type an email, then

Raise my laptop above my head

As if I am making an offering to the internet god.

The signal is better at that altitude.

Over and over I repeat this motion.

I type and lift

Type and lift

My message sent up prayer-like to the connected universe,

Like virtual incense.

I feel like some sort of

Cyber pagan.

Travel Fast

Go without food? No problem. I need to lose weight anyway.

Skip media for a time? It’s actually a relief.

Don’t scratch an itch? It’s a discipline for self-denial.

Deny myself some pleasure and replace with prayer? Common.

 

But take me to Ghana, through the tedium of terminals

Through heavy, humid days

And exhausted, lonely hotel nights –

The drama of children who with grace weave through wafts of black exhaust

Balancing massive, must-sell loads on their heads, approaching

The open windows of

Overstuffed worker-vans and rap-thumping Hummers –

 

Take me into the irresolvable dissonance of extremes –

The concentration required for me to connect across difference –

To running the show when knowing my deficit

 

Take me away from the one who is for me comfort and solid ground –

And this is the fast of my life.

G'Day from Sodom and Gomorrah

Forgive me, I am teetering here in Accra. The woman I am looking at across the road is balancing a great basket of clothes on her head, picking her way along the crumbling roadside, stepping over the sewage ditch with such grace and refinement. I imagine her a Ghanaian Eliza Doolittle, reciting “The rain in Spain falls mainly in the plain.”  It is a grace that belies the circumstances, and I am discomfited . I have passed hundreds, thousands even, of other women and children with similar burdens in the space of a few days. Today I entered a slum in Accra that the residents themselves have labeled Sodom and Gomorrah. The women from this slum and thousands of others like it have developed ways of living – coping  -- with the harsh indignities of life, ways that preserve order amidst the chaos. The contrast confronts me. Clothes are folded and placed atop, her baby strapped to her back, her hands left free to navigate the neighborhood. Even the young women standing in medians to sell fish or brushes or packets of water move so adeptly. Never out of balance or in danger of losing their load, they are twisting and turning to navigate the traffic, handing product to drivers and making change – all with what looks like half the contents of a hardware store or corner market on their heads. Even as they sweat profusely in the unforgiving heat and equatorial humidity, their grace and quickness to smile are a reminder of the gentle imprint of dignity that Jesus has given to every live soul. Perhaps all young debutantes in the US should spend a stretch of time on a Ghanaian street.

Forgive me, it’s the context that makes me totter. I am out of balance as I try to navigate this place, the daily, relentless, unchanging realities that shorten and harden life for its residents. The pollution that hangs in the heavy air from charcoal smudge pots where the poor fry plantain to sell at roadside, or the piles of refuse that endlessly smolder, since the city only picks up two thirds of the garbage that it generates every day. The desperate pressure to find work. The churches and mosques that present a spiritual message that either pacifies the populace or confirms the status quo. Today we exposed students to six churches with varying levels of engagement of the city, some operating for more than 150 years. Entire slums have grown up around them. Some have tried to respond with compassion. Few have gone beyond that with more systemic ministries that address the root problems. The ones that have are as inspiring as they are unusual.

And so I am not doing such a good job of balancing the world on my head. I am tripping and careening down the corridors of my calling to seek the peace of the city. Oh that some of the grace of these women would rub off on me. Oh that I would learn to smile through my burden. Oh that my hands would be free to help others in the process and be raised to God in praise.

And so I say G'Day from Sodom and Gomorrah

 

What the world needs now

"The ruthless will vanish, the mockers will disappear, and all who have an eye for evil will be cut down." Isaiah 29:20

He pulls out a gun but up comes the sun

As he heads for the door he is out of C4

They lay in wait but get stuck at the gate

On their way to the bang love takes over the gang

He plans to hit her but is no longer bitter

She plans to steal but considers how she'll feel

We plot deceit but end in defeat

Mockers and mobs dissolve into blobs

Rage pours out red, but by noon he is dead

Hearts once ice cold, like flowers unfold

Of Icons and Saints

Standing in the Hagia Sophia (The Church of Divine Wisdom) in Istanbul (ancient Byzantium, renamed Constantinople) is an experience of both amazement and deep frustration. Built in the sixth century by Emperor Justinian it was a wonder of the world, a thousand years ahead of its time in design and construction. It flourished as a center of Orthodox worship until the overthrow of the city by the Ottoman Empire, which turned it into a mosque. The majority of its amazing mosaics were plastered over by the Islamic prohibition on images. Now a museum they have uncovered a few (like my favorite above) to inspire visitors.

To stand in front of these is to open a window to the theology of early Christians. Jesus is clad in blue (for his humanity) and gold (for his deity). He often holds his right hand in a pose that crosses the first two fingers to convey his two natures, and combines the final two fingers with his thumb to convey the idea of the trinity. The devotion of the early faithful to these images is seen in the loving detail, right down to the gentle color of the cheek and the mournful emotion of the eyes. While Orthodox Christians do not worship these icons, they have for fifteen hundred years used them in worship to be transported from the temporal to the eternal. 

I have been standing before these images in Turkish caves and Romanian churches now for weeks and I am realizing how dissatisfied I am with the casualness of my faith. The strength of evangelical tradition -- of what a friend we have in Jesus -- is also its weakness. It is a comfortable faith that is long on chattiness with the divine, and short on awe. Even if I cannot imagine adopting Orthodox practice or liturgy, I also cannot imagine a deepening of my faith if I continue to neglect the place of the imagination in worship or be so centered on the message and its social or ethical implications that I forget the real presence of God. I have found that great art can help in this process, as if providing a window through which we can glimpse the eternal.

In this (poor quality picture) of a Hagia Sophia mosaic, Emperor Constantine stands to the right of the Madonna and Child and offers to them what is most precious to him -- the city which he has created. On the left, Emperor Justinian stands and offers what is most precious to him -- the amazing church he constructed. The fact that both men were not the most admirable followers of Christ should not diminish an important lesson here. We should live our lives in such awe of God that we should direct the focus of our lives toward accomplishing something beautiful for the Kingdom, something worthy of the Eternal, and dedicate it to the author of beauty himself.

And some lived in Caves

"They went about in sheepskins ... destitute and persecuted and mistreated -- the world was not worthy of them. They wandered in deserts and mountains and in caves and holes in the ground. These were all commended for their faith ..." (Heb 11:37-39)

In Cappedocia (yes, the one mentioned in the Bible) early monks in the Orthodox tradition formed monastic communities, both men and women, to deepen their faith. These became educational as well as ascetic, and shaped the early life of the church. They literally carved homes and chapels and refectories from the very sandstone, frescoing the interiors in the symbols and stories of the gospel, turning the desert into a faithful city.

Into this environment Ray Bakke, Robert Calvert and I  took our class to examine the influence of the Cappedocian Fathers, St Basil and others who so shaped the faith and practice of the church as Christianity began to deal with the rise of Islam in the fourth through sixth centuries, a very contemporary issue again today.