Three

 

Three chapels spoke I this week

It allowed me in depth the Word to seek

Stepping away with passion anew

Amazingly insightful Ephesians 2

Answering the age old big three

(Who am I? How did I get here? Where am I going?)

A gift of grace absolutely free

It spoke of Identity, Good vs Evil, Metaphysics, and Purpose

Simplistic yet tiered complexity in surplus

Eyes wide open and pushed to the brink

Another wake up call to keep in sync

***

Three lads parented I this week

It allowed me in depth the Word to speak

Stepping away with passion anew

To continuously love the little crew

Evil tendencies poured out from the three

And I remembered love unconditionally

To give free will yet show they have a valued purpose

Simplistic yet tiered complexity in surplus

Created to create a workmanship on the brink

A bond of love waiting for us to link

***

Three messages heard I this week

Saved only by faith they speak

Nothing in our power can make us new

Only the grace of God brings spiritual renew’al

Genuine faith exudes evidence of life abundantly

Together in Christ with impunity

Three parts one message taught I

Three lads watching my own demise

There but for the grace of God go I

There but for the grace of God go I

 

The Bridge: Reflections

“To give a person an opinion one must first judge well whether that person is of the disposition to receive it or not.”

–The Book of Samurai

 

I couldn’t really say that I maintain a strong grasp on the pulse of my homeland right now. Like every country the beat of a nation rises and falls. Nor could I say that the politics of the moment and feelings of the day are within my grasp of knowledge either. Common sense has taught us all that news from social media is nowhere close to inherent. That being said, it appears there are some strong emotions mixed with unhealthy doses of fear permeating the atmosphere. While I generally steer clear from jumping into the arena with the big dogs to weigh in about my own opinions and thoughts on current events, this time I feel the need to share a few things I’ve recently reread.

1 John 4:18 “There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected in love.”

1 John 4:20 says, “If anyone says, ‘I love God,’ yet hates his brother, he is a liar. For anyone who does not love his brother, whom he has seen, cannot love God, whom he has not seen.”

1 John 2:9 says “Anyone who claims to be in the light but hates his brother is still in the darkness.”

“Our culture has accepted two huge lies: The first is that if you disagree with someone’s lifestyle, you must fear them or hate them. The second is that to love someone means you agree with everything they believe or do. Both are nonsense. You don’t have to compromise convictions to be compassionate.” –Rick Warrren

I realize that not everyone may agree with my opinion on different matters, however, the majority I think will find that we’re entering a season where mutual respect regardless of differences has traditionally been upheld. We can get into semantics later, but I think we can also agree that fear and respect are not the same. Christmas was the beginning of the bridge. It was built so that we might experience life without fear. A life that takes us out of darkness and revolves around a lasting love. A way of redemption shown to us not because we are deserving or without blame, but rather shown to us by the only God who has come to us and desires to restore a relationship that has been broken. Restoring honor where there was once shame. That to me is certainly a bridge worth pursuing and sharing.

“We love because He first loved us.” (1 John 4:19)

The Bridge: A Prelude

 

Origins of traditions can be hard to pinpoint sometimes. Other times the initial event that began it all can only be disputed by the blind. For some there seems no rhyme or reason as to why things occur as they do, you just know you should continue along. Christmas traditions have a clear beginning with our family. Mainly because the boys were so young to remember or be active in anything prior to Africa, our traditions began when we arrived in Kenya. Prior to knowing how a calendar worked our boys knew Christmas was coming by visiting the annual Christmas Fair in Nairobi. An amazing event with great food, fun and support of local and regional organizations intent on making the world a better place.

After the fair we would look for Creepy Saxophone Santa in front of Nakumatt and see how close we could get before being completely creeped out. The “Santa”, and I use this term loosely, would be still and then all of a sudden jump to life playing a weird version of some Christmas song. Then without notice he would cease moving until the next random spastic movement began. Like I said, creepy. Once this was accomplished my wife and I would pressure the boys to sit on Indian Santa’s lap for a photo. I could never really wrap my mind around why it was such an odd site to see a Santa from India in Kenya (yes I understand history). I guess my brain is still clinging to ingrained North American traditions. Regardless this was our prelude to the Christmas season.

This year it seems Creepy Saxophone Santa has been replaced with Blue Nakumatt Santa. Other than obvious marketing reasons, I’m not really sure why the Blue Santa is here. I tried to ask him but he wasn’t at liberty to say. What I do know is that the Kenyan guy in the blue felt suit was drenched with perspiration and still creeping out little kids. The tradition continues.

Certainly some traditions are just for fun while others, like Indian Santa begin purely by opportunity. However, other traditions, like setting up the Veggie Tales nativity, are rooted in an uncompromising and unchanging gift that bridged all time. A prelude to a second birth.

 

Yahtzee

“It’s hard to paint a picture of a whale when you’re still trapped in the belly.”

***

If you’ve ever played Yahtzee then you can attest to the indescribable feeling of having five dice all land on the same number in the scope of three rolls. Since 1956 people have been playing this game of luck and strategy and rolling in laughter. My family has been playing ever since my memory has been intact. We’ve played it across the States during camping trips and without fail Yahtzee always makes an appearance when family members come together.

Perhaps the biggest contributor to this being a family tradition was my grandmother. Gram, as my brother and I called her, had an uncanny ability to get all five dice to land on the same number at least once in nearly every game we played. What was just as astonishing was her surprise at rolling a yahtzee. She would wonder aloud how it happened, laugh, and inevitably roll another one before the night was through. My wife uses Yahtzee with her Pre-Calculus class to work out different formulas of probability. As her students have discovered, rolling a yahtzee in every game is nothing short of remarkably amazing. As was Gram.

Most worldviews will attest to the importance of luck and strategy within their philosophy. Perhaps this is why Yahtzee is still so popular nearly 60 years after its inception. Resigned to a significant amount of chance controlling your game play, absolved of accountability, yet holding out for all of the dice to align themselves just so in order to find gratification. I suppose it feels good to believe that a strategy of throwing the dice can lead to your own fulfillment. A view that it all rests on fate.

My grandparents, Gram and Gramp, while enjoying the simple game of Yahtzee, certainly did not live their lives in a throw the dice fatalistic manner. In fact the last words Gram ever spoke to my father, just days before her 102nd birthday, clearly attest to their game strategy, “God is great. God is good.”

Another strategic aspect to their worldview is one founded steadfastly to a cornerstone of freedom. My grandparents lived a legacy of hope built upon the cornerstone of Jesus Christ. With this foundation they knew that their hope would withstand hardship. Their hope did not change based upon circumstances. Hope with a clear purpose and end game. Hope that outplays fate on every turn.

And their hope has outlived them. It started in the past, sustained them in the present, and carried them into the future.

***

“Now your burden’s lifted

And carried far away

And precious blood has washed the stain away, so

…Sing to Jesus and live.”

Living a life full (full house)

“And when the love spills over

And music fills the night

And when you can’t contain your joy inside, then

…Dance for Jesus and live.”

“Untitled Hymn” by Chris Rice

Life in the Time of Cholera

“People aren’t against you, they are for themselves.”

Passion is such a loaded emotion. On one hand it can conquer the most aggressive case of apathy while on the other hand it can send you blindly to your death. With the right purpose it will propel change for a better world.  Misguided and misled it will tear the world apart. Recently I had the opportunity to discuss with three young men the general topic of purpose in life. Perhaps not the most riveting topic for young teenagers, but there we were.

Reaching into my pocket I pulled out my key chain to reveal a coin from a previous country I had lived in. Although the coin is of no monetary value to me where I currently live, it is kept as a physical reminder of a valuable lesson once learned. In showing the coin, one of the students politely asked its origin. When told, his polite demeanor abruptly switched to passive aggressive mode as he sneered a single comment dripping with attitude. He seemed to loathe the fact that the coin came from a country that was traditionally his own country’s rival. Now I have lived in both countries for almost as long as he has been alive and seen anger and outrage towards each other. I know the past is not something easily reconciled. Pain lingers. However, this young man has not lived in the place of his ethnicity long enough to have seen any of this first hand. On the flip side, he has also not lived there long enough to see the rise of reconciliation between the two cultures. In spite of the multicultural locations he has lived prior to our meeting, he appears to have been spoon fed negative stereotypes, unhealthy grievances, and lists of wrongdoings in addition to partial knowledge of past wars and attempts of conquest. Holding fast to the biased sword of prejudice, reconciliation and restoration have no place in his lexicon.

Such were my thoughts as I attempted to regain momentum by putting the coin back in my pocket and continuing on with the two other boys who were still keenly interested in my story. I’m glad this young man is not living out a hundred years of solitude and stuck in a completely self-absorbed frame of living. Yet connecting with a passive aggressive boy who refuses to let go of second-hand hatred about finding a lasting, and freeing, purpose for living is not something I wanted to ignore.

Certainly we live in times of injustice with a plethora of opportunities for passion. There are outbreaks of cholera throughout Kenya right now. Malnourishment and malaria knock on so many doors. Children can be seen begging on the streets for money to go to school while others beg for money to sniff glue. People are calling out for merciless punishment while others cry out for forgiveness. And of course there are those passionately grabbing hold of past pains and anger in order to find a jaded purpose for future life. There are things that compel us to speak out. Too much is at stake to allow silence or apathy to guide our way. Ironically enough, the coin I spoke of, with its shiny gold exterior, is empty in the middle which is exactly what happens when you lack a purpose grounded in the absolute and sustaining Truth of Jesus Christ.

 

 

On and On

It’s inevitable that there will always be something that comes along to remind you that your belief in your own capabilities to control your life is nothing more than a grand illusion. What you do with this reminder is another subject altogether.

Trapped. Bouncing along the broken down pot hole infested road, admittedly way too fast, I found myself wishing I could just hide. Another misguided choice leading me to self-destruction. Immediately on my left emaciated looking cows stood at the edge of the road trying to nudge me towards the middle. To their left a ditch that would gut a car in a heartbeat. On my right more cows loitered about while a man desperately tried to navigate his bicycle through the rogue herd. The challenge grew from complicated to impossible as a truck twice the size of my van came bolting towards me. It wasn’t so much the size of this rusty vehicle but rather the fact that this beast was spastic. Lurching, flashing its lights, dominating the road, and moving at me sideways. The driver’s attempt at screaming “I’m coming through! Get out of my way!” The front wheels were on the opposite side of the neglected excuse for a road but its back wheels were directly in front of me, challenging, no make that daring me, to stay on the road. With rocks falling from the back of the truck and massive power commanding authority from the engine I knew I held no power. I’ve been in tight spots before but this had the word impossible written all over it. “Higher than the mountains that I face.”

 

Early one afternoon I was checking out of Nakumatt, our everything grocery store, when an angry shout from a man broke the calmness of customer voices and beeping registers. A second angry voice yelled something unintelligible followed by a woman’s scream piercing the already growing tension. In light of past terrorists attacks in Kenya, customers standing next to the developing chaos ran. Anxiety rose and spread like wildfire. Sales clerks disappeared. Items fell from shelves as fleeing people crashed into them on their journey to perceived safety. The world switched to slow motion while my brain went into overdrive. The scramble for life had begun again. And then an eerie silence crashed into the tense atmosphere surrounded us all, save one screaming woman.

At the feet of the screaming woman I glimpsed a beaten down man sprawled out in a most unnatural position. Calculating my best possible course of action, I thanked God that my family was in another store. Internal screams of desperation increased exponentially while my body reminded me to breathe. If this was to be the end then I was glad to be without loved ones. The man on the floor remained motionless while humanity regressed from care free customers to cornered animals shooting eyes of anger through the crowd challenging as well as searching for trust. “Stronger than the power of the grave”

***

“Higher than the mountains that I face. Stronger than the power of the grave. Constant through the trial and the change. One thing remains.

Your love never fails, never gives up, never runs out on me… on and on and on it goes.”

 

 

Quotes: One Thing Remains by Jesus Culture