Saturday, May 11, 2024
Water is Life, and other truths at the end of a glorious season
Sunday, April 07, 2024
The week after: scars and futility in the bigger arc
Easter + 7 days, Easter + 2000 years. Here we are, in the reality that "death swallowed up in victory" as a poetic phrase and a bedrock truth still remains a state only visible by faith.
Rainy Resurrection
In that first week, there was no ascending the temple spire, no fireworks incinerating the occupying forces, no sudden tip of power form the self-serving Sanhedrin to the lame and the blind. Jesus showed up in dim early morning light of garden around the tomb, on a road out of town, at a meal, behind closed doors where confused followers cowered, cooking over a beach campfire. He didn't ride into Jerusalem on a donkey to choral triumph. He focused on his core followers as witnesses of a new phase of history, a new sort of scarred life, forming the idea of waiting, of being sent into the world as he had been with the same power of the Spririt, to . . . .
To what? Not to enforce the law, not to quash wrongdoers, not to control destinies, not to set up a state. In Acts, his people asked, is this the time that you restore the Kingdom to Israel? No, he said. But go live and speak and teach and gather in a way that ushers in a whole new metric. Challenge the status quo of history as people who give attention and priority to the suffering, who share what they have, who do not ultimately fear the venom of snakes or of power.
For centuries, the word passed, person to person, miracle to miracle, mostly amongst the most disenfranchised. (Then there were centuries where well-meaning people thought it made more sense to get the power of the state behind the church, and that struggle and debate continues today). But lest we delude ourselves that Jesus' resurrection means that everything should now go exactly as WE think it should, that prayer guarantees the outcomes we long for . . . we had a more authentic post-Easter week here in Bundi.
The son of a local politician died of alcohol intoxication, a young man close to us was actually trying to help him and ended up blamed, arrested, in jail, and extorted for bribes. Another close young man fell asleep at the wheel and wrecked his car. Two of our "foster grandchildren" have been quite sick, one hospitalised the whole week. Another close friend of the team's nephew died after being born with congenital anomalies. An Area kid had a serious injury that will require surgery. Others plod on with chronic mental health challenges. Unusual rain patterns and a bizarre lack of materials has held up the gravity-flow water project progress. Three of the in-country partners of three different teams have all made changes in the last week or so that call those partnerships into question. And here at CSB our school teams went to regionals and struggled, and kids sent home for school fees not yet paid trickled back so slowly that many missed days of school. And that is just the last seven days, on and on, day after day where resurrection power is far from obvious.
What grounds our hope on a week like this one, or like the first post-Easter week?
First, knowing that the scars have closed enough to allow us to walk out of the grave, but they are not gone. Everything is not OK, yet. The direction of entropy was reversed to order, but the timing, as our CSB teacher reminded us today from the story of the man lame for 38 years by the pool of Bethesda, is not immediate. We are the walking wounded, still.
Second, the day of small things is not to be despised. If Jesus cooked fish and had patient conversations, perhaps it shouldn't surprise us that the routines of living life in community and wholeness are our primary task. We spent the week counselling the anxious, answering questions, sitting at a funeral, driving people here and there, feeding people, asking, listening, praying, reading. The disciples spent a whole night in futile fishing. This is the "so send I you" trajectory. Mostly, just trying to be faithful and present, honest and hopeful.
And lastly, locating our fragments of the story into the bigger arc of redemption. Sometimes we get to see clear evidence, like the jailed young man then being thanked by those he thought were blaming him that he didn't let the errant drinker die in a ditch, his risky insistence cost him but served love. Mostly, we have to take it on faith that the hard questions asked, the small assistance given, are seeds that might not bear fruit for days or decades. But one day, they will. For the world to eat and live.
Friday, March 29, 2024
Good Friday thoughts on Moral Injury
I was today years old when I learned that Abraham Lincoln's assassination took place on a Good Friday. In the excellent annual Biola Lent devotions, I took this poem "The Martyr" by Herman Melville (of Moby Dick fame) to be about Jesus . . . but it turns out to be about Lincoln:
Of the prodigy and crime,
When they killed him in his pity,
Lincoln was walking another path of the cross, of personal risk and suffering and loss to right the wrongs of centuries of a country fuelled by the enslavement of Africans.
The path of Jesus was costly to him, and continues to be costly to those who listen to the "take up your cross and follow" injunction, to his "love your neighbour as yourself" teaching. As Pilate questions him, he confirms that his new truths do not take hold by political wins, by overpower others, by visible awards.
I think the juxtaposition of Good Friday and the Scriptures from Hebrews, Isaiah, the Gospel of John .. . with then opening news and email to find one from the doctors' association purporting to represent American physicians of faith, a jarring discordance. The leaders of the doctor association sound a bit self-congratulatory because they went to the Supreme Court to argue that medication approved decades ago by the FDA now should be disapproved. It's a medicine that can be used in early abortions, but also one that is also used to treat dangerous bleeding and ulcers and other things. The argument was that IF a woman took this medicine for an abortion and THEN had to seek medical care for a complication, a Christian doctor might be called upon to care for her, arguing " that our members will experience harms, such as conscience violations, when they end up being forced into treating patients suffering from complications of chemical abortion".
As a doctor, I find arguing against treating patients because their behaviour "violates my conscience" a very troubling line of reasoning. Will we now not treat gun shot victims, if they were in a gang that fights with guns? Not treat motor vehicle accident injuries if they were driving too fast? Not treat hypertension or diabetes, if they were in our opinion gluttonous? Not treat cancer, if the patient was a smoker? Not treat liver disease, if the patient was an alcoholic? Not treat a child with AIDS, if the father was promiscuous? The human condition, per the creeds of our medical organisation, is riddled with sin. We've all made bad choices, harmful decisions. When the injured, bleeding, gasping patient presents, we don't first assess the violence to our conscience. We don't weigh whether treating them will enable them to continue a lifestyle we deplore. We assess their need, and our care can be an opening of the door of love into a life that might need some.
I lost three children by miscarriage, and thankfully no one refused me treatment because they worried I could have intentionally killed my babies. I've cared for numerous others where the causality of the fetal demise is not clear, here in a country where abortion remains illegal but still happens as it has throughout history. Medicine is a strenuous calling. So is love. So is faith. I applaud the 21rst century attention to the impact of endless need and limited capacity to meet it on the care provider. The world is a broken territory, people do wrong things, and the the unseen spiritual realm includes evil intent. All these make for doctor stress, but I struggle to make the story about us, as if it justifies withholding care if we can give it.
Loving this shattered world is a dangerous choice, and for Jesus it led to crucifixion. He was killed in his kindness, because of our blindness. Lament, small steps towards repair, thankful attention to the persistence of good, commitment to community, all these shine a path through the post-resurrection reality of the "already" and the "not yet". Lord help us to be a people of sacrificial love more than a people of righteous indignation. Especially me.
The boys of WHM-U with their home-made crosses as our Good Friday service starts
Saturday, March 23, 2024
Giving up winning for Lent? Football and Easter in Bundibugyo.
The entire secondary school local football (soccer) season was compressed into a single week in Bundibugyo. Our sports committee planned it this way, perhaps to spend less of the fees they extract by paying referees and security for fewer days? 21 schools entered boys' teams and were assigned into 5 groups, and 8 schools entered girls' teams assigned into two groups, so that the plan was one day for simultaneous group stages (4 teams each play each other in six slightly abbreviated games), one day for quarter-finals for boys and semifinals for girls, one day for finals for girls and semis AND finals for boys. If that sounds impossible in a district that is in the grip of an East African heat wave (90+ degree weather making playing multiple games per day unhealthy), and in a place where transportation and communication and regulation-size pitches are in limited supply, and in a place where an 8 am start is considered timely if it happens by 10-11 am . . . well you have the picture. Nothing went quite according to plan.
We have spent most of the last week either cheering our teams on from the sideline, waiting hours for referees or officials, or trying to follow the late changes to schedules and teams. As usual, two teams were disqualified for having hired non-student players (the only two our coaches raised questions about . . . no doubt there were others). As usual, we were often the school to beat, the school to cheer against, because we are the top academically and have a long history of sports success too, plus we have the nicest pitch and campus, and the most outside help with things like microscopes and computers .. . we stick out, which is hard in a place that values conformity. As usual, there was a tense morning where students from another school disagreed with a referee's off-sides call and stormed the pitch to attack the ref, and even the coach physically pushed a ref (that team was NOT disqualified, but when they didn't get their way they took a forfeit in protest). Our western rules-based cultural values, and values around planning and timeliness, made us feel self-righteous this week. But in a place where power is an antidote to fear, winning is a sign of safety. And in a place where so little can be controlled, people don't expect a schedule to predict reality. So, this is just football. It generates deep reactions.
We field actual students, and our coaches are actual teachers. Our teams had no real "season", only the 3 group-stage games and the playoffs. Our boys went to semi finals where they lost a very close game, honestly they played very well with better passing and control and strategy than the old days, but any team can lose on any given day. Our girls went to finals where they also lost in a close game .. . but since two teams get to go to regionals, they will move to the next level in spite of not winning the district. It's probably good for football that four different schools progress, St. Mary's Simbiya and Bumadu Seed for boys (both government-funded schools); Haven and CSB for girls (both private church-based schools).
Everyone would rather win, and win big, and feel powerful and competent. I would too. But being immersed in this intense little season has me thinking about Football and Easter.
The value of the sport for these kids? Physical exercise and skill, community effort and teamwork, learning to listen to a coach and follow rules, feeling the delight and admiration of the crowd, the fun of being outside, belonging and identity. But also the way sports become a microcosm of life, because all of that does not add up to sure-fire winning. They have to struggle, and often meet injustice in the form of adults making harmful choices for them, or using money to subvert the fair play. They have to face failure and disappointment with character, own up to mistakes. They have to trust that they are loved whether things go their way or not. They have to choose whether to obey rules or to react with violent anger. They have to give up some comfort and ease and rest to stick with their goals. As do we all.
Certainly even though Jesus told his followers repeatedly that he was going to be handed over to harm, that the way to victory involved costly sacrifice, that sitting on his right and left was a path that passed through death . . . we still find it hard to grasp that the painful sorrow of Good Friday was the redemptive path towards the grave-exploding norm-shattering joy of Easter morning.
So, we head into "holy week", the Palm Sunday to Passover to Good Friday to Easter Sunday stretch of remembering the turning point of history. Giving up winning . . . the way to glory.
The trophy we didn't win
Bonus for reading this far, we have had some hard days in the last couple weeks, and not a lot of time to keep up the blog. But we also had some great joys last weekend: